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Karahandi, India – On September 3, Ranjita Majhi, a 33-year-old Khun German-speaking 33-year-old woman in Orissa, eastern India, gave birth to a baby boy.
She was ecstatic when she delivered a loan of 30,000 rupees ($400). Due to her severe anemia, her health complications prevented normal delivery.
As a result, Majhi had to drive 60 kilometers (37 miles) to a government hospital in the Bhawanipatna district, where she had a C-section.
Everything was fine for the four days at Majhi’s house. But then the child died.
“I don’t know how to repay my loan, and now the child I borrowed for is not with me. They say they don’t even know how he died,” she told Al Jazeera, wiping away tears.
The doctors at the Bhawanipatna District Hospital claimed that they did not know how the child died.
But Roshnara Mohanty, an activist from the Ekta Parishad NGO, hinted at malnutrition. She said that entering the forest is the first condition for tribal women and can prevent them from intergenerational malnutrition.
The pregnant Ranjita Majhi shared her concerns about unemployment and the food crisis, which made her and her family further malnourished [Roshnara Mohanty/Al Jazeera]In 2009, Majhi left her Rampur village in Kalahidi and moved to the town of Madanpur Rampur. She and her husband belong to the Kui-speaking Kongde tribe, but they have no land.
With fewer and fewer opportunities to enter the forest, they migrated to the town looking for opportunities to make a living, and began to do temporary work. Her husband started working in a small restaurant when she became a domestic helper.
COVID lockdown exacerbates the crisis
In 2020, India’s COVID-19 lockdown caused a serious collapse of livelihoods, triggering an epidemic that India has been trying to combat for decades: hunger.
Majhi’s husband, like countless other marginalized people, lost his job in May of this year, and the second wave of devastating COVID is at its peak.
Since the implementation of the lockdown, 50% of rural Indian households have been forced to reduce their diets as part of an immediate adjustment to food security, but about 68% of households have reduced the amount of food in their diets.A sort of Learn Provided by the Indian Rural People’s Archives.
30-year-old Nisha only used her name. She told a similar story because her anemia had worsened in the past two years.
“In the past few months, I have not been able to go to the doctor, even though my rib pain is unbearable-because I don’t have money. Only the social worker has provided some help for us, and we have not received any other rations,” she told Al Jazeera.
Nisha is one of several Dalit women forced to return to unsafe working conditions after the pandemic [Bhawana Yadav/Al Jazeera]Nisha is a Dalit. She is at the bottom of India’s complex caste hierarchy and lives in a slum in the Shahdara district of New Delhi. She is a scavenger, telling the experience of picking up at least one bag of biomedical waste every day during the peak of the second wave of COVID.
On most days, her headaches, rib pain and fatigue made her unable to work. However, she must work hard to support her child’s education.
“What should I do if I only have rice?”
Having to return to an unsafe working environment is a common experience for many Dalit and Adivasi (tribal) women.
2021 State of Work Report on India (PDF) Shows that during the coronavirus pandemic, 83% of women were unemployed, of which 47% of women and only 7% of men were unlikely to recover from unemployment.
Beena Pallical, from the National Dalit Human Rights Movement, said that most marginalized women are pushed back to work, placing them in unsafe spaces, making them vulnerable to the virus.
But they must do this work because the system is not good for them, she said.
“Dalit and Adivasi women died earlier than mainstream caste women. Nutrition and health have always been the struggle of Dalit Adivasi women. You fell into a livelihood crisis and a hunger crisis during the pandemic, and marginalized women suffered. The impact will be multifaceted,” she told Al Jazeera.
Studies have shown that 56% of untouchables and 59% of tribal women suffer from anemia, compared to the national average of 53%. 2016, India Rank Women in 170 of 180 countries suffer from anemia. A United Nations study shows that Dalit women are 15 years younger than mainstream caste women (PDF) Say.
25-year-old Dishanti Majhi is from Khaliamunda, a tribal village in the Kalahidi district of Orissa. Like many others in her village, Dishanti relies heavily on forest products. She will work in the fields and sell siali leaves, which are vines with large leaves that are used to make plates. The government relief package she got was only rice noodles without any supplementary nutrition.
“I used to sell forest products and saliva leaves at the local market, and then I ate rice and vegetables. Now it’s closed and I can’t make money or buy products. We also didn’t get any jobs. The government only gave rice relief, but only rice. Do?” Dishan asked.
