Burning Food: Kerala Consumerfed's New Fuel?
By Annapoorna Karthika
12 October, 2013
Countercurrents.org
The scourge of debauched scandals in the recent past has plagued the deteriorating standards of ethics and probity in Government of Kerala like never before granting exception to the days under the reign of Emergency in India. Putrefying revelations demonstrating want of proclivity evincing those standards along with propriety in the government and public sector institutions illustrate the profanation of the state’s relatively robust governance order of the past.
The latest vestige marking yet another imprint on the ethical quagmire beleaguering the state institutions of Kerala has been the unexpected raids conducted in the outlets and warehouses of Kerala State Co-operative Consumers’ Federation Ltd (Consumerfed) by Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB). Consumerfed was established to function as an agent to procure, store, transport and supply consumer goods in the public interest. In the passing years, it has expanded to serve rural areas at the lower prices. Undoubtedly, Consumerfed has rightfully deserved the credit for controlling obscure fluctuations in market prices and initiating wide-ranging programmes to produce and distribute items ranging from stationary articles to medicines and food produce. Nevertheless, at the moment, the credibility of Consumerfed has certainly stumbled upon a conundrum. For instance as one of the Malayalam news channel telecasts, the events organized to inaugurate Consumerfed units across the state between 2008 and 2010, according to information revealed under Right to Information Act, 2005, have proved to be excessively daunting on the stifling public exchequer of Kerala with an expense approximating Rs. 1 crore.
The linear portrayal of these raids as those spun from the typical narrative of escalating corruption in government entwined in the polarized state organs swayed by political splinters and factions cannot be swiftly justified. The broadcasting of video footages in the mainstream media of burnt and rotten perishable food items in the warehouses of Consumerfed is not the regularly argued apocryphal cases of corruption to satisfy political vendettas, instead they atypically reflect on the plausible intransigent moral and ethical vacuousness seeping into the operation and purpose of this co-operative establishment.
The fluidity of Indian polity to a certain degree is ensconced in the incredulously altering presumptions of innocence. Therefore, an argument for or against the mediocrity of a potential corruption scandal within Consumerfed and the ensuing allegation of conspiracy is futile to the intent of this exposition. This write-up solely mirrors my modest effort not to be, in the immaculately articulated phrase of The Hindu’s rural correspondent P. Sainath, one of Nero’s guests. The decisive account of Roman Emperor Nero’s grand evening garden party recorded by Roman historian Tacitus describes the spectacle of the illumination exhibited from the flames of men who were burnt at stake. While Tacitus despised the emperor, Sainath turns his attention toward the conscience of those eminent and illustrious guests who encountered the sight in unapologetic silence. Feigning ignorance to the televised clippings of callously destroyed food in the backdrop of a corollary sketched from the reports on hunger and malnutrition in Kerala in the summer of 2013 inevitably implies that the impudent denial of those at the helm of Consumerfed in acknowledging this sickening brutality does not amount to anything short of crime against humanity.
Indubitably, Consumerfed does not hold direct responsibility to serve the cause of ameliorating the state from the clutches of hunger. Even so, the claim for apex body’s conscientiousness toward the reality of times and acuity of their decisions to ensure that the poor are able to purchase essential commodities of optimal quality at lowest possible price cannot be labelled as a farcical attempt to enforce accountability, especially when state government remains the prime stakeholder in this co-operative endeavour. The insensitivity at burning food produce and leaving them to rot in the godowns reflects the impasse proving to impede a multi-sectoral approach that programmes to eradicate starvation demands, particularly after India being ranked under the alarming category by International Food Policy Research Institute in its global hunger index.
The acrimonious indifference of Consumerfed authorities at dismissing the squandering of food produce, which included onions that are sold at colossal market prices across the country, as a regular activity of disposing of consumer goods of despicable quality refused by consumers in the Consumerfed’s shops should be accounted for human rights violations. I am sceptical if my indignation at this gross insensitivity accompanying the indomitable corruption ever recorded in the history of Kerala’s co-operative sector would have an ear in the state government. It is also doubtful if there would be an investigation at all into allegations questioning the choice of the apex body to procure low quality consumer goods at higher prices. With a colossally tarnished reputation, the government’s image is one that fiercely protects schemers, plunderers, criminals and morally inane political class. Even if the government orders for an investigation on charges of corruption, justice to the cause for which this apex body was established won’t be done until assessment of the damages violative of fundamental human rights is examined.
(Views expressed are absolutely personal)
Annapoorna Karthika is a fledgling idealist, aspiring writer and humour and human-rights enthusiast with a career as a pragmatic Research Associate with Public Interest Foundation, New Delhi.
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