The Jeevan Talim project in rural Kutch in northern Gujarat started in 2004 with a grant from Misereor, a Germanybased Catholic relief and development agency.
Hitherto, the Jamiat focused mainly on providing religious education to Muslim children through a vast chain of madrasas and maktabs, and providing relief in the event of natural disasters and antiMuslim violence. In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Kutch in 2001, the Jamiat played a crucial role in relief and reconstruction efforts. This, says Ahmad Shaikh, 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 almost complete loss of faith in the system, of the Muslims of Gujarat in the wake of the genocidal antiMuslim pogroms in 2002 provided the context for the Jamiat, as well as a few other Muslim groups in Gujarat, that were earlier concerned almost wholly with issues of religious education and identity, to become more involved in practical efforts to address the pathetic 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 work together 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 antiMuslim pogroms in Gujarat, it played an active role in relief work, in highlighting widespread human rights abuses and in fighting legal cases on behalf of a number of innocent Muslims who had been arrested on false charges. The menacing rise of Hindutva fascist forces and the consequent escalating enforced ghettoisation of Muslims across Gujarat were viewed by Janvikas activists as a dangerous phenomenon that urgently needed to be tackled on various fronts. One of these fronts was the educational sector. In many cases, Muslims were barred from studying or working in private Hinduowned schools, faced increased discrimination in government schools and continued to be neglected in governmentfunded educational programmes. Hence, Janvikas felt it imperative to work in the field of Muslim education and to interact closely with traditional Muslim religious and other community leaders in order to promote a new sort of Muslim leadership that would address the communitys economic and educational marginalization and work with secular, nonMuslim forces on issues of common concern, such as the struggle against communalism, fascism, and mounting social and economic inequalities and exclusion.
It was in 2002, in the wake of the statesponsored campaign of horrific violence unleashed against Muslims in Gujarat, that activists from Janvikas and the Jamiat first met. This was in the course of seeking to provide relief to the victims of this unprecedented wave of antiMuslim violence in the state. Working jointly on common issues and projects at this time, such as providing legal aid for Muslim youth indiscriminately arrested, mostly on false charges, and constructing houses for violenceeffected families, activists of both organizations were able to cement a strong bond of trust and confidence. Building on this, the next year Janvikas and the Jamiat decided to work together in the field of Muslim education in the dry and relatively barren northern parts of Kutch district in Gujarat, home to a sizeable and largely povertystricken Muslim population characterized by very low literacy levels. This pilot project, christened 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 longrun in cooperation with the Jamiat.
The aim of the project was to provide access to remedial, pluralistic and inclusive education and basic numerical and literacy skills to Muslim children in the age group 410 years in selected parts of Kutch where no governmentfunded educational facilities exist. It was hoped that in this way these children would be enabled to later take admission in a government school at the fourth or fifth grade level. The project entailed using the Jamiats existing network of maktabs. The Jeevan Talim classes would be organised in the maktab precincts, or, in villages and hamlets that did not have maktabs, in the porch of the local mosque, with the timings suitably adjusted so that the childrens Islamic education would not be interrupted or disturbed. In this way, the project was seen 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 hamlet or nearby, then a local youth, male or female, would be engaged for this. Because the levels of education in rural Kutch, particularly among Muslims, are extremely low, provision was also made for providing suitable pedagogical training to the maulvis and the local youth selected as instructors in the Jeevan Talim centres. Subjects to be taught in the centres included basic literacy in Gujarati, the official state language, 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.
To begin with, a total of 14 villages in northern Kutch, many of them on the fringes of the Rann, a vast stony desert that spills across the border into nieghbouring Pakistan, were selected for purposes of the project. Most of them had no government schools, and in those few that did the teachers came very irregularly or not at all. Two villages had Hindu and Dalit inhabitants also, including one where the students who attended the Jeevan Talim centres were all Dalits. Today, the project runs 32 centres in different parts of rural Kutch, with a total of some 900 children, boys and girls, studying in them in all.
Despite various challenges that it has faced, the Jeevan Talim project has been able to make considerable headway, although 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. 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.
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 the teachers and so on, the project has been able to at least help galvanise peoples interest in educating their children. The fact that literally hundreds of Kutchi Muslim 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, a result of the project, is no mean achievement.
The project has also had a positive impact on peoples attitudes towards education. As Saleem, a resident of Umrani village, puts it, Now only very few people, especially the elderly, will say that there is no use educating our children because in any case they will not get a government job and because they will, like their ancestors, grow to become cattlegrazers. Even the poorest families are now aware of the need for education, and in this the Jeevan Talim project has played a central role.
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 different capacities, including as teachers, students and project support staff.
As Maulana Hakimuddin Qasmi, incharge of the Jamiats Childrens 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. Thats 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 nonMuslims for educating our children, he goes on. My reply to them is that after the Battle of Badr, Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh) 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 the Muslims to educate his people, why cannot we seek the help of those nonMuslims who are certainly not our enemies, people like the Udaan staff who are our friends, to help us educate our children We all can, and must, learn from each other.
Maulvi Ghulam Muhammad Qasmi, rector of the Jamiat Arabia Ulum ulIslamia, 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 nonMuslim 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 we want must be done properly, no matter by whom.
