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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Maulana’s 'gullak' initiative touches 60K students

Read & Lead Foundation President Maulana Abdul Qayyum Mirza with daughter Mariyam Mirza. Mumbai/Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: In the new age controlled by smart-gadgets and social media, an academic from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar has sparked a small, head-turning and successful - ‘savings and reading’ revolution among middle-school children. Launched in 2006, by Maulana Abdul Qayyum Mirza, the humble initiative turns 20 this year and witnessed over 60,000 free savings boxes (gullaks)...

Maulana’s 'gullak' initiative touches 60K students

Read & Lead Foundation President Maulana Abdul Qayyum Mirza with daughter Mariyam Mirza. Mumbai/Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: In the new age controlled by smart-gadgets and social media, an academic from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar has sparked a small, head-turning and successful - ‘savings and reading’ revolution among middle-school children. Launched in 2006, by Maulana Abdul Qayyum Mirza, the humble initiative turns 20 this year and witnessed over 60,000 free savings boxes (gullaks) distributed to Class V-VIII students in 52 government and private schools. “The aim was to inculcate a love for ‘saving and reading’ among young children. We started by presenting small plastic ‘gullaks’ (savings boxes) at the Iqra Boys & Girls High School, and later to many other schools,” Mirza said with a tinge of satisfaction. Scoffed by sceptics, it soon caught the eyes of the schools and parents who loved the idea that kept the kids off mischief, but gave them the joy of quietly slipping Re. 1 or even Rs. 5 save from their daily pocket money into the ‘gullak’. “That tiny ‘gullak’ costing barely Rs 3-Rs 5, becomes almost like their personal tiny bank which they guard fiercely and nobody dares touch it. At the right time they spend the accumulated savings to buy books of their choice – with no questions asked. Isn’t it better than wasting it on toys or sweets or amusement,” chuckled Mirza. A childhood bookworm himself, Mirza, now 50, remembers how he dipped into his school’s ‘Book Box’ to avail books of his choice and read them along with the regular syllabus. “Reading became my passion, not shared by many then or even now… Sadly, in the current era, reading and saving are dying habits. I am trying to revive them for the good of the people and country,” Maulana Mirza told The Perfect Voice. After graduation, Mirza was jobless for sometime, and decided to make his passion as a profession – he took books in a barter deal from the renowned Nagpur philanthropist, Padma Bhushan Maulana Abdul Karim Parekh, lugged them on a bicycle to hawk outside mosques and dargahs. He not only sold the entire stock worth Rs 3000 quickly, but asked astonished Parekh for more – and that set the ball rolling in a big way, ultimately emboldening him to launch the NGO, ‘Read & Lead Foundation’ (2018). “However, despite severe resources and manpower crunch, we try to cater to the maximum number of students, even outside the district,” smiled Mirza. The RLF is also supported by his daughter Mariyam Mirza’s Covid-19 pandemic scheme, ‘Mohalla Library Movement’ that catapulted to global fame, and yesterday (Oct. 20), the BBC telecast a program featuring her. The father-daughter duo urged children to shun mobiles, video-games, television or social media and make ‘books as their best friends’, which would always help in life, as they aim to gift 1-lakh students with ‘gullaks’ in the next couple of years. At varied intervals Mirza organizes small school book fairs where the excited kids troop in, their pockets bulging with their own savings, and they proudly purchase books of their choice in Marathi, English, Hindi or Urdu to satiate their intellectual hunger. Fortunately, the teachers and parents support the kids’ ‘responsible spending’, for they no longer waste hours before screens but attentively flip pages of their favourite books, as Mirza and others solicit support for the cause from UNICEF, UNESCO, and global NGOs/Foundations. RLF’s real-life savers: Readers UNICEF’s Jharkhand District Coordinator and ex-TISS alumnus Abul Hasan Ali is full of gratitude for the ‘gullak’ habit he inculcated years ago, while Naregaon Municipal High School students Lakhan Devdas (Class 6) and Sania Youssef (Class 8) say they happily saved most of their pocket or festival money to splurge on their favourite books...! Zilla Parishad Girls Primary School (Aurangpura) teacher Jyoti Pawar said the RLF has proved to be a “simple, heartwarming yet effective way” to habituate kids to both reading and savings at a tender age, while a parent Krishna Shinde said it has “changed the whole attitude of children”. “We encourage books of general interest only, including inspiring stories of youth icons like Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai (28) and environmentalist Greta Thunberg (23) which fascinates our students, and other popular children’s literature,” smiled Mirza. The Maulana’s RLF, which has opened three dozen libraries in 7 years, acknowledges that every coin dropped into the small savings boxes begins a new chapter – and turns into an investment in knowledge that keeps growing.

