Troops in school, restrooms occupied: Students of LP School in Cachar studying in makeshift tents, defecating in open

Former president of India, Bharat Ratna, APJ Abdul Kalam had once wisely said, “The best brains of the nation may be found on the last benches of the classroom.” Another Bharat Ratna and Prime Minister back then when Kalam’s quote was published, Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s famous quote states, “Poverty is multidimensional. It extends beyond money incomes to education, health care, political participation and advancement of one’s own culture and social organisation.”

If you are in a classroom you should treat all benches with equal importance and if you are not in a classroom, you are poor, even if you have millions in your account. Wise men and women have always emphasised on the importance of education. “School Chhale Hum” is still taught in IIMs as one of the most successful marketing campaigns of all time.

Cut to 2023, schools have been built at every corner of the country using taxpayers’ money. One such school is in Paglacherra known as Frenchnagar Khasia Punjee LP School, located under the jurisdiction of Cachar District Administration, Narshingpur Education Block and Dholai Legislative Assembly Constituency. Since July 26, 2021, when the Mizoram Armed Police opened fire at Forces from Assam in an interstate border dispute, the school complex has been occupied by the personnel of 6AP battalion, deployed for security reasons.

The students, 33 of them spread across five standards, do not have their classrooms, do not have their restrooms or their designated benches to sit and have their mid-day meal. There are three permanent teachers employed to teach students enrolled in the school. Once the Covid restrictions were lifted in later half of 2021 and the schools were asked to open, the teachers met the school committee. They decided to start taking classes at a temple located in a nearby secluded area. According to the teachers, the students found the secluded area scary and so, eventually, they had to withdraw their camp from their and shift the temporary classrooms.

That time, a local resident who owns a hill in the area allocated the foothills of the same to setup temporary classrooms. The teachers and locals contributed and built a makeshift classroom with bamboo and tin. Head Teacher of the School, Robendu Seal said that he has informed about the plight of the lower primary students to his superiors in the block and district administration. In fact, two editions of ‘Gunoutav’ have been conducted at the makeshift classrooms with invigilators themselves visiting and witnessing the chain of affairs.

While the teachers with their motto that education must go on started taking classes in the makeshift room, students continue with their struggle. Pupils of all five standards sit together, they defecate in the open in a drain surrounded by cheap polythene. Their mid-day meal is cooked in the private kitchen of a local resident and distributed in the common classroom. Speaking with the reporters, the students of the school begged for Chief Minister of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma’s intervention, “It is our request to the honourable chief minister to look into the matter and solve our problems. We are finding it very difficult to continue with our classroom education in this makeshift tent.”

Meanwhile, the restrooms and the concrete school complex house beddings of the troops deployed there. They too don’t like that they are the reason why students have to sit at makeshift classrooms but at the end of the day, they are just following the order.

It is worth mentioning here that a similar story was published by Barak Bulletin in 2021 highlighting a similar situation in Bam Bidyapeeth school and Hawaithang High School where troops had occupied most of it and classes were suspended. Both the premises were vacated within a week of the publication of the report. It remains to be seen, how the administration reacts to this report.