Empowerment of Tribal Women: A Comparative Study on Gond and Santal Tribes during the Pandemic

Abstract

The recent pandemic has been – by both nature and definition – a world-wide phenomenon, and has had a proportional effect on the tribal communities of India. Due to their state of persistent impoverishment, such communities are economically vulnerable, and as such have further destabilized in the aftermath of the pandemic. This has led to abolishment of their primary sources of income. Tribal women affected the most from this phenomenon as they must take care of their family, children, elderly people and also their agriculture. This has direct bearing on their empowerment and which has resulted during pandemic. Our paper is focusing on these related aspects among the two tribes, Gond of Madhya Pradesh and Santal of West Bengal, India. A dearth of import-export facilities as well as suspension of local markets resulted the Gond suffer from unemployment in the study area. Santhal communities, on the other hand, are typically reliant on handicraft and tourism both of which suffered a similar fate during the cessation of market and tourist activities during the pandemic. Our paper primarily depends on both primary and secondary sources of data. The primary data is gathered from the hamlets of Lalpur area of Anuppur district, Madhya Pradesh and Bolpur area of Birbhum district of West Bengal by Mixed method. The secondary sources of data were gathered from published and unpublished sources of government and non-government agencies.