Jubilee Post News & Views
Dr. Lenin Raghuvanshi
The announcement of lockdown as a measure to prevent and curb the spread of corona virus, most Dalit families faced accentuated deprivations and marginalization, heightening their struggle for survival. Vast majority of the Dalits encountered loss of livelihood and food insecurity as they earn and spend on a daily basis, with hardly any savings for the rainy day. With restriction of movement and inability to go and work, many families are on the verge of starvation, with hardly any means to survive. They do not have cash to buy food grains and sustain life. There were many instances reported in the newspapers that Musahars are feeding their children chappatis made of Ankari grass and salt, the grass that is fed to the cattle. Some families are surviving on the left-over food and discarded potatoes in the fields.
The second wave of COVID-19 crisis had affected the lives of poor, vulnerable, internally displaced people and the migrant communities they became from poor to poorest and living in the verge of survival. They are having place to stay but don’t have money to sustain their life due to partial restriction they are unable to go and work outside. These communities are mostly landless workers, weavers, begging, survivors of human rights violation and COVID survivors.
During the course of intervention, we found that condition of the pregnant and lactating mother and individual migrant labour are vulnerable. They are not getting nutritious diet, which will lead to anemia, higher risk in pregnancy and malnutrition in children. Moreover, the high rate of anaemia amongst women has a negative impact on their future pregnancies, leading to the birth of potentially anemic children. In last fifteen month i.e., from the first wave to the second wave 348 babies (172 F and 176 M) were born. Out of which 13 babies (8 F and 5 M) died, and 8 still deaths (4/4) were recorded. A total of 1743 children (858 F, 885 M) 6 children between the age of seven months to 5 years have died. Out of a total of 204 pregnant women, 25 pregnant women have died in high-risk pregnancies, while 2 pregnant women have also died.
In the period of COVID 19, one word that came in the most discussion by doctors and nutritionists has been the word immunity, the only way to fight this pandemic was told that, if our immunity remains strong, then only we are able to fight from this virus. According to the principle of economics, the price of goods which are more in demand in the market usually increases. Therefore, in such a situation, where immunity boosting nutritious food (high protein rich diet) for the families earning strong livelihood was getting out of their reach.
Secondly due to the panchayat election still the bank account of the newly elected village head is in the process. Because of that there is no proper sanitation and non-implementation of welfare schemes in the ghetto of the target communities.
Situation of COVID 19 infection is worst in few places such as Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and AMU Non-Teaching staff coordination committee asked support from JMN. The nutritionist/diet doctor advised to COVID -19 survivors for one month high protein diet for doing recovery. In the second wave Hospitals and crematoriums overwhelmed and widespread shortages of oxygen and medicines.
Through Whatsapp and phone calls PVCHR took information about the ground realities from the field staffs who are locals, volunteers, opinion leaders and other stakeholders. After taking stock of availability of fund, based on the felt and perceived needs of the community, masks, soaps and dry ration were distributed to the poor needy families.
In any pandemic like Corona, pregnant, lactating mothers and young children become all the more vulnerable within the disadvantaged constituency of the Dalits. Relief distribution is not an easy intervention, when resources are scarce and demands are huge. PVCHR faced the same dilemma. Dalit families have differential needs and vulnerabilities and prioritizing them is quite challenging.
- Pregnant and lactating mothers and infants: JMN/PVCHR distributed nutritious protein rich food to them so as to curb IMR and MMR among impoverished Dalits.
- Frontline workers: On finding that the healthcare centers and hospitals do not have enough supply of protective equipment, which is hampering their services, PVCHR distributed thousands of high-quality masks and gloves to community workers, healthcare staff like ANMs, and sanitation workers.
The much-deserved award of the Nobel Peace Price of 2020 to the World Food Programme, amidst COVID-19 pandemic, clearly captures that ‘peace’ is not a luxury and a utopian goal of humankind, but a basic human need and its attainment a basic human right. Peaceful communities are both a prerequisite as well as an outcome of fulfillment of basic human rights to its citizens.
Even centuries after the creation of Varna system that later took a distorted form of caste system, its deleterious effects are still visible in the villages of Varanasi, as in several other parts of the country. This traditional apartheid system has made the lives of Shudras (in the present times called Scheduled Castes or Dalits) no less than a nightmare. Caste discrimination has perpetuated social, educational and economic deprivations having multilayered consequences on the Dalits. They typically experience abuse, discrimination and social exclusion in various ways resulting in acute poverty, starvation deaths, limited access to education, health, and basic civic facilities. Despite execution of numerous poverty alleviation programmes, benefits hardly reached the impoverished Dalits. In rural India, Dalits have been in deplorable state for countless generations.
