While other children played, tended goats in the fields or worked in the iron-ore mines, Tulasi wanted to study. She wanted to educate herself, learn new things, and speak exciting languages like Hindi and English.
Instead, she sat at home and helped her widowed mother with housework. Her four sisters and two brothers went out to work. She being the youngest stayed at home. She yearned to study, but it was a futile desire. There was no school in their village, Painsi. In any case, nobody in the area educated their girls.
She was about 12 years old when she went to live with her sister in Serenda, 65km. away. She earned Rs. 2 a week by cutting stones, sifting iron from the waste. Whenever she could, she taught herself the alphabets. It was difficult, but she plodded on. In 1961, her passion for learning catapulted her into the orbit of women like Malti Chaudhury, Roma Devi and Nirmala Deshpande, who were committed to social work, especially educating women. She joined them and participated in their village forays and struggles in different parts of the country. She met Vinobha Bhave (for more info on Vinoba Bhave - http://www.vinobabhave.org/ ) and was inspired by his vision and commitment to donate land (Bhoodan) and improve the lives of poor villagers.
“If you really want to make a difference in society, you have to be selfless”
In 1964, she returned to Serenda. Her mission in life was clear. A victim of illiteracy, she would dedicate her life to eradicating this scourge. She resolved: “As long as I have breath in my body, I will fight illiteracy. “ She would devote herself to teaching and educating children, especially girls. Illiteracy, she believed was the worst form of enslavement. It was the root cause of the evils she saw all around her. Poverty, unemployment, drunkenness, superstition, fear. Education was the tool to free people’s minds from the darkness of ignorance.
But executing her mission proved to be tougher than she anticipated. Villagers found the concept of educating girls preposterous. And boys had to work in the fields and mines to earn money, not waste their time learning alphabets and numbers and alien languages like English and Hindi. But Tulsi Munda was undeterred, even though she had neither students nor a venue for that matter.
She persuaded Serenda’s local pradhan to lend her the use of his verandah for a few hours. As children could not be spared during the day, she started evening classes. The trickle began. Before she knew it, she had 30 children. She taught them the basics. Just alphabets and numbers and a smattering of English words. Says she: Even if he grew up to be driver, a few words English would help him to get a better job in Bhubaneshwar or even Kolkata. She taught in the evenings and attended to Bhave’s bhoodan work during the day.
It is a tribute to her indomitable will and indefatigable energy that over the next 40 years. Tulasi helped establish 17 schools and succeeded in educating 20, 000 boys and girls. Currently, she has over 500 students, almost half of whom are girls and her school provides education all the way up to class X.
A self-made educationist, Tulasi has some strong views on education. She feels the government and the public have a skewed attitude to education. She explains: ”People get education for the sole purpose of getting job. But jobs enslave too; you are beholden to your boss, to the tyranny of routine. People have jobs, but their minds are still oppressed by fear and darkness. “ She ardently believes the goal of education is to improve life, to make things better around us, to do things better. With education, you can do a better job of farming. However, what is happening is that after getting an education, instead of becoming farmers, everybody wants to become a clerk or a factory worker or a school teacher. So joblessness remains. And so does superstition, lack of hygiene, drunkenness, wife-beating and all sorts of backward thinking. All of life’s important issues whether it is the rights of women, children or Adivasis can be tackled better if people have a higher level of education.
Despite her personal commitments to improve the lives of people around her, Tulasi feels a tide of discontent and unhappiness is rising in the Adivasi countryside. She warns: “Here is injustice and inequality.” The tribals are being displaced by big companies that are robbing them of their land rich in iron-ore. Far from protecting the rights of the Adivasis, the government is in the payroll of the big companies. The devastation of the tribals is symbolized by the ongoing gang-rape of their land. This entire iron-ore belt of Orissa has been plundered and ravaged for he ore that lies deep within. Open cast mines have become festering sores that have feathered the coffers of the rich, but ruined the fertile land of the Adivasis. In the summer, the iron ore dust hangs heavy in the air, stifling the lungs of humans, animals and plant life. In the monsoon, rain sweeps the iron ore into the surrounding lands contaminating them. The displaced tribals live like animals in shanty towns set up by rich mine-owners and big steel companies so that they can work in the iron ore mines. Some go to live in the faraway slums of Kolkata or Bhubaneswar or even Delhi. Warns Tulasi: “Our jungles are gone. Our farmlands are arid. Our environment is ruined. Our lives shattered. Adivasis are crying out for help, but the authorities are deaf, dumb and blind. People are getting desperate. If their condition deteriorates, Maoist extremism will rise”.
“The goal of education is to improve Life, to make things better around us, to do things better”
Source From:http://ngopost.org
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