The tribal habitations in old composite Adilabad district may be facing many a disadvantage, but seem to be comparatively safer when it comes to COVID-19 spread.
Their location on hilly slopes within the forest or abutting it and at a distance of about 2 km on an average between any two of those, the tribals say, is the main reason for them to be safe from viral contaminations.
“We get to clearly see any newcomer headed towards our village at any time of the day because of the location of our village,” says Marsakolla Nago Rao, a Raj Gond tribal from the picturesque Lohara village in Adilabad rural mandal. The village is located within a valley and a view from the top reveals that people from the series of hamlets in the hillocks can easily make out if anyone is headed towards them.
The tribals are no stranger to killer epidemics, two of which claimed hundreds of lives in the summer of 1998 (diarrhoea and sun stroke) and in 2008 (malaria), but the COVID-19 is a different ball game for them. Despite the handicap of illiteracy, they were quick to understand the gravity of the situation and were among the first to bar any outsider entering their hamlets or a villager going out without notice of elders.
The limitations wrought by poverty among the tribal people has also taught them to make do with less and avoid going out of the village at any cost.
A good number of the about 1.8 lakh tribal population living in the 660 habitations scattered in the hilly interiors of the district have made themselves scarce from the bazars, whatever is open of them.
Another aspect in the way of life of tribals which gives scope for coming in contact with outsiders is the weekly shandies.
The suspension of these shandies, however, had limited that scope.
A belief of the tribals that all diseases enter their village through foul air has got them think in terms of saving forests. “We have also curtailed all celebratory affairs like weddings and the Bada Dev puja in the coming month will also be a simple affair with only a handful of people in attendance in given villages,” pointed out Kanaka Ambaji Rao, the Raj Gond elder, panchayat secretary in Netnur in Sirpur (U) mandal of Kumram Bheem Asifabad district.
