For months, Adivasi children in Madhya Pradesh kept dying. The government woke up too late

Mahasingh Parte lives in the last hut in a village on the border of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

To reach the village, Matla, one has to trek a kilometre up a hill, on muddy trails and slippery slopes.

The village in Balaghat district in eastern Madhya Pradesh is surrounded by rolling hills and forests, a picture of tranquility for tourists visiting the nearby Kanha National Park.

But for Parte and other members of the Baiga tribe, who live in this remote region, life is a daily struggle – with little help forthcoming from the government.

Parte earns a living by collecting and selling tendu leaves and forest produce or labouring on other farms. The hut itself is bare except for a few steel utensils stacked in one dark corner. He grows millet and forages for seeds, other than depending on government ration.

“If we can manage, we eat two meals a day,” he told Scroll. “On many days, my children eat just once.”

In May, Parte’s four-year-old son Samlu caught a high fever. Soon, his six-year-old daughter Shamku’s body also felt warm.

One by one, all his five children fell ill.

But Samlu and Shamku were the worst off. Both had a rash-like eruption on their bodies. They developed a cough and a cold, and their eyes...

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