Background The Jeevan Talim project in rural Kutch in northern Gujarat is a pioneering and innovative e secular NGOs for the development of the Muslim community. A joint project of the New Delhi based Jamiat Ulema-i Hind ('The Union of the Ulema of India', henceforth referred to as Jamiat) and the Ahmedabad-based Janvikas, through its initiative Udaan (a resource centre working on primary education), it started in 2004 with a grant from Misereor, a Germany-based Catholic relief and development agency. Established in 1919, the Jamiat is a leading body of Indian Deobandi ulema, with branches in almost every state of the country. Hitherto, the Jamiat focused mainly on providing religious education to Muslim children through a vast chain of madrasas (Islamic seminaries) and maktabs (mosque-schools), and providing relief in the event of natural disasters and communal violence. The Jamiat has a fairly strong presence in Gujarat, where Deobandi ulema have set up a number of madrasas. In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Kutch in 2001, the Jamiat played a crucial role in relief and reconstruction e a senior Jamiat leader based in Ahmedabad, marked a significant change in its policies and priorities, because its activities in the state had till then been restricted largely to providing religious education and constructing and maintaining mosques. It was for the first time, in the course of its relief work in Kutch that the Jamiat had the chance to work with some secular NGOs. The last two decades have witnessed a significant rise in identity politics and growing marginalisation of some communities pushing them to the peripheries of survival. This environment wherein the Muslims of 7 Gujarat were becoming increasingly alienated and disenchanted, especially after witnessing the horrendous bouts of violence in 2002, provided the context for the Jamiat to begin working on the issue of modern education among Muslims in the state. Similarly, certain other Muslim groups in Gujarat that were earlier concerned almost wholly with issues of religious education and identity now felt the need to become more involved in practical e educational, economic and social conditions of large sections of the Muslim population of the state. This set the ground for collaboration between the Jamiat and Janvikas to devise and launch the Jeevan Talim project. Janvikas has been working with marginalized communities in Gujarat, including Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims, for several years now, mainly on issues of education, economic empowerment and human rights. In the wake of the communal violence in Gujarat, it played an active role in relief work, highlighting widespread human rights abuses and fighting legal cases on behalf of a number of innocent Muslims victimized in 2002. The rise of fundamentalist forces and the consequent ghettoisation of Muslims across Gujarat was viewed by Janvikas members as a dangerous phenomenon that urgently needed to be tackled on various fronts, including the education sector. In many cases, Muslims were barred from studying in private Hindu-owned schools and were facing increased discrimination in government schools. The tendency of some Islamic groups to promote insular tendencies among the community only exaggerated this isolation. Hence, Janvikas felt it imperative to work in the field of education for Muslim children and to 8 interact closely with traditional Muslim religious and other community leaders for transformation of Muslim leadership that would address the community's economic and educational needs and that would work with secular, forces on issues of common concern, such as the struggle against communalism, and mounting social and economic inequalities and exclusion. Janvikas and the Jamiat decided to work together for the education of Muslim children in the Kutch district in northern Gujarat, home to a sizeable and largely poverty-stricken Muslim population characterized by very low literacy levels. This pilot project, named Jeevan Talim or 'Life Education', was envisaged as a community initiative of the Jamiat undertaken with assistance from Janvikas through Udaan, which the local community would eventually manage on its own and sustain in the long run in cooperation with the Jamiat. Udaan- A Resource Center working on primary education had operationalised interventions on education in areas a district of Gujarat. It brought in its curriculum, pedagogy and teachers training techniques to support Jeevan Talim. The role of Udaan in the project was related to project conceptualization, project execution and management as well as provision of secretariat support, including assistance in selecting and training instructors. The project was to be handled by the Jamiat, and it was expected that through its experience in the Jeevan Talim project it would be able to equip itself with the necessary skills in order to engage in similar educational work in the future through its network of maktabs in selected parts of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan that have a significant Muslim presence. 9 Aim and Structure of the Project The aim of the project was to provide access to remedial, pluralistic and inclusive education and equip Muslim children in the age group of 4-10 years with basic numerical and literacy skills, in selected parts of Kutch where no governmentfunded educational facilities exist. The intent was to enable children to get admission in a government school in the fourth or fifth grade levels. The project entailed using the Jamiat's existing network of maktabs- Quranic schools attached to mosques that impart basic Islamic education as well as literacy in Arabic and Urdu to children. The Jeevan Talim classes would be organised in the maktab precincts, or, in the porch of the local mosque in villages and hamlets that did not have maktabs, with the timings suitably adjusted so that the children's Islamic education would not be interrupted or disturbed. In this way, the project was perceived as helping to expand the scope of maktab education. Where possible, the maulvi or Islamic scholar teaching in the maktab would be engaged to take the Jeevan Talim classes as well, for which he would be paid an additional sum. If there was no maulvi available in the village or in the vicinity, then a local youth, would be engaged for this. As the levels of education in rural Kutch, particularly among Muslims, are extremely low, provision was also made for providing suitable training to the maulvis and the local youth selected as instructors in the Jeevan Talim centres. The curriculum framed by Udaan along with team members of the Jamiat and local instructors, was divided into two levels. The first, called Laghutam or 'Small', was for children who were unfamiliar with the Gujarati alphabet and numbers. The second, called Mahatam or 'Big', was for children who had already spent some time in school as well as for those who would pass through the Laghutam course. Subjects to be covered in the courses included basic literacy in Gujarati, numerical skills, environmental awareness, as well as songs and theatre. It was expected that after finishing the Mahatam course, children would be able to join the nearest government school. 10 The first phase of the project entailed selecting the villages and hamlets where the Jeevan Talim centres would be set up. These locations were selected jointly by team members of the Jamiat, Udaan and a local partner organization, the Kutch Mahila Vikas Sanghathan that had previous experience of working with some Muslim communities in rural Kutch. Three talukas in Kutch district, each with a significant rural Muslim population, were chosen for this: Bhuj, Anjar and Nakhatrana. Centres were established in a number of selected villages in these talukas. Before we get into details of the project, it is crucial to understand the social, economic and political contexts of the Muslims of rural Kutch covered by the project. 