The rapid growth of advocacy training in the last decade has generated a wide variety of definitions, approaches and strategies. Diverse advocacy approaches are not just different ways of reaching a similar end. They embody different values, political views and goals, and thus seek different ends. The distinctions have important implications for excluded groups such as women, indigenous communities and ethnic minorities. Advocacy initiatives concerned with empowerment, citizenship, and participation appear different from those that only focus on policy reform
[VeneKlasen and Miller 2002]
One of the indicators of the identity of the Madhya Pradesh has been the high level of child malnourishment. In the development sector an idiom has become prevalent that Madhya Pradesh is a BIMARU state. This idiom has been continuously making the state government and the active groups in development sector restless. This is the reason that the government has been undertaking large development projects to end poverty and serious situations of starvation. It was thought that the construction of roads, establishment of industries and digging many water ponds would lead to development. Perhaps development took place on these parameters but despite laying of 17 thousand kilometers long roads, 1.70 lakh water structures and receipt of 50 thousand crores rupees worth of investment proposals no significant change could happen in the situation of food insecurity in the state. The reason for this is becoming evident that half of the state's population is leading a life with such substandard nutrition that it appears a deceit to accept their much productive participation in this process of development. Basic fact is that the starving people are not in a position to bear the real burden of the development of the state or society.
The situation of malnutrition has been such that though more than 50% children remained malnourished, the Integrated Child Development Services faced deprivation at all steps at all times. Here there has been merely 50 thousand Anganwadis against the needed 1.26 lakh and the management of existing Anganwadis supposed to be a center for poor and deprived children has been with total neglect. State government was providing just one-forth of the required budget for managing this service. The matter was not limited to this. Madhya Pradesh has remained in front in the list of states for infant mortality rate (79/per thousand) and the child mortality rates but still then the question of nutrition never became the headline of the mainline media. When the struggle for Right to Food began in Madhya Pradesh in 2001, the initial analyses clearly showed the greatest problem of food and nutrition insecurity confronted the children. The crisis could not be viewed generally; the malnutrition in fact was playing a crucial role at ending children's lives. The children had lost the immunity to fight common infections and diseases like diahorrea and cold. The sad part of this analysis is that the media was not playing any role in debate over right to nutrition. The group working on public issues in Madhya Pradesh held that the arsenal of media would prove useful at changing the indifferent attitude of the state and so it was decided that a dialogue be established with media.
Starvation Deaths is always a political issue that government realizes but never accepts. This is the reason that the issue of deaths due to malnutrition or hunger is strangulated in the net of debates and discussions and no significant change appears in the system. This principle was in vogue in politics that death due to malnutrition never occurs among children. The government had taught this principle to media and to change the same was the prime challenge of the media advocacy. They were never oriented to the real definition. We believe that establishing proactive dialogue is more essential than publishing the news of an event. During 2001-2002 altogether 2 articles and 270 news items appeared on the ICDS issue in MP; most of which were promotional items meaning the media had no strong base for policy amends and political analysis. Then Vikas Samvad, an Actionaid supported initiative, along with the grassroot civil society organizations began a process of need–based education and training of local media persons. In this process the discussions were initiated not on the allegations of malnutrition but on its scientific and social aspects. Instead of targeting media as a broad structure the dialogue was initiated with the identified journalists sensitive to the social issues. Working as a worker organization of Right to food we felt it more important to prepare information packs having analysis of ICDS and malnutrition than issuing political statements so that it may fulfill their information needs along with influencing them. Media has its own information needs; they need information that may be made into news items. All the information needs to be authentic, valid and legitimate; after all it’s a matter of trustworthiness. Often the issues of starvation or malnutrition are made controversial on which allegations and counter allegations ensue but a healthy debate never happens. In this situation the media has analyzed their role among peoples' representatives and legislature. During 2004 and 2005 the study oft–occurred in media on the number of questions raised in Parliament on the issues related to women and children. After this even the peoples' representatives themselves began to assign importance to these issues of voluntary groups. In fact the media played a crucial role at not only making the voice loud but powerful.
