In her haunting short story Shishu (Little Ones), writer Mahashweta Devi depicts the cruelty of shrunk bodies deformed by acute hunger and...
In her haunting short story Shishu (Little Ones), writer Mahashweta Devi depicts the cruelty of shrunk bodies deformed by acute hunger and starvation in Adivasi hamlets, due to chronic administrative apathy.
Reminiscent of this dystopian parable, the recently released National Family Health Survey 2019-’20, for the first time since the turn of the millennium records that child stunting has worsened in 13 of 22 states.
At least one of every three pre-school children in India is too short for their age. This declining trend in child heights was measured with the gnawing impact of demonetisation and economic slowdown, before the lockdown.
Upper-caste prejudices
After the pandemic, with schools closed and rations running thin, the situation becomes so grave that multiple news reports during the lockdown found children forced to work, sell scrap and survive on very little good.
Instead, children should be consuming nutritious eggs, which even during the lockdown could have easily been home delivered from educational institutions as Andhra Pradesh and Odisha have ably demonstrated. But influenced by conservative vegetarian lobbies, most BJP-ruled states refuse to serve eggs in school and Anganwadi menus.
Worse, only a few BJP-ruled states provide milk or fruits as substitutes. In Uttar Pradesh, last year a video even surfaced of school children being...
