Extreme poverty-free declaration a pre-poll stunt, claims Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha

Functionaries of the Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha have alleged that the State government is trying to mislead people by declaring Kerala extreme poverty-free at an event scheduled on November 1.

A release quoting K.R. Reshma and M. Geethanandan, functionaries of the Mahasabha and the Wayanad-based Adishakthi Summer School, alleged on Tuesday that showcasing actors Mammootty, Mohanlal, and Kamal Haasan at the event was an attempt to get public support ahead of the elections to the local bodies and the Assembly. They said that only 5% of the 64,000 families, identified to have been suffering from extreme poverty in the State, belonged to the Scheduled Tribes. The rest were Dalits and other communities.

Mr. Geethanandan and Ms. Reshma said that a large majority of the families belonging to Paniya, Adiya, Kattunaikkar and Vettakuruma communities in Wayanad were landless, homeless and unemployed. Hundreds of such families were staying on river banks, ‘poramboke’ land, and forest fringes in leaking huts. There are many suffering from sickle cell anaemia among them. A study conducted among Paniya and Kurichya communities in 2020 had found that 59% of their children were underweight and 52.3% had stunted growth. Another study in 2022 revealed that 54.8% of children aged below five among tribespeople in Wayanad were suffering from malnutrition.

They pointed out that shrinking agrarian jobs, especially for women, had led to malnutrition and poverty. Mechanisation led to the loss of jobs for harvesting and transplantation. Many other jobs went to migrant labourers. Very few people are getting jobs under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Educated people were finding it difficult to get jobs. The situation in Attappady in Palakkad, where infant deaths are rampant, is somewhat similar.

A study by the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Nutrition found that 48% of kids there were underweight and 40% had stunted growth, and 91% of kids, 96% teenage girls, and 80% pregnant women were anaemic. Among them, 10% were landless, the Mahasabha functionaries said. There were a large number of poor people among Dalits, fishers, and plantation labourers, they added.