Chamunda Nagar
in the suburbs of Bhandup has been in the news for reports of child
malnutrition. Sonia Faleiro goes beyond the headlines
to find that at the root of that are crushed, underfed, overworked mothers
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‘I
haven’t received rations in a year. When I go to the shop
I’m told they haven’t arrived. When I go to the state
office I’m told the rations were sent to the shop. Then
I stopped going, because it meant time away from work,’
says Leela |
The hiss, whistle
and screech of the local train may give suburban Mumbai’s Bhandup
East the flavour of a town, but the wet, green fields and small temples,
one of which forbids ‘untouchables’ from entering, suggest
quieter ambitions.
On June 9, the suburb
became the focus of nationwide attention when an ngo collective, Bal
Hakk Abhiyan (BHA), took 11 children living in slums from the ages of
8 months to 9 years to the local Rajawadi Hospital for treatment for
malnutrition. Seven were admitted; four were administered medication,
patted on their fragile backs and sent back to their homes of plastic
sheets, mud floors and palm-leaf walls. Their mothers — as gaunt
as the children, their feet cracked and swollen from trawling rain-soaked
streets and picking rags for hours at a stretch, their hair scant and
their skin coarse — were advised to feed the children balanced
meals, give them clean drinking water, and to bathe them regularly.
An avalanche of
media attention followed, accompanied by a rising chorus of horror.
Children were starving in Maharashtra, India’s most prosperous
state — and not among the tribes of Melghat and Dahanu this time,
but in Mumbai, its urban core. Two weeks later, Bhandup’s Chamunda
Nagar slum received a facelift. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation
(BMC) did a routine cleanup, and, now, ddt is being sprayed every day
to eradicate mosquitoes. The slum-dwellers were promised electricity
and water. But in the spaces between
the whistles of the train, and the turning of its screeching wheels,
a familiar sound can be heard — the cries of mothers and their
children for food.
Aarti Salve, an
activist with Social Action for Literacy and Health (SALAH) has been
working in Bhandup East for two years. In 2005, worried at the regularity
with which the children here were falling sick, she participated in
a project under the aegis of salah to measure the prevalence of malnourishment
in Bhandup. Over 63 percent of the 218 randomly sampled children aged
0-15 years were found to be malnourished, 11 percent had chronic malnutrition,
and 27 percent had below-normal weight and height. Salve began writing
to government officials about malnutrition in Bhandup, six months before
the spurt in media coverage on the subject in June. She did not receive
any response.
The slum settlements
of Bhandup East aren’t any different from others that now engulf
Mumbai. Every day, 500 migrant families come to the city, settling in
areas like Andheri’s Ambedkar Nagar, Dharavi, Wadala’s slum
pockets and South Mumbai’s Reay Road, all of which share the same
basic features — makeshift houses, many on the banks of sewers;
no electricity; not one tap for a settlement of 100 families; and no
sanitation. The air is layered with mosquitoes, thick with the stench
of coagulating filth, and the ground marshy with sewage. Hungry children,
overworked mothers, underweight pregnant women, fathers who have turned
to gambling, alcohol and gutka. The locations may be different, separated
by many miles, but the faces are the same. “This isn’t a
Bhandup problem,” says Madhukant Pathare, Mumbai Convener, BHA.
“It is a city-wide problem, one which the government chooses to
ignore, because acknowledging it means acknowledging the failure of
our urban policies.”
‘There
is no bathroom for women. It’s shameful that we have to
go to the fields, near a gutter. Men keep passing; we get tense,
and stand up... Do I feel embarrassed or ashamed?
If I did, and waited till dark, I would fall sick,’ says
Saroj |
And yet it is Bhandup’s
Chamunda Nagar, Shyam Nagar, Govind Nagar and Kamal Nagar that have
become the focus of attention, because of the diligence of BHAs working
in these areas. However there are limits to what ngos can and will do,
and corruption in government agencies flourishes. This is one of the
reasons why slum-dwellers who have government ration-cards are also
starving.
Leela Sanjay Chauhan,
40, holds six-month-old Tara in her arms, who is so tiny she looks like
a premature, newborn baby. Neither Leela, nor Tara and her siblings
— Sonu, 8, Sheetal, 6, and 3-year-old Komal who was diagnosed
as malnourished — have eaten all day. Leela’s husband Sanjay
is a beggar, making about Rs 50 a day. Leela works as a rag-picker from
10am to 7pm, earning Rs 5 for a kilo of pickings. On a good day, she
gathers 15 kilos, going as far as Thane district and Kanjurmarg. While
Tara remains in her arms, her other children play by the sewer; when
they’re hungry they beg for food from the neighbouring buildings.