11 Muslims in Rural Kutch Kutch, with an area of over 45,000 square kilometers, is the second largest district in India. The administrative headquarter of the district is in Bhuj, which is located roughly in the centre of the district. The district has 966 villages, and, in addition, several small settlements (called vandhs), which are not classified in o It is surrounded by the Arabian Sea in the west, the Gulf of Kutch in the south and south-east, and the Rann of Kutch, a vast desert, in the north and north-east, bordering the Thar Parkar district of Pakistan's Sindh province. In the east and south are the districts of Rajkot, Surendranagar, Patan and Banaskantha, in Gujarat and Barmer in Rajasthan. As per the 2001 census, the district's population was 1,526,331, of which around a third were Muslims. Kutch's rural Muslim population is concentrated mainly in the northern part of the district, close to the border with Pakistan. This desert area consists of flat, stony 12 and sandy plains broken by small rocky outcrops and is dotted with thorny, bushy shrubs. Most of this land is is not amenable to agriculture, including the desolate Rann of Kutch, where few people live. The area also faces regular spells of drought and occasional fierce flash floods. Being an extremely arid zone that generally receives little rainfall, it can a Communication links in this part of Kutch are extremely limited. Most settlements are remote, separated from each other by several kilometers of sand and rocky wasteland. There are few paved roads, and those that exist are in bad shape. Most hamlets are located several miles from the nearest road. There are bus services to only a few settlements here. Most other settlements can be reached only by camel or, increasingly today, by small vans, called chhakaras, that take passengers on hire, but they are few and irregular and not everyone can a storms often wipe o another. In the monsoons, large numbers of settlements are rendered marooned as the desert becomes a vast lake. In the scorching summers of Kutch, wells and ponds dry up, forcing people in many settlements that have no government-provided sources of water to buy water for themselves and their animals. The majority of the Muslims in this part of Kutch live below the o recognized poverty line. Practically no family in the villages where the Jeevan 13 Talim project operates has a pakka house; their homes are generally made of twigs plastered together with mud. Most villages are without electricity, piped water and government schools. There is not a single health centre in any of these villages. Although most of the Muslim castes which live here are classified as among the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), they have not benefited in any visible way from state-funded programmes for the OBCs. Only a small number of children get scholarships from the state meant for OBCs, but the sum is paltry— Rs.75-100 per month. No village seems to have benefited from any governmentfunded development scheme. Families in several settlements where the Jeevan Talim project functions do not even own the land on which their huts stand; this land technically being government-owned simtad zamin or wasteland and jungle. Despite petitioning with the relevant authorities for up to two decades, they have not been able to receive titles to the land. Since their land is not gramtad zamin (land that is o records), they do not benefit from any government scheme. Many complain that because of this, they are also harassed by their neighbours for grazing their cattle in the common pastures and for consuming water from village wells and ponds, water being a rare commodity in the desert. Large numbers of these families are migrants from drought-hit parts of Kutch. Their names are on the voters' lists in their original villages, which they rarely visit. As they cannot vote in their present places of habitation, the local elected o about their problems. 14 Landholdings in the region are small, and hardly yield enough for families to make their ends meet. Most families supplement their meagre incomes by rearing livestock, including camels, goats and bu limited, and because of the prohibitive cost of fodder in the market, most families have only small herds of animals. The rapid cutting down of the relatively few trees that exist for fuel, in addition to over-grazing is now posing major problems for the environment, besides making livestock rearing a less remunerative source of income. As a result of these pressures, increasing numbers of rural Kutchi Muslim men take up seasonal employment in the rural areas of southern Kutch, in fields owned mainly by the rich Hindu Patel community, or as daily manual labourers in factories in towns in Kutch and beyond. . There are almost no government employees from these Muslim communities, even in low-paid and low-ranking services. In recent years a new source of income has appeared for many families in the area—that is, cutting of bushes to make charcoal, which is sold through middlemen who regularly visit the villages. The Muslims of Kutch are divided into a number of endogamous caste-like groups, also known as zat or biraderi. Unlike in the Hindu case, however, they are not ranked hierarchically, and are considered to be roughly of the same social status. Besides, they are also roughly equal in terms of economic status as well, being for the most part, at or below the o and more educated Muslim castes in Kutch, such as the Memons, Bohras and Khojahs, live mainly in the towns, and have little or nothing to do with the Muslim communities living in the rural areas. There are estimated to be almost eighty di these, the principal communities in the area where the Jeevan Talim project operates are Baluchis, Bhattis, Changal Girasias, Faqirs, Halepotras, Hajjams, Hingorjas, Jaths, Jiyejas, Junejas, Korars, Kumbhars, Langas, Lunais, Miyanas, Mughals, Muthuas, Narejas, Nodeys, Notiyas, Raimas, Raisis, Samejas, Sammas, Sarkis, Shaikhs, Siddis, Sodhas, Sumras, Suna Girasias, Syeds, Thakurais, Thebas 15 and Thudiyas. The mother-tongue of most of these castes is Kutchi, a language quite distinct from Gujarati, the o There are also sub-dialects of Kutchi that are spoken in di district, and in some places di of speaking Kutchi, distinct from the others. Some Muslim groups in this area claim Sindhi as their mother tongue. 16 Status of education in Kutch Literacy levels among the Muslims of rural Kutch are among the lowest in the whole of India. It is estimated to be less than 20%, and that of rural Muslim Kutchi women, less than three percent. Numerous small settlements in those parts of Kutch where the Jeevan Talim project functions are located in the interiors of the desert and have no government schools. Other Muslim settlements, usually inhabited by families who have escaped from drought conditions and have taken up residence near villages located in less inhospitable terrain, are not recognized by the government and the settlers, despite having lived there for decades. Since these people do not have title deeds to the lands on which their huts stand, they are not considered eligible to receive any assistance from the state, including access to education in the government schools. Even in the few villages in the area where there are government schools, classes are generally not held regularly. Drop-out rates are extremely high. One reason is that children above the age of ten are needed to help their parents graze their animals, fetch water and cut firewood. Further, in most cases these children are first-generation learners. Since their communities do not have a culture of literacy, parents often do not pay much attention to their children's education. Almost all the teachers appointed in the government schools in this region are from outside Kutch. Most of them live in the closest town, which may be several dozens of kilometers away. This is because most of these villages lack almost all basic amenities associated with urban life, including electricity. Many teachers spend most of their time at home and on the few days that they come to the village to teach they are present for hardly two or three hours. . The fact that transportation links are extremely limited does not help at all. And in the fierce heat of summer and in the monsoon season when most of this part of Kutch is often flooded, few teachers can muster up the enthusiasm to commute long 17 distances to come to their schools to teach. Consequently, levels of teacher and student attendance in almost all these villages are pathetically low. This problem is further compounded by the fact that the medium of instruction in the government schools in Kutch, as elsewhere in Gujarat, is Gujarati, which, for many rural Kutchi Muslims, has little in common with their own language. This poses major problems for children in the villages where the project operates who are denied the Constitutional right to receive primary education in their mother tongue. Further, the textbooks used in the schools have little or no resonance with their own environment, history, culture and traditions, and are thus often seen as alien and alienating. Even in those schools that do function, standards are very low. Often students are given a passing grade by their teachers simply in order that the teachers themselves are spared the blame for low standards of teaching. It is common even for students who have o how to read or write anything other than just their names. Such children are o 18 Initial Stages of the Jeevan Talim Project To begin with, a total of 14 villages and vandhs, which had no access to government schools in or near the settlement were selected for the project. The selected settlements included those that had no government school, those that had schools but no teachers, those that o where the teachers did not come to teach or rarely did so, and those where children went only to the local maktab. In the case of the latter, the sectarian a maktabs were run independently of the Jamiat, by the villagers themselves or else a chosen. Most of these villages and vandhs were wholly Muslim. Two villages