Starvation Deaths Continue: Jharkhand Woman Dies After Starving For Three Days

As the BJP-led Centre tries to slow down the Public Distribution System (PDS), one more starvation death has been reported from Giridih in Jharkhand on Saturday. A 58-year-old woman, Savitri Devi, starved to death because she did not have a ration card that enables access to the subsidised food grains through PDS.

Savitri, who lost her husband years ago, was reportedly surviving without food for three consecutive days before she died out of starvation. She was denied subsidized ration from the PDS shops as her ration card was cancelled in 2012.

Savithri’s younger son, Hulas Mahato, was quoted as saying that his mother did not receive the pension for BPL widows for the last three years. After Mahato's father’s death in 2010, the family’s income had decreased. The meagre produce from their farm and his earnings were not enough to feed the family that included Savithri, Mahato's elder brother’s wife, their three kids, Mahato’s wife and their daughter.

A report in Hindustan Times says that the earthen stove in the house has not been used since May 30, and the family of seven has been going without food.

According to NDTV report Sheetal Prasad, a district official, clearly pointed out the government’s neglect by saying, “due to the negligence of authorities, her ration card could not be made which is why she was unable to get food.”

However, Mukund Das, Deputy Commissioner of Giridh, ruled out the starvation factor and said: “The initial findings say that the woman was suffering from paralysis and she could have succumbed due to it. A team of senior officers has been sent to the village to conduct a detailed inquiry.”

Between September and December last year, the state had seen four suspected incidents of starvation death. The series of deaths raise questions over the BJP-led Raghubar Das government’s stand to tackle the issues with the PDS. Though Food Minister Saryu Roy, after the death of the 11-year-old Santoshi Kumari, had admitted the missteps of the government, the recent deaths show that the government has failed to mend its ways.

Santoshi Kumari from Simdega district of Jharkhand had died on September 28, 2017, after starving for nearly 8 days. Santoshi’s family had not got the ration for months since their ration card was cancelled for not linking it with Aadhaar card. In such ways, most vulnerable sections of people were excluded from their foodgrain entitlements which are a clear violation of the right to food- a part of fundamental rights and directives principles of the Indian Constitution.

“In any organized society, right to live as a human being is not ensured by meeting only the animal needs of man... Right to live guarantee in any civilized society implies the right to food, water, decent environment, education, medical care and shelter. These are basic human rights to known to any civilized society”, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court had held in 1996.

If we look back again, in 2001, 47 tribals and Dalits in south-eastern Rajasthan had been starved to death. Ironically, India’s food stocks in that year had an excess of around 40 million tonnes of food grain.

On July 23, 2011, in one of its orders on the Right to food case- People’s Union for Civil Liberties vs Union of India- the apex court had observed that “plenty of food is available, but distribution of the same amongst the very poor and the destitute is scarce and non-existent leading to malnourishment, starvation and other related problems.”

If we examine India’s rank on Global Hunger Index, we can see an improvement from 2008 to 2014. However, in 2017 it had slipped to 100 among 119 countries.

In the Right to Food case, the apex court had ruled that it was government’s duty to ensure no one goes hungry.  The various reports from the various sections show that governments’ inefficiency to address the issue as the death of the Jharkhand woman is not an isolated one. These ‘man-made starvations’ are the results of the negligence of the authorities.