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Nagada tribals take kuccha road to development

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Nagada tribals fight child marriage, malnutrition, seek access to development 

By Manish Kumar

Nagada: In 2016, Jajpur district in Odisha made headlines due to the death of 22 malnourished tribal children. These children belonged to the Juang tribe that lives in Nagada, located in a hilly region with poor access to health and infrastructure facilities.

The incident forced the state administration into taking immediate steps to provide facilities like clean drinking water and roads connecting the village to the nearest town, Kaliapani. A lot has changed for the better since then. However, the fight against the biggest social cause of these health issues, child marriages, continues to this day. The Juang tribe has been practising child marriages as part of their culture. According to villagers, children were either married at the onset of puberty or in some cases even before that.

“As soon as boys start to grow facial hair we would marry them off. This is the tradition here. Girls are married at a much younger age when compared to boys. For outsiders it might sound odd, but child marriages were the norm here up until now,” said Chaita Padan, a villager from Upper Nagada.

With doctors making bi-weekly tours of the village, other health issues in children like anaemia and stunted growth have also come to light. Villagers are being educated about the need for proper practices relating to health, hygiene and nutrition. 

Seeing the ill-effects of child marriages, Nagada villagers have taken a collective decision to ban this social evil. They have decided that boys would be married at age 21 and girls at 18. The village has now also passed a resolution into this regard. 

This change in mindset was hard to achieve among the largely illiterate population. This was made possible by community-level workers, who with the help of the state Women and Child Welfare Department created awareness about the legal and health implications of child marriages.

“The villagers have requested the department to do more to create awareness about this issue and want to work with the department to end this social practice. Over the last three years with the help of the government, a lot has changed for locals,” said Ghasiram Panda, Programme Manager with Action Aid (NGO), who works in the village.

Dr. Shiva Saran, a gynaecologist said, “Immature physical development of a young mother can affect the health and nutrition of the child. Child marriages, especially, if the girl is 15 years or younger could prove risky for the child and mother.”

According to Nagada villagers, most of the fathers are often teenagers, while the mothers are even younger. Lack of awareness about family planning measures has also been a stumbling block in dealing with maternal and child health issues. Many young couples have four to five children each. The size of families in the villages has been large because in the past they couldn't ensure the survival of all children. 

A visiting doctor in the Sukinda Block said that health teams try to visit the village twice a week to take stock of the healthcare needs of the population.

“Villagers are often reluctant to follow-up with the medical teams about their treatment. While medicines are given free of cost many refuse to consume it. Many are also victims of superstition and try to use religious rituals or other local practices to cure or ward-off diseases,” said Dr. Sukanta Mahapatra, a visiting doctor.

“Whenever someone in the village falls ill or has a fever, we organise kukuda pooja (chicken worship) to appease the god and thwart any untoward incident. We seek medical assistance only as a last resort,” said Bibhuti Padan, a villager from the area.

Measures are being taken by the state government to improve the maternal and child health in Nagada. Through corporate social responsibility funds, a mini anganwadi (daycare) centre was also been recently opened to ensure the nutritional intake of children in the village. Lakmi Pradhan, an anganwadi  worker said, “We help in monitoring the height and weight of the children here and keep track of their health. We provide eggs, chattua and other nutritional supplements to ensure the proper physical development of the children.” 

Ward member of the area, Basanti Pradhan also echoes the belief that child marriages should be banned for the health and well-being of villagers.

Saroj Mahakur, Programme Director of Aspire (NGO) said, “Much has changed on the ground. Earlier the villagers had the habit of consuming only rice with large quantities with water or salt without any vegetables. Now, they have learnt to include vegetables in the diet. Though overall physical health of the villagers has improved, health of children is still a cause for concern.”

Mahakur also pointed out that parents have started to send their children to nearby towns, to stay in ST hostels and attend schools run by the Odisha government. Most of these towns are around 20-25 km away from the village. Many girls, he said, have now been able to study beyond class nine and their education is showing a positive impact on the awareness of families in the village about social and health issues.

While some state departments have consistently been working with the villagers to improve the situation on the ground, others have faltered in running programmes. Due to the lack of consistent follow-ups and monitoring of different government initiatives, positive changes brought about in the community through liquor de-addiction or livelihood programmes is now being impacted.

Take for instance taps installed by the local administration in the villages to supply clean drinking water. Most of these taps have now run dry and with no one monitoring the situation, this is likely to lead to future health problems. 

“Many taps in the village no longer function. Women are forced to find other sources of drinking water, sometimes having to trek a few kilometres to fetch water. The government needs to continually monitor the facilities they give us,” said Guru Padan, a Nagada villager, who works as a daily-wage labourer.

The situation hasn't improved, as a visit to the village in the first week of May 2019 revealed. Many taps installed are not functioning  and the work on the road to connect the mountain town of Kaliapani with Nagada has hardly seen any progress. The connecting road along the mountainous terrain is rocky and muddy. Vehicles would be able to negotiate this stretch only at a speed of 20 km/hour due to the poor condition of the road. In addition, the toilets constructed in the village by the state government are no longer functional. Villagers tend to use the toilets to park their bicycles, since there is no water supply in the facility.  The village also hardly see many youngesters carrying mobile phones as the village also hardly has any mobile network to facilitate mobile communication. 

Politics works faster than development

Nagada falls under the Jajpur Lok Sabha constituency and has been ignored by the state and union governments to implement some of their flagship programmes. It has several kuccha houses, despite the promises made by the Biju Janata Dal (BJD)-led government in their 2014 election manifesto to construct pucca houses for all in Odisha by the end of their term. The manifesto also promised to make all kuccha roads pucca. Both promises are yet to be realised.    

The BJP-led central government had also promised cooking gas cylinders to poor households, but this has yet to materialise in the village. Interestingly, the current Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, whose ministry initiated the LPG scheme hails from Odisha. Pradhan has been trying hard to boost the image of BJP in the state. However even Pradhan could not ensure descending the benefits of Ujjwala scheme in this village which still remains a Utopian dream for this tribal village of Odisha as most of the villagers here use forest woods as fuels and cook on muddy stoves. 

For now, it seems like politics and politicians can and often do reach  Nagada  faster than any development. Despite Nagada being located in a remote area, BJD pamphlets of local candidates seeking votes can be found strewn in the village. Villagers also stated that BJD, Congress and other party candidates had visited Nagada to campaign for the assembly elections.

“Congress and BJD candidates visited our village seeking votes. Local contractors told us that they would take us to the nearest polling booth in their vehicles. Most of us are planning to go with them to cast our votes,” said Gula Padan, a Nagpada villager. 

The Jajpur constituency has been a winning field for BJD. It was represented by BJD MP, Rita Tarai, who won the seat in 2014 by a margin of 3,20,271 by defeating Congress' Ashok Das. Jajpur will go to polls in the last phase of polling in Odisha on May 29, 2019.  

While the country is in election mode, most of Nagpada villagers seem to not know who Prime Minister Narendra Modi is and about a third are also clueless about Odisha Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik. Though largely clueless about politics and political leaders, the villagers continue to pin their hopes on the state government to take care of their health, development and infrastructure needs.