inally, women of the Muthuvan tribe in the forests of Edamalakkudy in Idukki are beginning to escape the unintended scourge of a modern contraceptive pill, which the government had introduced to them in the mid-1990s.
The pill, Mala D, a heavily subsidised oral contraceptive pushed countrywide through the government’s social marketing blitz for birth control – largely aiming the rural, less than affluent sections – had rendered infertile a big chunk of women of this tribe of about 2,000 people in 28 settlements.
In 2010, a study had found that no fewer than 117 of the tribe’s women had turned barren.
CHC study
But the silver lining is, a study by the government Community Health Centre (CHC) in Devikulam now says that 2012-13 saw seven Muthuvan newborns, which rose to eight births in 2013-14. In 2015, another eight babies were born as of end-July this year.
The study also says the number of infertile women too has now gone down to 32. The CHC study says the usage of the pill has now come down.
Too many Muthuvan women, mostly illiterate or semi-literate, had been using the cheap pill continuously for many years, often up to eight or more years.
This was not to avoid bearing children, but to escape a tribal custom that forced them into disabling isolation every time they menstruated. Continually using the pill ensured they would not menstruate.
In demand
Sources say the pill, which technically cannot be dispensed without a prescription, was so much in demand once that even local tea shops run by Muthuvan men used to sell cartons of it, until the Government woke up a few years ago and began a campaign.
Once the pill became harder to come by locally, many Muthuva women used to trek about 18 km through the forest to catch a bus to Munnar, some 22 km farther, to buy fresh stocks, say the sources.
This was because their clannish customs dictates that women should be shunted out to a Valpura, usually a bare and otherwise unused shanty away from their huts in their forest habitat, all through the days of their monthly periods.
Unsafe Valpuras
Though the Muthuvans are supposedly matrilineal, their Valpuras are mostly unsafe, dilapidated and often rat and insect infested structures that the tribal men shun as impure and refuse even to go near.
Most Muthuva women dread spending a week every month in these. Other reasons, the sources say, are that the women just cannot afford to keep off their manual farm work for days together, or to expect their husbands to cook and look after kids left home, if they have any.
After the alarm went off, the State government tried putting up a few Valpuras for these women, but with no maintenance, most of these also went to seed shrouded in weeds and creepers, in no time.
The local panchayat officials say there are now 38 Valpuras and each settlement has one or more of these, depending on the population. But the underlying causes for their plight still remain to haunt these women.
They used the pill to escape a tribal custom that forced them into disabling isolation every time they menstruated
