A folklore from the Munda tribes of Jharkhand speaks of a tiger that once fell into a well while on a hunt. When a passing bhisti (a water carrier) drew near with his goatskin bag, the tiger pleaded to be rescued in exchange for eternal gratitude. The bhisti, swayed by the tiger’s prayers, lowered his bag, enabling it to clamber out. Once rescued, the tiger turned on its rescuer, intent on eating him. The bhisti appealed to a nearby mango tree to mediate but the tree sided with the tiger as well, invoking the bitter ingratitude humans generally show to trees. A jackal arrived and feigned confusion about how a tiger could get into the small goatskin bag. The tiger slipped into the bag again to enact its rescue, and the jackal, quick as thought, sealed the bag, allowing the bhisti to slay the treacherous tiger.
In the warp and weft of India’s tribal narratives, from Jharkhand to the Northeast, the trickster is not only an amusing character but a living pedagogy, a didact of discernment, survival, and collective justice. The jackal exposes the duplicity of the powerful tiger and rescues the vulnerable bhisti, becoming an avatar of critical thinking, and urging the audience to question assurances of the powerful, evaluate evidence, and respond with agile intelligence.
It is precisely this spirit of the jackal that education must summon now. In a world fraying with certitudes and easy polarisations, the trickster’s cunning provides learners with vital tools to navigate ambiguity and challenge self-interested authority — tools as crucial to Statecraft as to the claims of everyday life. The jackal’s intervention in the Munda tale is deeply civic. He listens, interrogates, feigns ignorance, and can restore ethical order through wit, not violence.
These tales offer more than spectacle or entertainment. They equip learners with the instincts to examine promises and interrogate power structures. The pedagogical trickster compels us to ask: who benefits from certain narratives, and what is lost when we accept a single narrative? By threading these questions through classrooms, teachers can encourage learners to see themselves in both the vulnerable and the cunning, identifying and acknowledging complicity, and strategising resistance.
Integrating indigenous storytelling into education does not simply diversify the curriculum. It transforms the classroom into a space for negotiating identity, privilege, and resistance. The jackal’s wisdom reminds us that no civic system is secure without the alertness of its citizens, willing to disrupt its complacencies, and no education is complete without a healthy respect for the power of cunning. Stories from the margins remind us that the world’s rules, and its injustices, are always up for renegotiation, and that wisdom often emerges from those adept in ambiguity rather than brute power.
In contrast, today’s education system lives with a kind of contradiction that tribal or indigenous ways of learning do not have. In schools and colleges, knowledge is divided into subjects, graded, and approved by institutions. Outside the classroom, however, learners keep learning in different ways — from family, friends, and everyday life — about empathy, adjustment, and survival. This creates two kinds of learning: one that is official and recognised, and another that is unofficial and lived. Because of this split, learners are often confused about what counts as 'real' knowledge. Textbooks teach them how to act like good citizens but when learners actually question injustice or stand up for others, it is often seen as disobedience. Being a 'good' citizen then becomes more about following rules than about thinking or caring deeply.
Tribal and indigenous ways of learning are very different. Tribal cultures do not separate life from learning. In the Munda story, the jackal’s wisdom does not come from lessons, classes, assessments or evaluations. It comes from critical observation and using intelligence in real situations. Knowledge and morality go hand in hand. Learning takes place through dialogue, participation and experience, not by rote or through monologic lectures. Indigenous pedagogy avoids the double standards of modern education, wherein, while learners are told to be good citizens they are rarely equipped to act freely or question power.
Modern education also inculcates a kind of self-centred trickery. In schools, learners learn how to compete, outsmart, and get ahead of others. This shrewdness is employed to gain marks, jobs, and status, but not necessarily to build community, or protect others. Individual success is rewarded over collective care. The trickster in the modern system is a symbol of ambition, not ethics. In contrast, trickery in tribal or indigenous systems is used for survival, fairness, and protection. The jackal’s cunning is guided by empathy, not greed. It is trickery employed against the deceitful and the powerful. This shows how the same qualities, intelligence and wit, can be taught and applied differently.
This gap between classroom learning and real-life experience also makes civic education rather dishonest. While learners are told that everyone is equal, they see inequality every day. While they are told to speak the truth, they are rewarded for agreeing with authority. Schools claim to cultivate democratic citizens but often silence real discussion or disagreement. Indigenous stories like the Munda tale, on the other hand, encourage questioning, humour and clever thinking. They teach people to recognise deceit, resist unfair power, and act wisely. These are lessons about real politics and ethics, not just about ideal and polite behaviour.
In indigenous traditions, storytelling is a community activity building collective understanding and responsibility. Communities get together to listen, laugh, and reflect together. The goal is not just to entertain but to think and learn as a group. Everyone, irrespective of age, gender or class, has a role to play. Learning is continuous and shared. There is no rift between what is taught and what is lived.
Modern education, with its formal structure and rigid rules, can learn a lot from the open and participatory model of indigenous pedagogy. Being truly civic means thinking critically and carefully, and recognising when rules are fair or when they cause harm, and not mindlessly obeying authority. The jackal’s wit reminds us that true wisdom is often found among those who live at the margins and adapt to survive with intelligence and care, rather than just in books. Education would become more authentic, relevant and humane if classrooms valued learning where asking questions is encouraged and being clever is equated with being empathic. It would evolve from being just an institution and become a shared way of living and thinking.
Navneet Sharma teaches at the Central University of Himachal Pradesh. Sushant Kishore teaches at the Vellore Institute of Technology in Tamil Nadu