POVERTY: India: Tribal people in India live in extreme poverty: author

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Author and activist Arundhati Roy speaking there to the ABC's correspondent in India Richard Lindell.
Richard Lindell reported this story on Sunday, July 17, 2011 08:10:00

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Arundhati Roy found fame and international acclaim very early in her career, winning the Booker prize in 1997 for her first novel, The God of Small Things.
The Delhi-based writer has not produced a novel since, but has instead turned her attention to political activism.
Roy's latest work is a collection of essays that focus on the Maoists' armed struggle, which the Indian prime minister describes as India's greatest internal security challenge.
The Maoists now wield considerable influence over one third of the country, having found support among India's indigenous peoples.
Most tribal people live in extreme poverty and many are now in a fight with the state and miners over rights to their land.
Arundhati Roy spent three weeks with Maoist rebels before writing her essay titled, The Broken Republic.
She's speaking here with our India correspondent Richard Lindell.

ARUNDHATI ROY: My images of that places were images of a great deal of beauty, a great deal of suffering and a great deal of ferocity of you know, fighting back, the poorest people fighting back in ways that are unforgettable.

RICHARD LINDELL: Your critics call you an apologist for the Maoists, that you brush over the violence they inflict on the locals, that you ignore the way that they collect taxes, that you don't really look closely at the way some people are forced to join the armed struggle. What do you say to that?

ARUNDHATI ROY: My journey was to the Maoist areas in Chhattisgarh, in Bhasta (phonetic) actually. But the Maoists are spread across Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal and they do have a different nature in other places, you know. And there are moments when pretty unforgivable things have been done.
But you see the problem is that the critics as well as those who are considered pro-Maoist, you end up with this sort of atrocity based analysis, where yes, everybody is considered, committing atrocities, you know, but what is the underlying battle about?
I see this kind of thing as a absolutely unfeasible, unsustainable way of snatching from the poor and giving to the rich, which is why you have a country today where you have among the highest growth rates in the world, but you know, 800 million people living on 45 cents a day and you have the highest number of malnutrition people and children, and you have more poor than the poorest countries of Africa put together.
And yet you have the greatest number of billionaires. You know, so there's something very twisted about what's going on.

RICHARD LINDELL: So if development and a market economy isn't the way forward, what is a solution? How does the government bring those 800-900 million people that you've spoken about, living in abject poverty, out of poverty and lift their living conditions?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Yeah so we have to actually have to really look at what you mean by development. You have to find a situation where people are more in control of their own lives, you know, of their own environment, of their own water, of their own land.

RICHARD LINDELL: In your book you speak of the sparse beauty of the villages and the homes in the tribal areas, of the wonder of sleeping underneath the stars with just a thin plastic blue sheet underneath you. In your quieter moments do you ponder whether you have a slightly romantic view of life in the tribal areas?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Many people have accused me of having a romantic view, whereas I personally I feel sorry for those who have lost romance in their lives, you know? I mean I would say that people who promote the free market and growth are far more romantic, and far more ideologically driven and blinded by their vision than somebody who goes in and comments about the beauty of a forest or the stars in the sky you know?

RICHARD LINDELL: I asked you that question because when I was with the Santhal tribe in West Bengal, they didn't want development to pass them by, they wanted the state police to stop torturing and killing them, but they wanted the government to provide the welfare that they were entitled to. They wanted a doctor for their hospital, they wanted roads, electricity and clean water. And most of all they wanted opportunities for their children in the form of schools, education and good jobs.

ARUNDHATI ROY: Yeah but they don't want their forests to be cut down right. They don't want to live in concrete skyscrapers, they still enjoy the forests and the stars and surely, I mean surely the Indian government for 50 years has not provided hospitals, clinics, schools, water, nothing. They just have hunger and policeman around. That's what they have. And that's what is called development.

