Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and his Cabinet colleagues hold that Adivasi children have been dying of malnutrition in the settlements of Attappadi in Palakkad district because of alcoholism among their mothers and the reluctance of the people to eat food supplied by the Government, but the Prime Minister’s office seems to have a different perspective.
Rejecting the Chandy Government’s ‘alcoholic mothers’ theory, the PMO has sent a letter to the Kerala Chief Secretary demanding initiation of immediate steps to tackle the problem of malnutrition and to ensure supply of safe drinking water in the Adivasi settlements of Attappadi in the context of the recurring deaths of Adivasi children, including new-born babies.
Kirtads (Kerala Institute for Research, Training and Development Studies of SCs and STs), a State Government agency, also has rejected the Government’ theory that alcoholism among pregnant women is the reason behind death of neo-natal babies and Adivasis’ reluctance to eat the Government-supplied food is the cause of malnutrition.
Based on its own finding that malnutrition and lack of proper facilities are the main reasons for the recurring child deaths in Attappadi, the PMO has sent a letter to the State Chief Secretary putting
forward 12 instructions to tackle the problem. Foremost among them is the advice to take immediate steps to end malnutrition by distributing balanced diet.
The letter has asked the State Government to ensure proper treatment to all in Attappadi, effective implementation of the mid-day meal scheme and regular distribution of safe drinking water to all Adivasi settlements in the region. The proposals were made on the basis of the recommendations of a PMO-drafted team which had visited Attappadi in mid-July.
Chief Minister Chandy had last week stirred a hornets’ nest with his statement that malnutrition among Adivasis in Attappadi had its base in their refusal to eat food. This was followed by another controversial statement by his Rural Development Minister KC Joseph that alcoholism among pregnant Adivasi women was the reason for death of neo-natal babies in the colonies.
Despite harsh criticisms against their comments on the Adivasi situation, Chandy and Joseph reiterated their theories at several venues. As the controversy raged, Scheduled Tribes Development Minister PK Jayalakshmi, herself an Adivasi, declared support for Joseph and stated that alcoholism among pregnant Adivasi women was a huge problem.
Meanwhile, a report compiled by Kirtads said that it was not alcoholism among pregnant women that had led to the death of new-born babies in Attappadi. Kirtads found that none of the six women who had lost their babies immediately after delivery had been in the habit of drinking liquor.
A team of doctors from the Medical College, Kozhikode, which visited several Adivasi settlements for the Kirtads study, had reported that malnutrition, lack of community health services and social security measures were the reasons for the tragedy.
As many as 56 Adivasi children including new-born babies have died due to malnutrition in Attappadi in the past one and a half years prompting Adivasi organisations to allege that Adivasis are being left to die as part of a programme of genocide. Kerala’s total Adivasi population is less than 3.25 lakh but the successive Governments have so far failed to ensure their well being.
The team of doctors who visited Attappadi for Kirtads reported that 80 per cent of the Adivasi families were not getting proper food and safe drinking water. There was not even a single family that was having meals three times a day, it said. Their report pulled up political leaders saying that their visits were more for public relations purposes than for helping the Adivasis.