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By:

Shoumojit Banerjee

27 August 2024 at 9:57:52 am

Classroom of Courage

In drought-scarred Maharashtra, a couple’s experiment in democratic schooling is turning child beggars into model citizens In the parched stretches of Maharashtra, from Solapur to the drought-hit villages of Marathwada, a modest social experiment has quietly unfolded for nearly two decades. It is neither a grand government scheme nor a corporate-backed charity. Since 2007, the Ajit Foundation, founded by Mahesh and Vinaya Nimbalkar, has worked with children living at the sharpest edges of...

Classroom of Courage

In drought-scarred Maharashtra, a couple’s experiment in democratic schooling is turning child beggars into model citizens In the parched stretches of Maharashtra, from Solapur to the drought-hit villages of Marathwada, a modest social experiment has quietly unfolded for nearly two decades. It is neither a grand government scheme nor a corporate-backed charity. Since 2007, the Ajit Foundation, founded by Mahesh and Vinaya Nimbalkar, has worked with children living at the sharpest edges of society in Maharashtra. The foundation has become a home for out-of-school children, those who have never enrolled, the children of migrant labourers and single parents, and those who scavenge at garbage dumps or drift between odd jobs. To call their foundation an “NGO” is to miss the point. Vinaya Nimbalkar describes it as a “democratic laboratory”, where education is not merely instruction but an initiation into citizenship. The couple were once government schoolteachers with the Solapur Zilla Parishad, leading stable lives. Yet what they witnessed unsettled them: children who had never held a pencil, begging at traffic signals or sorting refuse for a living. Prompted by this reality, the Nimbalkars resigned their jobs to work full-time for the education of such children. Leap of Faith They began modestly, teaching children in migrant settlements in Solapur and using their own salaries to pay small honorariums to activists. Funds soon ran dry, and volunteers drifted away. Forced out of their home because of their commitment to the cause, they started a one-room school where Vinaya, Mahesh, their infant son Srijan and forty children aged six to fourteen lived together as an unlikely family. The experiment later moved to Barshi in the Solapur district with support from Anandvan. Rural hardship, financial uncertainty and the pandemic repeatedly tested their resolve. At one stage, they assumed educational guardianship of nearly 200 children from families that survived by collecting scrap on the village outskirts. Eventually, the foundation relocated to Talegaon Dabhade near Pune, where it now runs a residential hostel. Twenty-five children currently live and study there. The numbers may seem modest, but the ambition is not. Democracy in Practice What distinguishes the Ajit Foundation is not only who it serves but also how it operates. Within its walls, democracy is practised through a Children’s Gram Panchayat and a miniature Municipal Council elected by the children themselves. Young candidates canvass, hold meetings and present their budgets. Children maintain accounts and share decisions about chores, activities and certain disciplinary matters. In a country where democratic culture is often reduced to voting, the foundation’s approach is quietly radical. It treats children from marginalised backgrounds as citizens in formation. The right to choose — whether to focus on sport, cooking, mathematics or cultural activities — is respected. “We try never to take away what is their own,” says Vinaya Nimbalkar. Rather than forcing every child into a uniform academic mould, individual abilities are encouraged. A boy skilled in daily calculations may not be pushed into hours of bookish study; a girl who excels in cooking may lead the kitchen team. For children who have known only precarity, standing for election, managing a budget or speaking at a meeting can be transformative. On International Women’s Day, the foundation seeks visibility not just for praise but for partnership. If you are inspired by their mission, consider supporting or collaborating—your involvement can help extend opportunities to more children in need.

Why blame the speechless leopards?

Maharashtra’s leopard attacks are the bloodied consequence of unbridled urbanisation, where the appetite for ‘development’ has devoured habitats.

The growing number of leopard attacks in ‘progressive’ Maharashtra should be a concern for all those humans who seemingly insatiable appetite for infrastructural development and expansion of cities comes at the cost of nature.


