We are trying to reimagine the act of archiving as an open collaboration in this project. We believe that discrimination is as much a personal narrative of hurt, as it is a systemic pattern which repeats itself in policy decisions, administrative prescriptions, and social attitude. Most of our stories are written by people who are associated with school education in India in some way. Some of these stories developed through conversations, some through self-reflection, and some through critical empathetic reading. Some stories are reimagined in the form of graphic narratives, some are audio-visual interviews, while others are info-graphics, lesson plans, or reading lists for people interested in school education. In order to be featured in the archives’ blog, please email your contribution to us with a small bio-note. Email id: delekarchives@gmail.com

 

Reports

  1. A Human Rights Watch Report on discrimination of the marginalised in Indian Schools(2014): https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/04/22/they-say-were-dirty/denying-education-indias-marginalized#2139387766
  2. The Sachar Committee Report: http://www.minorityaffairs.gov.in/sites/default/files/sachar_comm.pdf and a summary of the same: https://casi.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/iit/Minority%20Report.pdf.
  3. A UNICEF working paper report on discriminatory practices against dalit children by Geetha Nambissan (2009): http://dalitstudies.org.in/wp/wps0101.pdf
  4. PARI’s story on how Aadhaar glitches disrupted the lives of young Dalit and Muslim schoolkids in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, has had a welcome initial fallout https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/indu-and-aadhaar—act-ii-scene-2/#
  5. The Pratichi Report on Primary Education in West Bengal. Full text is available in the link. https://cjp.org.in/primary-education-in-wb-needs-reforms-pratichi-institute-report/
  6. on RTE and its implementation: https://www.oxfamindia.org/sites/default/files/PB-Right-to-Education-Act-Claiming-Education-120315-EN.pdf
  7. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/dalit-families-ostracised-in-odisha-village-after-girl-plucks-flowers-from-home-of-upper-caste-villagers-1713824-2020-08-22
  8. https://m.timesofindia.com/city/chandigarh/punjab-dalit-girls-family-scared-to-leave-home/amp_articleshow/62587395.cms?fbclid=IwAR0MNH0zBRgFA-v2lZazLKUUaMgdnINZodGX1wKIemkU1UYzymEcUnP2m9s
  9.  Suicide Watch in Navodaya Schools

Opinions and Commentaries

  1. https://scroll.in/article/858606/systematic-exclusion-why-keralas-schools-and-colleges-have-few-dalit-teachers
  2. https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/kiss-of-death-for-adivasi-culture-academics-protest-venue-of-global-meet
  3. https://m.thewire.in/article/communalism/rss-run-school-makes-children-re-enact-babri-masjid-demolition
  4. “There is an urgent need to de-stigmatise madrasas as breeding grounds for terrorism, argues a new book that scrutinises the problems plaguing Islamic seminaries in the country.”https://theprint.in/opinion/indian-medias-tendency-to-brand-madrasa-students-as-terrorists-is-ruining-institutions/335040/. 
  5. Madrasas in the Age of Islamophobia by Ziya Us Salam, Mohammad and Aslam Parvaiz 
  6. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/shutting-the-school-doors-on-the-muslim-child/article3281463.ece?fbclid=IwAR0yoTNqE71_76RfBP-M0O8eJ8gbje_Z5Iv3sb6vR5mCPL6fBkroofGHXKk
  7.  Important read. #miseducation#assimilation “Adivasis on the March – Crisis and Cultural Genocide in Tribal India”. https://adivasihunkar.com/2019/03/14/adivasis-on-the-march-crisis-and-cultural-genocide-in-tribal-india/

Policies and Discussion

  1. A 2019 take on the Sachar Report: https://thewire.in/rights/interview-post-sachar-report-condition-of-indian-muslims-unchanged
  2. Analyses of the National Education Policy Draft 2019 that exposes the faultlines in its vision: https://sci-hub.tw/10.0000/www.epw.in/journal/2019/37/commentary/whats-it-school-education.html, https://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9751:draft-nep-2019-a-non-inclusive-policy&catid=119:feature&Itemid=132, http://muslimmirror.com/eng/new-education-policy-is-all-about-commercialization-and-saffronization-of-education/
  3. A short reading list on the Mid-Day Meal Scheme and Discrimination:
  4. Shivali Tukdeo’s book “India Goes to School: Education Policy and Cultural Politics”The full text is available from academia.edu:https://www.academia.edu/42772291/Shivali_Tukdeo_India_Goes_to_School_Education_Policy_and_Cultural_Politics. Further, Chintan Girish Modi’s review of the same here : https://medium.com/@chintan_connect/educations-non-profit-industrial-complex-f900c6928b3c

