As we approach the three-year lockdown anniversary in March, lessons from our handling of COVID-19 can be instructive in guiding policy response to similar crises in the future, especially where it concerns the socially and economically marginalised communities, so we do not replicate exclusionary interventions.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying lockdowns were devastating for these groups, particularly Adivasis, who depend on forests and are often in precarious, informal work arrangements in rural areas and cities.
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The Adivasi community has been marginal to state policy, for it has long faced social and economic marginalisation, such as limited access to social infrastructure, especially healthcare and education, and state control over forest resources and lands surrounding forests.
Social class and caste, in particular, enable or impede access to education, labour markets, and economic resources. Inequalities at the intersections of caste, class, and location have led to Adivasis being more vulnerable to developmental displacement, having lower incomes, and poor access to health infrastructures. They suffer a higher disease burden of tuberculosis, undernutrition, anemia, preventable visual impairment, and leprosy.
The state’s inattention to the unique challenges and vulnerabilities that mark the Adivasi experience and social protection for these forest-dependent communities meant that the impacts of the pandemic have been particularly severe for them, creating new economic strains. With COVID-19 containment being foregrounded in policy response, questions of food security and livelihood and education losses among Adivasis were sidelined, creating lasting and irreversible setbacks for the community.
Representative Image. Photo: Sarika Kulkarni
The problem is only worsened by the silence and problematic representations of Adivasi issues in the media, rendering them as non-newsworthy or portraying them as a homogenous group without attending to their diverse cultures, experiences or vulnerabilities. Public discourse has often portrayed the indigenous communities as ‘ignorant’ or ‘backward’ and relying only on traditional medicine which was sometimes reiterated in media narratives, especially around the communities’ response to COVID-19 and vaccinations.
Study
As part of a study by the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) and Keystone Foundation, we conducted research in the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve (NBR), which spans the states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala, to analyse policy responses to the pandemic at the national, state and district scales, with special reference to Indigenous Peoples.
The research examined if the existing and pandemic-related policy interventions relating to food security, livelihoods, health, among other themes were attentive to Adivasi issues and how these exacerbated or ameliorated the socio-economic marginalisation and vulnerabilities of Adivasis. Along with policy analysis, in-depth interviews with ‘policy observers’ were conducted to situate findings in the field.
While policy interventions have, to some extent, engaged with the multiple risks and impacts of COVID-19 on the poor, only a few address the structural inequities Adivasis face or speak to their differential experiences and vulnerabilities.
During the first wave of the pandemic, migrant workers travelling long distances back to their homes in rural areas on foot were reported widely by the media. The short notice for the first lockdown caught the migrant Adivasis off-guard, forcing them to spend most of their earnings to arrange the journey back home. Containment measures, such as restrictions on movement and the exclusive focus on COVID-19 treatment, resulted in other health issues being neglected.
Adivasis could not avail treatment for chronic illnesses such as tuberculosis. Adivasis generally have a fraught relationship with the forest department and the state, and restrictions during the pandemic became ways in which authorities asserted power.
Having said that, district collectors routinely invoked the Disaster Management Act, which grants them discretionary powers, to expedite the implementation of programmes. In 2021, district administrations in the NBR organised targeted vaccination drives in Adivasi communities to control the spread of the virus, but vaccine hesitancy in some tribal hamlets was projected as all Adivasi communities refusing vaccines.
Also read: COVID-19 Is Just Another Problem in Palghar’s Adivasi Villages
In states with well-functioning machinery of social safety nets, marginalised groups such as Adivasis have better outcomes in life. These structures have been crucial for the success of relief efforts and for reducing vulnerabilities during the pandemic.
For example, Kerala’s long tradition of universal rationing made it easier for the state to distribute provisions to residents and migrants. Similarly, Tamil Nadu’s well-implemented welfare schemes and public distribution system (PDS) helped the marginalised communities during lockdowns. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) had transformed the rural economy and social relations, reducing the dependence of marginalised castes on privileged caste groups.
Although the programme is riddled with operational issues and Adivasis in some areas could not demand work during the first wave, these pre-pandemic progresses helped them deal with the exigencies of COVID-19 and provided relief.
That said, structural drivers of socio-economic marginalisation and attendant risks and vulnerabilities have been obscured in policy responses. The research reveals that the pandemic brought into focus sharp relief systems which were already strained and policy responses to COVID-19 and food security and livelihood losses did not involve communities or take into account their specific socio-economic contexts.
These policies were framed as temporary solutions to the immediate crisis and imposed without considering the history of malnutrition, ill health, and inadequate health infrastructure that Adivasi communities face. As a result, the underlying issues that contribute to socioeconomic marginalisation and vulnerabilities have been glossed over.
The response to the COVID-19 pandemic has further marginalised already vulnerable communities by focusing more on the medical and clinical aspects of the pandemic and less on the social and economic ones. The pandemic and the accompanying lockdowns have engendered new forms of exclusions, particularly digital divides that resulted in the exclusion of Adivasi students from education, and reproduced the inequities of caste, class, and gender.
Techno-managerial approaches in interventions relating to food distribution and education have only widened existing socioeconomic fissures. As socially marginalised groups like Adivasis heavily rely on public infrastructures and programmes, disinvestment in these has been crippling for them.
The increased reliance on public programmes, such as MNREGA, PDS, health and education during the pandemic only reaffirms the value of public institutions and reinforces the need to strengthen them to ensure better outcomes of life for marginalised groups.
Harpreet Kaur is a Bengaluru-based researcher who works on livelihoods, informality and marginality.