Forest Villages of BAJAG Taheseel. District Dindori. MP
On 13th March,2015, Mr. Lokesh Sahu the
student of IGANTU whose home is in
BAJAG Taheseel, District
Dindori, requested me to visit the forest villages in surrounding his home and the people of that region badly needs a person like me for which I also came to Amarkantak. I happily accepted his thought and the motor bike was with me. Both of us started at 8.30 in the morning from Amarkantak. We hardly gone few km. the rain started gradually but we did not stop as I wanted to reach our destination earliest but we could not defeat the rain and it compelled us to stop at KABIR CHUBOOTRA( which is in Dindori District). We taken shelter at a tea stall and took tea and enjoyed the weather. The Air was chilly cold , penetrating our skin. As we finished our tea the rain was also stopped and so we also started for our journey via KARANJIA, and reached GADHA SARAI. This Gram Panchayat GADHA SARI is on the Jabalpur –Amarkantak State Highway. We entered in this village as here the road to BAJAG Taheseel is better in condition. We reached BAJAG from GADHA SARAI covering a distance of 18 Kms by crossing the villages Atariya,Patpara,Lalpur, Baghteli,, Banauli,Sringar Shakti, Mis Tola by 11 AM after covering a distance of 95 km. from Amarkantak. The social structure of this Adivasi area has totally changed and Sahu (Teli- who traditionally working to produce edible oil) are in majority and the 2nd strenghth is of Kol tribe. .We took lunch at the home of my student friend. His grandmother was so happy and his whole family welcomed me with traditional hospitality. Just after the lunch we moved for the CHADHA forest village of Schedule tribe via Bhanpur village.It is about 20 km from BAJAG Taheseel . On reaching this forest village we reached the Panchayat Ghar. No one was there. Then we I shouted “anybody is here”. A worker of the Panchayat and a teacher(Prabhari) of the Primary school of another village SILAPIDI came then I asked them that I wanted to meet SARPANCH of the village. The SARPANCH came within 5 minutes. Meanwhile I introduced myself and the purpose of my visit. I discussed in details about the problems of the villages and offer my services to teach children as well as to the teachers to improve the teaching standard if some minimum arrangement of my stay is done. As I get information, I will come over here. Then I wanted to cover SILAPIDI ( which was 3 km from this place)and lucky the teacher of that village was with us as a guide and so, it became very easy to reach that place. He took me to his school. This primary school (from I to V class) has the student strength of 71 but only 13 students of different classes were sitting in one room. Their books were open without any teacher. One more teacher also came very soon as we reached the school. It was looking on seeing the faces of the children that they are sitting in a Jail forcefully. The poor attendances of the children have many reasons. How can one expect that two teachers can teach the students of five different classes? This is fun of Education or the system is playing with the life of the children of these remote areas giving the bribe of mid day meal. Only two children could read Hindi book and about English the question does not arise. However the class was decorated with the charts of English alphabets.
Dindori, requested me to visit the forest villages in surrounding his home and the people of that region badly needs a person like me for which I also came to Amarkantak. I happily accepted his thought and the motor bike was with me. Both of us started at 8.30 in the morning from Amarkantak. We hardly gone few km. the rain started gradually but we did not stop as I wanted to reach our destination earliest but we could not defeat the rain and it compelled us to stop at KABIR CHUBOOTRA( which is in Dindori District). We taken shelter at a tea stall and took tea and enjoyed the weather. The Air was chilly cold , penetrating our skin. As we finished our tea the rain was also stopped and so we also started for our journey via KARANJIA, and reached GADHA SARAI. This Gram Panchayat GADHA SARI is on the Jabalpur –Amarkantak State Highway. We entered in this village as here the road to BAJAG Taheseel is better in condition. We reached BAJAG from GADHA SARAI covering a distance of 18 Kms by crossing the villages Atariya,Patpara,Lalpur, Baghteli,, Banauli,Sringar Shakti, Mis Tola by 11 AM after covering a distance of 95 km. from Amarkantak. The social structure of this Adivasi area has totally changed and Sahu (Teli- who traditionally working to produce edible oil) are in majority and the 2nd strenghth is of Kol tribe. .We took lunch at the home of my student friend. His grandmother was so happy and his whole family welcomed me with traditional hospitality. Just after the lunch we moved for the CHADHA forest village of Schedule tribe