Yesterday, the six Chauhans shared two chapattis and a bowl of stale
vegetables. And this, even though Leela has a ration card — a
government sponsored shield from hunger which entitles her to one kilogramme
of wheat for Rs 2, and a kilogram of rice at Rs 3. “I haven’t
received rations for a year,” she says. “When I go to the
ration shop — there are two in Bhandup East — I’m
told the rations haven’t arrived from the state office. When I
go to the office I’m told the rations were sent to the shop. Then
I stopped going, because it meant time away from work.”
On June 12, Kirit
Somaiya, former area mp from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), filed a
petition with the States Human Rights Commission, against the mismanagement
of ration supplies. On June 22, the area’s rationing inspector was
suspended, and the two ration shops closed. “What’s the point
of shutting the shops? The slum dwellers still need rations. It’s
the implementation that must change,” says Pathare. Leena Joshi
who works with the ngo Rationing Kriti Samiti agrees. “We lack political
and economic will to make the necessary changes,” she says. “Those
in the ruling parties are apathetic because they personally never have
to deal with the pds (Public Distribution System).”
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Bal
Hakk Abhiyan took 17 malnourished children to the hospital for
treatment, but they were refused admittance because, according
to bha, the hospital would have had to acknowledge the prevalence
of malnutrition in the city |
Like many activists,
Joshi wasn’t surprised by the Bhandup’s hungry, pointing
out that the ration-card system keeps them so. “Many of the poorest
people don’t even get cards because they don’t have documentation.
And the government ensures that only Below Poverty Line (bpl) families
rather than all poor people get free rations. Therefore, because we’ve
drawn a faulty and unscientific poverty line, many poor people have
to buy food at open-market prices. In the ration shops, the grain sold
is adulterated and under-weighed; people don’t get their full
quota; kerosene is diverted to the black market; and shopkeepers create
bogus cards to keep this charade going. At every opportunity they tell
cardholders that their quota hasn’t arrived.”
As a result, families
like the Chauhans are a common sight in Mumbai, living a shadowy life
on the margins of other people’s prosperity. On June 12, BHA took
17 more malnourished children to the hospital for treatment, but they
were refused admittance because, according to BHA, they would have had
to acknowledge the prevalence of malnutrition in the city — something
they had failed to do so far.
Among the children
turned away was Sanjay, an 11-month-old baby, who is suffering from tb.
His mother Anita buys medicines worth Rs 62 every fortnight, but cannot
feed him more than once a day. “During monsoons we can’t work
for three-four days at a stretch, so how much he eats depends on what
we’ve managed to save in the days before — rice, maybe dal.
Today he ate two pieces chapattis (just about a quarter of one chapatti),”
she says. Anita has sent her elder son, 6-year-old Aniket, to her mother’s
house in Akola district, to recover from a bout of typhoid. Explains Salve,
“When you’re starved, your resistance decreases and this leads
to numerous infections like TB, typhoid, pneumonia, malaria, and even
skin diseases like scabies.”
Besides the failure
of the corruption-riddled ration-card system, slums are rife with problems
which compound the misery of their inhabitants. They have large families
and the kind of work available usually involves manual labour or rag
picking. Getting even one balanced meal a day is a struggle. The poverty
of the slum-dwellers is also the reason behind high death rates in the
slums. Jayanta Mukesh Khara, Chauhans’ neighbour, lost her 15-year-old
daughter to jaundice. “After last year’s floods our houses
were soaked, and almost all the women and children fell ill. She had
fever and was coughing for two months. I would buy her tablets for Rs
1 or Rs 2, but she died. As we carried her away someone saw the colour
of her skin and said it was jaundice,” she says.
Another neighbour,
Sevanta, carries a photograph of her dead daughter in her sari blouse.
The 18-year-old died while crossing the train tracks to collect water
from the tap closest to this illegal settlement. Every year about six
people from the slum die while crossing the tracks. The only other option
is a bi-weekly, expensive Rs 40 rickshaw ride to Bhandup village to
fill 6-7 gallons of water from the municipality tap. They have to make
do with this water for drinking, cooking and bathing. “Our houses
are filthy, we can’t bathe and our children don’t have clean
water. During the monsoons we have to stand all night because water
floods the house,” says Khara. “I’ve been living here
for years and every night I have lain awake worrying.”
