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ofthisandthat Commentary |
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January 31, 2015
Conflict-Related Displacement: A Huge Development Challenge for India
By Priyanka Borpujari
Source: ipsnews.net
KOKRAJHAR, India, Jan 29 2015 (IPS) - The tarpaulin sheet, when stretched and tied
to bamboo poles, is about the length and breadth of a large SUV. Yet, about 25
women and children have been sleeping beneath these makeshift shelters at several
relief camps across Kokrajhar, a district in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam.
The inhabitants of these camps – about 240,000 of them across three other districts
of Assam – fled from their homes after 81 people were killed in what now seems like a
well-planned attack.
The Asian Centre for Human Rights says the situation is reaching a full-blown
humanitarian crisis, representing one of the largest conflict-related waves of
displacement in India.
It has turned a mirror on India’s inability to meet the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs), and suggests that continued violence across the country will pose a major
challenge to meeting the basic development needs of a massive population.
Appalling conditions
On the evening of Dec. 23, several villages inhabited by the Adivasi community were
allegedly attacked by the armed Songbijit faction of the National Democratic Front of
Bodoland (NDFB), which has been seeking an independent state for the Bodo people
in Assam.
The attacks took place in areas already marked out as Bodoland Territorial Authority
Districts (BTAD), governed by the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC).
But the Adivasi community that resides here comprises several indigenous groups
who came to Assam from central India, back in 150 AD, while hundreds were also
forcibly brought to the state by the British to work in tea gardens.
Clashes between the Adivasi and Bodo communities in 1996 and 1998 – during which
an estimated 100 to 200 people were killed – still bring up nightmares for those who
survived.
It explains why the majority of those displaced and taking shelter in some 118 camps
are unwilling to return to their homes.
But while the tent cities might seem like a safer option in the short term, conditions
here are deplorable, and the government is keen to relocate the temporary refugees
to a more permanent location soon.
The relief camp set up at Serfanguri village in Kokrajhar lacks all basic water and
sanitation facilities deemed necessary for survival. A single tent in such a camp
houses 25 women and children.
“The men sleep in another tent, or stay awake at night in turns, to guard us. It is only
because of the cold that we somehow manage to pull through the night in such a
crowded space,” explains Maino Soren from Ulghutu village, where four houses were
burned to the ground, forcing residents to run for their lives carrying whatever they
could on their backs.
Now, she tells IPS, there is a serious lack of basic necessities like blankets to help
them weather the winter.
Missing MDG targets
In a country that is home to 1.2 billion people, accounting for 17 percent of the world’s
population, recurring violence and subsequent displacement put a huge strain on
limited state resources.
Time after time both the local and the central government find themselves confronted
with refugee populations that point to gaping holes in the country’s development track
record.
Outside their hastily erected tents in Kokrajhar, underweight and visibly
undernourished children trade biscuits for balls of ‘jaggery’ (palm sugar) and rice.
Girls as young as seven years old carry pots of water on their heads from tube wells
to their camps, staggering under the weight of the containers. Others lend a hand to
their mothers washing pots and pans.
The scenes testify to India’s stunted progress towards meeting the MDGs, a set of
poverty eradication targets set by the United Nations, whose timeframe expires this
year.
One of the goals – that India would reduce its portion of underweight children to 26
percent by 2015 – is unlikely to be reached. The most recent available data, gathered
in 2005-2006, found the number of underweight children to be 40 percent of the child
population.
Similarly, while the District Information System on Education (DISE) data shows that
the country has achieved nearly 100 percent primary education for children aged six
to ten years, events like the ones in Assam prevent children from continuing
education, even if they might be enrolled in schools.
According to Anjuman Ara Begum, a social activist who has studied conditions in relief
camps all across the country and contributed to reports by the Internal Displacement
Monitoring Centre (IDMC), “Children from relief camps are allowed to take new
admission into nearby public schools, but there is no provision to feed the extra
mouths during the mid-day meals. So children drop out from schools altogether and
their education is impacted.”
Furthermore, in the Balagaon and Jolaisuri villages, where camps have been set up to
provide relief to Adivasi and Bodo people respectively, there were reports of the
deaths of a few infants upon arrival.
