One man, who never got a chance to finish school as a kid, has transformed the Delwara region of Rajasthan into a place where education of girls is not just a norm, but it is also encouraged at every step. This is how.
Pappu Kathat was only 13 when he left his Lasaria village in Rajasthanâs Ajmer district to come to the national capital to work as a rickshaw puller. He had to drop out of school to find work because it was tough for his father, Ahmad, to single-handedly support a family of 10 children. Living on the footpath in Delhi, there was one name he used to hear very often â Kiran Bedi, Indiaâs first female police officer. He was surprised that a woman had reached such an âimportant positionâ because in his village girls used to get married before they turned 18 and were never even given the option of completing their education.
For five years, Pappu and his father slogged day and night to make ends meet. But after his eldest brother Mohan was recruited in the army in 1985 and their financial position improved considerably, his father returned to the village. Pappu, continued to work â first as a truck driver and then as a crane operator.
The time he spent in the big city totally changed his outlook, particularly towards understanding a womanâs role in the family and society. Educating them, he realised, was the key to ensuring the advancement of not just oneâs family but the community as well. Pappu wanted to make a difference in the lives of the local girls and so he started off by bringing about a transformation within his own family. Although three of his sisters had already stopped going to school after their early marriage, when his fourth sister, Sushila, who had also been married off when she was just five, passed Class 5, he didnât let her drop out. Instead, he insisted that she go to Andheri Deori village, five kilometres away, to continue her schooling. In 1999, after she passed her Class 10 exams, he paved the way for her to go to Beawar town located 11 km away, so that she could pursue her senior secondary studies.
At the same time, he made sure that his youngest sister, Kiran, named after the trailblazing IPS officer, was sent to an English medium school in Beawar.
His mission education got extended to the larger community after he decided to stand for panchayat elections in 2005. Once elected as the sarpanch of Delwara gram panchayat, which has six revenue villages under it, he immediately got down to the task of shoring up the educational infrastructure in the area. At that time there were two schools in the panchayat â one each in Lasaria and Delwara â and both were only till Class 8. So, for starters, he began working with the authorities to get them upgraded. In 2008, the school at Delwara was elevated to secondary level.
âOften, the reason for girls dropping out early was the long distance they had to traverse from home to school. Parents donât allow daughters to travel alone in these parts. So I knew that if I had to motivate them to educate their girls, I had to provide schools that were not too far away,â states Pappu, a father of two.
Then, in 2010, when Delwara panchayat became reserved for women, he egged on his wife Umra, who shares his passion for promoting literacy, to jump into the fray. Riding on the success of her husbandâs dedicated activism she registered a thumping victory.
During her tenure, the Delwara school was upgraded to Class 12 while the one at Lasaria was extended to Class 10.
Picture for representation only. Source: Flickr
In 2015, when the government introduced the minimum educational qualification criterion for candidates in the local self government, the community decided to approach his sister, Kiran, to provide the progressive leadership that Pappuâs family has become synonymous with.
âThe villagers wanted someone from among us to continue the work that I had begun. Kiran won and Iâm happy to see that sheâs carrying forward my legacy,â says the proud brother.
Truly, the women of Pappuâs family have become an inspiration for the girls in the area. Sushila boldly rejected her childhood nuptials after her in-laws began asking her family to send her to them once she turned 14. âThere was a lot of friction between the two families but thankfully my mother and brother stood by me and refused to send me away. After they realised that I wouldnât go to them come what may, they remarried the boy and I was freed of the burden of an unwanted relationship,â she shares.
Sushila is the first girl from the 12-lakh-strong Kathat Muslim community to qualify for a government job. Incidentally, the Kathats, who are descendants of the Chauhan rulers of the erstwhile Rajputana that converted to Islam in the 14th Century, are spread across three districts of Ajmer, Pali and Bhilwara. Sushila is all set to become a sub-inspector in Rajasthan Police after completing her probation. Her siblings, Sangeeta and Kiran, are working as school teacher and sarpanch-cum-software engineer, respectively. Even their elder sister Jeena, who had gone off to her husbandâs home after Class 10, got divorced in 2012 and, after much counselling from Pappu and Kiran, resumed her studies. Today, sheâs in college, as a first year Bachelor of Arts student. Indeed, these days, colleges in Beawar are full of girls from Delwara panchayat.
Remarks Ismail Kathat, a Lasaria resident, âPappuâs sisters have shown that with good education women can accomplish anything. I am ensuring that my daughters go regularly to school in Beawar.â
Adds Maimoonnesha Ansari, 19, an undergraduate at a Beawar college, âEducation makes one aware of social evils such as child marriage, female foeticide and domestic violence and gives one the power to raise oneâs voice against them. Most of us really look up to Kiran and her sister.â
Kiran, who has effortlessly stepped into Pappuâs shoes, is glad that her brother has never shied away from taking a stand for the empowerment of girls. âTalking about education is his favourite topic. When Sushila had completed her college in 2009 and got a job in 2012, for three years, people mocked Pappu âbhaiyaâ for being the one to let his sister âwasteâ her life in college. But when she became a sub-inspector, my family took a truckload of villagers to the police academy in Jaipur for her passing-out ceremony. Thereafter, no one ever needed any proof of the kind of benefits education can have on a girlâs life,â elaborates Kiran.
While the modest young woman is all praises for her older siblings, she, too, is making them proud. Kiran, who divides her time between her duties as the sarpanch and her job as a web and mobile app developer for Shree Cement, has done her B.Tech in Information Technology from Jodhpur Institute of Engineering and Technology.
Last year, after she won the election she promised bicycles to students who scored more than 70 per cent marks. On August 15, 2015, she gave away bicycles to two boys in Lasaria who had performed well in their Class 10 exams. The same day, she was felicitated by Ajmerâs district collector for turning Delwara into the first open defecation free gram panchayat in Jawaja Panchayat Samiti.
Currently, sheâs busy setting up a computer lab at Delwara Government Senior Secondary School, which will provide free computer training to girls.
Picture for representation only. Source:Â Michael Foley/Flickr
While Kiran is taking forward the work Pappu started over a decade ago, the man himself has gone back to school. âI have resumed my studies in earnest. I sat for my Class 10 exams through open school sometime back but I failed in Maths. I am working hard to pass this time,â he says, adding that his wife, Umra, too, has cleared Class 8.
By motivating and leading by example, Pappu Kathat has made the right to education a lived reality for the women of Delwara.
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