had Hindu and Dalit inhabitants also, including one where the students who attended the Jeevan Talim centres were all Dalits. The next stage of the project consisted of selecting and training the instructors. It was felt that in order to regularize teaching in the centres , the instructors should be selected from the villages. This was also considered essential as teachers should ideally understand and be comfortable with the local cultural milieu and also because it would aid ownership of the project from the local community. In many cases, this posed a major challenge as there were hardly any educated men or women locally. In some settlements, the most educated person had studied only till the third or fourth grade. In others, the only person educated was the maulvi who had received only religious education. After the arduous process of selecting the would-be instructors was complete, an initial two-day training programme for them was held in October 2004 along 19 with Udaan and KMVS, in which Jamiat personnel also participated. In the course of the programme, issues such as the curriculum , innovative pedagogical techniques involving song, dance, theatre, painting and other activities, use of local resources as teaching aids and classroom management were discussed. A second two-day training programme was held in January 2005. This was followed by some more such programmes, including a three-month programme organised by the Dalit Shakti Kendra, Ahmedabad, in which three would-be Jeevan Talim instructors from selected villages in Kutch participated. Periodic refresher training workshops were held for educators at the Jamiat's premises in Anjar and the Jamiat's Children's Village in Bhuj. Once the would-be educators had received their first round of training, the Jeevan Talim centres began functioning. Parents and maulvis teaching in the local maktabs were motivated by Jamiat and Udaan team members to send children to the centres. Soon, however, many centres closed down, necessitating the selection of new villages. Today, the project runs 32 centres in di rural Kutch, with a total of some 900 children, boys and girls, studying in them . Of these centres, only six are among those that were set up in the initial stage of the project. The rapid closure of some centres was due to several factors. Many instructors found the monthly remuneration of a thousand rupees for teaching two hours a day for six days a week too little. Some of them preferred to take up other sources of employment, such as working as drivers and cleaners in trucks carrying lignite from the coal mines in Lakhpat, whereby they could earn up to five or six times what they would have as instructors. Others felt that making charcoal would be a more lucrative career. In the case of some instructors, the fact that they had received only a very basic education, till between the third and fifth grade, and that, therefore, teaching was not a career that they actually 20 wanted to pursue, was another reason for discontinuing teaching. Even after undergoing training and attending workshops they found it di basic subjects. Despite this major problem of the rapid turnover of instructors, the closure of centres in several villages and vandhs, and various other challenges, the Jeevan Talim project has been able to make considerable headway, although obviously not as much as was envisaged when the project was formulated. The number of centres has expanded, and a team of four supervisors and one coordinator regularly visits the centres, monitors and evaluates them, and, along with the instructors, sets periodic examinations for the children. The development of the curriculum remains an on-going project, and this is discussed at the monthly meetings of teachers and Udaan team at the Jamiat's o Bhuj. In addition, instructors' training and refresher programmes are organised every three months, where teachers also share their experiences and the problems that they and the children face. 21 Case studies of a few centres In order to get a better understanding of the successes and limitations of the Jeevan Talim project, a brief look at the actual functioning of the centres in selected villages and vandhs and the social, economic and educational conditions of the inhabitants of these settlements is in order, as given below. Material for this section of this report was gathered in the course of a ten-day visit to these settlements in late February/early March 2008 and hence represents the situation as it prevailed then. These villages and vandhs account for most of the settlements where Jeevan Talim centres run. 22 Noorani Nagar is a small settlement about ten kilometers from Anjar town. The thirty families there belong to the Muslim Nodey caste. They are desperately poor, owning no agricultural land of their own. They survive mainly by rearing bu and selling milk, by cutting and selling wood and by engaging in daily-wage labour. There is no government school in the village, the nearest being some five kilometers away, making it impossible for children to go there to study. Maulvi Abdul Muqsid is the Imam of the local mosque. He has received a traditional Islamic education, till the fazilat or advanced level. In the maktab attached to the mosque he teaches about 30 children, with about 20 girls, to read the Quran and recite their prayers for two hours in the mornings and an hour and a half in the evenings. The maktab was set up by the village community some thirty years ago. He also leads the congregational prayers in the mosque five times a day. Half his salary is paid by the Jamiat, and the remainder by the villagers themselves. The Jeevan Talim centre in Noori Nagar started in 2004. It was not possible to select a local teacher because the most educated person in the village had studied only till the fourth standard. A few months after the centre started in the village it had to close down because the appointed teacher left abruptly. A month ago, Maulvi Umar Raima was appointed to teach in the centre. Like Maulvi Abdul Muqsid, he, too, received a traditional Islamic education in a madrasa, but he also knows Gujarati and 23 Mathematics, which he teaches to the students in the centre, all of whom also attend religious classes in the maktab. Maulvi Umar takes classes at the centre for two hours a day in the morning. Before he comes to Noorani Nagar, he teaches at the Jeevan Talim centre at the village of Rambagh, seven kilometers away. After he finishes teaching at the centre in Noorani Nagar he cycles back to Rambagh to teach religious studies in the maktab there. Rambagh has a population of around 150 people, all of whom belong to the Muslim Hingorja caste and are mainly cattle-grazers. The Jeevan Talim classes here are held on the ground under a tree adjacent to the mosque as the villagers cannot a purpose. There is no electricity or piped water supply in the village. The villagers do not own even the land on which their very modest huts, made of wooden boards nailed together, stand on. The person with the highest level of education in the village has studied only till the fifth grade. The vast majority of the inhabitants of the village are illiterate. When we dropped in at the centre, Maulana Umar was sitting with a circle of children around him—two girls and fourteen boys—helping them to write Gujarati letters with flowers and stones. He asks the children to recite some Kutchi and Gujarati songs—about the environment, the importance of girls' education and hygiene—which he himself learned during the training programme for Jeevan Talim educators. The children do so with gusto. Maulana Umar explains that although there are twenty-five children on the rolls of the centre, only sixteen come regularly. The 24 low rates of enrolment, he says, are mainly a result of crushing poverty, which forces children to work at home or tend to the family's bu and indi education it will not benefit them as they would only continue with their ancestral occupation for want of any other alternative. Not far from Rambagh is the village of Meghpur. This is also an entirely Muslim village, and its inhabitants belong to the Shaikh, Raima, Faqir, Siddi, Korar, Theba and Sameja castes. Several of the forty houses in the village were badly a the 2001 earthquake, and these have been reconstructed with financial assistance from the Jamiat. None of the a financial assistance from the government. Most families in the village are recent migrants, from Bhojada in the Banni region, near the Rann of Kutch, a very barren and relatively inaccessible area. Despite having repeatedly requested the state authorities to grant them titles to the land which they have occupied or to be allowed to purchase these plots they have received no reply.. "This is why", explains Salim Sumra, a village youth, "we lack even basic facilities. We cannot even get loans from government banks". And, like almost all other Muslim settlements in the area, Meghpur has not benefited from any government-funded developmental programme. This village has no electricity, despite the