Check your Privilege

  1. Rajorshi’s test to self-reflectixively notice upper caste privilege in academia. https://feminisminindia.com/2020/06/10/casteism-privileges-test-upper-caste-people-academia/

Testimonies by Students

  1. Book excerpt(Coming Out as Dalit) today about an all girls’ upper caste boarding school and a seven- year-old dalit girl donning a lifestyle to “fit” in. Caste works through gender and gender works through caste. https://scroll.in/article/914637/why-and-how-a-young-school-student-had-to-pretend-to-be-upper-caste-and-hide-her-dalit-identity
  2.  “This is the Way we go to School” chapter from P. Sainath’s Everybody Loves a Good Drought.
  3. By Bhagyashri Boywad:https://thestandpoint.in/2020/08/25/from-school-to-university-my-experience-from-the-margins/
  4. By Anonymous: https://thedelekarchives.wordpress.com/2020/07/17/school-stories/
  5. By Tajuddin Ahmed :https://thedelekarchives.wordpress.com/2020/08/07/when-a-childs-faith-is-shaken/
  6. By Elizabeth Hasan: https://thedelekarchives.wordpress.com/2020/08/17/tiny-drops-build-an-ocean/
  7. By Ashutosh Kumar: https://livewire.thewire.in/personal/he-made-me-hate-myself-my-story-of-being-bullied-by-a-casteist-teacher/
  8. By Anonymous: https://livewire.thewire.in/personal/when-my-school-principal-refused-to-enroll-me-because-of-my-caste/

Testimonies by Teachers

  1. Hussain, Saba. “Teacher’s narrative: Framing ‘difference’ as ‘pathological’ “. Contemporary Muslim Girlhoods in India. Routledge, 2019.
  2. “Being a Teacher in Contexts of Change: Education Reform and the Repositioning of Teachers’ Work in India” by Arathi Sriprakash. This article examines the ways in which child-centred education programmes in rural South Indian government primary schools have sought to reposition teachers’ work. Drawing on teachers’ accounts of their professional and social contexts, the article offers insights into the complex negotiation of working with educational reform in India. I explore how ‘being a teacher’ in current development contexts is constituted by multiple social, institutional and reform-programme expectations. Mapping the at times conflicting aspects of teachers’ work, the article sheds some light on the social contexts in which policy and reform imperatives are reshaped in schools, often in unintended or unexpected ways. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/097318491000800102
  3.  By Maroona Murmu: https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/structural-violence-casteism?fbclid=IwAR1XUKWHZ3ypt7XvAoRR6eeti1bxyQCLxKR3p5mX909wZbqLpYnmk-saSm 
  4.  “The Case of the Quota Candidate” by Anita Bharti : Even though it is a private institution, Arya Balika Vidyalaya receives funding from the government. The school, therefore, is obliged to adhere to government regulations. One dictates that all the reserved posts in the school must be filled through the appointment of reserved category candidates. Regardless, for the last two years, the reserved post for a T.G.T. (Trained Graduate Teacher) for science has remained empty. The new semester is supposed to begin in April. The school principal and the management committee have been interviewing S.C. (Scheduled Caste) applicants only to reject them, citing reasons of academic incompetence in their report: “Since it is a question of the students’ advancement, we cannot employ an underqualified teacher. Thus, we request permission to appoint a candidate from the general category.” The State education officers have chosen to remain mute on this issue; they neither deny nor grant this request. Perhaps they do not want to get embroiled in controversy. The school has once again invited applications for teaching posts in the new semester. This time around, the Education Department has sent a Dalit education officer to serve on the interview committee. Twenty-two applicants are contending for the post of the science TGT. : https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/october-2018-dalit-writing-the-case-of-the-quota-candidate-anita-bharti?fbclid=IwAR3-aZRgb_oqPjhDpoZ4TD1F9bGgpsolpTGs0qyxIuSZDEvyKOGzZvb7MMM
  5.  By Aritra Mukherjee: https://thedelekarchives.wordpress.com/2020/07/08/schools-identifying-strands-of-discrimination-through-anecdotes/
  6. By Ayesha Begum: https://thedelekarchives.wordpress.com/2020/08/10/mapping-the-journey-of-being-a-teacher/
  7. By Sayan Chowdhury :https://thedelekarchives.wordpress.com/2020/07/31/two-stories/
  8. By Farah Faruqi: https://thedelekarchives.wordpress.com/2020/07/27/teaching-marginalisation-to-the-marginalised/ 

