INDIA: Gov’t Plays Politics with Starvation Deaths – Critics

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Nov 19 2002 (IPS) - India’s right-wing government has confirmed starvation deaths but done so selectively in a state ruled by the opposition party, drawing criticism that it is playing politics on the issue of access to food.

India’s right-wing government has confirmed starvation deaths but done so selectively in a state ruled by the opposition party, drawing criticism that it is playing politics on the issue of access to food.

”Our team has upheld the veracity of starvation deaths in Rajasthan (state) but we cannot publicise the report because it will politicise the issue,” an official in the food ministry said Tuesday.

Western Rajasthan state is ruled by the Congress party, the opposition to the central government led by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

But extracts from the report, indicting the state government, were nevertheless made unofficially available to reporters.

Food security expert Devinder Sharma said even sending a team to Rajasthan may have had political motives because worse is happening in states ruled by allies of the BJP, such as eastern Orissa.

”The fact is that some 320 million people go to bed hungry every night in India and all that is happening is that leaders of every hue are playing politics instead of addressing the basic issue,” Sharma said.

A central team was sent to the largely desert state of Rajasthan late October. But this occurred only after media spoke of children and adults, especially those belonging to the poor and ritually untouchable Sahariya tribes, dying of hunger.

Union Food Minister Sharad Yadav has now directed the Rajasthan state government to ensure that the Sahariya tribals, at least 50 members of whom are reported to have died, gain better access to food.

Sharma said that what is happening is a failure of democracy. ”Rajasthan has a democratically-elected Congress government while the BJP rules at the centre and cannot absolve themselves of responsibility for this tragedy.”

Starvation deaths need not occur in Rajasthan, Orissa or elsewhere in the country for the simple reason that India is sitting on a stockpile of 60 million tonnes of foodgrain that it is trying desperately to get rid off through exports and even donations to countries like Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomed India into the global family of donors when it made a pledge to donate one million tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan.

This India would do by converting 40,000 metric tones of wheat into 9,526 metric tones of high-energy biscuits destined for school feeding programmes.

Sharma said while the donation was a fine enough gesture, it still left behind the question of who would feed hungry children in India itself. ”Obviously there is more politics here, this time international.”

Sharma said donating a million tonnes would not even scratch the surface of the huge surplus of foodgrain rotting in India’s godowns. He added that the Indian government can, and in fact should, donate similar amounts to sub-Saharan countries that desperately need food grains.

”What we are looking at is not shortages but people dying of starvation in spite of huge surpluses because of an obscene lack of political will – even military dictatorships show more concern for their own people,” Sharma said.

Last year, the Supreme Court expressed concern at rising incidents of starvation deaths reported in several states. It directed central and state governments to ensure proper working of the public distribution system (PDS), supposed to ensure that nobody starves by providing subsidised grain.

The instructions were made in response to public interest litigation filed by the People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL), which alleged that people were dying for lack of food in the states of Orissa and Rajasthan and also in Gujarat, northern Himachal Pradesh and central Maharashtra and Chattisgarh – in spite of overflowing granaries.

Of these states, Gujarat, Orissa and Himachal Pradesh are ruled by the BJP or its allies while the others are run by its political foe, the Congress party.

In spite of the Supreme Court’s directions, the central team that toured Rajasthan reported that the PDS in the state was ineffective. The poorest families were yet to be issued with entitlement cards while those clearly not eligible were in possession of them, it added.

The team, comprising B B Pattnaik, commercial manager of the Central Warehousing Corp, and Ashok Kumar, deputy director in the union food ministry, visited the worst affected Suvans and Gangapur villages on Oct. 22 and 23.

According to team members, a visit to the house of Murari, whose father, mother, daughter and wife were reported to have died one after another, revealed that the family had been issued an ‘above poverty line’ card and that he did not have single grain left to eat.

Yet, the team found that several families owning tractors and expensive farm equipment in Gangapur had cornered ‘below poverty line’ cards, which enabled them to access susbsidised grain. .

The team reported that the identification of the poverty status of families for correct entitlements had not been done properly and that the ”diversion of PDS grains from the fair price shops could not be ruled out”.

In Suvans village , many families did not have cards of any type because they could not afford to pay the fee fixed for their issues and possibly even the bribe money they command. In some cases, they belonged to the ‘wrong’ caste and could not get access to grain.

News reports said local officials in Suvans village, as is common elsewhere in rural India, had distributed food cards on the basis of caste. Members of the ‘untouchable’ Sahariya tribe were mostly left out – even if they did have cards, upper-caste shopkeepers refused to sell them foodgrain.

The Sahariyas were then reduced to eating grass. The state government officials explained away the large number of deaths in the community as being due to illness caused by their diet rather than starvation.

But the report of the central team, not yet released officially, on the deaths in Suvans and Gangapur villages attributed the deaths there to ”starvation, coupled with malnutrition and lack of timely medical attention.”