Inclusion and Exclusion in India’s school lunch programme: The relationship between the rights to education and food

School feeding programmes can play a key role in the fulfilment of the human rights to education and food; however, targeting in these programmes raises the question of whether the rights of all those in need are fulfilled. This article examines this issue in India’s school lunch programme, the largest school feeding programme in the world. Primary data (interviews, household surveys, observation, focus groups), document analysis and secondary data are combined to examine inclusion and exclusion in the programme. This article shows that exclusion occurs in both the design and implementation of the programme. Children in non-eligible grades and non-eligible schools and children out-of-school are excluded by design. Eligible children may be excluded through implementation, and ineligible children may be included in practice due to the recognition of their needs at the school-level. These inclusion and exclusion patterns affect the realisation of the rights to food and education especially for some of the most marginalised children and highlight the importance of considering marginalisation and inequities alongside targeting criteria. Overall, these findings show the intertwined nature of the rights to food and education and the importance of cross-disciplinary and sectoral thinking between education and food provision.