Sawni, Sanjhali, and Tasveer are all from the Pardhi community in Bhopal. They share their experiences, struggles, and thoughts on what can be done to improve the situations of communities like theirs. Sawni is a first year college student in Bhopal. Sanjhali studied till class 12. Tasveer, is a lawyer. Once skilled trappers with deep knowledge about forests and their conservation, their livelihoods were criminalized by Forest Acts during the British times. The community was listed in the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871. This Act was repealed in 1952 and ever since the Pardhis along with a few other communities have been known as de-notified tribes. However, these tribes have been included in the Habitual Offenders Act of 1952. Thus more than 150 years after being labelled criminal, they are still unable to overcome their stigma and harassment. These communities have not been beneficiaries of positive discrimination policies in Bhopal as they are not often a part of the Scheduled Caste or Tribe list. Their lives and struggles for education, we hope will help us question the many assumptions about merit and educational advancement and work to create a more equitable society. These are first generation girls and boys who have beaten the odds to get an education. Muskaan, an organization that works to empower children and young adults through education in Bhopal has been a constant support in their oppressed journeys. (Translated and put together by Anjali Noronha) SawniI am the youngest of five sisters of a Pardhi family, living in Rajeev Nagar, Bhopal. We had a younger brother too, but he died in an accident at the age of two. My life has been a constant struggle to educate myself. I am doing my first year BA now. My mother used to collect waste. My father sold watches, balloons, etc., in the bastis apart from also helping my mother collect waste. We lost both our parents while we were very young. My uncles distributed all that we had amongst themselves, including us. We were made to beg and collect waste. The money that we thus earned was taken by my uncles. They beat us if we complained or said we wanted to go to school. I love to study. Among the Pardhis, girls are discouraged from studying. When I was very young and my parents were still alive, my elder sisters used to teach me at home. They would go to the Muskan residential camps and when they returned there would be a

Apoorvanand

Saba Khan

Children from the deprived communities continue to struggle to get through and go to the next level in their educational endeavours despite positive discrimination policies of governments. They face both economic and social hurdles from other communities as well as their own. It is support from family, youth groups, friends, and teachers that helps them cross these hurdles. In this article, we will read about the educational experiences of two young people, a Munda-Oraon woman and a Mahar man. Such stories will help us understand their lives and struggles better and also identify the support systems that help them so that we as teachers and society can put in place more such systems. Nora SamandI am a tribal from Jharkhand, an only child of Oraon and Munda parents. My father belonged to the Munda tribe and my mother was from the Oraon tribe. I was born in a small town called Manoharpur in Jharkhand. The Mundas had their homes in a locality of their own, away from where the Oraons lived. The churches of the Oraons and the Mundas were also separate. My father, though, was against all this and would mingle with everyone. A teacher drawn to the principles of Christianity, my father used to teach the children of the village during the week and preach on Sundays. My parents knew from experience that education is important for a good life. I was initially admitted to a local Hindi church school. Later, my father’s friend, a doctor, told him of a good convent school, where the fees were minimal. I studied in this school until I finished my matriculation. Neither my parents nor I were really aware of where I could go next. With little money and no information, the best I could do was get admission in a college in Ranchi, where I did my intermediate in arts. My father’s deep fascination for Christianity led me to the Theological Seminary or Bible school in Dehradun. There I understood that Christianity is embraced by people other than tribals also and that we were a minority in a minority religion. The Seminary helped me understand the need for service and that it is not easy to inculcate a culture of service in people. Studying in a Bible school was a refreshing beginning to a very different life. Though a lot of emphasis was on academic grades, people were kind. It was here that I learnt that within the Christian community, tribal Christian was a different