The life of tribal women during lockdown

She is 20 years old and has been married for the last 7 years. She is a mother to a two year old baby as well. During her stay at her in laws’ place, she was often stigmatised as a witch by them. Citing the same reason, her husband, a labourer drove her out of his house during the lockdown, compelling her to return to her father’s home. Her father is a migrant labourer as well. Basanti’s only fault was that she used to have bouts of fever, which refused to go away, at times, owing to the lack of medical facilities as the only primary health centre was quite distant from her place, which left her untreated for long. It might sound unbelievable but something as simple as a fever made her in laws label her as a witch. Now, Basanti doesn’t want to look back and wants to lead a life as an independent woman. She has got the support of her father who wants to make his daughter self-reliant.

Written by Jinat Rehena Islam|Murshidabad|July 23, 2020

During the first phase of the lockdown, I came to know about this tribal woman named Chite Hembram and decided to meet her. She resides in a block called Nabagram in the district of Murshidabad, West Bengal. She is forty years old. She doesn’t have an Aadhaar card, which moreover makes it difficult for her to have a bank account. The unfortunate reason behind this is that Chite has a congenital hand deformity called Symbrachydactyly (A condition where people are born with underdeveloped small or missing fingers). Government officials told her family that the Aadhaar biometric device could not record her fingerprints. They came for her and even tried to do so for the second time but couldn’t succeed. The worst thing is she can’t even stand on her own feet and has to crawl over the ground. She can move around only with the help of a stick. She has no food left at her home . Owing to the lockdown and the present situation, her brother has no work in hand. I could spot just a bottle of water and an empty bucket kept at one corner of the room,where meals are usually cooked,which spoke volumes about their sufferings. In spite of all this, Chite has an indomitable spirit of survival.

Next to Chite’s residence lives another woman named Sinapati Hembram. Sinapati has a congenital foot deformity which makes her unable to stand on her feet. As a child, she could never attend school as her family, owing to her physical disability, never thought of sending her to one. Sinapati wants her legs to be cured and dreams of getting married one day and leading a normal life thereafter. To her, marriage is one of the biggest challenges in her life at present.  On the day of my visit,she kept complaining about not being  served her food. Allthe cooking utensils were kept aloof, on the roof of the house, but still her mother tried to hide the fact. She confirmed that they manage to get  at least one meal in a day.

During my visit to Nabagram, I happened to come across another woman, Basanti Soren. She is 20 years old and has been married for the last 7 years. She is a mother to a two year old baby as well. During her stay at her in laws’ place, she was often stigmatised as a witch by them. Citing the same reason, her husband, a labourer drove her out of his house during the lockdown, compelling her to return to her father’s home. Her father is a migrant labourer as well. Basanti’s only fault was that she used to have bouts of fever, which refused to go away, at times, owing to the lack of medical facilities as the only primary health centre was quite distant from her place, which left her untreated for long. It might sound unbelievable but something as simple as a fever made her in laws label her as a witch. Now, Basanti doesn’t want to look back and wants to lead a life as an independent woman. She has got the support of her father who wants to make his daughter self-reliant.

Balika Kisku, a woman from the same block  is an Adivasi dance performer. The lockdown brought a lot of challenges for her. She has a dance group and used to perform regularly along with her group in Kolkata, Orissa and Lucknow before things worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All the events, she was supposed to perform in, got cancelled owing to the present situation. Her husband works in fields as a labourer and doesn’t have a fixed income.  She has also got two children. Her mother in law, a widow, who used to receive a little financial help in the form of widow allowances, was also left hopeless as she stopped receiving it after being given an amount of 1000₹  twice. Being the sole bread earner of her family, she was left with no money in her hand. She doesn’t even have any food stored to be used around the year. Though Balika herself has never been to school, she is very conscious about her children’s education. Her daughter is in eleventh grade while her son appeared for the Higher Secondary examinations this year.  Her entire family has been struggling to manage two meals a day. They have been surviving on flour during day and Rice at night.

Juliyana Hansda is thirty years old. She has got two children. One of them is six years old. He is in the first standard. The other one is 2 years old. Her husband is a migrant labourer. He came back empty handed as  he couldn’t collect money from his employer once the lockdown started. Amidst all this, it’s difficult for her to maintain a livelihood.The most unfortunate thing is both of her children are physically challenged. Doctors said that they would be needing a surgery, but they couldn’t be treated owing to their financial condition. Juliyana had no option but to let things be as they are and leave everything upon the Almighty. She spends her days with her untreated children believing  as long as God is with them, her children would remain unharmed.

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The story of Malati Murmu and Belly Mahuli are quite similar. Malati, a forty years old woman, suffers from malnutrition. She hasn’t got any food stored in her house. She has been surviving  on rice and boiled greens, which she collects from a nearby field. On the other hand, Belly is physically disabled. Her left hand doesn’t work properly. Even she has been facing  scarcity of food.She manages to arrange only salted dried fish (locally known as “Shutki Maach”) as her meal . Boiled potatoes constitute   her meal at night. There are several women like Malati and Belly residing in the same place, who struggle to make ends meet. One more example is of Tuntuni Mahuli. All of them are used to spending their days like this, in the worry  of arranging  two meals a day. But the Lockdown has  futher worsened their situation, they are the ones  who seem to be the worst-hit.

Aparna Murmu is a resident of Baharul village, near the town Berhampore. Her story of survival during the lockdown  is nothing different. She has to go through similar ordeals to manage two meals a day. The only thing she has got stored in her house is rice grains. Being left with no other option she has to exchange  her grains with her neighbours  in return of potatoes. She was compelled to marry off her daughter who was an eighth grade student as she found it difficult to feed her. It’s unfortunate that she was unaware of the “Sabuj Saathi” scheme of the West Bengal Government which could have helped her daughter get a cycle, a year later, as per the scheme. Aparna regrets her decision thinking hadn’t she married off her daughter the, cycle could have served as an asset to the family and help the family in a lot of ways.

It’s  quite ironical that, in this so called “people ruled democracy”, there is no one more helpless than the people themselves.  Criticizing democracy, Carlyle had said, “This is the rule of fools. The rule of the uneducated and the ignorant cannot be good.” Though it’s quite unwise to disregard democracy calling it only A “rule of fools”. Does political democracy really mean anything other than economic democracy? It is important to continue this debate.