EK JAWAN - SOW KISSAN

EK JAWAN- SOW KISSAN



(POLICE TEACHERS-( Part -1)}

Let me take the liberty of splitting this story- Police Teachers- into two parts. First part deals with an initiative taken with high aspiration but remained as a shattered musings of a botched endeavor whereas the second one is of a modest attempt turned out to be a huge success. Right now you are reading the first part of the story which happened almost a year ago in a place where many of you might not have even dreamt to pay a visit. I have my limitations to tell you the name of this place which is in either way has no relevancy in this story. But to have a general idea, let me say that; this village is in the Andhra- Orissa border far away from the main land encircled by dense reserve forest. To those of you who have a little acquaintance with the present security scenario prevailing in the nation this is enough to understand how am I associated with this story. And to those who are not, it is important to know that this place is a part of the so called ‘red corridor’ region which is highly infested with Maoists. My CRPF Company is stationed here in this area with a police station functioning inside, (in other words the police station is being encircled by the CRPF) for conducting anti naxalite operations. It’s almost a year now since this story had its origin.

 A sudden boisterous commotion outside the police station was what I heard while getting out of my camp office for a customary jogging session that early morning. There were lots of threatening abuses, frightened families, and scattered onlookers and of course these hapless police men controlling the crowd from getting into attacking each other. Since we, the Central Police men are used to such scuffles happening in the premise of the police station almost every day, for us this was just another incident of domestic abuse where members of two tribal families involved in a petty issue of chicken theft or something similar.  All the time the poor policemen respond to allegations of abusive words, liquor aberrations, family disputes, kids fight etc and waste most of their time to this and hence never get a minute to tackle the problems the government and the society likes them to do. The station house officer often told me with a stooping head that these people never take responsibility of their own loved ones and that of their property instead foist it on to the police and later blaming them if anything goes wrong. What a plight!.

‘Koya’ tribal community predominant in this area is synonymous to illiteracy, illness, alcoholism, premature death, disturbed families and all other such deprivations not even heard in a place from where I belong to.  Notwithstanding the measures taken by the government in improving the living conditions of the downtrodden tribal populace in this area, illiteracy and alcoholism among villagers are still acting as a major hurdle to negotiate.




(Rally on Anti-Tobacco Day)



When the local S.H.O requested me one day to lead an ‘Anti-Smoking’ rally which they proposed to conduct as a part of community policing, I was extremely pleased with that and readily agreed. It was a graceful function which went on well with the participation of local populace and a few tiny school children. A casual interactive session with the senior villagers, once the function was over opened before me an appalling account of how pathetic is the living condition of the tribal inhabitants existing in this part of the world. Apart from several complex issues of basic entitlements and exploitations, these people are seemed less exposed to the outer world. In order to find a solution to this problem we summoned a few senior members of the village and tried to convince them the need to become literate to avail government subsidies without getting exploited by the middlemen. They were convinced and together on that day we took an oath to support a noble mission to educate old age farmers and labors who are totally illiterate and are hailing from poor background. CRPF took the responsibility and thus a new literacy program organized by Central Police, not even heard at least in this part of the world, got its ignition.



    

Well educated Telugu speaking men of my company who have previous teaching experience were shortlisted and motivated to accomplish this task. We had given a slogan -“Ek Jawan - Sow Kissan” expressing the aim and nature of our programme which means one soldier will educate hundred illiterate farmers. Our endeavor was not just to educate them but to assist them in all their ventures in life. We were totally aware of the practical difficulties that may come up when the police and the public work together for a common cause. But as a welfare measure to the public and also as a part of developing a better police-public relationship we decided to go ahead with our project. 



"The Class Room"



 A small shelter in our camp was earmarked as the ‘class room’ which we named as ‘Solidarity Hall’ for it being a place where Kissan and Jawan show their camaraderie. Mandal educational officers and Sarpanch of the village offered all assistance from their side. Iam always in the opinion that the armed forces and other central police organizations that are deployed in every nook and corner of our country could be used to contribute effectively to the task of nation building in a collaborative way by providing their sheer man power strength in rural areas, particularly in agricultural sector, during peace time. They can even help the hapless farmers who are facing acute labor problem to harvest their corps and thus could prevent the bumper crops being rotten in the agricultural lands itself. This will give a new energy in this sector.

Pamphlets were distributed among the villagers and lecture classes were conducted on holidays thereby encouraging the illiterate farmers and daily labors to visit our camp and participate in our literacy programme.  We apprised them the importance of education and our willingness to make them literate by placing huge banners and notice boards outside. A list of approximate population living in our area of responsibility (AOR) and are illiterate had been drafted. Provision for distributing tea and biscuit from our own sources to all those ‘students’ attending the class was taken care of. Wide publicity was given through the state police machinery as well. A leaflet thus drafted by me in this dimension has given a new slogan-“Ek Jawan- Sow Kissan” which was made in the shades of one of the most chanted slogan-“Jai jawan-Jai Kissan” by the then great prime minister of the nation Shri. Lal Bahadur Sasthri in the year 1965. We were ready by all means to bring about this new initiative with utmost zeal and verve. But destiny wills otherwise.

  (Jai Jawan-Jai Kissan.......Ek Jawan-Sow Kissan)   All our actions in this regard went futile as nobody turned up to attend the literacy class regardless of constant perseverance by my company personnel. The main reason was alcoholism. The labor class tribal men who are addicted to liquor, after a daylong hard work in far off construction sites were unable to spare a few hours after dusk for a reason which has least relevancy in their priority list. That was a huge disappointment for me. It was not that Iam unaware of my limitations in implementing such a programme in a place where the living conditions of the inhabitants are as complex as a hard puzzle. But as a person who often goes by intuition, I was highly optimistic about the success of the programme. But I do feel sorry for them that I could not make them literate and thus elevate their living condition. I feel exasperated when some people think that this ill-fated community could never be resurrected. Iam not naïve and I know this is possible. Let me try once more…some other day….. Part -2 follows……..