These are critical times for agriculture and farmers in India. According to Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, 47 percent of India is reeling under a drought thanks to an insufficient monsoon rainfall.
The people being hurt most are marginal farmers. Children of these cultivators who usually double up as farm hands when they are not working on their own tiny fields are facing acute hunger. Farm work has shrunk, and so has their food.
In Mahoba district of Uttar Pradesh state, women get to eat only one meal a day – with one or two chapattis and a little salt. "Nearly 65% of families are malnourished in over 500 villages of Mahoba," says Manoj of Kirti Shodh Samsthan, an ActionAid partner organisation.
In Banda district, 48% of children aged three or less are underfed. In Tikamgarh district of Madhya Pradesh, 600 children are severely malnourished as per government records.
"But we have identified 40 emaciated children in Kandva village who have not found mention in the registers of non-functional anganwadis. Ten of them are severely malnourished. Also, in Chhattarpur district, the nutritional rehabilitation centre that provides food and medicines to severely malnourished children has only five beds!" reveals Pradeep of Parhit, an ActionAid partner organisation working with the drought-hit families of Bundelkhand region in Madhya Pradesh.
Officially, anganwadis where little kids and pregnant women get nutritious food are supposed to give food to the elderly also during droughts.
Stealing from the poor
For two months now, children in almost all 3500 villages of Palamau district of neighbouring Jharkhand state have not got midday meals at their schools.
News reports state that five people died of malnourishment in Nalanda and Jehanabad districts of Bihar. In Palamau, starvation claimed five lives.
"Government officials refuse to admit that people are dying of hunger and neglect," says Manoj Kumar Singh of Vikas Sahyog Kendra, an ActionAid partner organisation that works with poor communities in Palamau.
For drought relief, the state governments allot a few quintals of rice to village councils for distribution amongst the desperately poor and hungry.
"In Chhattarpur, even the old villagers who were left behind by their migrant families have yet to see the grains from emergency relief," says Jayant Lakra of ActionAid.
In Palamau, grains meant for emergency aid are being consigned to government ration shops that are already notorious for corruption. Ration cards that enable poor communities to buy subsidised grains from the government's public distribution system are supposed to provide a safety net but the net is full of holes. Grains are frequently siphoned off to be sold at market prices.
"Villagers got so desperate that they started looting rice from trucks on way to ration shops. Truckloads of grains are now accompanied by police convoys," adds Manoj Kumar Singh.
The government's National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) promises villagers a minimum of 100 days of work. Corruption is present here also.
"Those who seek jobs are often not allowed to submit written applications. Hence little evidence remains of how many rural folk sought jobs and how many got," says Narendra Sharma of ActionAid who works with marginalised communities of Madhya Pradesh.
"At a public hearing we held last week where people from 26 villages of Palamau attended, we got to know that only Rs 1.1 million was spent on NREGA while the sanctioned budget is Rs 15 million," says Manoj Kumar Singh.
Those who do manage to get work under NREGA are either not paid minimum wages, or paid months later. "Government does not pay attention to us, and corruption is rife in all schemes," says Vidya Devi, a 35-year-old woman from Mahoba district.
No longer home
The forage and water supplies have also diminished in thousands of villages.
Water tankers doing the rounds of drought-hit districts are not reaching the needy. Water in tankers is not enough for all thirsty families, according to village council leaders. As a result, villagers often drink from contaminated canals.
"You can see long queues before hand pumps. The workload of women and girl children have increased," reveals Sanjay Singh of Parmarth, an ActionAid partner organisation in Uttar Pradesh.
No wonder then 60 to 80 percent rural families across several drought-hit states have left for cities, state local activists.
Law and order
Cases of land grab and highway robbery are on the up in Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh. In Tikamgarh district, more than 1000 ponds have dried up. The fisher folk have migrated to cities for work. In their absence, the land beneath the ponds has been taken over by dominant caste landlords.
Not only has the sowing of seeds been substantially lower but the low rainfall is expected to damage standing crops also. For instance, rice output may fall by 10 million tonnes.
Agricultural experts say that only 30 percent of farm land has access to irrigation and more than 700 million citizens depend on agriculture. Therefore, farming in India heavily relies on the annual monsoon which comes from June to September. This year the rains are 26 percent below normal. In some districts including Chattarpur and Tikamgarh, the season has been punishingly dry – recording 57% and 51% less rainfall respectively. In Palamau, rains fell 96% less than normal.
ActionAid and partner organisations are using the Right to Information Act to seek answers from government officials on subsidised ration and NREGA work. Public hearings and rallies are being organised where rural women and men are able to voice their grievances.
Text by Anjali/ActionAid
Pictures by Parmarth