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THE POLITICS OF STARVATION DEATHS IN PALAMU -JHARKHAND
Poverty is an insult said Mahatma Gandhi, Poverty stinks. It demeans, dehumanizes, and destroys the body and the mind…if not the soul. It is the deadliest form of violence."
Yet we are continuing to unleash this violence on the hapless masses who are condemned to die due to starvation and hunger. This is not the story of the yesteryears but the contemporary situation in Palamau district in Jharkhand state of India.
Once again the macabre reality of starvation deaths has come to forefront in particular Lesliganj Block in Palamau district of Jharkhand. So far the deaths have consumed 10 lives out of women and all belonging to the Bhuiya community (Dalits). The usual doses of media coverage, investigation teams, and stream of visitors to the block have started. Everybody is vying with each other to ensure that their name is associated with the coverage. Unfortunately nobody is really interested that the poor really get tangible long-term solutions.
It seems that everybody had been in deep slumber and with the deaths they have woken up with a jolt. The District administration is not shying away to say that deaths have taken place, "not due to hunger but due to ill health ".
Poverty and Famines - a book by Amartya Sen explains in the Bengal famine - it is common to die of starvation through diarrhea ( indeed famine diarrhea is a well known phenomenon) as well as dysentery - partly as a result of eating uneatable objects. Clearly many deaths reported under "dysentery,diarrhea and enteric group of fevers" were in fact starvation deaths.
Always in the cases of starvation deaths this excuse is commonly used by the administrations. They refuse to accept the fact that the disease is manifestation of hunger and poverty. Even in the normal circumstances if the deaths are due to disease - the administration is fully responsible to ensure the community receives the basic health facilities. It is a blot on the district administration that they have not been able to save their people from the simple, manageable, curable and preventable ailments of dysentery and diarrhea.
The late start of the monsoon, inadequate rain has led to non-start of the agriculture work in the region. This season of September is important for transplantation. But due to monsoon failure, this work has literally not taken place in the block. An analysis carried out by Alternative For India Development (AID) in the region has brought to the focus that out of 12,732.45 acres to be normally cultivated in the region covering 50 villages only 1402 acres are under irrigation which means that near about 89% of the cultivable land is lying uncultivated.
The majority of the population in the block belongs to the landless dalit families whose prime source of income is their agricultural labour. Literally food in front of their mouths has been swept away with the failure of the monsoon. These families do not have any fallback mechanisms and they lead their lives basically only on the day to day wages and do not have any incomes to fall back in the present circumstances.
Lack of work and lack of availability of basic food grains drives the families to depend upon the forest produce of seeds, kernels, greens and tuberous roots which many times leads to ill health and sometimes the tuberous roots are poisonous as well.
In this case it is the local roots "Getha" and "Chakor sag" These deaths are dubbed as deaths due to ill health and not due to hunger. The reasons behind the illness are never properly investigated.
While getting into the individual cases of deaths which have occurred so far in the region, it is difficult to digest and assimilate for any person who thinks about the basic rights of the human beings.
While we have tall claims about Safe motherhood, we have dalit women in the villages of Sitadih and Patrahi who have given still birth babies and within a day of the delivery they had died. The villagers term these deaths as hunger deaths as the families did not have sufficient food to feed the mothers in maternity but the administration claims these are deaths due to complications in delivery. Where do we draw the line? If the administrations claims are right can they be absolved of the responsibility of their citizens? Is Health and maternal care not under the purview of the administration??
60 years old Rajmatia Bhuiya died in her struggle to save her sick and ailing daughter. She was struggling to provide food for her daughter depriving herself of the little available food. Daughter Kiswa Devi who was sick died within a week of mother's death. Though attempts were made by AID to save Kiswa Devi through proper treatment and medication at the local PHC, the attempts were futile.
Article 21 as enshrined in the constitution "Right to life and liberty". Under the Indian constitution there is no fundamental right to food but the fulcrum of justifiability of the right to food comes from a much broader Article 21.
