Joydip Mitra

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Nine-year-old Shilabati
Murmu goes to two schools every day in Chachanpur village – a government-run primary school and, some 500
metres away, an ‘alternative’ school run by Reba Murmu.

Along with around 40 other
kids, ages ranging from 3 to 12, all from Santal farming families, Shilabati
comes to Reba’s school at 6 a.m. in the summer, half an hour later in the
winter. The older students sweep the floor, recite a Tagore song as prayer –
which broadly says 'Fire is a philosopher's stone, let it touch me and make me
pure’ – and begin the day’s lessons. Part
of this school is also a crèche where little kids can come to play and sleep. 

Rebadi – as she is addressed by everyone – started the school in a mud hut owned by
her family in 2010. She had inherited roughly three acres, transferred to her
family under a state government land redistribution programme in the 1970s. But
the land here is not too fertile. So Reba leased a portion of her holding to a
Kolkata-based farming group, and used the money to start the school. She now
grows vegetables and fruits – cabbage, potato, papaya – on a small plot and sells them in the local market.

Despite her family’s modest income, 53-year-old Reba, also a Santal, managed
to get a BA degree from a college in Chhatna town, around 15 kilometres away, where she’d go on a
bicycle.  Her two brothers and a sister –
along with their families – all live together in this village in West Bengal’s
Bankura district, and support her school. It’s named after their mother – Lakshmi Murmu Prathamik Bidyalaya. 

Around four years ago, two organisations from Kolkata – the city is around 185 kilometres from Chachanpur – donated some money and helped Rebadi build three open classrooms – six concrete pillars with an
asbestos roof. Two teachers, recruited by her with the help of one of the
organisations, watch over the students, teaching them mathematics, Bengali,
history, geography and other subjects. Meanwhile, Rebadi makes breakfast and an
evening snack for the kids – puffed rice with jaggery, or roti and boiled white
peas with gravy – the menu varies.

At 9:30 a.m. they run home
and prepare to go to the government school, which too was in a dilapidated hut
but is now in a pucca (permanent) structure with four rooms. Here, only
on elderly teacher, Ananto Babu, struggles to teach all the students all their
lessons. The mid-day meals served in the government school are more attractive
for the kids, as are the textbooks supplied free of cost.

The children return to Murmu's school by 4 p.m. They play till it
is dark. They then get an evening snack and sit down to study. They are home by
9 p.m. 

Besides the school, Reba Murmu also started the Chachanpur Adibasi
Mahila Bikash Society in 2008, to bring together women in her village.  Among other activities, the Society has collaborated
with another organisation from Kolkata to train the women on getting the best
out of small plot of lands.

Reba remembers a time when her
aunt, also a vegetable seller, couldn’t tell a 50 paise coin from a one rupee
coin. This drove home the importance of reading and writing. “'We know that the
government has provisions to employ us  [Scheduled Tribes], but who to employ [if they
are not educated]?” she asks. If just one generation is properly guided, she says, better
days will begin to roll on their own.

Since March 2017, the author has been
part of a group that helps Reba Murmu’s school with pens, pencils, notebooks,
drawing sheets, warm clothes, shoes and books; they also give a monthly sum to
cover the children’s daily tiffin. Murmu has modified two rooms in her home for
visitors to stay. The author's group urges friends and relatives who
have kids to visit Chachanpur and stay there, so that their
children become friends with Rebadi's students and "learn about the pressures
and pleasures outside their cities.”

A school away from school in a Santal village

সাঁওতাল গ্রামে বাঁধাধরা স্কুলের বাইরে পৃথিবীর পাঠশালায়

ਸੰਤਾਲ ਪਿੰਡ ਦੇ ਸਕੂਲ ਤੋਂ ਦੂਰ ਇੱਕ ਹੋਰ ਸਕੂਲ

സന്താൾ ഗ്രാമത്തിലെ സ്കൂളിനപ്പുറത്തുള്ള സ്കൂൾ

சண்டால் கிராமத்தில் பள்ளிக்கு வெளியே ஒரு பள்ளி

संताली गावातील शाळेबाहेरील शाळा

संताल गांव में स्कूल से दूर एक स्कूल

سنتال گاؤں میں اسکول سے دور ایک اسکول

ଏକ ସାନ୍ତାଳ ଗାଁରେ ସ୍କୁଲ୍‌ଠାରୁ ଦୂର ସ୍କୁଲ୍‌ଟିଏ

Chachanpur

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A school away from school in a Santal village

Reba Murmu, a graduate from a Santal farm family in West Bengal's Chachanpur village, leased some of her land to start an alternative school because she believes a good education will help Adivasis move forward

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