--  V.B. Rawat

More than 2,675 children have died in the five districts of Thane, Nan Darbar, Nashik, Amravati and Gadhchiroli of Maharastra during the past four months. By the government’s own admission, about 1085 children aged one or below and 1590 of between the ages of one and six died between April and July this year. In Vishakapattanam, over 2000 tribals reportedly died of Malaria. In the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh’s, encephalitis has caused nearly 300 child deaths. Eighteen children died in Raup village in the Sonbhadra district last year, and while reports of hunger and malnutrition continue to pour in, we only rise up when reports of deaths makes headlines in newspapers and electronic media. The situation in many tribal regions of Andhra Pradesh and Uttar-Pradesh remain bleak and call for attention. The seriousness of the administration on this is clearly visible when I saw a district magistrate in Uttar-Pradesh cracking jokes about Sonia Gandhi’s Italian origin to a friend who came from Italy to visit the tribal areas of Uttar-Pradesh.

In fact, many of us working on the right to food issue have raised this issue with the authorities, filed petitions with institutions like National Human Rights Commission, and now also a public interest Litigation in the Bombay High court yet nothing moves. The question is why are tribals dying of hunger? Will their starvation end with a red card from a defunct Public Distribution Shop that is not really open every day.

One can understand that every time a hunger death is reported, it belies our sense of India shining. Last year when the tribals of Sonbhadra protested at the Collector’s Office, the Sub District Magistrate blamed activist like me for ‘selling’ their poverty abroad. "I have seen poverty", he preached, and rebuked the poor adivasis who were dying of hunger, telling them that they should work hard to earn their livelihoods. Perhaps the officer was reflecting the general mindset that exists among us that tribals and Dalits remain poor because of their ‘merit’ and sluggishness. There seems to be a complete lack of introspection on our parts to think that it might be public apathy added with bureaucratic highhandedness that have added to the woes of tribes people. When hunger in Sonbhadra was reported to the national human rights commission, the state authorities went to Raup village and only distributed 2 liters of kerosene, some wheat and rice. This kind of response is simply a frustration of a society that has an inherent bias against a set of communities. Furthermore, it is interesting to know how a nation can matter for those who have lived a generation without two daily meals.

The issue of hunger, food security and natural resources are not separate as being suggested by many food rights ‘experts’. The fact of the matter is that hunger is an outcome of persistent denial of rights over natural resources. It is therefore not strange that those dying of hunger and malnutrition are mainly Dalits and tribals. Ironically, all the areas where hunger and malnutrition are being reported have been highly fertile areas, rich with herbs, ores and minerals. The other side of it is that corporations and industries have already occupied these areas without consulting local communities who have sustained the environment. Therefore, areas such as Sonbhadra, Kalhandi, Palamu, Bastar and Chitrakoot represent this paradox of our civilization where locals die of hunger and intruders make profit over their resources.
 
These short-term measures offered for the hunger problem is the outcome of a complete failure of our system. Instead of a comprehensive land reform with rights over minor forest produce, ‘experts’ focuses on charities like ‘mid-day meals’ and ‘Public Distribution System’, which have miserably failed in most of India except for Kerala, Tamilnadu and to certain extent West Bengal. The way the mid-day meal is being distributed in the tribal belt and among the Dalits would put any civilized person to shame. Mid-day meals might have increased the enrollment of the students in the schools as reported, yet it cannot be termed as an anti-poverty programme. You cannot eliminate chronic hunger with these halfhearted, undignified measures.
 
It is also interesting that the rich tribal belt, with poor human resource development, has become a breeding ground for the ‘revolutionary’ politics. If reports are true, we would be made to believe that over 25% of the country is to be under the radical left wing organizations in next two years. The political system has completely let down the tribal aspirations. The society that we choose literally isolated them and made them a subject of ‘international experts’ and ‘researchers’. The non-tribal hunted them out therefore allowing the radicals to instill a feeling of honour and dignity among them.

Forest produce is now also out of tribal reach. Environmentalists are bothered about tigers while tribals are hounded out of their homes. Forest mafias roam free in collaboration with the authorities while tribals have to pay heavy prices for entering into no entry zones. Today, tribes people are made out to be anti-forest, and our city elite which destroyed forest has become the ‘real’ protector of the forest.

This conspiracy in our society has to end if we want peace. The tribals will either die of hunger or pick up guns as they are doing in many places. Every death of a tribal child due to hunger can be used as a justification for those who recruit the hungry to seek justice and revolution. The deaths of innocent lives are not a matter of an ideological clash but a failure of civilization and a nation. Shining India means nothing for those who have lost their livelihoods to our benefits. If the rehabilitation of tribals remains unfulfilled then both the battle of communalism and communism will begin with tribal land, with more and more involvement of religious organizations on the one hand and revolutionaries on the other. Not surprisingly, the states of Orissa, Chhatishgarh and others have seen growth of both the Christian missionaries as well as Hindutva forces.

The future battle line is therefore drawn that hunger will further alienate tribal communities and put them at the hands of those who have exploited their isolation for years in the name of dignity and identity. It is time to realize that tribals are the protectors of the forest and therefore uprooting them from their civilization would ultimately create immense social chaos detrimental to national interest.

The author is a human rights activist, film maker and has worked extensively on the issue of right to food and livelihood. His film “ Living on the Edges’ are case studies of people’s struggle for rights over their resources and dignity.