Tracking Covid: Overcoming pandemic despair
In December 2019, when the first coronavirus infection was detected in Kerala, tribal migrants working in the state had little clue about its repercussions. About 50 tribals from a village named Ghughri in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, were part of this ‘guest worker’ community (as they are called in Kerala). As part of a collaborative action research on adaptive skilling in tribal agriculture [Adaptive Skilling through Action Research (ASAR)], we have been interacting with the people of Ghughri since 2018. Gond community of Ghughri village has been a captive labour force in managing the forests for a century and a half now. These forests lie close to a plant fossil national park and are known for their medicinal wealth. Ghughri villagers picked up cultivation skills pretty fast and now comfortably grow millets, paddy, maize, pulses, oilseeds and some vegetables.
After two months from the end of the major lockdown, we discussed the impact of such closures, with ten households of Ghughri. Lockdown experience was more or less similar for these families. Seven out of these ten households had someone annually migrating to Kerala after the rabi harvest in January-February. All of them reached home once the transport facilities resumed, spending the required time at the quarantine centre in the government school hostel about 8 km away from Ghughri.