In 2004 a study report on the serious problem of malnutrition among Sahariya tribal community children in Shivpuri district was issued strategically. After that a detailed analysis was done on the death due to malnutrition of 13 children in Patalgarh village of near by Sahariya dominated district Sheopur. Following similar cases in Ganjbasoda tehsil of Vidisha district in April- May 2005, Vikas Samvad and Right to Food Campaign Madhya Pradesh Support Group initiated a planned process. At the onset the representatives of five voluntary organizations under the Right to Food Campaign did fact-finding and compiled a detailed report. Then there was an option that this group could organize a Press Conference at Bhopal (capital of MP) and made public the report but it was not done so. Vikas Samvad instead discussed this report with a state and nationally reputed newspaper. Since the matter was serious and could cause problems for the state government the newspaper took a week to think over it. After a week’s proactive efforts of Mr. Om Prakash Singh, then Resident Editor of the newspaper, it was decided that Dainik Jagran (one of the biggest Hindi Newspaper of India) will publish the Ganjbasoda incident but will also publish in a sequence the cases of malnutrition and ICDS in other parts of the state and Vikas Samvad will have to do the preparations as well. Thereafter Dainik Jagran began to publish materials on nutrition crisis and the role of government with a subtitle "Jagran Abhiyan (Jagran Campaign)". A freelance Journalist Arti Pandey, who was also a part of the fact-finding group, wrote a series of news analysis, which ultimately published on the front page of the newspaper. This campaign had not only the information on children's malnutrition and death but budget analysis and the outline of scheme as well. The published material had news but articles, editorials and news analyses as well. The entire case was forwarded to Hon. Supreme Court with report of the independent investigation team and the affidavits of the affected persons, and the Court acting hastily summoned the State Government. As a result Vidisha Collector provided false information o the Supreme Court that too became the Headlines. Till date the Administration's trend of denial continued. In the same process a Hindustan Times correspondent, Shravani Sarkar appeared on the spaces of importance in the publication with number of byline stories on Infant Mortality and Maternal Health issues and policy analysis. It is a worth mentioning fact that civil society organizations like Actionaid India and The Hunger Project continue to search effective strategies, through Vikas Samvad, to work with the mainstream media through fellowships and media dialogues. When, at the end of the initial phase, State Government accepted the malnutrition deaths, Dainik Jagran took the ownership of the issue and published State’s action with a sub-title – ‘Jagran Jeet’ (Jagran’s Victory). Ultimately civil society organization should have the clear-cut understanding that the concept of media advocacy doesn’t reflect the sense of Publicity (of the organization). Media has always been a part of the various social struggles and movements and as Jannifer Chapmen says ‘Rights are not bestowed from on high. They are part of a never-ending human struggle to improve people’s lives drawing on both visions of a better future and a desire to prevent reoccurrences of past atrocities and abuse. As such rights have been articulated, defined and put into law by the collective efforts and struggles of many people over many years, and will continue to evolve (or be lost) as time goes on. One key success of these struggles is the wide recognition that the actual concept of ‘rights’ applies to all people in all places at all times. Yet, as with any right, this concept in itself needs protecting and strengthening as it is challenged by ideologies such as patriarchy, racism, neo-liberalism and fascism.’
While on one hand the dialogue continued with the Supreme Court Commissioners, the media carried on news and articles the people's representatives facilitated a debate in the Legislative Assembly. Widespread reactions were recorded. By now Legislature, Judiciary and Media has clarified their stands.
By now the issue has become a mainstream issue and its roar was heard till Government of India level. During this time the Government of India in August 2005 declared 6 villages of Ganjbasoda as special effected area with regard to malnutrition. Pressed on all sides the Commissioner of Women & Child Development Department, Government of Madhya Pradesh visited these villages and in a Press Conference at Vidisha, the District headquarters accepted that the situation of malnutrition is serious and the incidents of deaths cannot be denied. Now in those six villages the Jhoolaghars (crèches) will be started where the children will receive nutritional supplements, hygiene and health facilities.
Next phase of our struggle began here that what can be gained by declaring only six villages as specially affected when the situation is more or less similar across the state with every second child is malnourished. So in this context a Press Conference was organized at Bhopal on 18th August 2005 wherein the partners of right to food secretariat and the other friends working elsewhere also present. In this Press conference not only the grave situation of malnutrition was presented but the fungused Dalia that was distributed in the Khalwa block of Khandwa district was also displayed.