Thus far, almost 40 casualties have been reported from Nashik, Jalgaon, Nandurbar, Pune and Ahilya Nagar areas. A lethal attack by the ferocious animal has also occurred near Nagpur. Maharashtra is one of the major states where great natural habitats had existed for wildlife to flourish in an organic manner. Yet, this kind of man-animal conflict is being witnessed there; it proves that adequate conflict mitigation steps were not planned. This chain of attacks is not only unfortunate, the incidents point to the abject failure of Maharashtra government as also of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).


Failed Plans

The MoEFCC is in charge of the protected forests, national parks and tiger reserves; the ministry makes policies for the green areas to sustain. These are the natural enclaves where the wild animals are expected to stay and grow with constant improvements in habitats and prey base. Wildlife Preservation Act 1972 is a central Act for wildlife protection in every possible manner but that is falling short of saving animals. It is noteworthy that the MoEFCC had issued a grand National Human-Wildlife Conflict Mitigation Strategy and Action Plan (HWC-NAP) in 2021. The action plan ends in 2026 and it seems the plan largely remained on papers or confined to handing out pay cheques as compensation to victims. Conflicts have not reduced at all despite many goals set in the five-year plan.


As for the spurt in leopard attacks, the Maharashtra Forest department alone must not be blamed or held responsible for the recent untoward developments because other departments like agriculture, industry, revenue and chiefly the urban development, also have a significant role in controlling these incidents--directly or indirectly. Shrinking green area in Maharashtra is a major cause of the wild animals straying into urban areas in search of food. If Kokan and Western Ghats are deducted, forest cover would slip into single digit which should worry Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis.


What cost urbanisation?  That his forest minister Ganesh Naik has little or no understanding of forest and wildlife management is a different matter. His ridiculous remarks about conflict mitigation measures have exposed him completely.


Unbridled Expansion

Maharashtra is among the most rapidly urbanised states, leaving little pockets for the wildlife to thrive. Cities like Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Nagpur, Sambhaji Nagar, or Nashik are expanding at a frightening speed; the road infrastructure is being pushed as if there is there is no tomorrow. Real estate prices are hitting the roof. Tree-cutting controversies in Mumbai or in Nashik (Tapovan) are too well-known for me to repeat here. 


Additionally, Maharashtra has the second largest population of leopards (1985), an animal species which is shy but aggressive when hungry. Leopards were not known to be man-eaters but with changing rural-urban landscape in Maharashtra, the conflict is getting intensified. Who is responsible? Not the leopards, for sure.


After Maharashtra, the highest number of leopards are found in MP (3,907) but attacks on humans are rare there. In fact, even tigers roam in municipal limits of Bhopal. No extreme conflict has been (luckily) recorded in which tiger has attacked humans in Bhopal.


With more forested areas in Madhya Pradesh than in Maharashtra, wild animals have better homes of their own.


The leopard-human conflict is part of an increasing trend in human wildlife conflict (HWC), seen across India. Between tiger and humans; elephants and humans these conflicts get highlighted from places like Chhattisgarh, UP, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh. But it gets tragic turn when human lives are lost, like what is happening in Maharashtra. Elsewhere, black buck or blue bulls have been raiding farmlands to devour standing crops resulting in peasants complaining of losses and turning against wildlife in general. 


Madhya Pradesh is witnessing wild elephants menace for the past few years; it is a new phenomenon. The jumbos were not found in Madhya Pradesh’s forests, they have travelled from Odisha, Jharkhand in search of food and water. The government had formed two expert panels to investigate the issue and contain losses.


The problem with Maharashtra is its unmindful urbanisation. Already, 45 percent or more people live in cities. It looks like Pune and Mumbai may merge soon as both are expanding with madding speed eating up open lands and forest/grass lands between the two mega cities. State also grows sugar cane--these fields are ideal for leopards to hide and breed. The issue revolves around these two areas.


Although Melhgat, Tadoba and Western Ghats have dense forested areas, the leopard-human conflict is the direct result of fragmentation of habitats and growing urban areas.


Only a long-term green policy can save humans from this. Sending a few animals to the BJP-favoured ‘Vantara’ is not the solution. Blaming leopards will surely not help!


(The writer is a senior political and environmental journalist based in Bhopal. Views personal.)


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