The pandemic’s effect upon the local villages

Auroville Today: What is the situation now regarding the impact of the pandemic on the health and well-being of the local villagers?

Anbu: During the pandemic we initiated a project in government schools because schools were shut for a long period and the children were suffering: they were hearing negative stories about the pandemic and some were even experiencing violence due to the difficult socio-economic conditions of the families. So last year the Auroville Village Action group initiated an art project for 2500 children in 23 schools as a form of therapy. The teachers highly appreciated this initiative. However, they also told us that now the schools have reopened, they are finding it difficult to manage the children, much more so than before the pandemic. They complained that children do not pay attention to their studies and find it difficult to stay inside classrooms as they were out of schooling for months. They also said that children of 11 years and older won’t listen to what they say, they are glued to their mobile phones even in the classroom, and that a few of them are violent and using illegal substances.

What caused this? Was it due in some way to the pandemic?

Definitely. One reason is that because they had missed two years of education, when the schools reopened the students were promoted to a class standard two years ahead, but they didn’t have the knowledge to cope at this standard, so this was very frustrating for both the teachers and the students.

Also, the students didn’t get the education and guidance needed at the time the schools were shut. After the parents left for work, the children were free at home. They could watch certain things which were not under the parents’ control, and the boys in particular were very influenced by what they saw in the films and wanted to imitate their macho heroes. Before the pandemic, fewer children had mobile phones. But during the pandemic all of them were asked to get a mobile for the online tuition, so then they spent most of the time on social media or watching films.

For a year or more many of the older boys were scot-free and could go anywhere. Some became involved in elections: they went round with political parties, helping carry posters and running errands for the leaders, and they got free biriyani every day and sometimes liquor. It made them feel powerful, and they began to shout and bully others. When their parents wanted to know what they were doing, they would resent it and tell them they were doing important things.

Even younger boys of even 11 or 12 were taking up part-time work, partly at the bidding of their parents and partly because they wanted money to spend. As they were working with adults, they got exposed to their habits, like smoking, drinking and bad language, and so their behaviour began to reflect this.

This meant they were losing their childhood and getting separated more and more from their families. For example, one boy became so attached to the biriyani he consumed every day with his earnings that he refused his mother’s food.

When we interacted with Women’s Group members and other Youth Club members they told us the same story: there was a big change in the behaviour in the schoolchildren. And this was not happening just in our area. At this time in Tamil Nadu there were reports of students elsewhere being violent to the teachers, even stabbing them, and of boys and girls openly drinking liquor.

Clearly, something had to be done. When on International Women’s Day this year some of the teachers addressed the women we had assembled, the teachers said that they had difficulty managing the older boys, who were often violent, and they asked the parents to take more responsibility for looking after their children. Then a head teacher told them that unless the teachers, parents and the larger community collaborated in doing this, it would be very difficult to control them.

AVAG experienced the problem this year in its summer camp for boys and girls. The first few days were very difficult because the boys were teasing and bullying the girls, and were even violent among themselves. When we divided them into smaller groups and asked them to express themselves, some of the older boys said they were pushed by their family to get work to earn money, but others enjoyed watching violent films and wanting to experiment with behaving like this.

Meanwhile, it emerged that the girls are very naïve, innocent; their world is television and social media on mobile phones. They don’t go out much; they’re much more at home and more controlled by their parents. However, both boys and girls repeatedly expressed their hostility towards each other.

We realized that something needed to be done, so on the fourth day of the summer camp we framed some guidelines for the children. One was to respect each other, not to be violent but to have respectful communication.

Realising that the boys had been thrown into adulthood at a very young age, we also warned the parents that their children were losing their childhood, and that it is illegal for the young ones to have a job.

Also, because some children have experienced violence and abuse not only from other children but also from adults – in Tamil Nadu there were more reported cases of child abuse in this period compared to pre-pandemic – we are planning a mental health programme for them, in collaboration with the Auroville Child Protection group, the Department of Social Work of Pondicherry University and with an organisation in Madurai which is working in the area of mental health in government schools.

What about the parents? How are they coping? If the parents were encouraging their children to take jobs, was this because they were impacted financially by the pandemic? Have many of the parents lost jobs which they’ve not been able to return to?

Many of them suffered financially during the pandemic, particularly in the neighbouring villages because many of them were dependent on the Auroville tourist trade or were employed in Auroville production units. But during this time the guesthouses were shut, the production units were shut, and even units run by the Tamil villagers in the villages shut down.

So it was very difficult for them to manage. Some spent all their savings, others mortgaged their jewellery or borrowed money. I didn’t see a big increase in suicides, but the economic crisis, plus the fact that now the parents were cooped up together in the house during the lockdown, led to a definite increase in marital violence. When someone has lost their job and has fears about the future, they sometimes take out their frustration on their wife or their children.

