By Matters India Reporter
New Delhi, Jan 19, 2022: Activists who work at grassroots level seem surprised at the federal government’s admission in the Supreme Court that no state has reported starvation deaths.
“Dalits, Adivasis and minorities die of starvation when the Supreme Court was told no starvation death has taken place in the country,” laments Jesuit Father Irudhaya Jothi, who has been promoting right to food in eastern India, especially West Bengal, for years.
On January 17, Attorney General of India K K Venugopal told the apex the bench of Chief Justice of India N V Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli that not state had provided data on starvation death and hence concluded, “No starvation death in the country.”
According to Bar and Bench, a premier online Indian legal news portal, the attorney general said, “The Centre had introduced 130 schemes to combat hunger issues, in which lakhs of crores were spent.”
Venugopal also insisted that the states have to find the problem and each panchayat has to devise the process in the area, after which the Centre could provide funds.
Chief Justice Ramana then pointed out that states such as Odisha, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Punjab and West Bengal run community kitchens, but were dependent on the federal government for funds.
Justice Ramana then told Venugopal, “We are not on starvation, or people dying of hunger. Our focus is on that people should not suffer from hunger. You have to discuss with your officers to come up with a nodal scheme.”
Father Jothi says data collected from newspapers during 2015 and 2020 and verified by a fact-finding team shows that the country reported 108 starvation deaths during the five-year period.
“The reports indicate that most victims belong to a particular segment of the population — Dalit, Adivasis and Other Backward Castes. Hence this news is brushed aside by the readers and the concerned citizens too,” the Jesuit alleges.
He says state and federal governments do not accept starvation deaths but finds “some kind of excuse and cite other reasons as the cause of the deaths.”
Montfort Brother Varghese Theckanath, a social activists working among slum dwellers in Telangana state, points out that India is a signatory to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations and its second goal promises zero hunger by 2030.
“But since 2014, both state and the federal governments have taken away food from the most vulnerable people through schemes that prevent them from access to nourishment,” laments the brother, who is the director of the Montfort Social Institute in Hyderabad, Telangana capital.
The brother explains that the government’s insistence on linking Aadhar card to the public distribution system has caused immense suffering to single women, widows, old people and others in remote areas who have no one to help them.
“Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people have not been able to access rations, because finger print is required to identify themselves. There are many cases where finger prints have worn out,” Brother Theckanath points out.
What’s required, he adds, is universal public distribution of nutritious food using “the simplest mechanisms so that no one in the country is deprived of their basic need for food. Door to door delivery of rations adopted by some of the states government is a very positive measure.”
Jeevan Kumar, president of Human Rights Forum, says that perhaps there may not be “alarming starvation deaths,” but examining general deaths of the poor and their reasons will show many deaths are because of malnutrition.
“List out the ailments due to malnutrition, we can understand the situation,” he told Matters India.
Kumar questions the government stance that just giving rice to the poor for nominal price or free is enough. “Rice would give only carbohydrates to body. The poor need other nutritious components also. Dal, oil should be supplied free if costs,” he asserts.
According to Father Jothi, hunger tops the list of the cause of death in the world, followed by Aids, and Cancer. The world has 820 million chronically hungry people and one third of them are in India.
The priest quoted the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation 2019 report to show that about 14.5 percent of Indians fall under the undernourished category and around 194 million people survive under the shackles of undernourishment.
National Family and Health Survey estimates exhibit that 38 percent of children below five years of age fall under the category of stunted ones, and 36 percent children are underweight, the Jesuit explains.
According to this report, 51.4 percent women between the ages of 15 and 49 are anemic. The UNICEF reports, 880,000 children under five years of age lost their life due to starvation in 2018.
“More than 200 million Indians sleep empty-stomach every day. More than 7,000 Indians die per day due to hunger. Data from recent reports has revealed that 2.5 million Indians die every year because of hunger. Yet the Supreme Court was conclusively told that there is no starvation death in India,” Father Jothi bemoaned.
The priest says the hunger deaths occur when India produces food grains many times more than the buffer stock required.
Father Jothi warns against an attempt to privatize the Food Corporation of India and gradually dismantle it while privatizing its food stocks.