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Poverty moving in a cycle

Tulip Chowdhury takes heart from an analytical work
NATURAL calamities are th ere^ bringing havoc to the agricultural sector of Bangladesh in most unexpected ways. In northern Bangladesh, monga marks a period of acute 'near famine' situation. The monga is a famine like situation that recurs in the northern region of the country: According to Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation, monga is a seasonal shortfall that occurs every year in varying degrees of intensity during the Bangla months of Ashwin and Kartik (middle of September to midNovember). The monga is closely associated with various issues such as landlessness, seasonal unemployment and lack of alternative income sources, thus resulting in a lack of purchasing power vis-a-vis daily necessities that often lead to chronic impoverishment and starvation amongst the lower socioeconomic groups of population.
Understanding the Monga in the Northern Bangladesh deals extensively with the realities of monga, its effect on the people and on the overall economy of the country. Monga, the seasonal crisis perpetuating over the years in northern Bangladesh has drawn the attention of economists, social scientists, environmentalists and policy’ makers in past decades and continues to be the subject of debate. The most affected monga people are agricultural labourers, small and marginal farmers with very little agricultural land, landless people who are mostly displaced by the riverbank erosion, women and female headed households. Monga mostly occurs among these people and it brings about extreme poverty, hunger and starvation, malnutrition, diseases, particularly related to malnutrition and often death. The affected people are often forced to take loans at high interest rates, sell household goods or rely on advance labour selling at a very cheap rate. Monga with its vicious cycles is a recurrent feature. The alarming find is that monga has recently taken a serious turn in five northern districts of Bangladesh. It is also aggravated by environmental factors. Natural disasters like flood, riverbank erosion and drought make the areas more vulnerable.
According to NGO reports, 1.46 million people live below the poverty line in the monga prone areas. More than 911,000 thousand people work as agricultural labourers and take one meal a day. About 68 percent of the people are landless In such areas. The book includes further valuable information concerning the monga syndrome in recent years. Explaining the monga issue further, the authors delve into a detailed analysis of the recurrent events which have resulted in long term extreme poverty. There arc detailed studies of rivers in monga prone areas. Some rivers In the northern region have dried up and others are so active that they lead to the possibilities of local floods. The indepth analysis of soil, land, agro-ccology, environmental and natural disasters is a valuable source of information in understanding monga. There are maps and tables explaining
the dynamics of the monga condition, food availability and food security. The chapter Poverty Alleviation and Monga'. indicates some major issues related to the poor in the monga prone areas. In recent years monga has mostly occurred in a particular season. This seasonal joblessness, landholding discrimination and landlessness are the main cause of monga haring bearing on loosing purchasing power of basic necessities farmers or daily wage labourers. The authors are of the opinion that although most parts of the monga region are under various NGO activity network, the hard-hit poor are yet to reap the benefit from their programmes because of institutional as well as operational systems.
In the concluding chapters the book recommends a lessening of dependence on temporary’ relief measures by the government and NGOs. There are also suggestions regarding substantial crop diversification, employment diversification, land reform through the land bank model and regional food stocl^s for facing any emergency situation so that the monga affected people can find alternative options to carry on
with life. Other recommendations have it that monga is a case of 'food security' or 'food insecurity'. However, the present investigation states that food security has holistic implications that are related with the national level strategy of food production, supply and distribution.
The work can be viewed as a valuable source of information and a complete guide to the vicious aspects of monga. It is very informative with maps, tables and data on the various aspects of the monga condition. It very correctly states that the monga syndrome is a "... recurrent issue and therefore a localized one". There is the recommendation that there should be serious and elaborate governmental and non-governmental involvement in minimizing the cruel effects on people inhabiting monga prone areas.
TLillp Chowdhury is a teacher, poet and critic