[Reader-list] RTF (Right to Food) Articles - 3

[Rakesh Iyer]

Link: http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2010/stories/20030523002008800.htm

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*CAMPAIGNS*

* Spotlighting hunger *

T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
*in New Delhi*

* A convention of working-class and peasant women organised in New Delhi by
AIDWA calls upon the Central government to ensure food security and
employment for all. *

  PICTURES: T.K. RAJALAKSHMI

* At the convention, a section of the participants. *

 ON April 24, hundreds of working-class and landless peasant women from
various parts of the country participated in a day-long convention in the
national capital on the right to food and employment, organised by the All
India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA). They spoke in different
languages but articulated the same demand - ensure food security and
employment for all.

The day was also the 10th anniversary of the ratification of the 73rd and
74th amendments to the Constitution, which reserved one-third of the seats
in the local bodies for women. The convention drew a link between the right
to food security and employment with the amendments. It was pointed out that
women's participation in local bodies was meaningless if the right to food
security and employment was not guaranteed. The convention declared that the
demand for food and work was related to strengthening grassroots democracy
and women's participation in it.

The convention blamed economic policies of the National Democratic Alliance
(NDA) government for the rising prices and unemployment, the lack of
purchasing power, and the unavailability of foodgrains at subsidised prices.
This, in turn, increased the hardship of the working class, especially the
rural poor, it observed. It was pointed out that the poor did not get even
three meals a day while the warehouses of the Food Corporation of India
(FCI) were overflowing and the government exported 9.6 million tonnes of
foodgrains at the rate of Rs.4 a kg, a price lower than the rates fixed for
foodgrains allotted to families living below the poverty line (BPL). The
participants lambasted the targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS),
essentially a World Bank prescription, which called for differentiating
between the "moderately poor" and the "very poor". The declaration adopted
by the convention noted that it was an intrinsically flawed approach to
divide the poor people into above poverty line (APL) and BPL categories.

The convention expressed concern over the fact that the prices of BPL
foodgrains had steadily escalated since 1996, the year the TPDS system came
into existence. Initially, when the price of BPL foodgrains was reduced by
two-thirds, the offtake increased to 80 per cent of the allocated
foodgrains. However, in the subsequent years the BPL rates were hiked,
making it impossible for even BPL families to purchase the foodgrains, and
the offtake plunged. The Central government claimed that people were not
buying the foodgrain as they did not need it. It failed to see that they
were not buying as they did not have the purchasing power. It was pointed
out that while the government claimed that poverty levels had come down,
data provided by the National Health Survey showed that almost half of the
Indian population did not get enough food and was malnourished, and that 80
per cent of Indian women were anaemic. Over the last year, the AIDWA
conducted dharnas in front of FCI godowns in various Statesto drive home the
point that desperation and hunger had reached unimaginable levels and that
overflowing granaries and empty bellies could not coexist. The convention
demanded that the PDS be universalised and all BPL card-holders be given
rations at Antyodaya rates (Rs.3 a kg for rice and Rs.2 a kg for wheat); all
widows, single adult women, disabled persons, persons over the age of 60 and
female-headed families, regardless of whether they held BPL cards or not, be
given immediate access to grain at these prices; ration quotas be decided on
the basis of individual rather than family necessities; the foodgrain
component of all employment-related schemes be calculated at Antyodaya
prices (currently they are calculated at BPL rates); an earlier provision to
ensure that 30 per cent of all work days be given to women in order to
enhance their participation be implemented; and the right to work be made a
fundamental right. The convention also demanded that radical changes be made
in the measurement of poverty in order to include indicators such as
malnourishment and quantum of family income spent on food requirements.
Gender-segregated data were also essential for the accurate assessment of
poverty, it noted.

ADDRESSING the convention, AIDWA general secretary Brinda Karat alleged that
the process of survey of families to categorise them as APL or BPL was
arbitrary and hypocritical. She cited an example from Uttar Pradesh where a
landless widow with four minor sons was put in the APL category only because
the surveyors felt that her sons would be assets when they grew up. Brinda
Karat said that though a substantial percentage of people in various States
were eligible for food rations at rates designated for BPL families, they
had been excluded from that category. She said the situation was so pathetic
that even today there were many families that ate a paste made from red
chillies to "kill" their hunger pangs.

Referring to the situation in Tripura, former Communist Party of India
(Marxist) legislator Sandhya Deb Burman said that while 65 per cent of the
State's population should have come under the BPL category, only 35 per cent
had been covered under it. She said that in the interior areas of the State,
the threat from terrorists made it difficult for people to reach fair price
shops. She said that the Central allocation of foodgrains to the State was
much less than the requirement. However, the State government had initiated
several steps to aid the farming community's efforts to become
self-sufficient, she said.

