Another day another village, but the malnutrition issue remains the same. Only its manifestation changes – that too, in a very small way. I visited another village in the lush green plains of Ujjain district for helping my partner organisation to do a situation analysis. The only exception to the pristinely flat landscape is the mole-hill of Vinayaga village. The sleepy village bears great resemblance with other north Indian villages – as you enter the clustered habitation of the village, you see signs of luxury in a very few houses. As you walk deeper into the village, you will see poverty glaring at you from windows and doors. Vinayaga has approximately 150 houses but 10-15 are decent housings with concrete slab houses with brick walls that are plastered. The others are thatched houses cobbled up with twigs, straws, mud, wheat chaff and nearly any other material that will stop water and reptiles from getting into the house.
One will not miss the most striking feature of the village. Rich houses in a cluster are located just at the entrance of the village whereas the clutter of asymmetrical houses of the poor families stretches out from the main residential area into the farmland and hilly areas. This poor locality, inhabited by lower castes, has a different name, appearance and different set of problems.
While interacting with some women who were rushing for farm labour I got to know that their life is as simple as it can ever be in a village. Get up in the morning, rush to farms for a paltry wage labour, return home and sleep - only to get up in the next morning to repeat the previous day’s schedule. Household chores don’t even feature in their discussion because it has become so integral part of their life.
Women plainly replied with a dejected shrug ‘we were born like this’ when they were asked why they were poor. And when they were asked why their children looked pale and lean, the answer was even more surprising – ‘children run around whole day, how they will gain weight?’ Villagers may not know the nomenclature of malnutrition but they can spot its symptoms and consequences and name them too. For them the first consideration is to feed children with quantity, whereas the quality of food is taken for granted. Families are happy if they can feed their children three times a day. But this is a sheer luxury for many a household.
“When there is sufficient wage labour, we have good food” Jyothi a middle-aged labourer says. The good food for her consists of pancakes and lentil or potato curry. Her farm produce is barely sufficient for her family of five. Price of food grain and pulses has soared but the wage labour rate has remained stagnant for five years. When wage labour availability is good, quality on the food platter also is good. ‘Paisa nahin hain toh, khayenge kya’ (if there is no money, what will we eat?) said Jyothi while rushing to field and struggling to keep the face veil in tact. In any case people don’t eat currency bills or coins but people’s dialect of ‘money for eating’ has evolved this way. And this change is at the core of malnutrition issue, which people often fail to see.
Seldom there is a reference to livelihood security during the discussion on malnutrition. The degree of livelihood insecurity and prevalence of malnutrition have a directly proportional relationship. To clarify this more simply, the poorer the community is; the higher the prevalence of malnutrition is. Nearly all interventions on malnutrition of voluntary agencies and government are patchwork type interventions which address the immediate symptoms and not the deep-seated roots.
Sustainable solution to malnutrition is possible only when livelihoods are secured. The quick fix malnutrition solutions are successful in the short run but in the long run, they will create dependency within the affected population. If such dependency ever happens to set in, it will be like making a healthy person shut his mouth and feeding vitamin pills. Sustainable solution to malnutrition is possible only when livelihoods of the affected community are safeguarded and local food systems are improved and diversified.
Saju MK, Caritas India
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