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India has a higher number of malnourished children than sub-Saharan African countries all put together. Almost 46 percent of children under the age of three are undernourished in India, as opposed to 35 percent in sub-Saharan Africa. Countries like Ethiopia fare better than India on nutrition data. This information, though shocking, is the finding of a survey conducted by the Ministry of Health in India, sponsored by UNICEF.
There has been only a marginal drop in the number of underweight children from seven years ago, when it was 47 percent. At the same time levels of anaemia in women and children have worsened compared to seven years ago. About 56 percent of women and 79 percent of children below three years are anaemic. The survey confirms that India has done little for its children.
Some Indians might disagree. The above details are hard and fast fact. The only doubt one could cast upon the survey is whether it depicts the entire picture or is just skimming the surface. Given the circumstances in India where access to remote villages is limited, chances are the survey reveals only a partial picture.
Why are children in India neglected to such an extent?
India is rich in food stocks; in fact there has been a food surplus for the past several years. There have been no serious natural calamities that have affected the country as a whole in recent years. There has been no civil war in the country. India has had a democratically elected government since independence. There is a reasonable logistical infrastructure, and the country is not really poor.
Then why are the children in such a pitiable state? The answer is not simple, and several causes are apparent. Take for example the case of five-year-old Juli, who lived in Alahadapur village in Ambedkarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh state. She starved to death on April 16 this year.
When her death became public through media reports, officials from the district administration visited the village for the first time since independence. They assured the poor villagers that their immediate concerns regarding food security would be addressed by the administration. Then they left.
The officials returned months later when yet another child, a three-year-old boy named Pritam, died in the same village on Nov. 25. However, this time they threatened the villagers, asking them why they had talked to newspaper reporters. The district magistrate, an officer responsible for the administration of the district, threatened and abused Pritam's parents for having a child and being unable to feed it.
The officials did not try to find out why the food grains that were delivered to the village shop for free distribution to the poor families were being sold on the black market. Nor did they worry about the absence of paramedical staff and childcare staff at the village health center. In fact the center remains closed even today.
Both Pritam and Juli were from lower-caste communities in India. Alahadapur is not a remote village; it is just two kilometers away from the district headquarters.
Of the millions of children who suffer from malnourishment in India, more than 80 percent are from the lower-caste communities. Their parents are discriminated against and forced to work as bonded laborers; the fate of children like Juli and Pritam is sealed even before they are born.
Corruption being rampant in the public food distribution system in India, the food grain that the government distributes through welfare shops does not reach the targeted population. It is sold on the black market.
Bonded labor, caste-based discrimination and illegal dealing in grains are prohibited in India. Yet corruption in the food distribution system is one of the worst systemic failures affecting the poor in India. Caste-based discrimination in its most inhuman forms continues in India. It is obvious that the children who are born into this environment would suffer the most.
Responsibility for this pitiable state of affairs does not rest solely on the government. Caste- based discrimination is not practiced by the government, in fact, but by the people who make up the government. However, both the government and many well-placed Indians deny this practice with all their might. Even the National Human Rights Commission of India jumps on the bandwagon by augmenting the government's stand on caste issues, which is shameless denial.
India as of today is leading the region with its trump-card diplomacy of democracy and projected growth-rate statistics. But what is in store for millions of children in the country is death or permanent disability from acute starvation.
This is a curse that could have been warded off, had the democratic institutions remained truly democratic and the benefits of growth been shared proportionately among the people. But for this, Indians would need two vital virtues -- openness and generosity. What the people lack cannot be expected from their government.
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(Bijo Francis is a human rights lawyer currently working with the Asian Legal Resource Center in Hong Kong. He is responsible for the South Asia desk at the center. Mr. Francis has practiced law for more than a decade and holds an advanced master's degree in human rights law.)
