People's Democracy

Starvation Death In Tamilnadu’s Rice Bowl

N Gunasekaran

THE prevailing situation in the Cauvery delta districts of Tamil Nadu is both unprecedented and grave. For the past 70 years, the farmers in this region had not witnessed such a severe drought.

The ‘Kuruvai’ season passed with the heavy loss of paddy crop. The estimated loss was about Rs.800 crore. This year, only 50,000 hectares were brought under cultivation; normally 2.05 lakh hectares would be cultivated in the ‘Kuruvai’ season. The failure of the Southwest monsoon, and the unresolved Cauvery river water dispute led to the poor storage in the various reservoirs resulting in the loss of Kuruvai crop. And the ‘Samba’ season also is facing the same fate.

Naturally, this had its cascading impact on the rural economy in these districts. Though the drought affected all districts in Tamilnadu, the Cauvery delta districts, particularly the Tanjore region which was known as ‘the rice - bowl of Tamilnadu’ was seriously affected.

The impact of drought could be seen in the living conditions of the agricultural labourers. They have totally lost their income. Lakhs of agricultural workers including thousands of women had no work for the past three months. They didn’t have any food grains and even drinking water. Hence they have to do nothing but to starve.

Exactly such a thing happened in the Adhichapuram village near Thiruththuraipundi, in Thiruvarur district. This village hit the headlines when the death of a 7 year old boy, Prakash, was reported. With no food available to eat, he starved for some days and then died on August 29. The entire people of Tamilnadu were shocked by this incident while the state government kept ‘mum’ on this matter.

Among the thousands of families in the Thiruththuthuraipundi taluk , affected over the loss of income, Chandrasekhar’s of Adhichchapuram village was one. He was living with his wife Renuka and five children, Jeeva (12), Jeevitha (10), Prakash (7), Praveen Kumar (5) and Prasanth (10 month old child).

Before Prakash’s death occurred, both Chandrasekar and Renuka were deprived of work for many weeks. The poverty-stricken family exhausted all options to get food and the entire family starved for 4 days in the last week of August.

The children were so tired and unable to move. The parents negotiated with the tea-shop owner promising to do some work and got tea and bread for their children. But, these attempts to avert the hunger of their children failed and the children were weeping endlessly.

The parents tried another option. They persuaded their children to go to school so that they could get mid day- meal in the school. (they couldn’t go to school for the past many days due to lack of money and persisting hunger)

While walking over to school, Prakash fainted and fell on the ground. So,the children returned home. The situation was worsening with Prakash becoming unconscious and vomitting and the condition of other children was also deteriorating.

The neighbouring people collected Rs.40, each contributing 25 or 50 paise. The children were brought to Mannargudi Government Hospital. With no proper treatment and the poor care of the patients, the health of the children didn’t improve. They returned home and on August 29, Prakash was dead without any recovery.

ATTEMPT TO

HUSH UP

After this pathetic starvation death, the administration instead of taking measurers to stop the hunger in this area, indulged in hushing up the entire matter. The district collector was busy in dismissing the reports of the starvation death and delivered the concocted version of the incident. He argued that the deceased boy was already ill and suffering from stomach ache. He stated that 20 kg of rice was distributed through PDS, while concealing the fact that the family had no money to purchase anything. In this chorus, the state government authorities, including Tahsildar, DSP, revenue officials etc., joined hands to hide the facts.

To thwart the lies of the authorities and bring to light the truth, a fact-finding committee comprising of Chandra, AIDWA district secretary, Umeri from AIDWA and Shanmugam of SFI visited the village and ascertained all the facts relating to the starvation death of the boy. They interviewed the ward councillor, Selvamary. She explained the developments in a detailed manner. She said: "After hearing of the death, I went to Chandrasekar’s house immediately. I searched all vessels inside the house; all were empty; I couldn’t find any single food grain inside the house. this was, no doubt, a starvation death" .She sadly concluded: "that a boy was dead due to starvation is an affront to an human civilization"

The fact-finding team met the members of the local women self - help group. They narrated the grim situation prevailing in the village due to drought. Also they explained how the education of the children was seriously affected since most of the people had no money.

The report of the fact-finding team exposed all the false claims of the state authorities. It also exposed the government’s inaction in tackling the severe drought. The state government’s poor relief package had hardly benefited the agricultural labourers. Even in the places where the food-for-work programme is implemented, it is not regular and the wages paid are less than the normal income of the wage labourers. In this condition, the ‘fittest’ only survived, and the poor Prakash being not ‘the fittest’ died.

The central government's apathy towards the demands of the democratic forces of the state, such as releasing moderate amount of drought relief fund and the release of food grains, had no less contributed to the worsening situation in the Cauvery delta districts and other districts.

So, the actual culprits for the gruesome starvation death of Prakash are both the state and central governments.