Most people attributed their deaths to the cold, but it was clear upon visiting the
camps that no special nutritional care for lactating mothers and pregnant women was
available.
Bleak forecast for maternal and child health
Such a scenario is not specific to Assam. All over India, violence and conflict seriously
compromise maternal and child health, issues that are high on the agenda of the
MDGs.
In central and eastern India alone, some 22 million women reside in conflict-prone
areas, where access to health facilities is compounded by the presence of armed
groups and security personnel.
This is turn complicates India’s efforts to reduce the maternal mortality ratio from 230
deaths per 100,000 live births to its target of 100 deaths per 100,000 births.
It also means that India is likely to miss the target of lowering the infant mortality rate
(IMR) by 13 points, and the under-five mortality rate by five points by 2015.
According to a recent report by Save the Children, ‘State of the World’s Mothers
2014’, India is one of the worst performers in South Asia, reporting the world’s highest
number of under-five deaths in 2012, and counting some 1.4 million deaths of under-
five children.
Nutrition plays a major role in the mortality rate, a fact that gets thrown into high relief
at times of violence and displacement.
IDPs from the latest wave of conflict in Assam are struggling to make do with the
minimal provisions offered to them by the state.
“While only rice, lentils, cooking oil and salt are provided, there is no provision for
firewood or utensils, and hence the burden of keeping the family alive falls on the
woman,” says Begum, adding that women often face multiple hurdles in situations of
displacement.
With an average of just four small structures with black tarpaulin sheets erected as
toilets in the periphery of relief camps that house hundreds of people, the basic act of
relieving oneself becomes a matter of great concern for the women.
“Men can go anywhere, any time, with just a mug of water. But for us women, it means
that we have to plan ahead when we have to relieve ourselves,” said one woman at a
camp in Lalachor village.
It is a microcosmic reflection of the troubles faced by 636 million people across India
who lack access to toilets, despite numerous commitments on paper to improve the
sanitation situation in the country.
As the international community moves towards an era of sustainable development,
India will need to lay plans for tackling ethnic violence that threatens to destabilize its
hard-won development gains.
Conflict-Related Displacement: A Huge Development Challenge for India
By Priyanka Borpujari
Source: ipsnews.net
KOKRAJHAR, India, Jan 29 2015 (IPS) - The tarpaulin sheet, when stretched and tied
to bamboo poles, is about the length and breadth of a large SUV. Yet, about 25
women and children have been sleeping beneath these makeshift shelters at several
relief camps across Kokrajhar, a district in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam.
The inhabitants of these camps – about 240,000 of them across three other districts
of Assam – fled from their homes after 81 people were killed in what now seems like a
well-planned attack.
The Asian Centre for Human Rights says the situation is reaching a full-blown
humanitarian crisis, representing one of the largest conflict-related waves of
displacement in India.
It has turned a mirror on India’s inability to meet the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs), and suggests that continued violence across the country will pose a major
challenge to meeting the basic development needs of a massive population.
Appalling conditions
On the evening of Dec. 23, several villages inhabited by the Adivasi community were
allegedly attacked by the armed Songbijit faction of the National Democratic Front of
Bodoland (NDFB), which has been seeking an independent state for the Bodo people
in Assam.
The attacks took place in areas already marked out as Bodoland Territorial Authority
Districts (BTAD), governed by the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC).
But the Adivasi community that resides here comprises several indigenous groups
who came to Assam from central India, back in 150 AD, while hundreds were also
forcibly brought to the state by the British to work in tea gardens.
Clashes between the Adivasi and Bodo communities in 1996 and 1998 – during which
an estimated 100 to 200 people were killed – still bring up nightmares for those who
survived.
It explains why the majority of those displaced and taking shelter in some 118 camps
are unwilling to return to their homes.
But while the tent cities might seem like a safer option in the short term, conditions
here are deplorable, and the government is keen to relocate the temporary refugees
to a more permanent location soon.
The relief camp set up at Serfanguri village in Kokrajhar lacks all basic water and
sanitation facilities deemed necessary for survival. A single tent in such a camp
houses 25 women and children.
