Ganesh (16) does not know how to read or write but he threatened his teachers that he would write their names in a suicide note if they come to take him to the school. He has gone to only four days to school and has no plans of returning to the classroom. When asked about his career plans, he looks at his father who is segregating fish for fileting, and says, “I will also do this only”.
It’s not just Ganesh but many youngsters like him from the Kaikadi community, who are going away from education. This community is one among the 42 nomadic destitute castes and denotified tribes in Maharashtra. Around 150 families of this caste live in Latur, Maharashtra. Traditionally this community was involved in making brooms, baskets, boards from bamboo but the pace of globalisation made their products outdated and businesses got shut.
In a drought-prone area like Latur, they are selling fish that fetch them an income of around Rs 200-500 for a day, which is often irregular. Each family has more than four members with only one person being a breadwinner. Due to insufficient income, many children drop out of school and start getting into the fishing business. The gap between education and the Kaikadi community is widening but Nagesh Jadhav, the first graduate from this community residing in Latur, is standing right between that gap and trying to shorten it by guiding the youngsters.
Children like Ganesh have made their first step into class because of Nagesh. “Usually parents prefer teaching swimming to their children rather than sending them to school because that prepares them for business. But my parents never allowed me and my siblings to do so. They kept us confined to education,” said Nagesh who is also an assistant professor. He convinces the parents of children, takes these children to school, does their documentation, and keeps them motivated. But that’s not enough. When one is given a choice to choose between life and education, the latter takes a back seat in life or more precisely no place!
“If I went to school, then who will feed my family?,” said Ashish Mane (15), who is a sole earner for the family of four which includes his mother, two sisters, and himself. Due to the death of his father, the responsibility of his family has fallen on him. He can do all sorts of work pertaining to fish and its sale. He does have admission to a neighbouring school but barely gets time to go.
“I stay in the fish market from 10 am to 7 pm. Help my father by scraping away the scales of fishes,” said Krushna Jadhav (11). He went to school until the first lockdown was imposed owing to the COVID-19 pandemic as his father earned at least Rs 1,000 per day. But in the lockdown, the markets were closed, and earnings were stopped. For survival Krushna’s father, Gangadhar Jadhav took money from private money lenders and friends at their own interest rates. “I mortgaged gold as well for the money.
I had taken a loan of more than Rs 60,000 which repaying with interest is becoming difficult for me.” The competition in the fish market has become intense after lockdowns, as other communities as well have jumped into this business keeping little room for profit for people like Gangadhar Jadhav. Because others can afford to preserve the fish if it is not sold at the end of the day but he cannot as one needs money for all such facilities. Amidst such a situation, he either can feed his family or get his children educated; he chose the former option.
The few from the community who have succeeded in life have their own plight of educational experiences to share. Dhanaraj Jadhav (34) only studied till the 10th and that too with inadequate facilities. “I didn’t have buttons on my uniform shirt, nor did I have a hook to my pants. I used to put two stitches of thread to my shirt and a thread locked with a twisted tiny stick for pants as a hook.” Whenever Dhanaraj expressed his aspirations to study, his parents often told him that they do not have money for his ‘luxury’. They wanted him to work and feed the family.
He also recalls that till the 9th some of his teachers paid for his exams and offered him books as well as notebooks for free. But when he was in 10th grade, he was brutally beaten by his teacher for not paying the school fee. Eventually, he failed in English in 10th standard and never went back to school. Though he has financially succeeded in life, he understands educational importance and keeps motivating children from the community to get educated.
As this locality is densely populated, Nagesh many times felt that their family should move out to a better place. But his father tells him not to forget his roots and leave the people from the community behind. There are many children from the community that look up to him and want to be like him. Seeing this positive result, he is on a mission to shorten the gap between education and the Kaikadi community. “Today also my mother doesn’t know how much I have studied. She just looks at me with pride when I dress up tucked in my shirt and speak effectively with others and I want every mother in my community to look at their child in that way. But that is not easy,” told Nagesh.