Because a little harm spread around is a lot less worse than major harm on a very few places. India exists in a globalized world. It's time it learned to adapt to that rather than pretending it's an island.
Well, you're seeing one of the problems with systems based on consensus expressed in grocery prices now. Refusal to adopt the faith for any reason increases harm exponentially.
The notion that, if everyone just went along with things, then they would be better off, is why some people argue that free will doesn't exist and more to the subject matter, it's also why agriculturally productive land has been more and more centralized and industrialized, over the last few decades especially, in the name of creating this giant system of global food distribution which so many are now reliant entirely upon and which has also now just shit the bed.
Wheat importers are facing high prices, not starvation. The biggest importers like Egypt, Turkey and Indonesia all have significantly higher per capita incomes than India and are better equipped to deal with higher prices. As TFA notes, exports will be allowed to countries that need Indian wheat to meet their food security needs.
Interesting then that India, which resisted globalization of critical agricultural products, is likely going to come out ahead... The idea that we should solve a problem caused by globalization with more globalization is bizarre. Just as we have seen with PPE, masks, microchips, and other critical goods, relying on foreign countries to put their own interest second is a recipe for disaster.
You're missing the point. They don't come out ahead in the long term. This just harms farmers in India in the long term. By making the grain cost less the profit is reduced for the farmers and it further discourages investment in mechanized farming which stops decreases in the carbon dioxide produced per bushel of food and reduces profits.
If prices go up, the hundreds of millions of Indians living near the poverty line will be at risk of being physically and mentally stunted due to malnutrition. It's harder to directly quantify the impact of that, but it will reduce economic productivity over the next 60-80 years due to permanent effects on children. Seems like India made the right call, in my opinion.
Why should the democratically elected government of a country place the interests of other countries before those of its own citizens?