Aruna Roy to Montek: 'You will have an irate population'

On Friday, social activist and member of the National Advisory Council (NAC), Aruna Roy, who is also a member of the Right To Food campaign, addressed a strongly-worded open letter to Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia. The letter demanded his resignation or the withdrawal of the Commission’s controversial affidavit on the poverty line from the Supreme Court. In an exclusive interview to Firstpost, Roy seems to have softened her stance on Montek’s resignation and is simply insisting on an ’explanation’ by the Commission. Excerpts: [caption id=“attachment_97138” align=“alignleft” width=“333” caption=“V Malik via Wikimedia Commons”]  [/caption] What do you make of the Planning Commission’s affidavit on poverty line to the Supreme Court? I think there are too many commitments the government has made for rights in which lots of subsidies will have to be given. Now they are probably worried about it. This is my guess. If you bring down the BPL (below poverty line) so low, you are going to reduce the number of people who are eligible and all the rights-based laws that are being enacted will be infructuous. The real concern is the level of poverty and the lack of access to all resources. If we bring the BPL level down, we are excluding a large chunk of needy Indians and that is the critical issue. What are you demanding now? Are you still insisting on Montek Singh Ahluwalia’s resignation? This open letter is a statement made by the Right to Food Campaign. There are about 50 signatures, of which mine is one. It is a collective position and we are asking for an explanation. If there is an explanation, why should Mr Ahluwalia resign? We want a discussion on it. Let’s not get into personalities. The level should be revised and it should be  rationally done with proper participatory discussions with people who are working on it, like professor Jean Dreze, Biraj Patnaik, Harsh Mander, Kavita Srivastav, and many others who are working on nutritional levels. These people should be called to the table and it should be discussed. Mr Ahluwalia has said that the definition of the poverty line will not affect food subsidies. Your comment. How can that not be affected? The indicators they are taking are the BPL indicators. Why should the Planning Commission, the ministries, be so interested in the BPL categorisation today? It is because it is the bottomline for excluding or including people. That is why there is so much interest. It is really atrocious that in our country, with the kind of price hikes, you expect people to live on this small amount of money. What is the Right to Food campaign’s suggestion on how poverty lines should be arrived at? It needs to be looked at and discussed with people who are actually poor. You need to do this exercise in different parts of India and with different sets of poor people and people who are marginalised. Nowadays, even well-qualified people are working in MGNREGA after completing their BAs and MAs. You are pushing people into contract work. You are not guaranteeing employment. You are not guaranteeing food. And then you are bringing down everything lower and lower. You are going to have a very irate population on your hands. So what you really need to do is talk to people and understand their conditions. And talk to people like the Right to Food secretariat. Will you bring this up at the NAC? The NAC hasn’t met for two months. If and when it meets, yes.