Laloo146;s herd instincts

Charvaha schools were meant for the cowherds who couldn8217;t attend regular school. The school has a large fenced land where the cows can graze while the cowherds attend classes. Midday meals were to be provided, cooked on gobar gas. A barber and maid were supposed to help the children keep clean.

8216;8216;Pado likho, khao peeyo. Mast raho,8217;8217; Laloo Yadav told the children on the inauguration. 8216;8216;It was too good to last,8217;8217; remembers Devender Ram, among the first batch of students. 8216;8216;The cattle could not run away because of the fencing. I learnt to read and write during the three years of the school but now do not remember much.8217;8217;

AS Laloo gets on to the fast track, putting his signature on everything in the railways8212;from kulhars to khadi clothes, Devender Ram8217;s scepticism is loud. 8216;8216;The midday meal stopped first. Then everything collapsed one by one. I work in a brick kiln to earn a living,8217;8217; the 16-year-old Yadav says. 8216;8216;Had the school been functional I would have studied.8217;8217;

Meanwhile, younger children have taken on the herding. Charavaha schools had all the features of Laloo8217;s style of functioning8212;highly populist, imaginative, bordering the Utopian. Unconcerned with feasibility, funds and planning, 79 schools were started in Bihar and an estimated 12,000 students enrolled. 8216;8216;But there was no perseverance and commitment to sustain it,8217;8217; admits a senior official of the state government.

Modelled on the nomadic schools in several European countries, the Charvaha schools were never run on any institutional framework. They just followed Laloo8217;s whims. The funds for the buildings were sourced from different government projects, the meals were to come from social welfare department, grazing lands were to be maintained by the forest department. And there were no committed teachers8212;they were deputed from regular schools.

8216;8216;Within three years, all funding had stopped,8217;8217; remembers an official familiar with the project. 8216;8216;When Laloo8217;s interest faded the project collapsed,8217;8217; he says. Former students at the Turki school say midday meal was the most important pull for students. 8216;8216;Without the rest of the fanfare, if they could provide meals and teachers, students will still turn up,8217;8217; says another.

NOW the fencing is all broken, the shed for classrooms has collapsed. The gobar gas plant is defunct. Another school just a few kilometres from Turki is a mirror image.

But Laloo has always believed in spectacular beginnings and poor follow-ups. He took oath as the chief minister of Bihar in Patna8217;s Gandhi Maidan instead of Raj Bhawan; declared he would not move into the chief minister8217;s bungalow. Soon enough, not only did he occupy I Anney Marg, the CM8217;s official residence, but also combined another sprawling bungalow to his estate.

Laloo loyalist and MoS for HRD M A A Fatmi now says he will allocate funds to revive the Charvaha schools. 8216;8216;These schools will be covered under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan. The union government will provide for two teachers and cooked midday meals,8217;8217; he promises.

But then the proof of the pudding does not lie in promises.