Formal Education is widely seen as the steppingstone to modernization. But do all citizens have equal access to education in India? Inaccessibility to education based on caste, class, gender, tribe and digital access has been explored but what is often overlooked is the role that geography can act as a barrier to access education. This note from a field visit in the desert of Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat will bring to light the challenges faced by Chuvalia Koli Agariya (a denotified tribe who are salt farmers[i]) children to access education.

January 10, 2020, I was first introduced to my research field through an NGO Agariya Heeth Rakshak Manch (AHRM) in Ahmedabad. I was a part and witness of the first historic children’s fair held for the salt farmers residing in the Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat. The fair aimed to provide training to the children on art and craft, pottery, science experiments and provide free health check-ups to the community and children.  The Agariyas migrate to the desert for 8 months to produce almost 76 per cent of the total salt produced in India. The average income of an Agariya family (five members and more) is between Rupees 7000 to 12000 per month. Almost 8000 families migrate between the desert and its periphery villages of five districts to continue their traditional occupation for eight months. The non-accessible desert during the monsoon is transformed into a unique lifeworld from September to May as the salt farmers switch to desert life with its unique set of challenges (Harchandani, 2020).

As the entourage crossed vast land of 5000 sq km of cracked mudflats, I wondered sitting in the car, how one traverses this zero-survey land^[i] which has no sign boards and marked routes. Upon enquiring, I was told by a fellow Agariya that, “The desert belongs to the Agariyas, only they can help you to enter and leave otherwise you will be lost in this labyrinth; exhausted, confused and blacked out”. This was the beginning of my first challenge to enter the desert as a young, unmarried female researcher to live with the denotified tribe and learn about their lifeworld. Just like how the desert looks barren but produces the most important element of science – Salt, the lifeworld of salt farmers (Agariyas) in the desert depicts pain, hardship and exploitation but it is their resilience that keeps bringing them back to the desert for decades.

We proceeded towards the interior of the desert (40 kilometres) from Kharaghoda village and I could see vast pans sparkling with salt brine. The crystals of salts in the wide pans glittered. The makeshift huts made up of jute and plastics, the tractor and trolley, plastic water tanks, cycle and bike, and solar panels together with pipes running across the area carrying brine from the manually dug wells, complete the picture of an Agariya household.

It was surprising to see a refurbished bus standing in the middle of the desert. The body of the bus was decorated with pictures of historical figures, alphabets written in Gujarati and English. But what was the purpose of the bus in the desert? Who would run this bus in the desert and why would anyone come to the desert to use this bus? As my mind began asking these questions, the car stopped a few metres away from one of the 16 buses placed in the desert. There was a huge pavilion with around 60 children sitting in rows. I immediately got out and rushed to see the bus i.e., Rann Shala which catered as a school for the children of Agariya. Children from classes 1 to 5 are given education along with midday meals. There was a makeshift bathroom made from jute cloth and four logs of wood with one open side. A black water tank of 200 litres was kept next to the bus.

 As Agariyas migrate to Rann with their families, the children lose their routine education in the village. Since there are fewer facilities such as hostels and rooms for children to study, the education of Agariya children comes to a standstill. To facilitate education in the desert, since 2009, the Government of Gujarat has been running ‘tent schools’ for the Agariyas. Although history speaks, there were schools in the desert during the colonial period. With no proper roof and concrete infrastructure, the tent classroom pushed teachers to create innovations to support a hanging blackboard, store notebooks and textbooks and engage students in writing and learning.

However, the windy environment of the desert and harsh temperatures would leave the tents, teachers and students, torn and exhausted. Many times, the teacher would get lost in the desert or reach late. A conversation with Teacher Satish Modi (name changed) revealed that “since teachers do not have exposure to the terrain of the desert, they avoid the duty to teach at Rann Shala. During the peak season (March to June) when trucks traverse it becomes difficult to ride a bike as clouds of dust fill the land which makes visibility zero and often leads to accidents”

It was only in 2016 that Rann xdeshala buses were used to replace tents. With the joint efforts of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the Government of Gujarat and AHRM, the discarded GSRTC buses were given a new look with the advanced technology of solar panels, fans, led television and interactive smart board inside the bus.

I was greeted by Rinku, a 13-year-old girl who could not stop smiling at me. Seeing a camera in my hand, she assumed that I had come to take pictures of the desert. I requested her to show me around the bus and tell me her experience of studying on the bus. Rinku got excited and while she stepped inside the bus, she asked me to join her.

