Lockdown and Accessibility to Food in India: How Tribal Communities Lead Through the Hunger Pandemic in Koraput, Odisha

Abstract

The pandemic induced lockdown has affected the tribal livelihoods, nutritional disparities, malnutrition were some of the inevitable aspects observed during the pandemic. The commentary tries to depict the plights and predicaments of tribal communities during the lockdown, how they suffer from nutritional deficiencies and surmounted to hunger and poverty. The paper highlights the lockdown in Koraput Odisha India which has led to deterioration of the lives of the tribals and somehow pushed them to starvation. There have been both primary data collection through opinions of people who were available during these times and some secondary data collection through newspaper and web-articles was done. The tribal communities' livelihood was affected during the lockdown, they have been encountering food problem and there was high scarcity of nutrition as lockdown led to shut down of shops but ultimately they had tries certain empowerment paradigms like plantation at home to substitute the nutritional discrepancies. The article explores the livelihoods of these indigenous communities and the need for empowerment, devising proactive policies for high implementation programmes and prevents them from nutritional deficiencies and brings about better social wellbeing and health conditions. As food is an important element in everyone's lives the indigenous communities' right to food and the growing concerns to bridge the gap should be an important aspect for future research.