February 17 began on a quiet note in Mukera village.
By evening, however, the village had witnessed an unusual episode, which showed the alarming levels of food distress building up in the region of Bundelkhand in Uttar Pradesh.
The region is in the grip of severe drought after two years of failed monsoon. In Lalitpur district, sahariya adivasis have taken to eating rotis made of the seeds of wild growing grass. Banda district, where Mukera is located, has seen a spate of farmer suicides.
Economist Jean Dreze connected the food crisis in Bundelkhand with Uttar Pradesh’s failure to implement the National Food Security Act in good time. The law sought to widen the reach of the public distribution system which provides subsidised foodgrains to the poor.
The United Progressive Alliance government passed the law in August 2013 and states were given a year to implement it. But Uttar Pradesh failed to implement the law through 2014 and 2015. "Had NFSA been operational in Bundelkhand, more than 80% of the rural population would be covered under an improved Public Distribution System," wrote Dreze in a piece in The Times of India.
Finally, in January 2016, Uttar Pradesh began to implement the law, starting with 24 districts, including the eight districts of Bundelkhand.
Pilferage and protest
In Mukera village, home to about 4000 people, just 122 families were eligible for subsidised grain under the old system. After the implementation of National Food Security Act began, another 308 families received a sheet of paper with a blue-coloured stamp, which said they were eligible for food rations for three months under the Act.
In January, however, the families did not get any rations.
In mid-February, sacks of grains arrived in the village ration shop. But when people turned up to pick up their share on February 17, they were told they would get just 4 kilos of grains per person. Under the law, eligible families are given 5 kilos of foodgrains per person.
Villagers connected the reduced rations to the trucks they had seen leave the village the evening before in the direction of Madhya Pradesh. They suspected the ration dealer, Bharat Tiwari, had sold a part of the rations meant for them.
Around noon, heated arguments broke out between villagers and Tiwari. Earlier as well, villagers had suspected he was diverting their food rations and had complained to the district food and civil supplies department. The complaints had gone unheard.
On February 17, they decided to block the Banda-Khajuraho highway to protest.
The ration dealer informed the sub-divisional magistrate Pushpraj Singh, and director of supplies Mohammad Yakub. A police team rushed to the spot. After they were assured of an investigation, the villagers lifted the highway blockade around 2 pm.
Looting of the shop
Everything was fine for the next few hours. But the situation turned tense in the evening. Around 6 pm, crowds attacked the ration shop and distributed the sacks of grains amongst themselves.
Describing the attack, Tiwari said, "When it grew dark, people came and entered the godown forcibly. The supply inspector was inside the shop with me. Both of us left. People started to take away the sacks. This continued till 1 am. After this, the gram pradhan put a lock on the godown. At least 35 sacks of grain were taken away in the presence of inspector sahib.”
Tiwari filed a complaint against 50 people. But the police did not file a First Information Report.
When the Hindi newspaper Amar Ujala reported the incident of ration shop loot on February 19, the administration stepped in to deny it.
The sub-divisional magistrate Pushpraj Singh said: “On February 17, it came to my knowledge that there is a road blockade in Mukera village. I went to the spot with the supply inspector. The police was already there. The people were saying the ration shopkeeper had sold the grain. We promised a probe and opened the blockade."
Singh said villagers informed him that the food stocks in the ration shop were running thin. "The shop should have had 210 sacks of grain, but we found only 124 sacks, of which 86 were not in good condition," he said. "We cancelled the licence of the ration shopkeeper and are going to file an FIR [first information report] against him.”
Warning bell
In election year, the administration would prefer sticking to the more commonplace story of ghotala, or pilferage, as opposed to the extraordinary event of a ration shop getting looted.
Activists, however, said the incident should be seen as a warning bell. “Traditionally farmers maintain stocks of grain at home that can last their families upto a year," said activist Raja Bhaiya. "But this year the grain is likely to run out in April. After this, the situation could turn dangerous."
He said that grain was not available in the local mandis even at high prices of Rs 2100 per quintal. With the harvest season approaching, prices should fall, but they haven't. "The anaj mandi is an indicator of how bad the coming months are going to be," he said.
Even though Uttar Pradesh has started implementing the National Food Security Act, the Mukera episode shows the old problem of pilferage of foodgrains from the public distribution system is yet to fixed. An alternative view is that as more people became eligible for food rations in the village after NFSA became operational, they stood up to protest, first by blocking the highway, then by looting the shop.
"Subsidised grain has become a matter of life or death for people," explained Raja Bhaiya. "If the government is not able to fix the public distribution system in time, it will become impossible to stop violent incidents."