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Municipal
Apathy: Open sewer in Bhandup, Mumbai |
Like Khara, Kaushalya
Sunil Saroj suffers sleepless nights. This June, her youngest son Badal,
4, was diagnosed with Grade-3 malnutrition and tb. Badal receives a
daily meal under the government-run anganwadi scheme. “Sometimes
the food smells bad,” says Kaushalya. According to government
figures, in all, there are 150 anganwadis in Bhandup East and West,
running under the Integrated Child Development Scheme. An anganwadi
is supposed to run creches, provide supplementary food for children
and pregnant women, and conduct immunisation drives. According to Salve,
when questioned about the poor quality of food they provide to the children,
those who run anganwadis say, “Talk to the state government. It’s
their contractors who send the food.” Kaushalya has been instructed
by the doctor to feed Badal milk and give him an egg every day. Watching
him cram a soft-boiled egg in his mouth, she says, “Once the rain
starts, the food will stop.”
It is women like
Saroj, Khara and Chauhan, who suffer the worst effects of lack of opportunities
to earn a livelihood, and the resulting poverty. With little or no education,
they enter the irregular and unregulated occupational sector at an early
age, performing physically strenuous tasks like domestic work, rag-picking
and manual labour, and, in addition, have to cook and clean at home.
Many suffer from anaemia, and are saddled with the responsibilities
of a young marriage and multiple pregnancies, all the while having to
face the daily hazards involved in living in a slum.
“There is
no bathroom for women. It’s shameful that we have to go to the fields,
near a gutter. Men keep passing; we get tense, and stand up. My stomach
is such, I have to eat, and then run to the toilet. Do I feel embarrassed
or ashamed? If I did, and waited till dark, I would fall sick,”
says Saroj. In a medical camp conducted by BHA this March, over 90 percent
of the women in the four slums were found to be suffering from vaginal
infections. Sexual harassment is particularly severe for those who work
as domestic helps in homes or in the construction sector (“the middle
men won’t take no for an answer,” says one woman). Miscarriages
happen because the mothers are malnourished. Unable to afford a hospital
delivery, the women hire a dai for Rs 40. Apart from the physical complications
that arise, getting a birth certificate afterwards is an added complication.
The Sarojs live next to the sewer. The sewer was cleaned before the monsoons,
but instead of being carried away, the muck was dumped on the banks, attracting
hoards of mosquitoes and multiplying the threat of malaria.
Sevanta
carries a photograph of her dead daughter with her. The 18-year-old
died while crossing the train tracks to collect water from the
tap. Every year about six people from the slum die while crossing
the tracks |
This is where Badal
and the settlement’s other children play under the watering eyes
of their desperate mothers. “Members of the outreach programme
for polio immunisation refuse women in the four slums were found to
be suffering from vaginal infections. Sexual harassment is particularly
severe for those who work as domestic helps in homes or in the construction
sector (“the middle men won’t take no for an answer,”
says one woman). Miscarriages result due to poor maternal nutrition.
Unable to afford
a hospital delivery, the women hire a dai for Rs 40. Apart from the physical
complications that arise, getting a birth certificate afterwards is an
added complication. The Sarojs live next to the sewer. Prior to the monsoons,
the sewer was cleaned, but instead of transporting the garbage it was
dumped on the banks, attracting hoards of mosquitoes and multiplying the
threat of malaria. This is where Badal and the settlement’s other
children play under the watering eyes of their desperate mothers. “Members
of the outreach programme for polio immunisation refuse to enter the slum
because it’s so filthy. We bring the babies out,” says Salve.
Dr Romesh Poddar,
who has conducted studies on the effects of malnutrition on women in
slum areas, says the result of such physical and emotional stress includes
severe constipation, a prolapsed uterus, menstrual problems, headaches,
depression and lower-back ache.
He explains, “The
worst impact of poverty, lack of education and lower social status is
always felt by the woman. She’s seen as a child producing machine,
however frail she may be, and however poor her family’s ability
to provide nutrition to the child. Most of these children die between
the ages of six months and two years.” The BHA states that only
after an urban renewal committee is set up to investigate the number
of Mumbai’s malnourished will the Maharashtra government be able
to remedy the problem.
Rehabilitation of
these families, and assistance through an effective pds and Employment
Guarantee Scheme, should be the long-term plan of the committee. After
the ‘malnourishment story’ received coverage in the press,
the government has introduced 10 more anganwadis in Bhandup East, and
supplied 30 kg of wheat for every person with a ration card. Since this
is the same government whose immediate response to sick, malnourished
seeking hospitalisation was to send them away and deny that there was
a problem, it is unlikely that those working for it are willing or capable
of fixing a system they are a part of.
There seems little
doubt, therefore, that the hungry faces of Bhandup East will continue
to be a reminder of India’s most prosperous city’s inability
to feed its countless poor.