fact that two Hindu temples on either side of the village, whose priests the villagers enjoy cordial relations with, have electric connections. The villagers complain that since 1991 they have been sending applications to the relevant government authorities to provide them with electricity but nothing has come of this. Several families paid a sum of five hundred rupees each, a big amount for them, to someone who claimed that he would arrange for the electric lines to be extended to their village, but he soon absconded with the money. Many families in the village are deep in debt. They need to sometimes borrow money for buying food, for themselves as well as for their animals. Debts have risen considerably in recent years, says village elder Mohammad Sohail Raima. "We manage to gather fodder for the animals for only around six months a year, 25 and the animals give milk for only that period. For the rest of the year, we need to buy fodder, which is becoming increasingly expensive, from the market", he says. "We generally take loans from moneylenders. We are all illiterate, so we do not know what the documents that we need to put our thumb-prints on say. They charge a hefty rate of interest, and if we fail to pay up we are often harassed by goons", he says. The village has a small maktab, where Maulvi Shafi Muhammad teaches about thirty children, mostly girls, in two shifts, one early in the morning and the other in the afternoon. The maktab is located in a small room, adjacent to the village mosque, which is a one-room structure made of logs put together. Although almost all the inhabitants of the village belong to the Ahl-e Hadith sect. The maktab was set up some eleven years ago by the Jamiat, which, till recently, used to pay half of the maulvi's salary. Now, however, the inhabitants of the village pool in their own money to pay the maulvi. Several maulvis have taught at the maktab till date, but few have spent much time here as they found the conditions in the village too harsh and the salary of two thousand rupees a month too low. The closest government school is six kilometers away, so no children go there. The maktab and the Jeevan Talim centre are the only available avenues for the education of the village children. The Jeevan Talim centre here, which has been running for the last two years, has two teachers and twenty-five children, with roughly equal numbers of girls and boys. In contrast to Rambagh, the centre here is housed in a well-maintained, cheerful-looking one-room building made of wooden boards with a steel sheet roof. Its inner walls display bright paintings and mathematical and alphabetical charts created by the children and the centre's educator Irfan. It has a blackboard, tables, chairs and carpets on the floor. 26 Given that they have not been learning regularly, the progress that they have made in a short span of time is quite a bit. Many of them can now recognize all the letters of the Gujarati alphabet and also perform simple mathematical calculations. However, none of them have been able to enroll in a government school, although that was one of the aims of the Jeevan Talim project. On the other hand, Irfan says, five of his students have now enrolled in a higher-level madrasa in Bhuj, where they are training to become ulema or religious specialists, where they are also studying subjects such as Gujarati, Mathematics, General Science and History. Sonapuri Madtapar is a settlement on the outskirts of Bhuj town, home to seventeen families, all from the Muslim Sameja caste, whose primary occupation like almost all the other Muslim castes in the area, is cattle-grazing. These families are migrants from the Banni area near the Sindh border, having shifted here some two decades ago at the height of a severe drought. None of them own any agricultural land here. The village has a small mosque, and Maulana Irfan is hardly twenty, and he is an enthusiastic teacher. At his beckoning, and after they have overcome their initial shyness, the children enact a drama, and spell out some Gujarati words, after which they sing songs that they have learnt from their parents. "We love coming here, because our teacher never beats us, and he really makes learning fun for us", says eight year-old Saima. Irfan, who has studied till the tenth grade, also teaches at another Jeevan Talim centre in the nearby village of Adipur Gulai. He has been associated with the Jeevan Talim programme for the last year and a half. Before this, he used to work as a mechanic in a garage. He says that he loves his present work. "Our people are very poor and because they are illiterate and unaware, they are easily cheated. That's why I want to continue working to promote education among them", he says. He informs me of how di the village folk of the necessity of the centre and of how they are now eager to help out, including the local maulvi. 27 Noor Muhammad Samma is its Imam. He leads the prayers in the mosque and teaches in the adjacent maktab, which also serves as the Jeevan Talim centre. Thirty-six children—twenty boys and sixteen girls—study in both the maktab and the centre. The Jeevan Talim centre in the village was started a year ago, but it has seen a high turnover of teachers. Shahana, a Muslim woman from Bhuj in her early 20s, is the fifth teacher to be appointed at the centre. "No child from this village has ever attended school", she explains. "So, even though the centre here has su from the fact that so many teachers have left since it started, at least some children can do basic mathematical calculations and read Gujarati letters". Commuting to the village daily is a major challenge, Shahana says—she has to take a rickshaw from Bhuj, which is 18 kilometers from the village, and then walk around three kilometers to get to the centre. Like many other Jeevan Talim instructors, she is not paid for her travel expenses. This means that her small income from teaching is further reduced. This is an issue that many instructors suggest needs to be addressed. Tal, a village in the Nakhatrana taluka, some twenty kilometers from Nakhatrana town, is located on the fringe of the Rann of Kutch. There is no approach road leading to the village as it is located in the desert. Besides two families who belong to the Dalit Koli caste, the 100-odd families in the village are Muslim Jaths, whose main profession is cattle-grazing. Like most other Muslim families in the area, they have recently taken to making charcoal as well. Although there is a government middle school in the vicinity, because of parents' lack of enthusiasm and because the teachers rarely come to the school, it rarely opens. 28 The village has a small maktab, which is partly funded by the Jamiat. Maulana Muhammad Arif, who is a local, has been teaching in the maktab for the last seven years after completing the alimiyat course from a madrasa in Bharuch district. The maktab operates two shifts, one for boys and the other for girls. Roughly thirty boys and twenty-five girls study in the maktab. Classes are held in Urdu, but the maulvi also explains the lessons in Sindhi, the childrens' mothertongue. Some twenty children who have finished studying in this maktab, including ten who had studied in the local government school as well, have enrolled in the Jamiat Arabia Ulum ul-Islamia, a large Deobandi madrasa in Bhuj, whose secretary, Noor Muhammad Raima (who is also the secretary of the Jamiat's Gujarat unit) plays a key role in the Jeevan Talim project. 29 "What's the use of spending so much time studying?", asks 80 year-old Din Muhammad Jath. "I know of only two government servants from our community— one is a postman and the other a bus driver—in the whole of Kutch. Even if our children study they won't get jobs, so I don't see the value of school", he adds. But his son Rahmat Jath disagrees. He tells me enthusiastically about the Jeevan Talim centre in the village. The centre, he says, was started fours years ago, and so far it has seen four teachers come and go in quick succession. "They found the salary too low" Rahmat explains. "About 15 children go to the centre daily, and the teacher is also regular, but if you ask parents if their own children attend the centre they probably would not know or even care", he rues. Referring to his father's diatribe against the centre, he says, "Of course, education is important, but many of us Jaths do not take any interest in it. Most of us want to live as our ancestors did". But things have indeed changed for the Jaths, and they cannot continue the same life-style of their forefathers, despite what Din Muhammad Jath says. "Till three decades ago, we Jaths were nomads. We used to roam the desert with our animals. And so we could not send our children to school. Nor did we feel the need to do so", Rahmat muses. "But now since we have settled down we have to, because now we have dealings with people in the towns, with government o and departments, and if we remain illiterate we cannot progress". The Jeevan Talim centre in the village is housed in a well-maintained one-room structure, which is decorated with art work done by the students and their teacher, Abdul Karim, who also teaches in the Jeevan Talim centre in the village of Paiya, located seven kilometers away. There are around twenty children in this centre, thirteen boys and seven girls. "Most of these children are below ten years. After ten, they usually have no time for studies as they help their parents in grazing animals and making charcoal", Abdul Karim explains. Having studied till the ninth grade, he is among the most educated people in his village. "None of the children from this centre have, of yet, gone on to take admission in the government school, although four children from the village have joined the Jamiat Arabia Ulum ul-Islamia madrasa in Bhuj", he reveals.. 