“The men sleep in another tent, or stay awake at night in turns, to guard us. It is only
because of the cold that we somehow manage to pull through the night in such a
crowded space,” explains Maino Soren from Ulghutu village, where four houses were
burned to the ground, forcing residents to run for their lives carrying whatever they
could on their backs.
Now, she tells IPS, there is a serious lack of basic necessities like blankets to help
them weather the winter.
Missing MDG targets
In a country that is home to 1.2 billion people, accounting for 17 percent of the world’s
population, recurring violence and subsequent displacement put a huge strain on
limited state resources.
Time after time both the local and the central government find themselves confronted
with refugee populations that point to gaping holes in the country’s development track
record.
Outside their hastily erected tents in Kokrajhar, underweight and visibly
undernourished children trade biscuits for balls of ‘jaggery’ (palm sugar) and rice.
Girls as young as seven years old carry pots of water on their heads from tube wells
to their camps, staggering under the weight of the containers. Others lend a hand to
their mothers washing pots and pans.
The scenes testify to India’s stunted progress towards meeting the MDGs, a set of
poverty eradication targets set by the United Nations, whose timeframe expires this
year.
One of the goals – that India would reduce its portion of underweight children to 26
percent by 2015 – is unlikely to be reached. The most recent available data, gathered
in 2005-2006, found the number of underweight children to be 40 percent of the child
population.
Similarly, while the District Information System on Education (DISE) data shows that
the country has achieved nearly 100 percent primary education for children aged six
to ten years, events like the ones in Assam prevent children from continuing
education, even if they might be enrolled in schools.
According to Anjuman Ara Begum, a social activist who has studied conditions in relief
camps all across the country and contributed to reports by the Internal Displacement
Monitoring Centre (IDMC), “Children from relief camps are allowed to take new
admission into nearby public schools, but there is no provision to feed the extra
mouths during the mid-day meals. So children drop out from schools altogether and
their education is impacted.”
Furthermore, in the Balagaon and Jolaisuri villages, where camps have been set up to
provide relief to Adivasi and Bodo people respectively, there were reports of the
deaths of a few infants upon arrival.
Most people attributed their deaths to the cold, but it was clear upon visiting the
camps that no special nutritional care for lactating mothers and pregnant women was
available.
Bleak forecast for maternal and child health
Such a scenario is not specific to Assam. All over India, violence and conflict seriously
compromise maternal and child health, issues that are high on the agenda of the
MDGs.
In central and eastern India alone, some 22 million women reside in conflict-prone
areas, where access to health facilities is compounded by the presence of armed
groups and security personnel.
This is turn complicates India’s efforts to reduce the maternal mortality ratio from 230
deaths per 100,000 live births to its target of 100 deaths per 100,000 births.
It also means that India is likely to miss the target of lowering the infant mortality rate
(IMR) by 13 points, and the under-five mortality rate by five points by 2015.
According to a recent report by Save the Children, ‘State of the World’s Mothers
2014’, India is one of the worst performers in South Asia, reporting the world’s highest
number of under-five deaths in 2012, and counting some 1.4 million deaths of under-
five children.
Nutrition plays a major role in the mortality rate, a fact that gets thrown into high relief
at times of violence and displacement.
IDPs from the latest wave of conflict in Assam are struggling to make do with the
minimal provisions offered to them by the state.
“While only rice, lentils, cooking oil and salt are provided, there is no provision for
firewood or utensils, and hence the burden of keeping the family alive falls on the
woman,” says Begum, adding that women often face multiple hurdles in situations of
displacement.
With an average of just four small structures with black tarpaulin sheets erected as
toilets in the periphery of relief camps that house hundreds of people, the basic act of
relieving oneself becomes a matter of great concern for the women.
“Men can go anywhere, any time, with just a mug of water. But for us women, it means
that we have to plan ahead when we have to relieve ourselves,” said one woman at a
camp in Lalachor village.
It is a microcosmic reflection of the troubles faced by 636 million people across India
who lack access to toilets, despite numerous commitments on paper to improve the
sanitation situation in the country.
As the international community moves towards an era of sustainable development,
India will need to lay plans for tackling ethnic violence that threatens to destabilize its
hard-won development gains.