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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Food handouts won't solve the malnutrition problem stalking Adivasi communities -Brian Lobo

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The government must empower these once proud people – now reduced to lining up for free meals – by giving them real rights to forest resources.

Palghar district in Maharashtra is once again in the news for malnutrition-induced deaths of Adivasi children. The state government is in a flurry – with the governor having taken up the matter – and will likely focus on better delivery of its nutrition and health schemes. But in the nitty-gritty of implementing these schemes, the wider issues that contribute to the problem of malnutrition are being forgotten.

Rather than just handing out supplementary foods to Adivasis, a more holistic approach is needed if there is to be any long-term solution to the problem. A political blame game will lead nowhere if these issues are not addressed. There is a serious need to re-examine state policy with respect to the areas inhabited by such communities.

A once-proud people have been reduced to becoming beneficiaries of state largesse. Pregnant women of a community that gathered its own food (including tubers, fruits and forest vegetables) and planted its own crops have to visit a state-run anganwadi to eat a free meal. Children who never went hungry because they collected dhamna, alva, jambhul and other fruits from the forests are to be given “seasonal fruits” in an anganwadi.

Supplementary feeding by definition cannot replace the primary source of nutrition. And while the state cannot and must not provide primary nutrition, it must definitely create the conditions to ensure the proud Adivasi is able to provide two square meals for himself.

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