Mahatrastra’s Collective Shame

Maharashtra is considered to be India’s most industrial state. With Mumbai as its capital and cities like Pune, Nagpur, Aurangabad and Nasik, Maharashtra houses not only Bollywood but also various industrial and financial houses. Private-public partnership which was actually clandestine politician-business nexus brought about large number of commercial colleges in medical and engineering. Students from different parts of the country flocked to Maharashtra to study in these private colleges which charge huge capitation fees.

A large number of job-seekers migrate to Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra much to the discomfort of the sickeningly regionalist Shiv Sena and other Marathi groups. Mumbai and Maharashtra embraced every one and millions of those who did not get an opportunity in their states got freedom to earn respectfully in the state. Today, a large number of North Indians – particularly from Uttar-Pradesh and Bihar – are living successful professional life in Maharashtra.

The same Maharashtra was in news due to financial scams like the one related to Adarsh Housing Society. Many of the senior leaders of the state are facing charges of corruption in the same.  It is tragic that the government has not been able to do anything worthwhile. Maharashtra has seen the maximum number of farmer deaths due to distress, so much so that Vidharbha region of the state is now known for farmer suicides. The state government failed to respond to the situation and is in complete denial mode.

Whenever India talks of hunger, the faces of children in Uttar-Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand come into picture. These are the state everybody mocks at, while explaining the greatness of their own. We know well that every year after the Monsoons, UP witnesses a number of children death due to various diseases. But if we go by Maharashtra government’s own admission of the death of children due to malnutrition in the state during the past four years, it will put any one to shame.

It is certainly a grave matter and the government must be asked questions as to how that could happen. How can, then, we say that Maharashtra is a state where “government works”? We have agricultural minister, the mighty Sharad Pawar, from the state, along with his inability to do anything for the farmers of the state. The same Maharashtra did not pay heed to the issues involved in Jaitapur protest against the proposed Nuclear Power Plant and blamed it on NGOs.

Land Acquisition for developmental projects in Maharashtra was the highest, but last year, the Supreme Court took back the land from M/s Reliance Industries for their SEZ project at Raigarha as the company failed to utilize the land provided to it within the stipulated period of three years. Unfortunately, Maharashtra government has no time to visit its Adivasi belt about the prevailing condition. The only linkages of the political class to Aadivasis in Maharashtra is Chandarpur which is actually towards Andhra Pradesh and where people in the forest have often retaliated against the police and in return they have been declared as Maoists or Naxalites. But a recent admission by Maharashtra government is extremely shocking and worrying.

According to the Maharashtra government’s figures, 1,114,93 children have died in the last four years due to malnutrition. In 2011-12 alone, 21,533 children died due to malnutrition. Thane district is one of the worst performing districts when it comes to malnutrition. In about 4,865 Anganwadis in the district, there are some 6,224 severely underweight children. Further, 37% of the total 11 lakh children are underweight. Together, the affected districts are Melaghat (Amarawati), Yavatmal, Thane, and Gadhchiroli, a predominantly tribal district, which, unfortunately, is reporting child death due to hunger and malnutrition every day.

The problem is that the government officials never accept any death as hunger deaths. If we analyze the entire social status of these dying children whose death is not affecting the state apparatus we will find that they belong to Dalit, Adivasi or nomadic communities. Mostly, they have been left at their own without any intervention of the state. Their rights to access water and forests have already been taken over as the same have now gone to big national and international companies, who are now minting money from these resources. The tribal and Dalit land is grabbed by the local landlords or the government to facilitate land to big companies.

The fact is that corruption and casteism is so rampant with Fair Price Shops and government officials for Integrated Child Development/Mid-Day Meal Schemes that they do not reach to the intended people. The grave fact is that all these allotments are made to people close to various ministers and are mostly caste-based; hence, they continue to look down with disdain at the Dalits and tribals. Any visit to ICDS centers would prove it.

Once on a visit to a school in Aurangabad, I found mid-day meal going horribly wrong as only rice was being distributed and that, too, in a very humiliating way, where students were getting it on pages of their notebooks as they would not bring utensils along.  The cooked rice was being given without any lentils and one can understand how children would be feeling. Many students brought salt and red chili along to make the rice palatable.

Ironically, Maharashtra is the land of revolution and counter-revolution also. The brahminical-Hindutva was born here in Nagpur and they flourished here. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, and other legendary religious Hindu leaders spearheaded the movement for Hindutva in the state. In the post-independence India, the Shiv Sena went on to become the most powerful political group after the Congress here. It talks of Marathi Asmita, i.e. Marathi identity but perhaps does not believe in the asmita of tribal or Dalits.

Hindutva’s worry about tribals was limited to their religious conversion, when and if they were visited by Christian Missionaries. Hence, tragically, right-wing forces are not even remotely concerned about the conditions of the people but they are too much worried about what these forest dwellers believe in. The supreme irony in India is that the forest zones everywhere became hunting ground for the religious crusaders in their greed for number game but they did nothing for the welfare of the community.

Another tragedy in Maharashtra is that Maharashtra is also the land of social revolution where JyotiBa Phule, Chatrapati Shahuji Maharaj and Baba Saheb Ambedkar were born, and a huge population follows them. One wonders, why the activists, claiming to be Ambedkarite, failed to reach there and to do something. Maharashtra has a legacy of cooperatives and so many good things which we just read in book; yet, the number of children dying in Maharashtra could be much higher than the state government is admitting.

The welfare state’s perception in India is continuously eroding. The ICDS, the midday meal, the fair price shop are being used as political weapons to come to power, hence such schemes are usually flooded during election days, so that people remember the ‘good work’ of the party. The basic attitude of the so-called upper caste people is that they have no sympathy with Adivasis and Dalits in forests and other far-flung rural areas, and hence develop a very discriminatory attitude towards them. Victims are victimized and their entitlements are given in such a way as if the government or its Babus are doing a great favor to the community. In the absence of understanding of rights, people do not complain as they feel that the government is favoring them, so whatever is doled out – whether it is outdated, expired or sub-standard – people rarely care.

Maharashtra has allowed over one hundred thousand children to die in the last four years, because they were not dying in Mumbai City or Nagpur, as they were not the children of urban middle classes or caste Hindus. These children were predominantly tribal and nomadic communities who have no access to government programs; also, the government is not bothered about them, except, maybe, during elections.

One hopes that our planning commission will ponder over its policies and directives, and plan in such a way that such deaths do not occur; we must know that when Maharashtra, with all its resources, can report such large deaths, can Uttar-Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Rajasthan be far behind? No information does not mean that things are not happening! Problem is neither media, nor political class is ready to hear about the bitter truth. A news gets flashed only when it has payment potential and after some time, when it outlives its potential, it is thrown in the dustbin.

The government cannot evade its responsibility and hopefully our law makers will ponder over this question of their policy failure and move forward to a more equitable and just governance.