Rinku wore a full sleeve but ripped sweater on a soiled frock over a pair of smudged leggings. She walked barefoot inside the bus showing me the interior of the bus which had spaces to draw, measure height, tables, fans, alphabet charts, animal charts. Her feet were cracked, and her skin was dry; her hair unkempt. Every time she spoke, she looked up at me with a twinkle in her eyes and a smile on her dehydrated lips. 

“This is Maneesh Rann, we are 40 students of different classes who study inside the bus. Our teacher teaches us on the blackboard using chalk and we also have a smart LED TV on which we watch online educational programs. Ours is a mixed class. There is no fixed teaching. Saheb Teaches us based on the class that we are enrolled in the village. So, one teacher teaches all students up to class 6. I am in class 5 and I can write Gujarati sentences. I also know a bit of Angrezi. I can solve some maths and recite the table of 4. Our class begins at 11 am and ends at 4 pm. I come walking a distance of 3 kilometres with my fellow friends. See, this is my water bottle (a 500 ml plastic Pepsi bottle) and this is my bag (a torn and withered cloth bag). I keep my notebooks and pencil in it. The Rannshala shelters us from the scorching heat and we sit under the fans. When Sahib plays a video on Tublu (YouTube), we recite and sing along the rhymes. We learn many new drawings. I am happy being at the Rannshala as I do not have to keep running to the pata (saltpan) from chapra (hut).  I do not have to do household chores such as sweeping, washing utensils, cooking food, digging the well or running across the wells to check for water, pump connection or change solar direction. I enjoy being with my friends over here. See, yesterday I drew a kite”.

 Many Agariyas dream of uplifting their children and providing them with education. They come to drop and pick their wards on their bikes. Some children come on their broken bicycles while some who have no support are forced to stay back at home and look after their younger siblings or help their parents.

Each bus (a total of 16 in the entire LRK) was kept at a distance of 10-15 kilometres so that children from the nearby areas can attend school. With a familiar teacher and Balmitra (An Agariya teen who has studied up to class 7 or class 10), the children made the most of the slightest possible education available to them in the desert. The facility of learning rhymes and playing games on tablets is provided by the volunteers of AHRM who visit different Rann Shalas weekly and expose the children to use tablets and learn through browsing YouTube.

As COVID-19 toppled the entire world, the education of Agariyas was also affected. For two years, the children did not get proper education and on 7th December 2021 when Rannshala had just begun, the government of Gujarat announced the closure of schools till February 5th 2022. As Moghiben explains,

“The children got the benefit of the bus for 2 months in 2020 from December to February and after that up to now, they are struggling. This time the buses are not repaired, there is no facility for a midday meal, the teachers barely come and only three out of four buses are open. The worst part is that four buses have been kept together which means that only some children will be able to attend school while others cannot. We had asked to provide a pickup and drop vehicle for children but nothing has been done. At least the government must maintain the buses before bringing them to the Rann. With no fans, tv or arrangement to take children to the buses and provide them with midday meals, how can the children from marginalised sections achieve education? Moreover, the female students feel shy to attend a male teacher’s class. With fewer females in the class, my granddaughter hesitates to attend”.

Digital education became a nightmare for children whose parents cannot afford a smartphone while for those who did possess a smartphone, they juggled to attend a class amidst the chaos of household chores and pata errands. After all, with plus two children in every family, how many can study on one smartphone? And how can girls have all the fun to use the smartphone when boys need it more to play games?

Between the state’s responsibility and the development of the marginalised sections, the children of Agariyas continue their struggle to acquire education at various intersections in the difficult terrain of Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat.

Reference:

Harchandani, B (2020). https://www.epw.in/engage/article/life-margins-salt-and-desperation-photo-essay.

^[i] This land has not been surveyed in the post-independence era. 

[i] Any nomadic tribe which revolted against the Britishers were notified as criminals according to the Criminal Act 1871. The act was repealed in 1949 and thus the tribes were ‘de-notified’. In Gujarat there are 12 denotified tribes and Agariyas belong to Chuvalia Koli community.

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Bhavna Harchandani is a doctoral student in Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN). Her research focuses on the lived experiences of the Agariyas in the Little Rann of Kutch, Gujarat.