By Irudaya Jothi SJ
Kolkata: National Nutrition Mission has decided to declare September as the “Poushan Maah” in West Bengal–it is Bhadra and Ashwin (mid-August to mid-October) the worst months for hunger as it is the same story in many parts of rural India.
Media groups have regularly reported ‘starvation deaths’ in the last couple of years. The Right To food Campaign was shocked when it collected the victims of starvation death alone as reported in the mainstream press.
At least 56 hunger deaths were reported in the last four years, of which 42 happened in 2017 and 2018.
Out of 42 hunger deaths in 2017 and 2018, a large majority (25) were related to Aadhaar. At least 18 of these deaths were directly due to Aadhaar. Common reasons include losing one’s ration card or pension for lack of Aadhaar linking, and failure of Aadhaar-based biometric authentication (ABBA), which is compulsory in several states.
A tragic episode was the death of 11-year-old Santoshi Kumari in Jharkhand. She died on September 28, 2017, begging her mother for rice as she slipped into unconsciousness.
It was later learned that her family had lost its ration card because it had not been linked with Aadhaar (in mid-2017, the Jharkhand government mass-cancelled Aadhaar-less rations cards).
The agricultural laborers of Bengal basically the Dalit and Adivasi women decided to represent their hunger and struggle for survival to the Block Development Officers.
They raised a slogan ‘Poushan Maah nei Bhukha Maah’ (It is not a Nutrition month but a starvation month) and ‘Amra Chai ‘Majoori Maah’(we want work month).
Seasonal hunger is typical of poor agrarian societies where the period after sowing and before harvest is a time of great hardship, says Anuradha Talwar, human right activist and convener of Right To Food Campaign, West Bengal.
Families have put all their resources into the sowing of a new crop and they wait desperately for the harvest to recoup all they have invested. Food scarcity increases food prices. Rains mean very little vegetables are available and whatever is available is highly priced.
There is little work available in agriculture once sowing is over, other work like earthwork, construction work, and brick kilns; also stop during the rains. To top all this, there is the misery of diarrhea and skin diseases. It is a hungry time and a time of illnesses says Talwar.
Aparna Santra, a village activist of Pandua block, who lead the women to the BDO says, “we are proud that we could assert our demands for ration and work emphatically and the BDO has accepted to look into the mater pro-actively.”
There are still reports of hunger deaths from all over the country even after the passage of NFSA. The Right to Food Campaign has recently brought a list of 56 deaths that have occurred between 2015 and 2018 due to hunger.
The Right to Food report further states that “denial of PDS rations or pensions accounts for most of the hunger deaths. Most of the victims are from disadvantaged groups, e.g. Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims.” This points clearly to the inability of the NFSA (National Food Security Act) with its coverage of only 75% of the population, to prevent the really vulnerable from falling through the cracks.
Talwar roars, “It is time the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his federal ministers rolled up the sleeves of their well ironed and fancy kurtas and started actually looking at the grim reality in which the hungry live.”
The hungry do not need preaching about their habits and they do not need the advice to change their social behavior. They need something much simpler and basic – they need fair wages for the hard work that they do. They need stable jobs.
They need help to invest in their small plots of land and fair prices for the goods they produce. If they have money in their hands, the hungry is more than capable of feeding themselves and their families go. We need a ‘Majoori Maah’, with a focus on decent wages and better employment, instead of a ‘Poushan Maah’ says the activist.
Basanti Soren of Kalna Block II of Burdwan district was very happy that her SHG (Self Help Group) Federation leaders could assert their demands and got the BDO to accept all their rightful demands.
Rupa Soren of Kalna Block I expressed, “as an adivasi I would not have been entertained inside BDO office but for our SHG group our basic demands for survival were heard and the BDO took positive action on job card and other welfare schemes.”
The demands submitted:
Universalise Public Distribution System (PDS): End quota system and expand the National Food Security Act to ensure universal rations from the PDS to all families
Prevent Aadhaar Exclusions: Ensure that no family is excluded for want of Aadhaar to avail of their social security entitlements especially rations, pensions and NREGA (The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005) – delink Aadhaar from all social welfare schemes.
Provide Community Kitchens: Provide free hot, cooked nutritious midday meals for pregnant women, lactating mothers, homeless persons and the elderly in anganwadi centres or schools. Also, extend school midday meals during vacations and start free community kitchens in all urban areas.
Improve School and Anganwadi Meals: Eggs, fruits and milk for children every day through the mid-day meal scheme and ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services).
Provide Special Nutrition and Pensions: Provide all the 75 identified particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs) nationwide and the highly impoverished
Pay Compensatory Allowance: As mandated in the food law, provide all excluded families with compensatory food security allowance, with retrospective effect of at least one year.
Amendment of the NFSA: To make subsidized pulses and edible oil legal guarantees under the PDS and mandatory inclusion of eggs in midday meals and Anganwadis.
*By hunger death we mean that the victim died after prolonged hunger because there was no food or money in the house, and that, quite likely, he or she would have survived otherwise. This is a partial list, based on Google searches in the English and Hindi media.