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STATES: ORISSA
Lethal Diet
There's a general hubbub over the 19 deaths in the
state in the past month but the actual cause may be poisoning rather than
lack of food
By Ruben Banerjee
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HUNGER PANGS: Poverty forces the tribals of Panasaguda to adopt
risky food habits
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In
a state that stumbles upon calamity with unerring regularity and embraces
destitution with disturbing stoicism, death's sting has long been blunted.
It is but a statistician's nightmare-and a politician's fodder. When 19
people died in Rayagada district of Orissa last month, cynical politicians,
ever ready to feed on disaster, promptly accused the administration of
having failed to prevent starvation deaths.
Many hung their heads in shame. The matter even
reached the Lok Sabha, where Congress President Sonia Gandhi berated Chief
Minister Naveen Patnaik and his BJP-BJD Government for "bad policy
and bad management of the public distribution system". The state
unit of the Congress too was quick on the uptake. "Who needs a government
that cannot feed its own people?" asked former chief minister and
Orissa PCC President J.B. Patnaik. In reply, state Revenue and Law Minister
Biswabhusan Harichandan only had a cutting remark: "They must be
really desperate to indulge in politics over dead bodies."
Harichandan's contempt was not an administrator's
bravado. Bishnupada Sethi, the district collector of Rayagada, admitted
that 19 people had died in the past month but he was certain they had
not died of starvation. Among the dead were the wife and son of Biswanath
Majhi of Panasaguda village in Kashipur block. They had eaten the same
meal of rice and ragi that Biswanath prepared for the 20 labourers hired
to work in his paddy fields. Four of the workers also died after the deadly
repast. One of Biswanath's sons, who had gone to school and therefore
not eaten the food, is unaffected. The state Government takes this to
be indisputable proof of food poisoning. If Biswanath had the resources
to employ 20 labourers, it is not likely that his family would starve
to death.
According to officials, the death of Sadia Majhi
and three members of his family in Bilamala village at Kashipur was a
result of a fatal craving for mushrooms. Sadia had bought 32 kg of rice
at the village fair-price shop on August 5. Four days later, the family
had a dinner of rice and wild mushroom curry. Four of them succumbed to
poisoning over the next three days. As for the four tribals who died at
Pitajodi village of the same block after eating porridge made of ragi
and mango kernel, the administration maintains it was again a case of
food poisoning. Of course, Ramachandra Ulaka, former Congress minister,
alleges that since they were starving "they ate what they shouldn't
have", but the facts don't support his contention. The family owned
over four acres of land. They were affluent by village standards and did
not figure in the below-poverty-line (BPL) list.
The death of Ghasi Jhodia in Jhadiasahi cannot
be attributed to starvation either. Medical reports show he suffered from
peptic ulcer and he had died after vomiting blood. "The situation
isn't so bad that people should die of hunger," says Sethi. Of the
one lakh-odd population of Kashipur, at least 45,000 are covered by social
security measures like pension and avail of the BPL food quota.
Sethi, however, admits that many in the district
are close to destitution. The godowns may be stocked with food and starvation
may not really be looming large, but it's also true that many of the 15,000
BPL card holders in Kashipur are too poor to buy rice even at the subsidised
rate of Rs 5 per kg. And though 1.5 lakh tonnes of free rice have been
procured by the state from the Centre under food-for-work schemes, the
work has not yet begun and the rice lies undistributed.
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