[Reader-list] RTF (Right to Food) Articles - 12

[Rakesh Iyer]

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*Volume 24 - Issue 19 :: Sep. 22-Oct. 05, 2007*
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
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*DEPRIVATION*

* Hungry and dying *

 ANNIE ZAIDI

 * Hunger and malnutrition stalk Madhya Pradesh villages despite schemes to
improve the services of anganwadis and nutrition centres. *

   A.M. FARUQUI

* At Kairi Chowka village in Raisen district. There is no anganwadi here and
the nearest ICDS centre is about three kilometres away. *

HUNGER is unpalatable. For a government that wishes to assert that it is not
callous, it is particularly so. But hunger, with a capital H, is a pill that
millions of people in Madhya Pradesh continue to swallow.

In 2005 and 2006, *Frontline* reported acute malnutrition from Sheopur and
Shivpuri districts in Madhya Pradesh. Since then, there has been some
change: new schemes have been announced; the recruitment policy for
anganwadi workers has changed; there is a new menu for the anganwadis; and
more Nutrition Rehabilitation Centres (NRCs) are being opened. Anganwadis
are Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) centres.

However, it would be wise to keep in mind that not all changes have been
positive. According to the 2005-2006 National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3),
the percentage of underweight children in Madhya Pradesh increased from 54
in 1998-99 to 60, and the percentage of wasted (extremely malnourished)
children from 20 to 33.
 POOR COMPENSATION

 Many changes over the past decade have pushed villagers who once had enough
to eat into a spiral of food insecurity and the uncertain arms of the public
distribution system (PDS). There appears to be a direct link between access
to forests and hunger in tribal hamlets. Madhya Pradesh has 29 national
parks and reserved forest areas, and each of them has meant displacement and
deprivation for the tribal people. Take Balharpur village in Shivpuri for
instance, less than an hour’s drive from Shivpuri town.

About eight years ago, its residents, most of them belonging to the Sahariya
tribe, were moved out of the Madhav National Park and dumped upon a stony,
non-irrigated tract of land near the highway. Earlier, they had lived close
to a river and had water for both farming and drinking.

During the non-farming season, they collected and sold *tendu* leaves, herbs
and honey to be able to buy things needed to supplement their diet. Each
family had cows and goats. While moving, the villagers set their cattle free
near the Balhar Mata temple in the forest. They were certain they would not
have access to grazing land in the New Balharpur village. They were right.
 NO ROOF OVERHEAD

 Today, the village has neither fields nor cattle nor jobs. What it does
have is people like Makkobai. Her husband and one son already dead and
confronted with the prospect of losing her other son and daughter-in-law,
she was forced to sell off her roof.

Each family was given built houses, without toilets or taps, when they
relocated; rough slabs of stone placed in a lattice formed the roof.
Makkobai sold these stone slabs for Rs.2,500. She sleeps in other people’s
houses.

Makkobai should have been entitled to a health card, issued under the Deen
Dayal Antyodaya Upchar Yojna, which would have provided the family free
medical treatment worth Rs.20,000. But she does not have one. Another widow,
Bisna, shrugs off the suggestion of visiting hospitals. “What will the
doctor do? There’s nothing to eat anyway.” Like others in her village, she
is almost entirely dependent on subsidised PDS rations. Everybody does not
have a “yellow card”, the Antyodaya ration card, which marks the Sahariyas
as the poorest of the poor. The Sahariyas are entitled to them, being a
Primitive Tribal Group. Not surprisingly, malnutrition amongst the children
is plain to see, even to the untrained eye.

They also claim that the Guna Grameen Kshetriya Bank allows each family to
withdraw only Rs.8,000 of the Rs.20,000 given as compensation for
displacement. And most of it has been spent repaying loans taken at interest
rates as high as 100 per cent. The rest of the money was set aside for “land
development” purposes.

The very phrase “land development” makes villagers spit in anger. Jamna, an
elderly widow, told *Frontline*: “What are you supposed to do with your
stomach until this land gets developed? And how will the land be developed
without water? All we have is one functional hand pump.”

