Ration rage

West Bengal’s riots were provoked by corruption in the public distribution system

It is almost a month now since the ‘ration riots’ started in West Bengal. The riots started with three incidents on September 16 in Bankura, one of the poorest districts.

There are reports every day of mobs of enraged villagers attacking and looting ration shop owners.

What is remarkable so far about the attacks is that they seem to be spontaneous. Very surprisingly for West Bengal, where party affiliations are almost as strongly inbuilt as caste identities, political party flags and the leadership of any one party have been absent in these incidents.

What lies behind this spontaneous outburst? First and foremost, the persistence of hunger in spite of three decades of Left rule.

A recently published NSSO study shows that “the percentage of rural households ‘not having enough food everyday in some months’ was the highest in West Bengal (10.6 per cent)”.

Reports of starvation deaths have come from Belpahari block of Paschim Midnapore and Baghmundi, Puncha and Balarampur blocks in Purulia, areas in Murshidabad where river erosion has taken away people’s land and livelihoods, and from Singur where a man-made disaster in the form of a Tata Motors factory has forcibly taken away people’s land.

Coupled with this has been a huge rise in the price of food grains this year in rural Bengal.

The increased prices have had a dual effect: while the poor consumer needs the rationing system more than usual for relief from high market prices, the incentive for corrupt ration dealers to sell food grains in the open market has increased.

The tussle between the ration dealers and the people has therefore been at its peak.

Two other factors have also played a role. The ration riots have been preceded by struggles all over West Bengal against the forced acquisition of land.

These struggles were able to stop the state government in its track and have led the people to believe that they can actually question a hegemonistic party that had hitherto held sole sway over the lives of the poor.

Secondly, people are fed up of complaints that go unheard. For example, in September 2003, after local complaints yielded no results, PBKMS, a union of agricultural workers, complained about seven dealers in Datan block of Paschim Midnapore.

The papers submitted to the government found their way to the dealers, leading to identification and intimidation of the complainants by the dealers and party leaders.

The concerned district officials arrived at ten at night without informing the complainants to conduct their ‘enquiry’. They received Rs10,000 to 20,000 from each dealer.

The enquiry was over. Experiences such as the above are not an exception, but the rule.
The nexus between ration dealers, Panchayat representatives, party leaders and the bureaucracy is very clear to people, so they have decided to take the law into their own hands.

The reaction of the Left Front has been very predictable: it has blamed the Centre for all its ills! A few days ago, the state government, in an advertisement declared that the central government had reduced monthly allocations for above poverty line (APL) cards from 2.28 lakhs metric tonnes in June 2006 to only 7,700 metric tonnes in April 2007.

What has been concealed however is that West Bengal has been extremely lackadaisical about lifting the grains that were allotted to it.

A CAG report in 2006 shows that during 2001-2006, “off take of food grains by APL category varied from 2 to 40 per cent in case of rice and six to 51 per cent in case of wheat… while the off take of food grains for below poverty line category ranged from 53 to 69 per cent. … Such short-lifting of food grains frustrated the objectives of food security to the poor people.”

The second reaction of the Left Front has been to treat the problem as a law and order issue. Police has been sent in to protect corrupt ration dealers in many places.

What the administration has however failed to do is to institute criminal cases against ration dealers, though it has the clear power to do so under the PDS Control Order 2001 and the Essential Commodities Act, 1951.

The anger of the people must be respected. The system must be improved. A ration dealer, according to their association, earns Rs562 per month if he runs the shop honestly.

Commissions therefore need to be increased. However, the West Bengal government must also learn from states like Chhattisgarh, where corrupt dealers have been replaced by SHGs, Panchayats and cooperatives that are accountable to the community.

The writer is an advisor to the Commission appointed by the Supreme Court to look into the functioning of the PDS.