A report on the present situation in the state and the efforts being taken was compiled for this Press conference. After the Conference the Media admonished the government through news and situational report articles. After being apprised on situation in the Conference "Aaj Tak" News channel visited the villages with Campaign partners and highlighted the news in their telecast.
When one newspaper was raising this issue with all seriousness the other media groups were forced to involve in the debate on this issue. As the issue of malnutrition appeared continuously in the press the ongoing Legislative Assembly session could not ignore it and an extensive debate took place on the news related to Ganjbasoda issue. The question was not limited to the indifference of the media, in fact for many of the social organizations not considering it to be an important issue the media became a school of learning for them. This was the time when Women & Child Development Department became a primary department of the government and for the first time the department tried to view the issue of malnutrition beyond the government perspective and began to pay attention to aspects of monitoring and evaluation along with increasing the budget. During 2004 to 2006 most (seven) projects and schemes related to women and child health and nutrition were implemented. The Commissioner W&CD due to the media alertness accepted for first time those deaths due to malnutrition have occurred. It was this time that Star News through telecasting an investigative report on serious situation of infant mortality rate gave a national importance to the issue.
Once again serious cases of malnutrition recurred in Patalgarh (Sheopur). Now the media highlighted the accountability and responsibility of the state because despite death due to malnutrition of 13 children and the Supreme Court Commissioners' directives the ICDS status there had not improved and resulted in more cases of deaths of children. Now the question posed was -why the government is not accountable? Here the experience of association with media appeared in a new fashion. The Patalgarh report (2006) was first shared with the local media but no one gave it a space. When NDTV raised this issue the national English dailies like Hindustan Times, The Hindu, The Statesman, and Pioneer were associated by this report. When local dailies realized that the issue ahs become prominent they were forced to pick up the same. It has been experienced that whenever information in a proper format reaches, Tehelka all the time covers it with high intensity. Though it might have been their commercial compulsion. In Madhya Pradesh whenever the micro cases of deaths due to malnutrition were raised the care was taken to refer to the facts related to the broader issues, budget and structures. Whenever the policy issues were raised the situation of villages like Patalgarh and Sahaba were referred to prove that the issue is not mere principle. Today the groups in Madhya Pradesh do not have to debate with media over whether the deaths occur due to malnutrition and whenever government does any effort it goes media analysis.
After this effort hardly a day has passed when the issues of food insecurity, nutrition-malnutrition or government policies related to children has not occurred in media. It is not important that the number of published items totals more than 2771 but more important is the fact that now media does not merely highlights the figures but analyses the same on a regular basis. It is a worth mentioning fact that now most of the regional and district bureaus of the daily newspapers have identified the issues on nutrition as issue for routine coverage. In Madhya Pradesh we have the media in support of government and the media influenced by the different political ideologies. In this scenario the experience reveals that the debate over the issue needs to be made so strong and broad based that media on any side cannot ignore it. In this entire process we only attempted that what it means when out of every 1000 live births 79 infants succumb to death? If during 2005-06, 17 lakh children were born in the state then it means that 1.32 lakh children below one year did not live and 2.40 lakh children witness at the most five birthdays. Then we ask the question: is not the situation grim?
To carry on the process of media dialogue the reliable sources to get the information, data and facts were identified. Usually the voluntary agencies generate their own facts but in case of ICDS and children's food security the Madhya Pradesh group relied on government and authorized agency sources. The microanalysis was done of the websites of MP government's Women & Child Development, Health, Education and Finance Departments. Learning was had from the evaluation and annual reports of these departments. Importantly, the figures and performance analysis in annual report of Comptroller & Auditor General, reports of the Parliamentary Committee, minutes of the National Advisory Council meetings and reports of the various bilateral agencies continued to authenticate the process of advocacy. Presently it is also true that the voluntary agencies working on the Right to Food issue in the state have undertaken successful efforts at revealing the real situation through extensive field level studies. These were the sources that always existed but were hidden from the media. Right to Information has been an important source to collect information for media. In the advent of consumerism the priorities of media have changed but the social responsibilities have not. Media advocates are trying to utilize whatever is available.
Sachin Kumar Jain |