“We suspect tinkering of 1-cr votes”

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Mumbai: As the Congress Leader of Opposition In Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi embarked on a high-voltage 'Voter Adhikar Yatra', the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) President Harshwardhan Sapkal made a stunning claim that in the 2024 Parliament and Assembly elections, a stupendous ‘one-crore votes’ may have been manipulated to edge out the state Opposition parties. Excerpts from an exclusive chat.

 

The Congress is tomtoming a lot about ‘Vote-Chori.’

It's not a mere slogan. For the last three months, we’ve done our own investigation - collecting inputs, deep diving into the Election Commission of India (ECI)’s data. We believe that nearly 78-lakh votes were manipulated during the November 20–23, 2024 state Assembly polls.

 

Seventy-eight lakh? That’s a massive number.

If you consider the voter additions and deletions or unusual local swells in the 6-month gap between the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, we strongly suspect the  figure could touch One Crore votes. We aren’t just crunching numbers. There are other factors, patterns that make this issue extremely serious.

 

What remedial steps have you taken?

Already, 50 writ petitions are before the courts, plus we’ve filed over 100 complaints with election Returning Officers. We’ve kept the State Election Commission fully informed. But this is not stopping here.

 

The civic bodies' elections are due soon, what’s your preparation?

Watch, Scrutiny & Vigil! Our party activists will maintain a 24x7 hawk-eye on the EVM-VVPAT strongrooms from the moment polling ends, until counting day. No more scope for mischief. In the next three months, we shall hold Division level brainstorming sessions to finalise candidates, local alliances, electoral and political strategies.

 

You are regarded as a stickler for accountability. Is that deliberate?

Absolutely. Accountability is non-negotiable. If a person is given a responsibility by the party, then how you spend your day, what activities you’ve taken up and the outcome, must be clear both to top leaders and grassroots workers. This isn’t about PR stunts. Claims can’t remain in the air, they must be backed by solid ground work.

 

Does it percolate within the MPCC?

As directed by the party high command, the work of each PCC Member will be reviewed annually. If they fall short, harsh decisions will be taken. Simply put, ‘everyone is on a one-year probation’, including me! (laughs). I have given my Report Card, others at all levels are expected to follow suit.

 

‘Accountability with Responsibility’

A soft-spoken, no-nonsense person with a dash of humour, MPCC President Harshawardhan Sapkal, 57, is known for his blunt talk, massive public outreach and an aggressive stance against the Mahayuti government on law & order, farmers, social harmony, plus other major issues.

 

The 25th state party head in 65 years (1960 onwards), Sapkal came out with a half-yearly performance card – billed as unprecedented - after he took over in Feb. 2025, listing his activities and achievements, terming it as ‘Accountability’ with major ‘Responsibility’.

 

Though he says all his campaigns were equally significant, the ‘Sadhbhavna Padyatras’ for saving the Constitution, safeguarding Democracy, Communal Harmony, Social Unity and Peace, grabbed huge attention in multiple districts this year, somewhat unnerving the Bharatiya Janata Party-Nationalist Congress Party-Shiv Sena alliance.

 

The Congress took out nearly four dozen ‘Jai Hind Tiranga’ rallies to salute the Armed Forces, candle-light processions focusing on irregularities in the 2024 Assembly polls, attacks on intellectuals and artists, several incidents of rape that raised questions on public safety vis-à-vis law & order, unchecked hate campaigns unleased by ruling party leaders targeting castes and religious communities.

 

Sapkal spearheaded agitations on stalled infrastructure projects, farmers’ distress, skyrocketing inflation, unemployment among youth, opposing the new Maharashtra Special Public Safety Bill, the compulsion of Hindi at the primary school level, attempts to polarize the society and other topics of mass concern.

 

Practically living in a suitcase, Sapkal hit the roads vigorously and toured 22 of the state’s 36 districts, engaging with party leaders-activists plus the common public, invigorating the Congress at the mass-level ahead of the civic polls.

 

“The Sadbhavna Padyatra was a campaign to safeguard Democracy and a historic initiative to curb corruption, communal politics and institutional collapse in Maharashtra. The MPCC will perform as the state’s ‘Watchdog’ to defend the people, from tense districts to urban flashpoints and reassure the masses that we are with them,” a determined Sapkal told ‘The Perfect Voice’.

 

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