30 Also in the Nakhatrana taluka, near the Rann of Kutch, is the isolated Jath vandh of Vazira, home to around seventy families. There is no maktab in the vandh, but a local madrasa graduate, Maulana Ali Ahmad, began teaching the Quran and the Arabic alphabet to the children two months ago. He is paid by the local community and is not associated with the Jamiat. About thirty children study in the Jeevan Talim centre in the vandh, including six from the Siju or Meghwal Dalit caste. The instructor of the centre, Maulana Shamusuddin, has been teaching here ever since the centre started three years ago. There is a government middle school in the vandh with three teachers, but only around thirty-five children study in it. Around three or four children from the vandh have studied till the seventh grade, but yet they are unable to read and write. Yet another vandh in the arid, semi-desert Nakhatrana taluka is Luna, inhabited by some sixty Jath families, besides eight households from the Meghwal Dalit caste. Like almost all other Muslim settlements in this part of Kutch, Luna is desperately poor. As elsewhere in this area, people here survive by making charcoal and selling milk, and, if the rains are good, manage one harvest of lentils, wheat and maize a year. The village is marooned for three months almost every year in the rainy season, forcing the inhabitants to take shelter near the shrine of the Sufi saint Haji Pir, located several kilometers away till the waters subside. 31 The vandh has a maktab, which is supported by the village community and has no formal relation with the Jamiat. Maulvi Muhammad Hashim, who has studied till the ninth standard and has also completed two years of study at a madrasa in Banni, teaches in the maktab, which has thirty students, half of whom are girls. He also teaches in the local Jeevan Talim centre, which operates in the same oneroom structure of the maktab. Bhambhara vandh, also in Nakhatrana taluka, is located in the flat, dry and stony plains on the fringes of the desert, near the famous shrine of the Sufi saint Haji Pir. This settlement of 35 Jath families was established twenty years ago. Before this, its inhabitants lived four kilometers away, which they left due to regular flooding during the monsoons. There is no school in the village, and no children from here go to the nearest government school to study. The village had a maktab, where about forty children used to study, but three months ago it was shut down since the maulvi lived far away, making it di for him to commute and also because he felt that the seventeen hundred rupees he was paid every month by the villagers was too little for him. Despite the fact that the village had a maktab, only three people in the village can read Urdu, and two can read Gujarati. The maulvi used to run the Jeevan Talim centre also for the last two years, but since he left and as there is no person in the village to take charge of it, the centre has shut down as well. Ludbai is another Jath settlement in the Nakhatrana taluka, and has around a hundred houses. It is one of the few Jath settlements in the region to have a government school, with classes till the seventh grade. Villagers, however, complain that the two teachers appointed here are very irregular because they do not take their work seriously and being from outside Kutch and unwilling to stay in the village, they have taken up accommodation in Desalpar, a small qasba about twenty-five kilometers from the village. The bus service from there to the village is very irregular. The only bus to the village arrives at 11.30 a.m., and returns to Desalpar at 2 p.m., so the teachers can hardly spend any time in the school, if they come there at all. 32 The neighbouring qasba of Desalpar is one of the only settlements selected for the Jeevan Talim project that has a proper road. It is located thirty kilometers from Haji Pir and some eighty kilometers from Bhuj. It is a multi-caste settlement of around four hundred families, most of who are Muslim. The Muslim castes here include Hingorjas, Jiyejas, Kumbhars, Langas, Narejas, Sarkis and Thudiyas. The Hindus include Jadejas, Koli, Meghwals and Thakkars. Desalpar has two government schools, one till the seventh standard and the other from the eighth to the tenth standard. Two hundred children, Muslims, Hindus and Dalits, attend the two government schools. About twenty Muslim children, six girls and fourteen boys, none of whom go to the government school, attend the local Jeevan Talim centre. There are ten graduates in the qasba, including some women, and all but two of them are Hindus. One Muslim graduate 17 year-old Abdul Jabbar, who has studied till the seventh grade, is the instructor of the local Jeevan Talim centre, which has been running for the last three years. He supplements his income by making and selling charcoal. "Here we use all the five senses and that makes it fun for the children, not drab as it is in the government school. We teach them to touch things, make things, even smell things, while in government schools, teaching is limited just to the blackboard. So, here they learn much faster and also retain what they've learnt", he explains. He excitedly tells me about how much progress his students—twenty-two girls and four boys, all below the age of seven—have made. He asks them to string letters to make words and to enact a short play, which they do with great enthusiasm. 33 works as a truck driver, and the other has a job with a company in Bhuj. The Jeevan Talim centre in Desalpar began three years ago, and 19 year-old Qasim has been teaching here for the last two years. He proudly says that seven of his students, all girls, can now write Gujarati, and the rest can at least identify the letters of the Gujarati alphabet. "I wish parents would take greater interest in their children's' studies", he says. "They hardly ever ask me how their children are doing or what new things they are learning". 34 The maulvi of the adjacent maktab has received his Islamic education from the famed Nadwat ul-Ulema madrasa in Lucknow. Thereafter, he completed his graduation, after which he taught for three years in an Urdu school in Mumbai and then in a madrasa in Palanpur. He joined the maktab to teach last month and is paid jointly by the Jamiat and the villagers. His wife is also a trained Islamic scholar or alima, who studied in a girls' madrasa in Bharuch, where she also learnt secular subjects and computers. He says that she will soon start teaching the older girls and women in the village and might also train them in tailoring. Of his 58 students, 35 girls and 23 boys, 12 boys also study in the government school. Five students who studied in the maktab have now taken admission in the Jamiata Jamiat Arabia Ulum ul-Islamia madrasa in Bhuj. Only three Muslim girls above the age of ten study in the government schools. "We are not opposed to girls' education", the maulvi explains. "We want them to study in schools as well, but, after a certain age, boys and girls should study separately. If the government could provide us with separate girls' schools for older girls or if some Muslim organization could set up girls' schools that combine secular and religious education, the villagers will have no problem in "Boys and girls in the villages generally do not interact together", Qasim says, "but in the centre that is not the case. All of us, including myself, clean the centre's premises every day. I sometimes sit with some village elders and the local maulvi and discuss the problems of the children. In that way, we encourage the villagers to feel that the centre is theirs, that it belongs to them". 