Fifty little pairs of bare and dust-covered feet marched down the metalled road. At the head of it was social activist Partha Chatterjee. That day in 2021, he was going to enrol these children of brick kiln workers into a government school in Jirat in West Bengal’s Balagarh subdivision.

Chatterjee tells The Telegraph, “I have no children of my own, but that day I became guardian to 50 children and quite literally. Their parents, who are migrant labourers from different states, did not have the requisite documents for admission; they did not know what to do or say.”

The brick kilns are situated on the outskirts of Balagarh, on the banks of the Hooghly. The workers live in shanties close by. Chatterjee says, “Little boys work in the kiln alongside their parents and the girls take care of younger siblings and the household.”

Chatterjee is a resident of Jirat and teaches at the Balagarh Bijoy Krishna Mahavidyalaya. He spotted these children during his visits to the brick kilns. He says, “It was during the pandemic. I was told that many migrant labourers from Jharkhand, Odisha and Haryana were stuck in the kilns. I used to visit them to give them dry food items. That is when I discovered these children.”

The first thing that struck him was that they were hungry. So he started bringing them more food.

He says, “The third time I went there, I carried along some notebooks and pencils. I started teaching them to read and write Hindi.”

Chatterjee is the programme officer of the National Service Scheme (NSS) wing of Balagarh Bijoy Krishna Mahavidyalaya. The NSS is a central government scheme; it mandates participation of high school students in community service. Chatterjee involved his students in his Jirat initiative.

Next, he opened a pathshala. He named it Biplabi Bhupati Majumdar Pathshala after a freedom fighter from the area. The then BDO Niladri Sarkar helped him enrol the children into mainstream schools.

All this happened five years ago. Today, Chatterjee runs four pathshalas. He says, “But the pathshala has now become a kind of activity centre. These children attend regular school and on Sundays they attend the pathshala where they are trained in extracurricular activities. Some of them receive help with lessons.”

Chatterjee’s wards are doing well. One girl, who had shown a knack for athletics, recently stood first in a block-level 200m race. There is a boy whose mother is suffering from thalassemia. Says Chatterjee, “He is talented, very good at his lessons, but he had stopped attending school because of his mother’s illness.” When he promised to take care of his mother, the boy started attending school again.

Mahadev Sil, the principal of Ashutosh Smriti Mandir Prathamik Vidyalaya, a school in Jirat, remembers how a woman came looking for Chatterjee. Says Sil, “She worked in one of the neighbouring brick kilns but belonged to Haryana. She believed only Chatterjee would be able to get her grandchild an education. She sat outside the school all day.”

Chatterjee is now guardian to some 800-plus children. Last year, on the occasion of Saraswati puja, the children made an idol out of clay and told Chatterjee they would perform the puja instead of getting a priest for a fee. Says Chatterjee, “They did so. And by way of ritual chant, they sang the national anthem.”