Dear Women,

 This month, I am introducing to you, in our Tribal, the article of “My Dreams, my experiences, with the Universalization Education of Tribals". By Sri Chinna Veera Bhadrudu.

We, urbanized people, who are becoming machines, almost, forgetting , the beauty of Mother Earth, the message of sun rising and sun set, the divine strength of moonlight, we are missing the true colors of light and Nature, by building around us the cages of concrete Jails.

The pen of Chinna Veera Bhadrudu reminds us we are living like frogs in our wells. The pen of Sri China Veera Bhadrudu will talk about his dream, but we will live through those experiences. The expression is like touching the moonlight, drenching in waterfall. The finest expression and the language will touch our hearts.

The book is available at

Emesco Books

Eluru Road

Vijayawada -2

The book deserves to translate every language of India.

Sulochana Rani Y.

My dreams, my experiences with the universalizing education of tribal.

By

                                           China Veera Bhadrudu. 

In the educational history of Adilabad district, particularly in the history of Girijan education, the year 93-94 can be said to be a landmark. Exactly fifty years before that, in 1943 the Nizam government introduced the Gond Education Program. Though it was called a Nizam government scheme, the imprint of Gandhian educational system was called a Nizam Government scheme, the imprint of Gandhian educational system was clearly observed. 

Gandhi earnestly felt that any educational program should be taken close to people’s lives that a place should be given for production in it, that it should not merely be a bookish education but a comprehensive system which opened up new avenues to make life useful. If we take a look at the important objectives of the gond education program, the point is made clear. They are: 

Free distribution of educational material through teacher training institutes, through village schools, to adult education centers for the spread of education. 

Printing of folklore of the Girijans, their traditions, their songs by collecting them, bringing about the different dialects of the Girijans into the main stream of literature and treating them as literature connected with education. 

First in Marlavai and then in Ginnedhari teacher training centers were started. The young men and women among Gonds were appointed as teachers and schools were opened in large members. I met such teachers who had grown old when I visited utnur. 

The last among such teachers was Shambhu Bai. She worked as the matron of Utnur  girls hostel for many years. The Marathi medium education given to her in olden days in Marlavai proved of no use. In the changed circumstances she remained an illiterate. But in values, self-confidence and discipline, she remained an ideal to the end of her service. 

Maru teacher stands as an example of how the reforms introduced by Nizam government in Gond education helped in converting common people into brilliant teachers. Though I met him only a few times, I could see in him an ideal Gond who had wonderful self-confidence.

It is better to think that reforms in education was felt necessary for the second time for Gonds than feel that changes in single teacher schools and in the curriculum of residential schools in their fifty year experience were introduced by us. Adilabad had the experience of having implemented the ideal Gandhian system of education for atleast two decades by the time we began to propagate new ideas.

One has to remember that many movements and ideas were springing up with regard to the education of the dalits for many years in the Maharastra areas of Nizam government and that Gandhian ideals were not that new.

The Kalashramam being run by Ravindra Kumar Sharma in Adilabad stands as a living example of how the education built on the foundations of people’s lives reflects itself in reality. Sharma, whom everyone calls ‘Guruji’ is a unique personality in the whole of India. He is the ideal of the Indian gurukulas where physical labour and mental awareness are blended harmoniously. Such education can be called the education that moulds men. Dr. Radhakrishnan narrates how such an education was imparted. 

In India from times immemorial the objective of education has been to introduce man to a high sense of inner life. Indian education considered a student to be an individual treading the path of personal excellence. Here in this institution the aim of education is that it should be wedded to such self-realization. Such an education can be called an education of discretion and wisdom. 

‘Discrimination and wisdom does not mean textual knowledge. It means ability to convert wisdom and knowledge into practical use. 

‘Narada in Chandogyopanishad admits to Sanat Kumar that he who could master all kinds of knowledge, could not become a perfect Gnani. What he means to say is that he could become only a ‘Mantravethi’ but not an ‘Atmavethi’. He appeals to Sanatkumar to free him  from such a situation.

We may state that ‘Manthravethi’ means one who has mastered technology and one who has imbibed great knowledge by reading many books. Atmavethi is one who has an idea of what he is and one who achieved steadiness of the inner self. If we give such definitions to these two terms, then Ravindra Kumars education can mould students into Atmavettas.

‘Sharma who took his degree in sculpture from the Baroda University is one who has learnt the secrets of sculptures. Such a man decided to live among masons, weowers and smiths those who work with bamboos and the like. He is still working in our Kolam residential school in Adilabad and teaching children to draw and paint’.

‘He spends the rest of his time talking about those who have made handicrafts their profession, on the Gram Swaraj which depends on handicrafts and the problems created by East India Company, and about the modern craze for materialistic things etc. to the people that meet him.’