The men have been forced to migrate to places such as Ghati-Gaon near
Gwalior, where there is work in the stone quarries. They live a whole month
in the quarries and return with no more than Rs.500, and often with
tuberculosis as well. There are 26 widows out of a total adult female
population of 87.

Another village in Shivpuri district, Amola, which was displaced in August
2006 to make way for the Manikheda dam project, presents a gloomier face. It
is now home to Lakshmi, the six-month-old baby who has just returned from
the NRC in Shivpuri. She was discharged after 14 days but remains a “grade
four case” – severe malnutrition that, if untreated, will lead to death.

The village has no pucca houses, and the administration did not provide
toilets either. The Sahariya women are distraught since people of other
castes or communities refuse to let them use their fields. They even
threaten to bury the women alive if they attempt to enter their fields.

Even the five quintals of grain, which was promised as interim relief for
displacement, did not materialise. Some families got *pattas* but others
were already farming the same strip of land. Most of the villagers migrate
or work for contractors, filling dumpers with sand for Rs.20 a day, or walk
to the nearest forest area and cut wood.
 LOSS OF LIVELIHOOD

 A young woman, Kusna, threw an axe and a small bundle near this
correspondent’s feet and sat down. She had been collecting wood all day,
which she sold in the nearest town market for Rs.30. “The bus fare cost me
Rs.10. What was left bought me this bundle of leaves, which I will cook
tonight as vegetables. Earlier, we could collect gum, honey, herbs. Now
what?”

Now, there is the iffy dependence on rations and the struggle to obtain
“yellow cards”. Even this battle is an uphill one. Recently, the panchayat
secretary was suspended after he was arrested for irregularities. He had
allegedly tried to sell Below Poverty Line (BPL) cards for Rs.500 each.

The day *Frontline* visited Amola, an unidentified man had dropped in
earlier, claiming to be the new secretary. While he was yet to take charge,
the villagers alleged that he was already asking for bribes: Rs.10 a card.
Little wonder then that as budgets for schemes grow, so does food insecurity
and the great corruption initiative. In Sheopur district, there were
instances of gross irregularities concerning the National Rural Employment
Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). *Frontline* found such irregularities in Patalgarh
village in 2006 too, where several children died of malnutrition.

According to Uma Chaturvedi, a fellow of the Right to Food Campaign for
Sheopur, there are fresh attempts to fudge cards. “For example, in Naya Gaon
in Vijaypur block, which is one of the 28 villages displaced for the Kuno
National Park, people worked for and were paid for two to four days on an
average, but all the cards have entries stating ‘77 days’. The villagers met
the District Collector to complain about the resultant embezzlement in May,
but so far no action has been taken.”

She added that in other villages in Sheopur, such as Rohni and Ranipura,
people are demanding wages pending since March, or compensatory unemployment
allowance, but, again, to no avail.
 CM’s backyard

 A.M. FARUQUI

* MAKKOBAI WITH HER surviving son. She had to sell off the stone slabs that
formed her roof and now sleeps in other people's houses. *

 Sachin Kumar Jain, who works with the Right to Food Campaign, admits that
the State government at least has the decency not to turn a blind eye to
hunger. “Under pressure from the media, the Supreme Court and civil society
groups, the government acknowledged the problem; even the bureaucracy has
shown some political sensitivity. Yet, hunger is a problem even in Budhni
[in Sehore district], which is part of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh
Chauhan’s constituency.”

According to reports by Raju Kumar who works with Vikas Samvad, Bhim Kot,
one of the villages in Budhni block, is rife with malnourished children. “We
weighed the children and found that 24 out of 25 were malnourished. Nineteen
years later, and despite having corresponded with the C.M., they still don’t
have an anganwadi or access to health care.”

Despite policy changes, major loopholes remain. Safe drinking water is not
considered a part of crucial nutritional needs. In villages such as Kairi
Chowki in Raisen district, there are 10 hand pumps, of which only one
functions.

There is no anganwadi in Kairi Chowki either, which is also part of the
Chief Minister’s parliamentary constituency (he was a Lok Sabha member when
he took over as Chief Minister). The nearest ICDS centre is about 3 km away.

Here, when the new ration cards were released, many people found their names
struck off the BPL list. Among them were people such as Munshi Lal, who is
in his 80s but receives no longer the old-age pension.

