Jhalawar: A road that leads to hope…for Kanjars

A road that leads to hope…

Sanket Upadhyay
(Jhalrapatan) Jhalawar, March 19

Pappu cannot walk. He crawls to the highway nearby to beg and feed his two elder brothers. “I don’t want to do this,” he repents. But adds with glee: “I want to be a teacher.” Despite disapproval from his brothers, he has started going to school.

Member of the Kanjar tribe in Jhalawar, which is considered abandoned by all the nearby villages, could not pursue education so far. While Murduliya didn’t have any school, children here weren’t allowed to attend school elsewhere.

But a recently set up, thatched one room school called “Gurukul” in his village keeps alive his hope of helping the younger generation of his community. Sunita, Kavita and Babu have also volunteered to assist Pappu with his desire.

“These people are unapproachable. It took us a year to convince them that we don’t mean harm,” said Ranjeet Sinha, a programme coordinator of an NGO Lokrang working in the area for these tribals.

Kanjars belong to a tribe dating back to centuries. They are identified in the region as a group of thieves who also produce and consume their own liquor. Police claims that senior members of this tribe, for want of money, steal trucks and kill people to feed their families. Police have either arrested many male members or declared them as “Wanted” – the ones not arrested are absconding. “We are homeless. My father hasn’t come home since ages,” says Gopi, a 10-year-old from Chandiakhedi village. A somewhat similar condition has left many young ones in 20 such villages oblivious of an earning member.

The woman head of village Mulduriya, Geeta Patelan said that villagers who were drowned in poverty and could not send their children to city schools. “We have approached the district administration on several occasions to set up a school here but to no avail,” she said.

A recent UNICEF funded Shiksha Caravan called Teetri, which hit the village to show a movie on problems of the poor, helped many in realising this dream. The film shows a girl called Teetri, who helps many young and old realize their dreams. “We want to be like Teetri,” a woman said. Convenor of the project, Vipin Tiwari said that caravan would be taken to remote areas that have so far remained untouched by any government reforms.