One thing that was very helpful during the pandemic was that banks offered ₹5,000 overdrafts to verified women in Self Help Groups having Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana accounts to meet their credit needs, without insisting on security. Also, AVAG enabled SHG members associated with it to get loans from the nationalised banks without going to the moneylenders. Women in our network availed loans worth around 5 crores during this period from the nationalised banks.

The farmers were also under pressure because during the pandemic the price of inputs like fertilisers increased and still haven’t come down, but the prices for the agricultural yield didn’t go up.

Has the employment situation eased now?

Many villagers have jobs again, but often not their old job, either because their old workplace has closed or because it is taking fewer employees. So when they take jobs in new places often they get less salary and this again creates frustration. The employment situation also affects college students. Those who received qualifications during the lockdown through online tuition are considered less well educated –they are referred to as the ‘COVID batch’ – and employers don’t want to give them jobs.

What about the larger village community? Has Covid and its aftermath fragmented it or brought it closer together?

During the pandemic time I think it strengthened the community because people were supporting each other more. For example, the most marginalized - the poorest, the widows, those with mental health problems – were the most affected by the pandemic. But because people saw they were suffering the most, there was more sympathy for them. In many cases, the youth, women and the leaders helped Village Action select the most needy ones so we could support them first with food and other relief materials.

Then again, the COVID vaccinations started before the local elections, and because the villages didn’t have a panchayat president at this time, the youth took the initiative to organise the first vaccinations in collaboration with the Health Department.

What about the relationship with the authorities? Did this improve or deteriorate as a result of COVID?

The relationship with the government agencies has improved, and Auroville Village Action Group played an important part in this by linking the community with them, particularly with the Health Department. These linkages will continue, and the more we create visibility and awareness in the villages of what the government provides, the more the trust in the authorities will grow.

Recently, for example, the Tamil Nadu government started providing counselling relating to mental health and substance abuse in schools and other places. Another good thing is that after the pandemic the government initiated a new health scheme, called ‘health at your doorstep’. Health visitors visit homes and check blood sugar, blood pressure etc. and give basic medicines free of cost. While the central and state governments provided food essentials during the pandemic, the Tamil Nadu government also provided free rice, dahl and oil during the lockdown to the families of children who had been enrolled in government schools. This was because before the schools shut these children would have benefitted from the free noon meal scheme, and the government didn’t want them to suffer.

This support was not available to families of children who were enrolled in private schools. One result has been that a number of families shifted their children from private schools to government schools. Another factor was that they couldn’t afford the private schools’ fees anymore.

Of course, one of the main reasons why parents enrolled their children in private schools is because the medium of instruction is English, and they thought this would give their children an educational and employment advantage. But government schools in Tamil Nadu are now beginning to provide an English language class.

The government of Tamil Nadu has also introduced a 7.5% reservation for students from government schools for free admission to government medical colleges. This means that while they still have to pass the NEET entry exam, a proportion of them can get admitted with lesser marks. This is a huge thing for local parents who would like their children to become doctors because the fees at private medical colleges are astronomical – typically up to 25 lakhs rupees a year.

Also, while the unorganised employed sector did not benefit from government support during pandemic, this is now possible and Village Action is also helping people from that sector to register for assistance. And we are working closely with the police and social welfare departments to raise awareness about the safety of women and children in the communities.

The British Academy report said the effects of the pandemic could last a decade in the U.K. Do you think there will be long-term repercussions of the pandemic in the nearby villages?

I think the impact upon the children and young adults will definitely stay for a longer period. Apart from anything else, it is difficult to see how the younger ones can ever catch up the two years of education they have lost, and this will have long-term consequences. Similarly, the effect of the ‘COVID batch’ stigma of college students may be longer lasting.

I also think the shift away from private schools to government ones may not be a short- term shift. There may also be a shift from private to public medicine because some people say that the way they are treated by private hospitals and doctors has changed. Before the pandemic they could sit next to the doctor, but now the doctors sit far away and don’t want to examine them physically. This doesn’t happen so much in the government hospitals, where the treatment and medicines are free. So now that basic health care is also free in the villages, why should they go to private doctors?

If these shifts become widespread they would be important shifts, because in the past it was always assumed that the private schools and private doctors were better than government ones.

Do you think that Village Action’s work during the pandemic in supporting the villagers and linking them with the government authorities will assist your work in the future?

Definitely, and it has already assisted our work a lot. Now we have more contact with panchayat leaders, and this will help us when we try to initiate meetings in the communities for the protection of women and children, or to deal with substance abuse. For without including the panchayat leaders, we cannot do anything.

Our work during the pandemic has also helped to build a lot of goodwill for Auroville, because whatever we do in Village Action is seen as coming from Auroville. So the local people say that Auroville supported them at the right time. They are also aware that those living in more distant villages didn’t get the same help during the pandemic because there is no presence of Auroville there.