Addressing hunger will result in other gains too
The current set of entitlements also needs to be expanded to enhance access to nutrition as well as employment
In the last four years, at least 61 people across 11 states died of hunger or destitution. Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand top the list with 16 deaths each. The majority of the victims were poor adivasis or Dalits. For example, all the families of Jharkhand that had such deaths had inadequate access to food and nutrition, employment and public health services. While several of the 61 deaths were investigated by independent researchers and activists, some are yet to be thoroughly inquired into. But the pattern in the deaths is hard to miss.
The state of hunger worsened for the victims’ families after they were denied their grain entitlement under the Public Distribution System (PDS) and/or social security pensions. All those who succumbed to starvation could barely get anything to eat in the days before they died. At the time of the deaths, their families neither had food nor money. Even though most of them worked as agricultural workers, none of them got work under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in the recent past. A few children who starved to death were denied basic nutrition entitlements under the Integrated Child Development Services (anganwadi pro- gramme). In all the deaths, the investigations by the Right to Food Campaign found out that the denial of socio-economic entitlements was due to poor implementation of the welfare programmes, exclusion due to their limited coverage or because of their mandatory linkage with Aadhaar.
These deaths are only the tip of the iceberg of the acute deprivation in India. But the responses of the central and respective state governments to these deaths have been abysmal, ranging from blatant denial to misguided and token actions, to say the least.
The state governments wasted no time in blaming illnesses for the deaths. Problems related to social security pensions have not even been acknowledged.
Most of the Opposition parties have failed to take the central government to task on starvation deaths and the widespread deprivation indicated by these incidents. The exclusion in the public distribution and social security pensions can be addressed by universalising these entitlements and removing the mandatory requirement of Aadhaar. Also, even though the Supreme Court has upheld that Aadhaar is mandatory for receiving government subsidies, the legislature can always rise to the occasion to give the poor respite from Aadhaar.
Hunger needs to be tackled for its own sake. But there might also be some electoral gains in the process. With the general and several state elections looming, can one expect some action?