RICHARD LINDELL: One final question. You appear to be more popular overseas than you are at home. Why do you think it is that an international audience is more receptive to your ideas than they are here in India?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well this isn't true, you know, it's just that the India that probably has always had this middle class, the media, and that kind of thing, and there's a lot of criticism. But I go to, you know, small towns in Bhubaneswar or Raipur, there are you know, 3,000, 5,000, I mean huge meetings happen and so it is just that the middle class in India's appropriated voice, the opinion making.
I mean my writing is translated into every Indian language, it's distributed in pamphlets, in little private video things, it's everywhere. You know, so it's a lovely pastime for the middle class to think of itself as the whole nation but it isn't.
http://www.abc.net.au/correspondents/content/2011/s3271037.htm

POVERTY: India: Dr Binayak Sen

Indra Sinha 14 April 2011

Binayak Sen worked for the tribal people of Chhattisgarh, such as this mother and child, fighting TB, malaria and malnutrition. Photograph: Kamal Kishore/Reuters

On Friday, the Indian supreme court will hear an application for bail from Binayak Sen who, last Christmas Eve, was sentenced to life imprisonment by the state of Chhattisgarh for allegedly aiding Maoists.
Binayak Sen is a paediatrician. For 30 years he has worked in the jungle giving medical care to tribal peoples, fighting TB, malaria and the effects of malnutrition. He set up a hospital staffed by mine workers and was secretary of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).
The Chhattisgarh police arrested Sen in May 2007. "Too early," the director general of police, Vishwa Ranjan, confided to a journalist a year later as Sen remained in jail. There was not yet enough evidence against Sen, said Ranjan, but the police were sure to find some on his hard disk.
Sen spent two years awaiting trial, during which time he won the Jonathan Mann award for global health and human rights, and the RR Keithan gold medal award for a lifetime of services to the poor. As calls for his release multiplied, Ranjan, on a visit to UCLA Berkeley in 2008, became so flustered that he signed a petition calling Sen's arrest an outrage and demanding his immediate release.
The supreme court freed Sen on bail in May 2009, but freedom was shortlived. On December 24, 2010 he was convicted of sedition, a crime invented by the British and used against Mahatma Gandhi. As defined in section 124A of the Indian penal code, it can mean whatever the government wants.
Whoever, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection (including disloyalty and all feelings of enmity) towards, the government established by law in India, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, to which fine may be added, or with imprisonment which may extend to three years, to which fine may be added, or with fine.
The evidence laid against Sen was both farcical and tragic. Police investigations of his hard disk had unearthed an email that said "We have a chimpanzee [George W Bush] in the White House". "It is significant," argued the prosecutor, "because terrorists oppose the US president."
In an effort to prove that Sen was the hub of an international terror network, the prosecution revealed that his wife, Dr Ilina Sen, had contacted the ISI, Pakistan's secret intelligence agency. In fact, she had written to the Indian Social Institute, in New Delhi.
Crucial testimony on which the prosecution's case depended came from a witness who was walking along Station Road, Raipur, just as a man called Piyush Guha was being arrested by police. The witness said he overheard Guha tell police that Sen had carried letters from a jailed Maoist. Apart from this being hearsay, and that a confession made to a police officer would in any case be inadmissible, the police had already testified in another court that Guha had been arrested at a different location. The prosecutor said this was a stenographer's error.
Sen's conviction, on such non-evidence, was a shock. Eminent lawyers called it a disgrace. Amnesty International adopted Sen as a prisoner of conscience. Forty Nobel laureates from a dozen nations called for his release.
This Friday, the supreme court has a chance to prove that justice in India is not a tragic farce. Will it? Some are saying that although the state's case is so weak as to be nonexistent, a strong political lobby wants voices like Binayak Sen's silenced because he and the tribal people he seeks to protect are obstacles to development.
The stakes are huge. Indian politicians are eyeing the bauxite, copper, iron ore, coal, tin, dolomite, diamonds and gold that lie beneath the forest floor, and sign memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with foreign multinationals and big Indian corporates. A whispering campaign is going on that, despite the lack of evidence, Sen really is a Maoist bigwig. Ilina Sen says that one of the nastiest smears she has heard is that Sen engineered his own incarceration to win a Nobel peace prize.
The state government is opposing Sen's bail application. Its affidavit claims Sen is just pretending to be a doctor because, when his house was searched, no medical equipment was found. The judge who sentenced Sen insinuated that his opposition to the Salwa Judum – a violent paramilitary group armed by the state – puts him in the Maoist camp. But in 2008 the supreme court had itself opposed the Salwa Judum, asking: "How can the state give arms to some persons? The state will be abetting in a crime if these private persons kill others."
Last month, villagers in the jungles of central India heard the tramp of boots, and saw masked men with rifles and cigarette lighters. Houses burned, women and girls were raped and molested, one woman came to with her nose-rings ripped from her face to find her husband's bloodied corpse hanging from a tree. Another man was hacked open by an axe. Jewellery and money vanished, and while granaries blazed the attackers dined on stolen hens and pigs.
Five separate attempts were made to reach the stricken villages – by the district collector; a Congress party delegation led by an ex-minister; an assistant sub-inspector of police; reporters from the Times of India and Hindu; and by human rights organisations accompanied by Swami Agnivesh. All were turned back by armed paramilitary gangs.
When a team from the investigative news magazine Tehelka reached the area by circuitous forest paths, villagers confirmed that their attackers were SPOs, "special police officers" and Koya commandos armed by the state, successors to the Salwa Judum.
The supreme court of India has appointed commissioners to investigate, but media commentators doubt that they will make it. Ironically, the only way to get there would be with the good offices of the Maoists – in which case, under Chhattisgarh justice, they could all be locked up for life.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2011/apr/14/binayak-sen-india-supreme-court-sedition

