annual report print final.qxd - Asian Centre for Human Rights

INDIA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2005 West Bengal
Mrinal Roy behind the attack. 49
VII. Duars to Amlasole: Faces of
poverty in West Bengal
While the Left Front government
boasts that during its 27-year rule, it could
lift 33 per cent people above the poverty
line from 60 per cent in 1977 to 27 percent
in 2000, 50 obviously the programmes failed
to touch the people who needed it most -
the Adivasis, indigenous peoples. Whether
it is in Amlasole or Duars of North Bengal,
the victims are indigenous peoples who
are in the lowest ladder of the social and
economic set-up.
i. Starvation deaths in Amlasole
It was not until the reports of starvation
deaths of Adivasis in Amlasole captured the
headlines in national dailies that Chief
Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee
admitted in the state Assembly on 8 July
2004 that starvation and poverty existed in
tribal-dominated pockets of Amlasole in
West Midnapore district. The State
government however consistently denied
the starvation deaths in the tea plantations
in Duars of North Bengal.
Amlasole under Belpahari bloc of
West Midnapore inhabited by Adivasis had
only one well supplying drinking water.
There is no motorable road. The nearest
hospital is 40 kilometers away. Among the
tribals, the Munda families owned some
land, though without any irrigation
facility. The plight of the Sabars was the
worst. Their only source of income was by
selling kendu leaves and making beedis. 51
After the government banned individual
sale and formed various co-operative
organisations of tribals to collect kendu
leaves and sell them in the market,
situation of many poor families became
miserable. 52
The deaths of six children- all between
one and four years of age- that made the
news headlines, have a similar story.
In absence of any government doctor
or health centre, Indra Singh took her 4year-old
ailing daughter, Deepali Singh, to
Tudu Mura, a quack in Amlasole, who
recommended some “jungle plant juice”. It
did not work. A few days after Deepali
began showing symptoms of jaundice. Her
father then took her to another quack at
Ghatshila in Jharkhand, 22 km away from
Kankrajhore, by hiring the only jeep of the
village for Rs 600. The quack treated
Deepali for Rs 350 and recommended that
she be brought back home. Deepali died
on 26 May 2004. 53
One Mahenti Mura, brother of
Banamali Mura, the CPM Panchayat
Pradhan of Kankrajhore village, lost his
three-year-old daughter Lakshmi. She had
fever and showed symptoms of jaundice.
Like others, Mahenti too took his daughter
to a quack in Silda, about 40 km from
Kankrajhore, and on the way back got her
blood sample tested at the Belpahari
government primary health centre. Though
the blood test showed nothing wrong, the
sickness continued forcing the family to
then go to a “registered medical
practitioner” at Ghotidoba, 10 km away in
Jharkhand. Within the next couple of days,
271