In the neighbouring hamlet of Dhoop-Ghata, things are better. Many of the
families have a cow or a goat and some chickens, and they are peacefully
allowed to graze their animals, without interference from the forest
administration. There is an anganwadi and the worker is efficient. The nurse
makes regular visits and the children do not appear to be severely
undernourished.

Even so, life is terribly hard. The women set out at 3 a.m. They walk to
Abdullaganj, the largest market in the area, to sell a bundle of firewood,
for as little as Rs.40. Then they walk back, cook the noon meal and start
walking again – to the forest to collect wood.

A visit to the NRC in Shivpuri district is both heartrending and educative,
in the context of the demographics of hunger. Nearly all the mothers and
children admitted are Sahariyas. Phuliya, a woman from Khaniyadana block,
had brought along her two-year-old girl Choti – all skin and bones. While
she acknowledged that she got her full ration regularly, there was not much
she could do to help her own child: all she could feed the baby was *dal*and
*roti*.

The NRC officials claim that they also have a hard time keeping the mothers
in hospital for 15 days. Most women are worried about other children left
behind at home. In the attempt to save one, they dare not risk losing the
rest.

The Director of the Department of Women and Child Welfare, Kalpana
Shrivastava, agrees that the main problem is that whatever the State
provides can only be supplementary nutrition, whether it is through ICDS or
mid-day meals. It is hard to tackle malnutrition if hunger is a chronic
problem.

The State has been trying. From only *daliya* or *panjeeri*, the menu at
anganwadis now includes *poha*, *laddoo* and *halwa-puri*. The process is
also decentralised, with the money for supplies being sent directly to a
joint account between the anganwadi worker and the local mothers’ committee.
There are also attempts to “celebrate” every Tuesday as Mangal Divas,
wherein pregnant women will be treated to a *godh-bharai*, birthdays will be
marked, and so on.

Pockets of chronic malnutrition will be allotted Rs.6 a child, instead of
Rs.2, whereby children will get three meals at the anganwadi. The worker and
helper will also be paid extra.

Kalpana Shrivastava also claims that, in compliance with the Supreme Court’s
orders, all ICDS centres sanctioned in 2007 will be made functional by the
end of September. “The new nutrition policy will make a difference, but
things take time to fall into place.” Organisations such as the United
Nations Children’s Fund are also focussing on nutritional rehabilitation.
Dr. Manohar Agnani, former Collector of Shivpuri, who was instrumental in
setting up the model NRC in 2006, is now a consultant for UNICEF.
 TREAT THE CAUSE

 The target is to get 100 NRCs up and running by the end of the year and 313
by 2008. However, UNICEF State Representative Hamid El-Bashir agrees that
there is a need to scratch the surface. “The ICDS is an excellent programme;
it is wide-reaching and ambitious. But the State government also needs to
look at income and unemployment. We can treat the symptoms, not the cause.”

Yet, the NRCs are a much-needed measure in a State, which confronts the
certainty of a definite number of hunger-related deaths every year. Even if
the situation is improving slowly, it still looks very bad once you
translate percentages into numbers. According to the 10th survey of the Bal
Sanjivani Abhiyan in the State, 47.5 per cent of children under six are
malnourished, of whom 0.67 per cent suffer from severe malnourishment.

This is down by 0.11 per cent from the ninth survey, but, as Dr. Agnani
points out, “with an average rate of 30 per cent mortality [for the severely
malnourished], this means that hundreds of children will die this year. In
Sheopur district [which accounts for 2.56 per cent of the severe category],
up to 600 children could die.”

It is a frightening fact that, despite the best efforts of concerned groups
and recent policy changes, within a year, 600 children in a single district
will have died because there was not enough food to eat.

Sachin Kumar Jain offers another sombre reminder – most of the dead and
dying will be Dalit or Adivasi tribal children. “Do you know why the
Sahariyas are a Primitive Tribal Group? Amongst other parameters, it is the
fact that their population is decreasing or stagnant. It is true that they
bear more children, but it is also true that most of the children die. This
is the result of a policy of exclusion. Schemes are only a petty
compensation for depriving people of their rights.”

   * *

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