Akbarpur (Lakhimpur Kheri), Uttar Pradesh
In a pocket-sized area outdoors, under the open sky, a few bamboo stakes and strips of cloth form a fence that enclose it. Children of Akbarpur village, tucked away in Lakhimpur Kheri district, call it their classroom. They built the rickety enclosure and daily sit on the dusty ground hanging on to every word of their teacher, Anil Kumar Gautam, who they call, quite simply, guruji, or master ji.
Of the bunch of students who sat on the ground listening to their teacher was Aseem, who had just returned to the village after begging in a nearby town along with his parents. Like him, Yamini, Shyamal, Baldeep and some other students in the makeshift classroom in Akbarpur once begged.
These children belong to the Kanjar community, which has traditionally been begging for a living, and none of its members has ever been to a school. This bunch of 25 students in Gautam’s classroom is the first generation students of the Kanjar community of Akbarpur.
And the credit for this new beginning goes to the 25-year-old village youth, Gautam, who has taken it upon himself to educate the children from the Kanjar community, which is a Scheduled Caste (SC). Gautam himself belongs to another SC community of the village.
“Somehow the idea that the young children I see laughing and playing in the village will soon be out in the streets of towns and cities, begging, disturbed me,” the young teacher told Gaon Connection. “I wanted to write a new chapter in the lives of these children hence started persuading their parents to send them to me for studying. About 25 students come to me for their daily classes,” Gautam said, who could not complete his Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) degree due to his father’s illness. But, he did not abandon his dream and is today teaching some of the most marginalised rural children.
A glimmer of hope
Akbarpur is like thousands of other villages in Uttar Pradesh — a picture of neglect, squalour and abyssmal infrastructure. Roughly 50 per cent of its population of about 800 comprises the Kanjar community that begs for a living. It is mainly the women and children who beg, and sometimes entire families travel out of Akbarpur to as far as even the national capital of Delhi to beg. For generations, the community has had nothing to do with classrooms, schools or education.
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But, as the country struggles with the curveball thrown by the COVID19 pandemic that has created havoc in the education system, in Akbarpur, there is a flicker of hope as hands that stretched out to beg are now holding books.
“Three years ago, I was begging every day. But, master ji spoke to my parents and told them this was my age to study, not wander around begging,” Ankul, a student of Gautam, told Gaon Connection. “I study Hindi, I read stories, I do ganit (maths)… I want to be a policeman when I grow up,” he said.
Ankesh who is in class two said he was begging in Delhi before he came home and joined the school. “Guruji told me I should learn. I like to study and I have decided I will not beg again,” he told Gaon Connection.
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Baldeep shared a similar story: “I am in class four now. When I was younger, I begged along with my parents in some villages near Delhi. When I came back to the village, Masterji told me I should think of doing something better with my life.”
Aseem, bubbling with energy, said, “Masterji has registered me at the primary school. And I have decided I will study and not go away again to towns or cities to beg.”
Winds of change
Supporting Gautam in his mission are Kamala and Kusum, who cook at the primary school in Akbarpur. The children call them ‘amma’ fondly. Gautam has also registered these children at the local government school that was set up in 2006 and now has 161 children registered in it.
“The parents of these children made them beg. But now, they send them to school to study,” Kamala told Gaon Connection. She said there were times when children did not turn up and she went to their homes and persuaded them to come to school, often tempting them with food.
“Children enjoy the freshly cooked meals offered at the school [mid-day meals]. More of them are coming to school now to be educated and build their character and skills,” the school cook said. “Our village is changing,” she smiled with pride.
“The last few years have seen a change. Children who would wander around with a cloth bag around their necks to collect alms, are now coming to school with a bag filled with books and pencils,” Mahesh Kumar, a primary school teacher in the village, told Gaon Connection.
While the children are also enrolled at the local primary school, some of them come to Gautam for studying too. “I teach about twenty five children. But there are times I lose some of them who are taken away by their parents to other towns and villages to beg, and they miss classes,” Gautam rued.
“I wish I had more means. The kids have cleaned up and fenced in this ‘classroom’. They have used scraps from their old clothes to do so. With their help I have devised a board that I use as a blackboard,” the masterji said. “The children are so enthusiastic to learn that they do all they can to make our ‘classroom’ comfortable,” he added.
Gautam does not charge any fee from the students and has been teaching them for free for the last couple of years. However, in the past few months, seeing the positive changes in their children, some parents on their own have started to offer minimal remuneration to him.
“I get about fifteen hundred rupees to two thousand a month, but whether they pay me or not, the classes will not stop,” Gautam said. When the schools shut down during the pandemic, Gautam’s outdoor community classes with a handful of children continued.
A window of opportunity
Many young people in the village regretted not having had a chance to be educated. “My forefathers begged for a living, my parents too, and I hated that. I somehow managed to become a mason and that is how I earn my living,” Annu, a 28-year-old daily wager, told Gaon Connection. “I know my job well, but if I have to write down measurements, etc., I have to depend on someone else to do that as I do not read or write. That makes me feel sad,” he added.
But Annu said it gladdened his heart to see the young children in his village studying.
According to the inhabitants of Akbarpur, children going to the school and attending masterji’s classes is the beginning of a social change in their village. A slow but sure change.
“Many of us are now daily wagers. However that is not enough to fill our stomachs so we also beg on the side. But our numbers are much less now,” 32-year-old Satish told Gaon Connection. “About educating our children, those who have the means to do so send them to school. Those who do not, send them to beg,” he said.
Meanwhile Gautam continues his crusade of educating the children. “I hope we progress on the path of imparting education and nothing comes in the way of our journey,” he concluded.
