The Dalit Gurukuls

Bhim pathshalas offer alternative education to disadvantaged Dalit schoolchildren

- M. Riyaz Hashmi

TWENTY KILOMETRES off the highway to Panchkula from Saharanpur, the village of Hauj Khedi presents a rather unusual picture. It is past 6 pm and some fifty 5­ to 16­year­old children are engrossed in studying. Most of them are barefoot, seated on gunny­ sacks and peering intently into their books, occasionally addressing queries to the young volunteer teachers.

Welcome to Hauj Khedi’s Bhim Pathshala, one of some 500 schools for Dalit students that have cropped up across western Uttar Pradesh in the past two­and­a­half years. There are 300 in Saharanpur district alone, where Dalit boys and girls come to revise lessons learnt in their regular day schools, while the rest of the village kids head for playgrounds. Here, besides the usual school subjects, they are also told about Bhimrao Ambedkar and other Dalit icons.