The existing COVID-19 pandemic has further deepened the already existing inequalities and vulnerabilities among the poor Dalits, accentuating their inaccessibility or limited accessibility to information and resource provisions to meet basic needs like food security, healthcare and livelihood opportunities.
Research studies and secondary statistics depict appalling condition of the Dalits who constitute 17% (about 170 million) of the total population in India. Illiteracy rate among Dalits in India is 45% and 62.2% of rural Dalit women are illiterate and a-third of their children between 5 to 14 years attend school (NHRC, 2010). Musahars, a sub-group, are even more disadvantaged – 91% of them are illiterate and 98% of Musahar women are illiterate, less than 10% of their children enroll in school with nearly 100% dropout rate (Mahadalit Ayog, 2007). Further, 94% of Dalits are landless (Human Rights Watch, 2000) and 37% are living below poverty line (NHRC, 2012). Gandhi Peace Foundation and National Labour Institute survey (1979) note that 87% of bonded labourers are from Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe community.
During the corona pandemic, the caste-based deprivations and discriminations have become gross. The Indian Express (August 21, 2020) cites the World Bank’s estimation that lockdown has pushed 12 million people, mainly from lower caste groups, into dismal poverty, many may never recover. Mehta calculates that due to COVID-19 situation, nearly one-third households (approx.60 million) are facing severe livelihood crisis and about 227 million households are in destitution. Qualitative data bring out the manifestations of caste discrimination as quarantined people in some places refused to have food cooked by lower caste staff and refusal to distribute relief material among the Dalits (The Print, August 21, 2020; Naskar, 2020).
Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh, having a population of more than 36 lakhs living in 1360 villages. The intervention was planned on two prong domains – for addressing psychological barriers, based on the Freire’s conscientization model, PVCHR made use of dialogue initiation, critical thinking, reflection and conscientization for mobilizing the Dalits and administrative advocacy, networking with international and national human rights organizations, using social media platforms and print media, other social action strategies were employed to deal with the apathetic and unresponsive service delivery machinery.
Consistent and collaborative efforts in carrying out social action and conscientization exercises have given positive results in terms of ensuring rightful share and access to food security and healthcare, while blurring caste boundaries and paving way towards peaceful living. It also gives insights into learning and theorizing working models of Dalit empowerment and community peace building.
Dalit ghettos are generally comprised of tiny thatched structures of bricks and mud, with unhygienic surroundings, open defecation due to lack of toilets, with susceptibility to the outbreak of malaria, cholera, especially during monsoon. The poor Dalit families do not get the benefits through livelihood programmes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) as the upper caste employers including surpanch (village head) do not want to let go off the cheap labour available for their private cultivation, factory and household work. Facing discrimination and aloofness from the healthcare staff, the Dalits, when sick, avoid accessing health centre and resort to quacks and ojha (practitioners of black magic). Many Dalits, the genuine claimants, do not have Below Poverty Line (BPL) card, a prerequisite for availing subsidized food grains under Public Distribution System and other pro-poor benefits and welfare services. The Dalit families, largely Musahars, have had experienced extreme form of abuse and torture as bonded labourers, starvation deaths mainly in Monsoon months when brick kiln is closed and they have nothing to eat.
The interventions carried out by PVCHR set a strong foundation of an egalitarian and peaceful society. It also provided insights into developing theoretical models for community peace-building.
In the backdrop of COVID-19 pandemic with the aim to address food insecurity and meeting other basic needs for the impoverished Dalit families, PVCHR, JMN with support of CRY, IRCT, Indo-German Society of Remschied, Germany and Embassy of New Zealand carried out a range of interventions like direct relief disbursement and ensured that the State machinery functions efficiently and effectively through advocacy and social action. The NGO took firm steps towards converting the crisis into opportunities for cordial and shared living and a peaceful community, which has been traditionally a ground of caste-based abuse, discrimination and violence. There is a need to highlight and propagate the work of the civil society organizations and community-based initiatives that contribute to community peace building. The work of PVCHR is one of the numerous efforts in India and the world over that require academic and research attention to demonstrate the process and modalities of community peace building work.
(Author is renowned Human Rights defender)
