Social Inequality in Pandemic
TOPIC: INEQUALITY
IN COVID PANDEMIC AND INEQUAL VACCINATION POLICY.
Abstract
India with the population
of nearly 1.4 Billion and rich with diversity at each level in society from
economical to cultural, it is very important to regulate and impose policies to
tackle the covid pandemic with effective and inclusive way. Covid pandemic has
very adverse impact on not only in India but all over the world but India is
the nation where lots of challenges already in society, division of society on
the basis of power and authority, class and caste division, communalism, gender
division and elitism etc. These all-sociocultural perspectives of social
exclusion widen the gaps of inequality in this pandemic and creates big problem
to tackle the pandemic in effective manner.
For example: Those who has
power and reach in authority get vaccinated early, village women faces problem to
get vaccine because of gender prejudice of purdah system, poor has not access
to digital platform to register themselves for one way of centralized
vaccination policy, elite groups gets benefitted from the favored policy of
vaccination, poor are not able to afford private hospital and testing centers
and Migrants without identity excluded in all program and many more issue
creates hierarchy and inequality in the regulation of vaccine and programs to
tackle covid pandemic in actual sense.
Keywords: Social Exclusion, Immunization and
vaccination, Inequality, Regulation, Co-Regulation, Decentralized system.
Introduction
In the starting of 2020,
when corona exposed all over the world, it was not imagined by anyone about the
consequences of this tiny virus, from WHO to all scientist imagined as a
non-communicable virus and less influenced virus but in reality, it is totally
opposite. The impact of this virus is still unpredictable, in this article we
are analyzing the effect of pandemic on social inequality and lack of policies
and regulation of vaccination in consideration with sociocultural perspective.
As we know the pandemic
hit all equally but those who are already vulnerable affected more and the
inequality increased at very high rate. Poor people vulnerable and need to go
outside for work and livelihood, either they die by hunger or by virus but it
is definite that they will die.
Policies and regulations
to tackle pandemic by government or state is not in favor of poor and marginals
of the society. In India there are multiple incidents which shows failure of
state and regulation set by state.
Government failure
(Exclusion of poor and marginals in regulation and policies to tackle
pandemic): Government excluded poor from the starting, imposing lockdown, migrants’
issues, high rate of unemployment, salary or wage cuts etc. all are the
problems faced by poor and marginals of the society and state failed to provide
any solution to these problems.
·
Salary or wage cuts: In this pandemic most of the
lower-class workers are exploited by capitalist or industrialist, wage is not
given on time or they reduced some amount and blame pandemic for that. While in
this pandemic, these lower-class worker with no saving affect more, so
government only requested to private entities to not cut the salary but without
regulation request sense nothing and many private or even PPP cuts the salary
of these poor. As we can see below:
·
Migrants Issues: in march and April
of 2020 and even in 2nd wave in April 2021, migration from
cosmopolitan cities to village was seen at large scale, but state failed to
take proper action to provide vehicle and transportation facilities to them.
Cases of increased discrimination in
pandemic:
Nine migrants
interviewed by Bloomberg News in several Indian states had stories that were
similar to Banskar’s, showing how the pandemic is widening one of the nation’s
sharpest inequities, the social hierarchy determined by India’s ancient caste
system, which can often determine everything from social interactions to
economic opportunities. The South Asian country marks the 30th anniversary of
its economic liberalization next year, but the pandemic is now unraveling the
tenuous benefits that globalization brought to workers like Banskar.
“I have no land,
so had left my village some 12 years ago in search of work and to escape this
system where I am considered untouchable,” Banskar said by phone. “I have come
back to the same situation that I left, in fact it has only become worse.”
People from lower castes were historically not allowed to touch those from
higher castes, and Banskar says many of these practices remain in his village.
Manish Kumar, 24,
who returned to Tevar village, in the eastern district of Varanasi said
caste-based discrimination restarted the moment he entered the quarantine
center in his village, where upper castes separated themselves from Dalits, a
group that’s perceived to be at the bottom rung of the caste pyramid and
includes more than 200 million people nationwide.
Kumar said he
hasn’t received any work under the government jobs scheme or received free food
aid even though he has the required documents.
“When I go to
shop, the shopkeeper asks people from my caste to wait, they first cater to the
upper caste people,” he said. The head of his village couldn’t be reached.
Landless, with no
ration card — the government document required to get food aid – she’s found it
hard to arrange for food. “We are thinking about whether to go back to the
city,” Ahirwar said.
But returning to
the city isn’t easy. India has reported 2.8 million coronavirus cases, making
the risk of contagion particularly high in crowded cities. “The village headman
is giving jobs to people from his caste,”.
Source: The Print
(21 August 2020)
These all are the
exclusion of poor or it is better to say invisibility of poor from the eyes of
government and society.
Now government has
provided some guideline to regulate the vaccination but vaccine regulation in
itself is improper and inadequate and creates inequality in village mostly.
Here are some problems or challenges related to vaccination drive in village:
centralized system
of vaccination drive and Village: Only central government
has authority to purchase or make demand from vaccine companies, which neglect
the role of decentralizes system of Indian government where decentralized
panchayat system has more power and reach at grassroot level, so centralized
system of vaccination drivers makes vaccination ineffective. Local level of
government knows the grassroot level of problems like vulnerable section of
society and equal women participation in vaccine.