Right to food is not just a basic human right but also a basic human need. It is states responsibility to ensure that its people do not starve and die due to hunger and starvation.
In his report to the Supreme Court submitted on October 29, 2002, N. C. Saxena, Commissioner of the Supreme Court, stated that Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat had not responded to the queries regarding PDS food grains not reaching the poor and had not provided any feedback on the status of compliance with the order on introduction of midday meals or on the status of the process of identification of the poor for BPL ration cards. The report reaffirms the States' lackluster approach in eliminating with hunger and starvation and ensuring the right to adequate food.
Right from the Bengal famine to till date no administration ever acknowledges the deaths due to hunger and starvation. While the fragile zones of Jharkhand are already listed and the vulnerability of the people in these zones are quiet high due to perennial drought, lack of employment, migration, always being in the clutches of starvation -why does the administration wake up only when in reality people succumb to the disease born out of hunger.
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I asked the men, "What are you carrying wrapped in that
Hammock,brothers?" And they answered , "We carry a
dead body,brother? So I asked …." Was he killed or
did he die a natural death ?" " That is difficult to answer, brother
It seems more to have been a murder. " How was the man
Killed? With a knife or a bullet, brothers ?" I asked. " It was
Neither a knife nor a bullet; it was much more perfect
Crime. One that leaves no sign." Then how did they kill
This man ?" I asked, and they calmly answered: " This man
Was killed by hunger brother ." |
This is not the time to defend the citizens have died due to hunger or illness. For both the district administration is directly responsible. Just this year in April -June 2003 a scheme of providing Talab ( tank) was devised probably in the entire Jharkhand state. Each estimate of the tank was Rs.70,000/- (We are in the present world of Right to Information - but it is very difficult to get the information from the official circles as primarily people are not even aware under what scheme what program has come and before they realize the middlemen with the connivance of the officials finish off the scheme). With the nexus of the corrupt officials and the middlemen- the scheme is executed in paper and buried. This was the latest schemes which were supposed to provide Food for Work?? Last year drought was declared in the region. Nobody seems to be interested to know why the several schemes which are coming to the region are not reaching people.
It seems that the bureaucracy and the political bosses in Jharkhand have worn bullet proof vests that no matter what ever and how many ever news items appear in the dailies in Jharkhand and Bihar - there is no reaction. The poor are destined to die a nameless death for the only reason of being born in state where the political bosses and the bureaucrats just do not have time to look into the affairs of their citizens. While some talk of making Jharkhand another Singapore - but hopefully Singapore do not have basic problems of death due to hunger, starvation and lack of medical reasons. We do not want Singapore - we the citizens want basic survival needs and we are not greedy to vie with Singapore. Within India there are several states which have overcome the basic hurdles and are progressing well - it is better that the states of Jharkhand and Bihar at least learn their lesson first from within the country rather than spending the resources for giving exposure visit to their elected representatives in Singapore and UK.
Hunger deaths devastes the family. But it seems that this is also being used by political platform by few to gain name for their future. The recent drama and hungama going on in Lesliganj seems to be trailing the same typical path. The NGO's , the civil liberties groups , the people's forums all are vying with each other as to who has to take credit for highlighting the hunger deaths. Nobody has any solution for the crisis and everybody makes a big hue and cry about the deaths.
The Supreme Court's order is simply not complied in the states like Jharkhand. Why cannot it take suo moto action on the government of Jharkhand for failing its duties and abdication of basic responsibilities?
While the Supreme court order has no impact in Jharkhand as the schools do not run the mid-day meals never provided, the BPL lists are incomplete, the poor do not get the allocated 25 kg's of rice and the prices are above the stipulated limits. This is the basic reality in Jharkhand. Even now it has been found that in the district an announcement was made that money has been allocated for the relief of families suffering due to lack of work and drought, in reality it is found that this money is for the entire block for all the development programs and there is no specific money allocated for food relief.
