It’s Elementary, My Dear Suryakant

About 30 tribal households resolved that they wanted the seeds of knowl-edge to be sown in the womb of the hinterland, and the aberration of darkness be dispelled forever. The Gondi tribals now wanted a school for their children. Backed by Magsaysay awardee Dr Shantha Sinha’s MV Foundation in Hyderabad, the Gondi tribals of Boringguda and nine other tribal villages woke up to the fact that the only way forward for their future generations was education their chil-dren had a right to it.

The 86th Amendment to the Constitution added Article 21A in 2002, affirming that every child between the age of 6 and 14 years had the right to free and compulsory edu-cation and the State should ensure a school in every child’s neighbourhood. Boringguda, Malkuguda, Suryapet, Inkerguda and six other villages want-ed a school. The awareness brought mainly by the MV Foundation.

One of the most vociferous advo-cates of the need for a school in the village is Sidam Nam Dev, the dewariya or tribal priest: “When Shanthaji’s volunteers made us realise the benefits of education, the village decided unanimously that we want-ed a school and this time the govern-ment had to consider our demand.” Bhim Rao, who donated his house for the village school building, was clear on the long-term benefits Boringguda would reap from this. “Our village-head or Patel is only seven years old.

His father was the previous head, but after his death, he inherited the post as per tribal rituals. He now goes to the school and shall be the first ever educated Patel of Boringguda.” However, the journey of the school from the draft policies of the state government to the dry, arid land of Boringguda and nine other villages is an account of an uphill battle and perseverance. Recollects Mohd.

Raheemuddin of the MV Foundation: “In December 2002, we motivated the tribal villagers, the panches and Patels of 10 villages and rallied to the head-quarters of the Indravelly mandal, demanding a school from the mandal education officer. A petition for the same was handed over to the district education officer, the collector of the area and the Integrated Tribal Development Agency.”

Recalls Mirza Yakub Baig, an Indravelly-based activist who has been working for the rights of the trib-als for the last two decades: “No child from any of these villages had ever even heard of a school or teachers for the last 50 years. However, once the tribals were motivated and a memo-randum chalked out, it was duly cer-tified by the sarpanches or Patels of all the ten villages. A petition was made and handed over to the repre-sentatives of the state government.”

The tribals didn’t wait for the govern-ment to come out of its slumber and started sending their children to makeshift schools setup with the help of MV Foundation volunteers, like the one running in the house donated by Bhim Rao. The petition brought results and soon officials from the District Primary Education Programme surveyed the area and granted salary on behalf of the state government, for the volunteers of the tribal schools. “But we didn’t want volunteers. We wanted permanent teachers who would teach the chil-dren on a long-term basis. So we sent a petition again and this time got the posts of permanent teachers sanc-tioned from the government,” says Baig. Finally, Baig, along with the tribals, demanded permanent school buildings for the villages at the gen-eral body meeting of all the gram pan-chayats.

An agenda for the same was passed and sent to the Zila Parishad. It is then that the chief executive offi-cer of the Zila Parishad approved a grant for the school buildings. In June 2003, four out of the 10 villages got permanent school build-ings. For the remaining, grants for a permanent school building have been sanctioned by the government. For 7-year-old Suryakant, prob-ably the first ever educated village-head or Patel of Boringguda, the school makes a fair amount of sense to him. “It’s better than rearing cat-tle throughout the day. Now I even know how to count them.”