In India, we have ample number of studies done to
establish the fact that the average age of Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims and women
is lower in comparison to the average age of citizens belonging to other social
groups. According to National Family Health Survey (NFHS), the average mortality
rate among Dalit women is much higher than women of non-Dalit communities. The
average life expectancy of Dalit women is 14.6 years lower than the average
life expectancy of other women in India. Dalit women on average live up to the
age of 39.5 years, whereas women of upper castes on average live up to the age
of 54.1 years.
In village, purdah system restricts women to go outside and get vaccine or testing for corona virus
which further makes women vulnerable and widen the gap of gender inequality. This gender inequality is not only hurt life or any
rights but it impacted life women might be died because of this inequality,
which means this is not just inequality but a murder by society, or murder by
these social evil practices here below one case of a village of Sitapur:
Pal’s mother Ramdevi Pal, 42, had been running a fever since April
20, but that morning she was struggling to breathe.
The family hired an autorickshaw and took her to a nearby private
hospital where the doctor asked them to rush to the district hospital located
some 30 km away. Ramdevi Pal’s oxygen saturation level had dropped to 35%, the
ideal level being above 95%.
There, Shivakant Pal counted 72 beds–and one oxygen cylinder. His
mother did not get any oxygen from it. She died gasping for breath at around
6.30 pm. “During the time we were there, at least five people died apart from
my mother in the hospital, all of whom had come looking for oxygen. I saw with
my own eyes,” said 20-year-old Pal. Officially, Sitapur did not report a single
Covid-19 death that day.
That’s because, like Dhanraj Singh of Balia, Ramdevi Pal had never
been tested for Covid-19.
Source: Quartz India (29 April 2021)
Role of Power in
pandemic: Those who has power and reach in authority may vaccinated early and they
are privileged to get everything at their door steps, this weakens the
structure and creates inequality in society.
In Village Upper caste
vaccinated early and those who has large patch of lands in their space. Lower
caste still suffers to get vaccine in its early phase either they are eligible
or not.
Migrants who are lower
caste, lost job and came back to their village has faced difficult time to find
a new way of earning or livelihood in village, this makes them more vulnerable,
even in some case it is reported that they were called as corona spreader in
village by upper caste because they travelled from urban area or city, and
discrimination went deeper in this pandemic period.
Government doesn’t take
proper action to accommodate and provide livelihood in their own village, there
are multiple employment guarantee schemes but all are failed in this pandemic,
MGNREGA, PMSVANEDHI etc. are the schemes to reboot and sustain the employment
in village as well as urban area but all are failed because of structural
failure and grassroot implementation lacks.
A story by a migrant on caste taboo in their journey:
A Brahmin
migrant worker narrated how caste taboos were suspended on the journey. He said
small tents had been put up by local villagers, religious institutions and
traders between Delhi and Agra. These were distributing packets of puri- sabji
and water. “We saw a tent with a Ravidas sewa sthal nameplate. They were
distributing food and water. There were six people in our group – one Brahmin,
three Yadavs, two Kurmis. We were very hungry and thirsty. One of the group
members said, ‘Yeh Dalit log honge (These are Dalits). Let’s look
for another tent down the road’. But then everybody in our group started to
scold him, saying, ‘Do not rake up caste issues now. Or we will die of hunger (Iss
waqt jat-pat mat karo, nahi to bhukhe mar jaoge)’.”
Eventually the
entire group took the water and food the Ravidasi tent was offering. “We sat
there, ate the food and drank the water,” said one of the workers.
Source: the wire (20 June 2020)
Digital
Platform of Vaccine registration and Vaccine regulation: Digital one
way of centralized nature of vaccine registration is exclusion of poor by
state, most of the villagers and poor don’t have android mobile phone to
register themselves for the early vaccination which is started only one way of
registration. This digital divide creates social exclusion of the poor.
And in
vaccination drive lower caste and marginalized community vaccinated last or
even not get vaccine in this pandemic.
So, digital
platform itself widen the gap of inequality and exclusion.
Conclusion
Although many policies and regulation
are there by the sate to make vaccination drive effective but at grassroot
level the inequality in vaccination on the basis of caste, class, power or
reach, gender and digital divide increased the gap of social exclusion and
inequality.
It is very important to tackle these
rooted problems in society first to make vaccination drive effective, while
these are not limited to vaccination but the life of these marginals in this
pandemic is on margin whether they would die of hunger caused by social
exclusion or they would die because of corona. This is not just a war with
pandemic but war with these social evil also, only removal of these social evil
makes us to beat the pandemic with unity and solidarity.
“Antyodya rather than Saryodya”, this quote makes its meaning in this pandemic, which means last person should be benefitted rather than all equally benefitted, this is the concept of equity, which is very suited in this pandemic that those marginalized community must be treated socially equal and state policies must be inclusive to them.
REFERENCES
- The wire, https://thewire.in/caste/covid-19-pandemic-caste-discrimination
- Indian express, https://indianexpress.com/article/india/millions-escaped-caste-discrimination-covid-19-brought-it-back-6563993/
- National herald, https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/opinion/plague-and-covid-19-an-insight-into-the-role-of-caste-and-religion-during-pandemics-in-india
- Gandhi, India of my Dream
- GOI, Vaccination drive
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