Surendar Mohali teaches children at the school. Picture by Mani Keshri

Thadi Khasia (Dumka), April 5: Why are the upper castes in this nondescript Dumka village sending their boys to the Dalit community’s Bhandoch Primary School?

That’s because the government school where they would send their children has been shut for over six months, its headmaster suspended for practising casteism — upper caste 10-year-olds were being encouraged not to sit beside Dalits — and the only other teacher on rolls not attending class.

With a telltale acronym — for Dalits like Bhangi, Dom and Chammar — as its name, the Bhandoch Primary School was set up on April 14, 2007, by community members as a mark of protest against the discrimination their children were being subjected to at Thadi Khasia Primary Government School.

Dalit boys and girls did not enjoy their days at the government school. While principal Subhas Chandra Mandal separated them from their upper caste counterparts, he also told them that the water from the tubewell at the school wasn’t meant for them. Some were allegedly abused and beaten up.

This went on for long despite complaints to the Dumka deputy commissioner and the superintendent of police. Dalit community heads realised they weren’t in a position to launch an aggressive agitation. Also, the dignity of the children had to be maintained. So, heads of 10 households decided to set up their own school. “As a part of our satyagraha, we withdrew our wards from the government primary school in the village and started this school,” said Surendar Mohali, the founder.

About 58km from the Dumka district headquarters, Bhandoch school is a mud house on Ramghar-Nonihat road with Surendar (intermediate pass), Sambhu Mohali and Govind Puzahar (both matriculate) as teachers.

It started with 45 students, but now the number has gone up to 60 with the upper castes beginning to send their children there. And judging by what children such as Mitilish Singh, Sanjoy Mirdha, Ranjan Singh, Sabri Kumari have to say, they are enjoying themselves.

“Teachers are very good and we learn a lot,” said Mirdha, a Class V boy whose parents confirm he began reciting multiplication tables only after he started going to Bhandoch.

Others like 10-year-old Sarun Dagri and his nine-year-old brother, Bhim, who work on daily wages at Maslitti near Lakshmipur village on NREGA schemes, have depressing memories of the Thadi Khasia government school. “I will never go to the government school. There, teachers abused me as I am a Dalit,” Sarun said.

Ironically, the government school stands on land donated by a Dalit. “One of our community members, the Late Gulli Dagri, had donated 5 katha land for building the government school,” claimed villager Dinu Dagri. “And our children were being humiliated there.”

Villagers had complained to the deputy commissioner and superintendent of police, Dumka, during a public hearing at nearby Garadih village last year. “We told them how teachers were using caste to divide innocent students. Our children were asked not to touch the tubewell and how a separate bucket had been provided for them to drink water from,” said Raba Rayani, a housewife.

In June 2007, Mandal was suspended and the school has remained closed ever since as another teacher, Mritunjay Murmu, stopped attending. “Students never enjoyed their mid-day meals there and there was no flag hoisting ceremony on Republic Day,” said gram sabha member Sonia Devi.

Thadi Khasia village in the Santhal Paraganas has a mixed population: 10 households of Bhangis, Doms and Chammars, four Paharaias and 110 upper caste households of the Koiri and Khatori communities. Though the Dalits have had their say with the success of the Bhandoch school, all communities want the government school to reopen.

For, Bhandoch school cannot cope with the rush. “We don’t have any infrastructure, like seating arrangements, blackboards and books. How can we manage?” says Surendar, adding he had heard many more were headed from Kurba.

District superintendent of education Rajiv Lochan has promised to look into the functioning of the government school.

Until that happens, Bandoch school will have to shoulder the responsibility of educating Thadi Khasia’s young.