The toppers home

As Ismat bumps down the road in his brother-in-laws sea-green Maruti 800 on his return from a felicitation ceremony with a bunch of MLAs,people on the road turn around and hail him. Small children on their way to school point him out to their friends,shouting,Ismat,Ismat!. With physics being his favourite subject at school,Ismat now wants to head to Delhis St Stephens College to study Physics Honours,a stepping stone to his ultimate goal of becoming an IAS officer

and coming back to Manipur to help his community.

Sitting in the verandah of his bright-yellow cottage,a burst of hibiscus bushes hanging overhead,Ismat says his community does have some disadvantages as a minority in the state. But Lilong as a whole is better than other smaller Muslim settlements in Manipur. It has approximately 27,000 voters,of which 21,000 are Muslim. Therefore,we have a huge advantage over other Muslim communities. And because of the vote bank,we have had a representative in the Manipur Cabinet in every term, says Mujibur Rehman,Ismats brother-in-law who works in a bank in Mumbai.

Ismat has five older sisters,all graduates. One of them works in the state education department. We feel like we are a lot more progressive than Muslim communities in other parts of the country. There isnt as much communal feeling here and all children go to school, says Ismat,adding,however,that things were not always like this in this hamlet.

Every child in Lilongno matter how poor,a boy or a girlgoes to school. Little girls go to school in full,starched white hijab. The education revolution,arising from an obsession to do things other than subsistence farming,struck roots here around a decade ago. The village had one primary,one upper primary and one higher secondary school then,all government schools. Lilong even has a Muslim college of its own. But 10 years ago was when the first private school came up in Haoreibi Mayai. Nine private schools followed in quick succession in and around the area to cater to an increasing demand for education.

Mahmood English High School is one of the 10 private schools in the area. With classes up to the tenth grade,the school,however,is a far cry from what you would expect a private school in any city in the country to be. The green building is rudimentary; the classrooms are dilapidated. A small blackboard adorns each class which has benches and broken windows. The floors are littered. Ismat studied in this school till class V after which he shifted to the Sainik School in Imphal.

Mohammad Anwaruddin is both the owner and the principal. When I set up the school in 1995,there was just one other private school in the locality. Most children in this area simply could not afford to go to school then. The locals would ask me why I went to Lilong town to teach others children when our own remained illiterate. Thats when I decided to set up this school, he says.

Paucity of funds has also led to the emergence of co-education in the area. Mahmood English High School simply cannot afford to build a separate school for girls. Girls and boys,therefore,attend the same school. In accordance to Islam,of course,we make sure that the girls and boys sit in separate classes though. We should ideally have separate schools but we cannot afford that, says Anwaruddin.

Give us 10 more years. Our community will become the leader in the state, says a confident Ismat.