35 sending them there", he explains. However, here, as elsewhere in this part of Kutch, he points out, there are no government girls' schools, because of which few girls above the age of ten can continue their studies. He also points out, and this is an argument made by many other village folk, that if the local schools and the Jeevan Talim centres could teach children Kutchi and use books in that language they would learn faster and more enthusiastically. "My own daughter, who used to study in a government school, was told that she could not wear a dupatta while in school. That, and not any opposition from my part to her education, forced me to withdraw her from school", the maulvi relates. He cites a case that occurred in a neighbouring village some years ago, involving three girls who were punished by the headmaster of the school by having to place their slippers on their heads. "Obviously, such attitudes and incidents make people wary of sending their girl children to school", he says. "In the maktab and in the Jeevan Talim centre they may not learn much about the world, but at least they are allowed to dress and behave in an Islamic fashion", he adds. Qasim, the instructor at the Jeevan Talim centre in Desalpar, also teaches in the Jeevan Talim centre in the nearby Jath vandh of Kandai. The inhabitants of this vandh are newcomers, having shifted here from Banni seventeen years ago at the time of a severe drought. Their houses reveal their stark poverty, being made of sticks tied together with twine and plastered with mud. The closest government school is in Desalpar, but owing to di this vandh study there. The centre here started two years ago, but it has no room or building. Classes are held under a thorny tree, and children sit on a torn and dusty mat. Close to Kandai is the settlement of Dhora, home to about sixty families. Most of them are Muthua and Nautiyar Muslims, the rest being Hindus from the Ahir caste. Maulvi Shamsuddin, who has been teaching in the village maktab for the last ten years, also runs the local Jeevan Talim centre. He is paid for his teaching in the maktab by the villagers, while the Jamiat pays him for teaching in the centre. 36 Although there is a government middle school in the village, teachers hardly attend. Saleem, a village youth, says, "In any case, they speak only Gujarati, and our children can hardly understand them. Earlier", he goes on, "the government had a policy of selecting teachers for schools from within the same district, but now selection and appointment is done on a state-level basis. So, one hardly finds any Kutchi-speaking teachers in this part of rural Kutch, and certainly no Muslim Kutchis. Most of the teachers are Gujarati-speakers, mainly from Sabarkantha and Mehsana districts. They cannot understand or speak our language and they find our culture alien. Hence, they hardly take any interest in teaching our children." The Jeevan Talim centre in the village was set up three years ago and Maulvi Shamsuddin has been teaching there right since its inception. He received his Islamic training from the Jamia Muhammadiyya Salafia, a madrasa associated with the Ahl-e Hadith sect, in Varnora in Bhuj district. The ten-year course that he completed there consisted of the traditional Islamic subjects along with Gujarati, English and Mathematics. "Those who have been regularly attending the centre for the last three years can now read, and also write a bit", Maulvi Shamsuddin says. "However there is a high rate of absenteeism, and several children have even stopped coming. Their parents take little interest in their studies. I find that girls are more serious about their studies, in the maktab and in the centre. Boys tend to spend more time playing. Girls generally listen to what I say or ask them to do and are much more punctual." Dedhiya is a village of Sindhispeaking Soomra and Nodey Muslim cattle-grazers, located in the desert in Banni, in northern Kutch. The 55 families there survive by grazing bu most of the other villages where the Jeevan Talim project has its centres, 37 the local government veterinary doctor rarely visits the village, although he receives a regular salary. The nearest health centre is located at a distance of twenty kilometers, but since the facilities there are minimal, most patients prefer to go to private doctors in Bhuj town, sixty kilometers away, where they have to pay much higher fees. There is no government school in the village, the nearest being about eight kilometres away. Consequently, none of the children go to school. Recently, a one-room government school building was set up in the village, but no teacher has been appointed as yet. In addition, an anganwadi building was constructed in the village five years ago, funded by UNICEF, but despite several requests, the authorities have not appointed a worker to run it. The Jeevan Talim centre here, set up a year ago, is run by Maulvi Jan Muhammad, who has taken up this responsibility, as well as that of teaching in the village maktab, a month ago. He studied till the sixth standard in a school in Patan and then spent six years studying in a madrasa in Palanpur, where he also memorized the entire Quran. As in many other villages in the area, several maulvis from outside came to teach in the village but left soon after, finding the salaries too low and the living conditions too harsh. Consequently, says the maulvi, few villagers can read the Quran, although the village maktab has been in existence for the last four years. In addition, almost no one in the village can read and write Gujarati. To write and read letters and notices, the villagers generally approach the maulvi. They also sometimes consult him on issues related to religious rituals he says, but never for religious guidance on social or economic issues, although Islam also has its own views about these. 38 Also located in the arid, desert-like Banni region of the Bhuj taluka is Umrani vandh, a settlement of Nodey Muslims. The twenty-five families here used to maintain large herds of bu su eke out an existence by making charcoal. The Jeevan Talim centre here was established eight months ago. The first teacher left because he felt the salary was too low. The present teacher, Ayub, also teaches in the Jeevan Talim centre in the neighboring village of Meghrani. Before this, he worked as a cleaner and cook in a restaurant in Bhuj and then with an NGO working for the physically challenged, he himself being unable to walk properly due to a problem in his right foot. Barasar, on the outskirts of Mankuva town near Bhuj, is a Muslim slum, located just behind a plush 'upper' caste Hindu colony, many of the houses of which are owned by Non-Resident Indians. The Muslims here belong to the Samma, Sumra and Khalifa or Hajjam castes. Nearby is a Jath Muslim settlement, inhabited by of sixty-odd families, who live in miserable huts, bereft of piped water and electricity. Even the mosque here has no water connection, despite the inhabitants having repeatedly requested the panchayat authorities for this for several years now. The Jeevan Talim centre here functions in the same one-room structure He had initial hesitations about the pedagogy of the Jeevan Talim project, especially since it also involved painting, song and dance, quite in contrast to the system of education in the madrasa where he had studied. "Now", he says, "I realize that education should not mean imprisoning children and being stern with them. The best way for them to learn is by actually enjoying what they are doing". 39 as the local maktab. 22 year-old Abdul Razzak Theba, who has studied till the ninth standard, teaches in the centre. He supplements what he earns from the centre by making and selling charcoal. Abdul Razzak also teaches in the neighbouring vandh of Sangrai, which is inhabited by sixty families from the Muslim Samma community, who, like many other Muslims in the area, belong to the Ahl-e Hadith sect. Here, too, the inhabitants of the vandh survive mainly by making and selling charcoal and by working in the fields of the Patel landlords. They own no land of their own, not even the tiny plots where their tiny huts stand. The settlement lacks electricity and water supply, as technically, the Sammas do not have title deeds to the land where they live. Only three boys from this settlement attend the government school in a neighbouring village. On the other hand, sixteen girls and six boys attend the local Jeevan Talim centre. Not far from Sangrai is the settlement of Ram Badi, inhabited entirely by Dalits from the Meghwal or Siju caste and whose profession by caste is weaving. The eighteen families in this settlement shifted here from the neighboring village of Pirwari, six kilometers away, in the aftermath of the deadly 2001 earthquake, when their houses were completely destroyed. Their houses and work sheds for their looms in their new habitation were built with the financial help of an external NGO. The land where their houses stand belonged to the government, but in 2003 these people received land titles. However, they own no agricultural land of their own; almost all such land in the vicinity being owned by the Patels, in whose fields some of them work as daily wage agricultural labourers. There is no government school in the settlement, but an NGO has constructed a large three-room school building here. A government-paid teacher takes classes daily there, teaching about twenty children. These same children also attend the 40 local Jeevan Talim centre, which started around a year ago. Saleem Traiya, the instructor of the centre, explains that the children study in the centre, in addition to the other school, because it serves as a revision/tuition for