Adivasis living in perennial poverty and hunger: study on West Bengal adivasis by Pratichi Institute and the Asiatic Society

Preliminary findings of a study carried out by the Pratichi Institute and the Asiatic Society on West Bengal adivasis (tribals) indicate that hunger prevails in adivasi households in West Bengal. The report on the preliminary findings was released by economist Amartya Sen (who is founder of Pratichi Institute) in Kolkata on Monday.

Titled “Preliminary findings of An Inquiry into the Living World of the Adivasis in West Bengal: an empirical study”, it is based on 1,000 households from the sample districts of Purulia, Bankura, West Midnapore (undivided), Birbhum, Burdwan (undivided), Hooghli, North 24 Parganas, Malda, Darjeeling (undivided), and Jalpaiguri (undivided).

Since mid-2018, there were allegations of starvation deaths in the Jangal khas village of Jhargram (a tiny village with a predominant poor Shabal population close to the Jharkhand border), which the government has vehemently denied. Seven persons in the village died in the village in few months, four of them in November 2018. There were talks that this happened due to starvation. However, according to the district magistrate Ayesha Rani, some of the deaths were from tuberculosis. In Kolkata, chief minister Mamata Banerjee (without mentioning Jangal Khas or the Sabar deaths) had said that there were no starvation deaths in the state. She said that the government has special packages for the backward areas of the state.

But the Pratichi Institute and the Asiatic Society  report indicates that there is “perennial hunger”.

“Deprived of the basic constitutionally guaranteed facilities that could help reverse their historically constructed future, our study found the Adivasis living in perennial poverty and hunger, continued land alienation with an over-reliance upon hard manual labor to survive, and facing multiple harassments by the state as well as the dominant society,” said the report.

According to the report, “nearly one third (31%) of the surveyed households reported to have faced in the last one year preceding the survey the wrath of food scarcity in varying degrees.” The report also says, “while some households faced acute hunger only in some months (August–October), there are many cases of people having meals only twice a day. Also, in some cases, the adult members reportedly ate only once a day.”

The report adds that “scarcity of food, added with poverty-born vices like alcoholism on one hand and the fragility of the public health system on the other seemed to have resulted in a much lower lifespan among the Advasis than their more privileged co-citizens”.

The number of deaths reported to have occurred in the surveyed households in the year preceding the survey was 52, among which 48 (92 %) were premature deaths, and only four of them were due to old age. The average age of the persons who had died in the surveyed households was 58 years – much shorter than the life expectancy at birth of West Bengal average (70).

It also says that while the diet for most Adivasi households contained mainly cereal, seldom could they afford to eat animal protein and pulses. In addition, degradation in forest had severely reduced the availability of natural nutrients like mushrooms, birds and animals, and wild vegetables. Availability of fish and other mollusk and amphibians that met certain amount of protein requirements has also tremendously decreased due to environmental degradation (owing to indiscriminate use of pesticides, for example).

There are also disturbing  findings of children and elderly persons compelled to work in order to fight poverty.

[Cover photograph representational]