“My children are at home, and my husband is also unemployed. I work more now, doing my best at home and in the forest, but I can’t eat like I did two years ago. Many days I go to bed hungry. , And on most days, I only eat one meal so that my husband and children can eat more meals,” she added.
Women eat the least in the end
Rajendran Narayan of the Stranded Workers Action Network and Hunger Watch said that even in the informal sector, the number of unemployed women is disproportionate.
“They have also increased their nursing and housework after returning home. Their workload has increased, but their wages have decreased. In the family, women are the last to eat, and the least eaten. The hunger crisis at home means that Women naturally eat less,” he said, adding that the situation is particularly serious for pregnant and breastfeeding women.
“We are focusing on a crisis that may not be clear at this time, but will have such a long-term impact on public health and nutrition that we must intervene now.”
The federal government announced relief measures in March last year to mitigate the impact of COVID. The free grain distribution to ration card holders was considered insufficient, as only rice and lentils were included in 2020, while the latter has now been excluded.
During the second wave of blockade, no such relief measures were announced.
In Castor, Chhattisgarh, Kaushalya, a Dalit woman from a forest-based community, was unable to obtain the mahua, harra and other leaves she used to sell. She said she could not feed the child.
Marginalized women such as Kaushalya have anemia and have difficulty getting nourishment during the lockdown [Rajim Ketwas/Al Jazeera]Marginalized women not only have difficulty in obtaining subsidies or free food, but also have difficulty in obtaining government cash transfers.
“Many of the women I have spoken to claim that they are afraid of the virus when they go out to the bank to make cash transfers, and that many women do not get the rights they deserve. Normally, there is a conflict with the forestry department,” Chhattisgarh Rajim Katewas of Bondalit Adivasi told Al Jazeera.
The increase in anemia rate among pregnant women from marginalized communities can also be attributed to changes in cash transfers under the National Food Security Act (NFSA).
“NFSA requires cash transfers of 6,000 rupees must be provided to pregnant and breastfeeding women [$80] Per year. The federal government overturned the NFSA and replaced it with the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana plan, reducing the transfer amount to 5,000 [$72],” said Narayan of the Stranded Workers Action Network and Hunger Watch.
The government’s 2020-21 budget also significantly reduced the amount allocated to the plan by 48%. A study (PDF) A survey conducted in rural areas of Bihar states that 41% of households of pregnant or breastfeeding women reported that pre- and post-natal check-ups were not possible after the pandemic started.
Lakshmi Devi Bhuiyan is a 60-year-old Dalit resident in Barwadih Village, Rathar District, Jharkhand. She does not have any children to raise her. Due to anemia and other diseases, she complained of frequent headaches and looked weak.
Lakshmi Devi Bhuiyan said she was unable to get enough nutrition, housing or medical care at the age of 60 and continued to work as a temporary worker [Dheeraj Kumar/Al Jazeera]Bhuiyan and her husband are engaged in odd jobs and do not own any land. Many older Dalit women have to continue to engage in high-intensity labor until their later years.
“Our house is about to collapse. We have not received any money approved by the Modi government-no pension, no 500 rupees [$7] Support, nothing. We voted for him, look at us now,” she told Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera repeatedly contacted the Federal Ministry of Women and Child Development for comments, but they did not respond.
“On the harmful notions of vegetarianism”
Sylvia Karpagam, a public health researcher and doctor in the southern state of Karnataka, explained how lack of nutrition has intergenerational effects on women, especially those from marginalized communities.
“When a young woman from a marginalized community becomes pregnant, she is already malnourished due to her caste, class, and gender disadvantages. Even if the child is less than one year old, she is bound to be malnourished. This continues into adolescence,” She told Al Jazeera.
Karpagam said that addressing the caste problem is crucial to addressing the malnutrition of marginalized women.
“For families from marginalized communities, access to nutritious food may be reduced… In fact, the food currently provided by the government by itself is not enough for a person to get adequate nutrition. When people cannot get money, Eggs, meat, poultry, and dairy products will disappear from their diet first, and these should be the priority of government relief,” she told Al Jazeera.
“On the contrary, the system continues to spread unscientific and harmful concepts about vegetarianism, and enforces a dominant caste and upper-class dual view on nutrition and health issues.”
At the same time, Ranjita’s troubles are far from over.
“I am worried that I will not be able to keep my eldest child alive. My husband and I no longer have money to support the family. What will my other child do? Only God knows.”
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