Using the arts to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 among India's indigenous and nomadic communities

The proposed research aims to document, create awareness, and ease the short and long-term impact of Covid-19 among India's most precarious indigenous nomadic communities through multiple arts activities; and by researching and communicating community appropriate responses to the pandemic. To do so, it brings together researchers, development practitioners, policy makers, artists and activists. The project builds on a pilot GCRF grant at the University of Leicester, which is successfully trialling a community arts podcast to document and spread information about Covid-19 in indigenous languages and art forms.

India counts one of the largest indigenous populations in the world also known as adivasis, a term of self-reference that literally means original inhabitant. More than 80 million people are officially classified as Scheduled Tribes (STs) and around 110 million people as DeNotified Tribes (DNTs) - communities that were 'notified' as born criminals during British colonial rule under the 1871 Criminal Tribes Act. India's ST and DNT groups are among the most precarious populations in the subcontinent working as manual labourers, agricultural and construction workers, performers, sex workers and street entertainers at the margins of India's informal economy. Their economic poverty is further compounded by the stigma associated with their identity. For DNT groups in particular, the brand of criminality continues to drive their interaction with the state and negatively affects their ability to access basic state provisions from schools to, to food and health services (Renke et al. 2008; Devy 2006).

The project has been co-designed in partnership with Bhasha Research and Publication Centre, Budhan Theatre and the Adivasi Museum of Voice - a research NGO, a grassroots theatre group and a community museum with a track record of working for the rights of India's indigenous and nomadic groups by linking art and rights-based campaigns. A team of twelve indigenous artists, curators and researchers will undertake an extensive project of documentation of the specific lockdown and post-lockdown experiences of DNT and ST communities in the western India region (also the worst affected by the pandemic), through mobile digital technology; and produce a series of community arts podcasts in local indigenous languages aimed at addressing the health, socio-cultural and politico-economic dimensions of the pandemic. Podcasts will be disseminated through community social media networks and through an exhibition at the Adivasi Museum of Voice. They will also be accessible with English subtitles for international audiences through a dedicated project website.

The project will develop transferrable methodologies for socially engaged arts practices in the context of the pandemic. This includes translating theatre forms through socially distant and virtual platforms; and further reconceptualising the role of community museums as key agents that can assist societies in times of crisis. The research undertaken as part of the project will also inform a policy intervention and report in collaboration with development consultant Dr. Khanna aimed at strengthening indigenous rights and social accountability mechanisms, and at devising public health interventions based on communities' needs. The policy intervention will focus on the relationship between precarious citizenship, mobility and rights, challenging the sedentarist bias in approaches to welfare and human rights. This is especially crucial in the context of the two intersecting urgencies posed by Covid-19 and India's new citizenship bill, which threatens to make many indigenous groups (especially mobile STs and DNTs) stateless. As Covid-19 exposes and deepens existing inequalities, this project will contribute to alleviating the effects of the pandemic on highly vulnerable populations by employing the arts and culture as mechanisms for community building and resilience.