New Delhi: Despite policies for social inclusiveness and equality, those belonging to the upper castes are still at the top of the social order and the Dalits are at the bottom of the heap. With disparity and discrimination affecting their right to food, many Dalit families are facing starvation in India.

During a study on the ‘Discrimination in Food Security Programme’ conducted by University Grants Commission (UGC) chairman Sukhdeo Thorat and Joel Lee of Columbia University (US), it has been found that discrimination in quantity, quality, price, favouritism and untouchability is rampant across the country. The results are startling enough to make the government re-orient its food security programmes.

With casteism heavily dominating the Public Distribution System (PDS), Dalits are not only denied access to food but are also made to pay more money for less quantity and are charged higher prices. Of the total 521 villages surveyed in five states - Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh - almost 40 per cent reported that Dalits were found to be receiving less quantities for the same price as compared to the upper caste.

This trend is highest in Bihar (70 per cent), followed by Uttar Pradesh (56 per cent), cent), Tamil Nadu (29 per cent) and Rajasthan (16 per cent). The trend is the lowest in Andhra Pradesh (9 per cent).

Despite being banned since 1950, untouchability continues even today, not only as social neurosis but also as an unofficial policy of various government actors. At least 26 per cent of PDS dealers in India practise this in the distribution of goods to Dalits.

The common practice is to drop food and money from above to the cupped hands of the Dalits to avoid touching them. In some villages in Patna district, PDS dealers even hang a separating curtain in the shop window before having any dealings with the members of the Musahar - a Dalit community.

The Central Government washes away its responsibility by passing the buck to the states. “Management in the field is the state’s responsibility. We in the Centre have a policy for social inclusiveness but practising in field is in state’s hands,” said an official from the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.

The striking feature of the survey is the preponderance of the dominant caste PDS dealers and the paucity of Dalit dealers. Here too, Andhra stands out as the only state in which Dalits has attained a degree of participatory empowerment with 32 per cent ownership of PDS shops, the rest seven per cent and 61 per cent being owned by the STs and the dominant castes respectively. The national average stands at 81 per cent for dominant caste and 19 per cent for SCs and STs combined.

“One solution can be transferring power in the hands of Dalits by way of helping them start their own PDS shops. The government should offer them incentives to start their own shops. Such shops should be in Dalit areas. Exemplary punishment should be given to those practising untouchability,” says Udit Raj, a Dalit intellectual.

(Source: DNA, 3 November 2007)