MALNUTRITION: India: the indigenous peoples

Madhavi Rajadhyaksha,  Apr 12, 2011
MELGHAT (Amravati): In the hilly terrain of tribal Melghat, the word 'kuposhan' (malnutrition) is casually used in nearly every thatched hut, as though it is normal for children to have distended stomachs and scrawny limbs.
"Forget malnutrition. I am worried because he has a skin infection and uncontrollable diarrhoea," says Sumitra Mavaskar of her 21-month-old son Hanees.
For Sumitra, a resident of Churni village, the state-defined categories of severe acute malnutrition or Grade IV malnutrition mean little; rashes, to her, are a bigger worry.
Weighing a mere six kilos, Hanees is grossly underweight for his age. It has left him susceptible to common infections. "He started walking, but his legs have no strength to stand. He doesn't eat anything and only tolerates mother's milk," says the mother.
At 22, Sumitra is a young mother with deep scars. She lost a son just a few months ago. And her seven hours of physical labour on the family's wheat fields has left her too weak to breastfeed Hanees anymore. The village volunteer implored the Mavaskars to take Hanees to a government healthcare centre, but in vain. "We lost our older grandchild at the hospital. What is the guarantee that they will be able to help Hanees?" says the child's grandfather Byayjee.
The scene being played out, unfortunately, is a common one. The magnitude of the crises unfolds as you trek through Melghat's villages that are nestled deep in the thick forests and speak to the Korkus, the indigenous people of the area.
The government says there are 2,391 Korku children below the age of six who, like Hanees, are severely malnourished, though child experts fear the real figure is much bigger. There are many young mothers like Sumitra who have lost their young children; and then there are women who died in childbirth. According to officials, low-birth weight, pneumonia and premature births are to blame for most child deaths.
Maternal and child deaths have afflicted many Korku families for generations. Anil Bethekar lost his 23-year-old wife Rukhma just a day before TOI met him last week. Five months pregnant, she succumbed after fighting spells of dizziness through the night. The couple had suffered the trauma of a stillbirth last year.
Doctors at the Katkumbh primary healthcare centre, where Rukhma was registered for antenatal care, said family members refused to take her to the hospital after she took ill. "We were married for three years. I didn't think the situation would get so bad," is all Anil managed to say. In the end, Rukhma went down in government registers as yet another maternal death and a Korku village mourned another demise.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-12/mumbai/29409517_1_child-deaths-melghat-malnutrition

