Kanjar Care: August 2010

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Investing in Future

Jhalawar, July 2010 Going by the time-tested principle which states that `educate mankind if you are planning for hundred years', 25 children of Kanjar families from the Gangdhar block of district Jhalawar were sent to Government-run Boarding School in Mandana in adjoining Kota district. Though some 70 children were examined for their capacity to read and write, only 32 were found eligible to join the classes(Picture shows children leaving for the Boarding School in a bus from the District Secretariat, Jhalawar).

In the presence of several district officials and the project staff, the District Collector presented hostel-related material to each of the selected children. It was further stressed that the families of the selected children will receive support under various government schemes on a priority basis. The District Police Chief commented that education can play an important role in bringing stigmaised section of the society into the mainstream.

It has long been perceived that while the `kanjar' households need specific livelihood interventions to wean them away from criminal activities, the children may need to be segregated from the households to lead a decent life through education and better health care. Till all children are enrolled into boarding school, the task may remain far from finished.

Innovative Initiative: To match a `thief'

WWF and the Madhya Pradesh forest department have embarked on a unique initiative to gentrify the `criminal' Pardhi tribe and stop large-scale tiger poaching. The project has two linked objectives - one, persuading the adults to change their ways and two, giving the community's children a shot at education and a subsequent normal life. Called `residential bridge course', the Pardhi children spend none months away from their families in such `borading schools' before crossing over to conventional schools. By now, nearly 250 children have gone through the bridge course in the last three years.

"Dissuading children who accompany their parents on dangerous hunts for wild boars, leopards and tigers haven't been easy,'' says S S Rajput, Chief Conservator of Forests, Bhopal. The challenge is to show Pardhi tribe that it is profitable to protect wildlife than poach it. The need is to co-opt them in the Indian state rather than fight them. . . .more

The Initiative

Started in Nov 2009, rehabilitating the Kanjar in Jhalawar district of Rajasthan is a joint initiative of IFFDC (http://www.iffdc.org.in) and Rajasthan Mission on Skills & Livelihoods (www.rajasthanlivelihoods.org) with support from UNDP. The project aims to not only develop a comprehensive understanding of the tribe's past but relate to it in devising inclusive livelihoods options for the stigmatised community. The specific objectives of the initiative are:

1. to sensitize and mobilize Kanjar families towards improvement in their living standards.

2. to strengthen the linkages of community groups with other agencies to improve their access to productive resources in Jhalarapatan and Gangdhar blocks of Jhalawar district.

3. to respond to contemporary poverty related issues, including health and primary education, of women and children.

4. to enhance state-civil society-community partnership towards policy advocacy.

Plotting Kundli as an idea to understand social dynamics

Kanjar offer a formidable challenge in ameliorating their plight. There are wide array of inter-related issues that impact their lives - from cultural isolation to social stigma, from resource poverty to low incomes and from official apathy to economic exclusion. Understanding inter-relationships between issues and the manner in which these influence an `intervention' is critical to designing livelihoods programs for them. `Kundli chart' as a `concept' is being piloted to understand how each of the variables impact the outcome and to get a sense of the combination of factors that need to be tweaked to create a tangible impact.

The `co-production' idea

Speaking of the Bhils, the Pindaris and the Thugs, Gandhiji had said: `...all are our own countrymen. To win them over is your and my work. So long as we fear our own brethern, we are unfit to reach the goal.'

In response to Gandhiji's remark, the idea of Co-production is being mooted to bring Kanjar into the mainstream. Co-production is a concept that gives responsibility to people who are regarded as `the problem', and makes them feel useful when they had been condemned as useless - and by so doing transforms their lives. It is not same as `participation' because co-production means `reciprocity'. The point is that practically everybody does have something to give and both they, and the community around them, are better for the giving.