Manatu the neighboring block was cynosure of the media, activists, and academicians during the last year. IT had also witnessed public hearing in the region for the first time. A year passed by and yet the travails of the people of Manatu has remained unchanged. While visiting the villages in the block and especially Kusmatand which was very famous last year, the community was resentful that nothing tangible has happened and they are remaining in the same penury. They said that we are waiting for some more people to die this year as the situation has not improved any further.
It seems that making a dent in the issues in Jharkhand is difficult and even the activists with good intentions may have to wind up frustrated and unable to proceed further when not just one but entire condition are hostile and allergetic to any tangible development in the region.
Recently in Chennai a judge by name Karpaga Vinayagam has been giving novel judgements by giving certain verdicts such as: Asking the MLA who was found guilty for extortion to go the Gandhian library and spend five days to understand what is his role as people's representative and similarly he asked one of the famed actress to spend one day in orphanage and live like them at least for a day. In the same line probably it is time that the political bosses and the bureaucracy in Jharkhand is subjected to temporary cessation of food and experience the hunger pangs of the poor to understand what it would be like to be hungry and most shamefully die due to hunger.
It is important that relief measures are immediately provided to the starving families but it is more important to understand that what measures the district has to take to ensure that such situation doesnot arise? It needs more meticulous efforts, planning, and honesty in executing the schemes.
The basic criteria for the poor to get any entitlements from the government are being listed in the BPL. Primarily are our BPL lists having the really poor or the pseudo poor? How are the BPL lists made? Any cross verification or random verification is taking place to ensure the lists are appropriate? Have any action taken place against those who possess the BPL card but who do not belong to that category and are economically well off? While the hurdle of BPL is crossed , what about the schemes of Antyodaya yojana where the poor are supposed to get 35 kilos of grains of rice and wheat per family at the subsidized rate of Rs.2 and Rs.3 per kilo . Do they ever get these rations on time and at the prescribed rates?
Lack of adequate work in the region, severe drought and landlessness forces the poor dalits to migrate to far off regions regularly in search of work. What steps the administration has taken or has plans to further create work in the region or to enhance the livelihoods of the people through the natural forestry in the region??
While the situations are always negative and people in the normal season itself do not have adequate food and work, it could be well imagined by any sensible person what would be the situation of the poor in the current drought.
While we have plans for the five years, why do we not have district level plans to ward off such situations? Even if we have, what are these plans and why they are ineffective or non-implemented?
By distributing few kilos of rice and give them few hundreds of rupees probably the administration is trying to make the situation calm in the region. But how long and how far will it go?
One should be able to clearly understand that mainstreaming the underprivileged in the region has not taken place in the region. Still in the extreme situations the Dalit community is affected and all the starvations deaths also have taken place only in the Bhuiya community which is a clear picture of the deprivations still the community faces. There are plenty of policies, programs and resources for bringing the underprivileged to the mainstream. But it seems that only the resources are mainstreamed and the lot of the hapless poor will remain underprivileged for ever.
India is also a party to the Millennium goals of reducing the world's hunger by half in the year 2015. It has also been said that in the year 2007 while we celebrate 60 years of Indian independence, the key goal would be to reduce hunger. We are very good in setting goals and no attempts are made to ensure that the goals are fulfilled with equal and sustained action.
Areas which are under perennial drought also receive huge funds under the Drought Prone Area relief programs (DPAP). What are the programs and funds? How they are implemented? If implemented properly why there is no improvement in the region? Are the funds a constraint? Are the programs lopsided? Or the funds are diverted? One can observe that entering Palamu district you are greeted by big boards and banners giving an impression that lot of work on watershed are taking place in the region. If so many people are involved and huge resources are invested - why the situation of the poor remain poor? It is unfortunate that all the resources and the civil groups work in the same spot and there are many regions in Palamau district which is not only facing natural drought but there is drought of the schemes and the NGO's as well.
It is a blot on democracy, independence and the overflowing granaries that yet we are in a situation where the deprived are not given their entitlements and are starved to death.
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