By Matters India Reporter
Matigara, March 26, 2022: A campaign to promote people’s right to food and work has been conducting workshops to train young people to monitor the implementation of various government welfare programs at the grassroots level.
The latest workshop was at Matigara in West Bengal’s Siliguri district attended by some 60 youth from Tripura and West Bengal who are already working with the Right To Food and Work Campaign.
The campaign is an informal network of individuals and organizations committed to the realization of the right to food in India.
Jesuit Father Irudhaya Jothi, one of the two resource persons, said the March 20-23 training was to prepare a second layer of grassroots activists, called “Sangramer Sathi” (Friends in the struggle for transformation).
The other resource person was Anuradha Talwar, the convener of the West Bengal RTF Campaign.
The Jesuit social activist said people’s movements had become online in the past two years because of pandemic and lockdowns.
The workshop was designed to prepare the grassroots activists to get offline and join action.
The workshop stressed the country’s current pressing issues such as the government’s pro-corporate policies, religious polarization of people, growing unemployment and hunger, and muzzling of resenting voices. They also studied the details of the National Food Security Act 2013 with the food schemes as implemented in West Bengal and how to mobilize people to get their rights.
The workshop shared the findings of the second hunger watch study conducted among 2,000 urban and rural poor of Bengal and worked out an action plan.
As part of the training, a demonstration was organised in front of the police commissionerate in Siliguri where the participants shared the struggles of people in their working areas.
The workshop participants served as enumerates of a survey the campaign conducted in their areas.
Father Jothi said the campaign intentionally selected the youth to conduct the survey and they used an online app called KoBo collect.
The findings were shared with the campaign members that evoked intense feeling of neglect by the government. They stressed the need for a collective action by the youth and women’s groups to get things done.
The workshop decided that the RTF campaign will collectively demand for universalization of ration, an urgent need because of the various criteria of selecting the priority households that leave out many deserving poor.
The participants resolved to work in forming many self-help groups for women and youth and disseminate the findings of hunger watch and work towards mobilization of people for the food rights.
A major decision was to organize those left out of various schemes and those facing daily food shortage under the banner of Bhuka Manush Adhikar Abijan (Starving People’s Rights Movement).
Several participants said the workshop and demonstration have emboldened them.
“I was very nervous as this was my first-time public speak at the street corner but once I understood that I am going to share the stories of the real starving people of my place, I got confidence and will do at my district headquarters in the near future,” said Rajesh Ali from Dinajpur district.
Sajida Parvin from Cooch Bihar district said he would organize rallies and demonstrations in the block and district levels with the starving people.
Sanjith Halam from Tripura Kailashahar district expressed satisfaction that the training helped them learn the rights-based approach. “We will try to work for our people who are more in need of food and basic rights compared to West Bengal,” he told Matters India.
The right to food campaign began in 2001, as an offshoot of public interest litigation in the Supreme Court. It quickly grew into a countrywide movement with members in 16 states.
The National Food Security Act of 2013 is the result of various levels of advocacy and lobby of the RTF campaign.
After the federal government passed the legislation, campaign network assumed responsibilities for the monitoring the food-related schemes across India.