them. The Jeevan Talim project has another centre in the Muslim locality of Mufat Nagar, on the outskirts of the township of Kodki, eleven kilometers from Bhuj town. The Muslims here belong to the Samma, Raima, Traiya and Khalifa castes, and are characterized by widespread poverty and landlessness. They earn their livelihood mainly by working as labourers in the fields of the Patels, the largest landlords here, or by doing construction work in sites in Bhuj. Saleem, the instructor in the centre in Ram Badi, teaches here, too. He used his own money to build a small, well-kept one-room structure adjacent to his house in which he conducts classes. The twenty-five students in the centre include three boys and six girls from the Dalit Meghwal community. The closest government school is just half a kilometre away, but only ten Muslim children, all boys, study there, and they also attend the classes in the centre. Madhapar Matiya is a colony in Junawas, a squalid slum located in the suburbs of Bhuj town. It is home to thirty-five Muslim families, from the Juneja, Samma and Nodey castes. Most of them follow the Ahl-e Hadith school of thought. They are originally from Kharwa in Banni, and migrated here in 1980 in the wake of a severe famine. Only ten children from the colony go to the nearby government school. All of them are boys, except for two girls who study in the second standard. Madhu Behen, a Hindu Kutchi woman, recently began teaching in the Jeevan Talim centre here. She is one of the few women instructors in the entire Jeevan Talim project. She complains that the students are irregular. One reason for this, she says, is economic. Businessmen from other parts of Gujarat regularly come to the colony and take men, women and children 41 above the age of ten in trucks to interior villages in Kutch to do hammali work— loading trucks with charcoal. Because of this, the number of children going to school and to the centre is small. Shakur vandh is located just o The forty Samma Muslim families here were originally from Khavra, in the Banni area, and migrated here fifteen years ago due to a severe drought. Although they have requested the government authorities to grant them titles to the land on which they have set up their huts, this permission has not been granted. The nearest government school is four kilometres away and no children from the vandh go there to study. Many men and women from the vandh work in the ceramic factories near the settlement which are owned by 'upper' caste Hindus. Working conditions there are poor, and workers have to breathe clouds of dust all day. Almost everyone in the vandh is illiterate and the most that some—four or five men—can read and write is their own name. The Jeevan Talim centre here has been functioning very irregularly because of a high turnover of teachers. The first teacher taught for a month, and the next for three days, after which the centre remained closed for five months. A new teacher began visiting the centre ten days ago, but because he comes daily by cycle from his home, twenty kilometres away, the villagers are not hopeful that he will continue for long. E itself presents a picture of woeful neglect. Classes are held under a torn sheet strung across four wooden poles. Animal droppings ring the threadbare mat on 42 which the children sit. The nearest government school is located two kilometres away and the nearest maktab is at a distance of four kilometres. No children from this settlement study in either of them. Sumra vandh, near Madhapar, not far from Bhuj town, is, as its name suggests, a settlement of Sumra Muslims. They are recent migrants from Banni, where they used to tend livestock. When many of their animals perished in a famine twenty years ago, they shifted here and took to agricultural labour in the fields of Patel landlords and working on construction sites to eke out a living. The most educated person in the vandh has studied till only the third grade and, like most other adult males here, he now works as a daily-wage labourer. The Jeevan Talim centre in the vandh started two months ago, and now twenty children attend it. No children attend the nearby maktab, located a kilometre away. "The reason", says elderly Noor Muhammad, "is that the other children there beat them". 43 The situation in neighbouring Bhujodi is equally distressing. The thirty Sumra families here, originally from the Banni area, work mainly as labourers in the nearby porcelain factories and in the Patels' fields, although some have bu and sell their milk, which fetches them thirteen rupees a litre. "Earlier", says Salma, a middle-aged woman, "grazing lands were plenty here, but now much of the land has been bought up by rich people for constructing houses. Because of this, we are now often forced to buy expensive fodder from shops, which few of us can a their milk yields". The nearest government school is only a kilometre from the settlement, but yet only four children from the settlement, all of them boys, attend it. The Jeevan Talim centre here opened just a month ago. The instructor, Bhavna Behen, a Hindu woman from Bhuj town who has studied till the ninth grade and who is teaching for the first time, says that she is surprised by the children's enthusiasm to learn but is at the same time, deeply aware of the great hurdles that they have to face in this regard. Tanka vandh is located on the outskirts of Mirzapur, a township five kilometres from Bhuj. The twenty Nodey Muslim families who live here are originally from the Banni area, having shifted some thirty years ago. The Jeevan Talim centre here started a year ago, but functioned for just eight months, when the instructor resigned. It has been re-started recently by Maulana Safiullah, who also teaches in the local maktab. He studied till the eighth standard in a school in Radhanpur, after which he completed the alimiyat degree from a Deobandi madrasa in Patan. He says that because the centre remained closed for several months, many children have forgotten most of what they had previously learnt, a problem common to many other Jeevan Talim centres that have had a very high turnover of teachers. This is also the problem, he says, with the local maktab, which, since it was established ten years ago has seen some twelve maulvis come and leave in quick succession, this having a seriously negative impact on the students' education. 44 Not far from Bhuj town, on the outskirts of Adipur, is the settlement of Sinai. In addition to some Ahir, Meghwal and Rabari households, some thirty Muslim families live here. They are from the Sodha, Mughal, Changal-Girasia and Syed communities. They earn their livelihood by cutting firewood and selling it in the nearby towns. Only around ten Muslim children study in the nearby government school. These include seven girls, who are allowed to go to school by their parents because the school is close by. The local maktab is housed in the compound of the dargah or tomb-shrine of a Sufi saint, Syed Pir Saheb, who is revered by not just the Muslims but also by many local Hindus. It has about twenty students, more than half of them girls. A Jeevan Talim centre functioned here for around half a year, but then closed down after the instructor left. Consequently, very few children who had attended the centre remember what they had learned there. That was the same fate in the case of the Jeevan Talim centre in nearby Adipur Eidgah Jhopadpati, where, after the Jeevan talim centre shut down, only ten children now study in the government school and roughly the same number in the local maktab. 45 Assessing the Achievements of the Jeevan Talim Project The Jeevan Talim project is now in its fourth year, a long enough period to be able to access its successes and limitations. Given the extremely harsh terrain in which the Jeevan Talim project functions, the pathetic economic conditions of the people, their lack of a culture of literacy, the poor communications, the inability to get trained teachers, the rapid turnover of teachers and so on, the project has been able to at least help galvanise people's interest in educating their children. The fact that literally hundreds of children, whose families do not know how to read and write at all, are now able to recognize letters and write them and solve basic mathematical calculations, as a result of the project, is no mean achievement. The project has also had a positive impact on people's attitudes towards education. As Saleem, a resident of Umrani vandh, puts it, "Now only very few people, especially the elderly, will say that there is no use educating our children giving reasons that they will not get a government job or that they will, like their ancestors, grow to become cattle-grazers. Even the poorest families are now aware of the need for education, and in this the Jeevan Talim project has played a central role. It has made us feel that the centre and its work are our own, that through the centre the children can receive education joyfully". 