MALNUTRITOPN: Concern over malnutrition among tribal children

Feb 4, 2011
PALANPUR: Senior government officers and experts have expressed their concern over malnutrition among tribal children of Gujarat. They were addressing about 1,000 teachers of 550 primary schools from the tribal belt in Danta and Amirgadh talukas of Banskantha at a 'chintan shibir' which concluded in Ambaji on Thursday.
The district development officer, district education officer and experts stressed on the need to supply healthy food full of proteins to the students.
Banaskantha district collector R J Patel, who is also ex-officio chairman of Ambaji Temple Trust, asked teachers to ensure that children get nutritious food in the Mid-Day Meal Scheme.
He said an integrated development programme will be launched in the tribal belt in collaboration with the trust.
"We have been giving free education to about 500 tribal women," he said, proposing distribution of saplings to the participants as prasad of Goddess Amba.
He said the growth of vegetation on school premises will also help make up for the vitamin deficiency among the tribal children.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/rajkot/Concern-over-malnutrition-among-tribal-children/articleshow/7427620.cms#ixzz1DgSnq5WF

POVERTY: India: the face of poverty in tribal areas

A mother in Northeast India holds her daughter, her last surviving child. Her first died from malaria, another from untreated newborn jaundice, a third from unknown causes.
This child, 18 months old, suffers from hydrocephalus, an excess fluid collection around the brain. Thus far untreated, it has inhibited her brain growth and left her with developmental disabilities. She is not yet walking or speaking, and is extremely small in height and weight for her age. Left untreated, greater than 60% of children with condition will die as a result. Those who survive will be left with intellectual, physical, and neurological disabilities. With surgical management, however, hydrocephalus can be effectively treated. But in the extreme poverty of this region of the world, a region where one there is only one physician responsible for 125 tribes, access to this kind of care is not only not available, but not affordable even if there was a facility close enough to treat her.
Since beginning my work in human trafficking, people often ask me about the root of such a problem. What is really at the bottom of the tragedy? How don't these victims realize they are being tricked? While trafficking has many causes, one common thread that runs through every larger issue within the web of its horror is poverty. For those in the developed world, poverty can mean something very different that those in the third world. In places such as Northeast India, poverty doesn't mean defaulting on a mortgage. It doesn't mean having a car break down and not having the funds to repair it. It doesn't mean not going out to dinner anymore.
The kind of poverty I witnessed in this place meant that a mother was left helpless to bring care to her last surviving child, knowing that with financial resources, she could have access to medical care that could spare her daughter's life. Poverty that meant mothers eat one meal every two days so to allow their children to eat two meals every day. Poverty that deprives children of any access to school, an education that would offer a way out. Poverty of this kind breeds a desperation most anyone reading this article has never known.
And desperation brought from this kind poverty leads to desperate choices. A woman such as this mother is a prime candidate for becoming target for traffickers. "I have work for you. It is a good job, you'll be able to earn money right away and pay doctors to take care of your daughter. The job is in Mumbai, just come along with me and I will arrange everything for you." In a place of hopelessness and grief, an offer such as this has a whole new kind of appeal. A chance, maybe a single chance, to get her child the care she needs.
This is just one of millions of stories of desperation that are told around the world every day. And these are just two of the faces that could be the next victims. On this day, they were spared the tragedy that could have added their lives to the millions of victims that exist. But this is how it happens. The developed world can't get a grip on it because we can't get a grip on this kind of poverty. Understanding that it exists at this level may help open the eyes of those best in position to intervene.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rani-hong/human-trafficking-the-hum_b_613735.html