Officials fret as Malana villagers refuse vaccine citing deity’s diktat

SHIMLA: For two months, health care workers have been trekking 7km every alternate day of the week to reach the remote villages of Malana in Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh. Their aim: to take the Covid-19 vaccines to a remote corner of the country -- to the villages nestled in the Himalayas at an altitude of around 9,900 feet.

But their efforts have been in vain.

Not a single person in the two villages in Malana, with around 2,000 residents, has been inoculated yet.

Health care workers say villagers, who believe they are the descendents of Greek king Alexander, repeatedly refused to get the jab because it is against their beliefs.

The residents of Malana have followed their traditions for centuries now. Most decisions are taken by their own local governing bodies, but the local deity -- Jamdagni Rishi or Jamlu Devta -- has the final say.

“I’ve been trying to convince the villagers, but they refuse citing the deity’s diktat. In 2015, it took me three months to convince mothers to get their children vaccinated (for newborns). But this time, not a single person in the village has come forward for vaccination and my attempts to convince them have proven futile,” said 35-year-old Nirmala Devi, an accredited social health activist (ASHA) who has been working in the Kullu district for several years and has been walking up from the nearest bus station in Jari to Malana for weeks now.