via Bhanpur village.It is about 20 km from BAJAG Taheseel . On reaching this forest village we reached the Panchayat Ghar. No one was there. Then we I shouted “anybody is here”. A worker of the Panchayat and a teacher(Prabhari) of the Primary school of another village SILAPIDI came then I asked them that I wanted to meet SARPANCH of the village. The SARPANCH came within 5 minutes. Meanwhile I introduced myself and the purpose of my visit. I discussed in details about the problems of the villages and offer my services to teach children as well as to the teachers to improve the teaching standard if some minimum arrangement of my stay is done. As I get information, I will come over here. Then I wanted to cover SILAPIDI ( which was 3 km from this place)and lucky the teacher of that village was with us as a guide and so, it became very easy to reach that place. He took me to his school. This primary school (from I to V class) has the student strength of 71 but only 13 students of different classes were sitting in one room. Their books were open without any teacher. One more teacher also came very soon as we reached the school. It was looking on seeing the faces of the children that they are sitting in a Jail forcefully. The poor attendances of the children have many reasons. How can one expect that two teachers can teach the students of five different classes? This is fun of Education or the system is playing with the life of the children of these remote areas giving the bribe of mid day meal. Only two children could read Hindi book and about English the question does not arise. However the class was decorated with the charts of English alphabets.
From this forest village of Silapidi we moved towards TANTAR village which was about 10 km . We met with the
husaband of newly elected SARPANCH. In the villages the husbands are the active
SARPANCH of the reserved seats for women i.e. empowerment to women is still a
fun in this form too. But Mr. Govind Sing the husband of the SARPANCH was quite
gentle
(Govind Singh -husband of SARPANCH of forest villageTANTAR)
again met me at the HAT(Saturday market at DAMEHDI , District Anoop Pur on the way in
returning to BAJAG, appears a commited person and committed person . He told me no one has come here so for, like you
, I would be glad if you come here and guide me where any letters are to be
sent for the development of this area ,I will put my signature on that. I have
given my contact numbers to all of them and waiting for their call . Most likey
I will go next month as I receive their phone call.
The social structure of the tribal cast vise of these regions are as under:
At the Saturday HAT at DAMEHDI,District Anoop Pur(MP), I was sitting in his open shop , few tribal women came and put colours of Festival HOLI on my face and in return some money as a gift on this occasion. The feeling of happiness which I felt cannot be expressed in words. I observed the beautiful Godna(Tutu) on their legs and taken their photographs.
I also met Mr. Arjun Singh Maravi, the Head Master of the
Folk Dance of that tribal region.
Shri Arjun Singh Maravi sitting at right corner at the shop of Shri BudhDev Singh Maravi
He made me aware that the teachers of tribal
language (Bega) have been removed from the school. I asked me to give
details of the scheme so that I could
find out the reason of their suspension from the Anganwadi/school. Anyway, it
is not good as the new generation in many tribal areas (viz.Patalkot,Chindwada
District) are not speaking their language and so their language is diminishing.
It should be revived and for that tribal teachers should continue to teach their
tribal language. The Directorate of Education as well as Department of Tribal welfare should give attention on this issue.
In retraining, we took another rout from Bajag to Amarkantak via villages Bilai Khar,Pathariya,Sailwara ( here I found Muslim population in large extent on this rout), Musanda, Manikpur and then Gorakhpur and then we taken the Jabalpur Amarkantak Highway. We saved about 20 km short, however the rode is in very bad condition.
We reached near Kabir Chaubotra about 5.00pm and it was almost evening in its forest. We stopped here for few minutes and then moved to Amarkantak which only fe km. from here.
In retraining, we took another rout from Bajag to Amarkantak via villages Bilai Khar,Pathariya,Sailwara ( here I found Muslim population in large extent on this rout), Musanda, Manikpur and then Gorakhpur and then we taken the Jabalpur Amarkantak Highway. We saved about 20 km short, however the rode is in very bad condition.
We reached near Kabir Chaubotra about 5.00pm and it was almost evening in its forest. We stopped here for few minutes and then moved to Amarkantak which only fe km. from here.
(Forest near Kabir Chaubotra)
Vijay Nath Sondhi (Retired from ICSSR,New Delhi)
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