Mehazabeen from Gujarat had to take refuge in a relief camp after her house
was destroyed in the communal violence in 2002. She said that the foodgrain
given by the State government to the survivors of the communal violence was
unfit for human consumption. Mehazabeen said that when homes were burnt,
almost everybody lost their ration cards. However, the government was yet to
restore the cards. She spoke of the rampant unemployment in Gujarat and said
that women worked in the State for less than Rs.10 a day.

The story of Gomti Shakya, from neighbouring Rajasthan, was equally moving.
The hardship endured by the State's people, who are in the grip of a severe
drought for the fifth consecutive year, speaks volumes about the callousness
of the Central and State governments. Gomti Shakya, a Dalit woman who hails
from Ganganagar district, said that the people's suffering was compounded by
the shortage of work. She spoke of the plight of the people in border
villages such as Malkot, Pakki, Orki and Daulatpura, where the mines laid by
the Army had killed several people and cattle and destroyed the mustard and
wheat crops. The drought conditions made sowing meaningless, and relief work
was inadequate.

Gomti Shakya said that the desperate situation forced women from 32 villages
to organise themselves and picket the Collector's office demanding
foodgrains. However, despite the agreement reached with the Collector, no
foodgrain was supplied. "We were desperate to get at least one kg of flour,"
said Gomti Shakya. She said that the village panchayat members and the
Patwari had complete control over the foodgrain in villages. Women were so
desperate to get work that they worked for as little as Rs.5 a day. Gomti
Shakya and others collected foodgrains from the town and distributed it
among the needy. "What kind of a life do we lead sisters, without food,
without water? The only way out is struggle," she exhorted the participants.




* AIDWA general secretary Brinda Karat addressing the convention. *

 The need for struggle was also echoed by Kamlesh from Hisar in Haryana. She
said that the food-for-work programmes were corruption-ridden. The sarpanch
of her village encouraged the use of tractors in the drought relief work at
the cost of manual labour. Several rural women led by the AIDWA got the
sarpanch to reverse his decision.

Abhijit Sen, former Chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and
Prices, the current Chairperson of the high-level committee to formulate a
long-term foodgrain policy, and senior Professor at the Centre for Economic
Studies and Planning at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, told the
convention that one of the suggestions of the high-level committee, set up
by the Union Ministry of Agriculture, was the restoration of the
universalised PDS. He said that with the pattern of multiple foodgrain
cards, the benefits of health and education also got divided. The committee
had also recommended a widening of the Antyodaya scheme (to include the
poorest of the poor, estimated by the government to number one crore;
removal of the categories of APL and BPL; and an increase in employment
schemes, Sen said. He said that another suggestion was that every family be
given 60 days of employment in a year and foodgrains at the rates of the
Antyodaya scheme. The committee has also made significant recommendations on
the grain offtake side, which include reverting to the earlier unified PDS
and fixing a uniform central issue price (CIP) of Rs.4.50 a kg for wheat and
Rs.6 a kg for rice. This move, it was observed, would bring many of the
"poor and moderately poor" people, who do not technically fall under the BPL
category, back to the ration shops. The committee submitted its report
recently and now the onus is on the government to implement it.

Substantiating the observations of the Sen Committee were the narratives of
the women. Laxmibai from Ranga Reddy district of Andhra Pradesh said that
severe poverty characterised the majority of the blocks in her district. She
said that rice was sold at the unaffordable rate of Rs.5.50 a kg. She spoke
of instances where people sold their girl children and men even mortgaged
their wives. The drought relief work, she said, was task-based, and it took
more than one person from a family to complete the task through the entire
day though the wages paid were very low. Two women from Andhra Pradesh,
Ratnamala and Padma, were honoured by the convention as they had on March 8,
International Women's Day, broken the locks of the government foodgrain
godowns and gone to jail.

"I am also a Dalit, like our Chief Minister Mayawati, but our lives are
different," said Rajdulari from Uttar Pradesh. Referring to the recent
political rallies held in Uttar Pradesh, she wondered why the Bahujan Samaj
Party did not set up factories instead so that the unemployed youth could
get work. Rajdulari said that the government did not regard poor families
with male children as eligible for BPL cards. "You have sons, therefore you
are not poor," was the reaction of the survey officials, she said. She
expressed deep resentment for the Dalit leadership in her State, which had
misled Dalits with false promises. Evidently, there was rampant
discrimination and arbitrariness in the identification of BPL families in
almost every part of the country. Ameerunissa from Karnataka said that the
"green card" survey was on in her State and those households that owned a
bicycle or a television were considered ineligible for BPL cards,
irrespective of whether such homes were in an overall economic crisis. She
said that the foodgrain available in the panchayats was "rotten" and that
even the mid-day meals were not nutritious.

Addressing the convention, CPI(M) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet
exhorted the women to carry on with their struggles, as it was the only
language that the authorities understood. He said that the decisions arrived
at the convention had to be taken to every poor household.

The convention concluded with a march to Parliament House, led by AIDWA
president Subhashini Ali and Brinda Karat.

  * *

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