The Advasi-dominated areas of Maharashtra’s Palghar district aren’t just experiencing vaccine hesitancy – they are seeing downright vaccine...
The Advasi-dominated areas of Maharashtra’s Palghar district aren’t just experiencing vaccine hesitancy – they are seeing downright vaccine refusal. While people stand in long queues to get the shot barely 100 kms away in Mumbai, many vaccine centres here are deserted.
This has led to the curious situation where city residents, using the government’s Cowin app, have found appointment slots in Adivasi areas and driven there to get vaccinated. The activist in me demanded action. How can vaccines meant for Adivasis be diverted to the urban folk ?
The problem was that the Advasis themselves were not feeling cheated of their quota of vaccines. In fact, they did not want them at all. To raise their voice against the injustice of supplies being used by privileged beneficiaries from other places, people must first believe that the vaccines are good, effective and necessary.
But how can we demand the vaccine if they are living in denial of the disease itself? Despite hundreds of people suffering from high fever and other Covid-19 symptoms and a fair number succumbing to the disease in almost every village in the area, residents claim that it was merely a fever epidemic, not coronavirus disease.
‘The vaccine kills’
During the recent weeks, I and other members of...
