Anthropological Perspectives on Mid-Day Meal Scheme in Delhi Slums

Anthropology lays its emphasis on the role of culture and of the social context in the delivery of welfare schemes and social services. Social welfare and development schemes are largely meant for socially excluded communities and their success is largely influenced by the socio-cultural and anthropological perspectives embedded.

The role of anthropology becomes even more important when there is an effort to study the impact of welfare schemes 'complex societies' with the highly heterogeneous and cross-cultural population. In particular, the discipline's 'comparative method' or cross-cultural approach offers a perspective of potential value to the present study which is based on the Mid-Day Meal Scheme and its role on the universalization of primary education and social inclusion of slums.

Slums constitute urban peripheral households where inhabitants live in extremely poor conditions, lacking more than three basic shelter needs. Generally, the lack of sanitation and water in slums is compounded by insufficient living space for families and inadequate, makeshift housing. Most slums are in some sense pluralistic.

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They may contain social classes, distinctive ethnic groups, regional sub-cultures, racial groups and often distinctive religious entities. In addition, there is differential allocation and distribution of resources and power, the conditions of discrimination, social exclusion and inequality.

The present anthropological study has enabled the investigator to see the world as the members of a particular society view it; second, their world must be viewed 'holistically' or within a larger cultural context. The comparative method is an attempt to describe and account for both uniformity and diversity in the perception of two distinct slums of Delhi namely Nizamuddin Basti and Madanpur Khadar towards benefits and repercussions of Mid-Day Meal Scheme.

Convinced of the value of anthropological insights, anthropological studies on welfare schemes such as Mid-Day Meal Scheme shall give recognition of grounds for discussion, planning, research, and action. Applied to policy framework, program design on primary education, anthropological perspectives can uncover barriers to social justice that are embedded in current societies and offer alternative ways of understanding societies, their social and cultural knowledge, and their actual needs and issues.

Education is a necessary condition for the socio-economic development of any country. The economic growth of the country is characterized by its superiority of human capital. The growth of human capital depends upon the quality and the quantity of education. Education can transcend human being from ignorance, social backwardness, and underdevelopment to economic growth and social development and leap towards becoming a better and well off society. Quality education is the most crucial and strong tool in the amelioration of impoverished, excluded and underprivileged population. These multifarious advantages of education for the development of the humankind and society have paved the way for universalization of education as a necessary condition. This concept of universalization signifies that education is for all and not for a selected few. This also means that education is the birth-right of every child and should promote inclusiveness.

Post-independence, the Eleventh Plan specially placed the highest priority on education as a central instrument to achieve rapid and inclusive growth. It had a comprehensive strategy for strengthening the education sector covering all segments of the education pyramid. Primary education, that consists of children in the age group of 6-14 years studying in primary classes I–V and upper primary classes VI-VIII is the foundation of the pyramid in the education system and received a major push in the Tenth Plan through the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). Further, the United Nations (2000) in the declaration of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) also emphasized upon primary education where the second goal was ‘Universalization of Primary Education’.

This was well accepted by all 191 country members of the United Nations at that time. Today, India has the distinction of having one of the largest primary education systems in the world second to China with more than 15 crore children enrolled and having more than 30 lakh teachers (British Council, 2014). Despite it, educational progress has been hampered by low enrolment, poor attendance, and low transition rate and high school dropout rates. Studies have revealed that childhood undernutrition and poor health are two of the greatest barriers directly affecting education.

India’s Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDMS), which was conceived to address the problems of classroom hunger, poor enrolment, and attendance, became world’s largest feeding programme reaching out to about 12 crore children in over 13 lakh schools across the country. Resolute implementation of the SSA and the cooked Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDMS), the number of out of school children has come down remarkably. A sound status of health and nutrition are critical to the development of children and has a significant impact on their education prospects. Sick and undernourished children struggle to concentrate in the classroom and led to poor academic performances as an unpleasant and undesirable result. Frequent sickness causes absenteeism ultimately resulted in a greater risk of dropping out of school.

Acknowledging the problem of malnutrition, Government of India (GOI) introduced the Mid-Day Meal Scheme under the Ministry of Human Resource Development, GOI to improve nutrition needs of the children (Sharma, 2011). Mid-Day Meal Scheme was launched with the aim of boost universalization of primary education and increase enrolment especially of children belonging to poor and weaker sections of the society. Mid-Day meal has evolved to be the world’s largest welfare program and most appreciated initiative to lessen the miseries of the poverty-ridden children and encourage them to come to school regularly. The major objective of the Mid-Day Meal Scheme is to increase enrolment, retention and the learning abilities of the children.