46 Another positive outcome of the project has been to undermine the process that was leading to the enforced ghettoisation of Muslim education, a result primarily of discrimination practised by the state and large sections of the Hindu community. Although the vast majority of the children, teachers and supervisors associated with the project are Muslims, a substantial number of Hindus and Dalits are also closely involved in the project in di teachers, students and project support sta This gives the children, their parents and the ulema of the maktabs as well as Jamiat leaders opportunities to interact with people of other faiths in the course of the work of the Jeevan Talim centres, a process that helps undermine prejudices on both sides. As Maulana Hakimuddin Qasmi, in-charge of the Jamiat's Children's Village in Anjar, and closely involved in the Jeevan Talim project, says, "In the Quran, Allah says that we should help each other in good deeds. This also means that people of goodwill of all faiths should work together for serving the needy. That's what the Jeevan Talim project is all about. Likewise, the Jamiat has built houses for some needy Hindus, whose houses were destroyed in the riots.." "Some people might ask us why we are working with non-Muslims for educating our children", he goes on. "My reply to them is that after the Battle of Badr, the Prophet Muhammad agreed to release the prisoners of war if they would teach a certain number of Muslims to read and write. So, if he could ask the enemies of 47 the Muslims to educate his people, why cannot we seek the help of those non- Muslims who are certainly not our enemies, but people like the Udaan sta are our friends, to help us educate our children? We all can, and must, learn from each other". Maulana Hakimuddin also explains that although the Jamiat is associated with the Deobandi school of thought, several villages where the Jeevan Talim centres are located are associated with another sect, the Ahl-e Hadith, and one centre is located in a Dalit settlement. "As this illustrates, true religion means that one should work for the welfare of all needy people, irrespective of caste and religion", he insists. The Jeevan Talim project has also had an impact on several Jamiat leaders in terms of the vision that they have set for their organisation. "Experiments like the Jamiat's Children School and the Jeevan Talim project have convinced us of the need for more ulema and ulema-led organizations to work on issues related to modern education, including for girls and economic empowerment, in addition to religious education", says Maulana Hakimuddin. He reveals that the Jamiat now plans to set up two colleges in Kutch, having already launched some training courses for women at its centre in Bhuj. "All these years", he notes, "because of persistent anti-Muslim violence and threats to the Muslim identity, Muslim organizations have been forced to focus almost wholly on relief and rehabilitation and provision of religious education. But now we must expand the scope of our work." "We need to get more professional. As of now, we can run only madrasas properly, and so we recognize the continuing need for working with NGOs like Udaan for the educational projects that we have in mind. I think that there is a lot of good that can come about if non-Muslim or secular NGOs work together with Muslim organizations, including those led by ulema, for the benefit of the marginalized. The ulema and other Muslim leaders must give this more serious thought", he stresses. 48 Likewise, the impact of the project on local understanding of appropriate genderrelated behaviour and notions concerning gender-relations cannot be discounted. For many families, their girl children are able to study for the first time because the centres are located in the village itself and because the instructors are from the local community. Besides, the female instructors in some villages and the female members of the Udaan support sta have, through their very presence, impacted local people's ideas about the roles of girls and women in a positive manner. The same is true in the case of the ulema whom these women interact with, including both the maktab teachers as well as the maulvis of the Jamiat. For instance, Maulvi Ghulam Muhammad Qasmi, rector of the Jamiat Arabia Ulum ul-Islamia, the large Deobandi madrasa in Bhuj which is associated with the Jamiat, who is also associated, through the Jamiat, with the Jeevan Talim project, says, "Initially, we did have some hesitations and misconceptions about working with a non-Muslim NGO, especially since many of its activists with whom we had to interact are women. But after several meetings with Udaan activists all our fears were put to rest. I have observed these girls, they are so respectful. They are now like my own children. Now, we regularly meet them and give them whatever help they want because we trust them. We believe that the work must be done properly, no matter by whom." 49 One of the aims of the Jeevan Talim project was to facilitate children, including school drop-outs, to rejoin government schools in the villages where these exist. On this count, the project has not been successful as hardly any children who have attended the centres have taken admission in government schools. On the other hand, however, a number of children, all boys, from several villages have, after spending some time in the centres, joined the Jamiat Arabia Ulum ul-Islamia, the Jamiat-associated Deobandi madrasa in Bhuj, where they study both traditional Islamic as well as secular subjects. When the project was conceived, it was hoped that it would soon become selfsustainable and that the Jamiat would take over its overall functioning, while Udaan would gradually phase out. It was expected that the Jamiat sta su following this, the Jamiat would be able to start similar Jeevan Talim centres in selected parts of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, working, for this purpose, through its extensive network of madrasas there. This, however, has not really happened. The team of Jeevan Talim teachers and supervisors is now able to conduct workshops and educators' trainings and monitor and evaluate the functioning of the centres to a great extent, but it is still unable to function without the intervention of Udaan, says Udaan Director, Deepika Singh. Top Jamiat leaders in Kutch, Ahmedabad and Delhi, she says, listen to the advice given by Udaan sta but actual implementation is not a a lack of sta villages but lacks the full-time sta second-level of leadership that can be directly involved in the day-to-day functioning of the Jeevan Talim centres. Because of this, she says, Udaan is still compelled to handle administrative tasks and accounts for the project and to deal with funding agencies, which is actually the responsibility of the Jamiat, that of Udaan technically being only programmatic. Given this, Deepika feels that it would be premature for Udaan to withdraw from the project at this stage, for it might then collapse. At the same time, she feels that, considering the budgetary constraints of Udaan and shortage of sta Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh with the help of Udaan might not be realistic. "We 50 want to continue working with the Jamiat, but I think we need a di relationship, one which would enable the Jamiat to fully take over the project and run it on its own in a professional and sustainable manner", she remarks. Some of the teachers have their own suggestions to make to enable the project to be more meaningful. More stress, they suggest, should be given to promoting awareness of the children's immediate environment as well as crucial social issues; Jeevan Talim centres should be equipped with material for games and music and could have a mid-day meal scheme, as in government schools, to attract more children; hostels could be built for each cluster of five or six villages so that children can spend more time with the educators; and the Jeevan Talim programme could be supplemented with skill development classes or some sort of employment generation programmes for the children's parents so that the children are relieved of the burden of working outside the home to supplement the family's meager income. The teachers and the villagers recognize the fact that the work that the Jeevan Talim project aims to do is actually the responsibility of the government, which is bound by the Constitution of the country to provide free and accessible education to every child. Thus, Hakim Bhai, a village elder from Tanka vandh remarks, "Our conditions can only change if the government is pressurized to do something. Till then", he grimly adds, "the e welcome, but of course they can hardly su 51 Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind No. 1, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi – 110002 INDIA Ph: 91 11 23311455, 23317729s Fax: 91 11 23316173 Email: Web: C-105, Royal Chinmay, Off. Judges Bung;ow Roads, Bodakdev, Vastrapur, Ahmedabad 380054 Phone: 079-26854248, 26857745 website: email: 52
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