Testimonies by Guardians and parents

  1. An interview with Nazia Erum on her book “Mothering a Muslim” https://m.thewire.in/article/books/mothering-muslim-times-hate-religious-bullying-taken-root-indias-schools
  2. Parents-School Relation and their Impacts on Opportunities for Capability Development of Dalit Students of Nepal : https://eera-ecer.de/ecer-programmes/conference/23/contribution/44392/

Textbooks and Curriculum

  1. Here is a list of problematic and harmful things that Indian school textbooks say, or have said in the recent past: https://www.scoopwhoop.com/inothernews/indian-school-textbooks-contained-really-disturbing-things/
  2. Via Rahul Paul : https://homegrown.co.in/article/801140/these-10-excerpts-from-indian-textbooks-are-seriously-terrifying-vol-ii https://homegrown.co.in/article/11733/these-10-excerpts-from-indian-text-books-are-seriously-terrifying
  3. Nirantar- Center for Gender and Education‘s comprehensive textbook evaluation report. http://www.nirantar.net/uploads/files/Overall-Final.pdf
  4. A Study of Madrasa Primary Textbooks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpsQsgeBPiU&fbclid=IwAR1dBkOZHgpFiHEwElAtkmDK6Tz-_shLVKvyhp7SqwGw4fRsHw8PdZhHfVU

Designing Pedagogy/ Curriculum

Praxis of Talking about Caste in Classrooms

Teachers, students develop modules for social equity: https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Tiruchirapalli/teachers-students-develop-modules-for-social-equity/article4923495.ece

Teacher-Student Collaboration Pedagogy: https://blog.ed.ted.com/2019/05/20/powerful-life-lessons-from-teachers-collected-by-their-students

Syllabus Modifications Opportunities: Include Ayyankali’s history https://www.forwardpress.in/2020/08/ayyankali-as-an-icon-of-democratization-of-knowledge-and-equality/?fbclid=IwAR0GP6UJO333nYvR_Y9P0VgTFAB_sjuZCOSHOGo47yOvb_Ivk7g93FgdTgQ

https://www.telegraphindia.com/west-bengal/academy-to-promote-dalit-literature-in-bengal/cid/1792026?fbclid=IwAR25mv9WcW6ygvKMYsJubW2vXbLcaq89KOQcsGTK35nB4qMDR19GewdFE4M

Syllabus Modification Opportunity, from History For Peace: http://www.historyforpeace.pw/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/PWSC-WorkbookLowres.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1ipcwvCR1aCHuFBkt8vXnDLXKU0T1z7AvystJ0-bYxhh1f9TpM7U9N-bM

By Farah Faruqi: https://thedelekarchives.wordpress.com/2020/07/27/teaching-marginalisation-to-the-marginalised/

 

 

Critical Interventions

Visuals

  1. India: Marginalized Children Denied Education (Human Rights Watch): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOf6zc3Mcus&fbclid=IwAR2oW4Y6YsR52y4mGWu8ha7_5oU3Yq9PMPNIya3FfU9crBveESyzHTgXY0A
  2. Muslim Children bullied by Fellow Students in India (BBC Hindi): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrgDAHI8XQ8&t=12s&fbclid=IwAR3MldVBpCYKNgwMDD4lh6oVBicHpzyKDUJgk1osPd7gBKweXt0LKTO268g
  3. Farah Farooqi: Silenced and Marginalised: Voices from an ordinary sarkari school of Delhi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyibpVB4CbA&t=607s
  4. Infographic on social justice consciousness building: https://www.instagram.com/p/CCjG6P9n60K/?igshid=1fd6by5j82bz4
  5. Sharing a short film today “Pistulya” by Nagraj Manjule. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovimYnrk07o
  6. By Insha Bint Bashir: https://thedelekarchives.wordpress.com/2020/08/31/islamophobia-in-schools-a-photo-essay/
  7. By Ahona Das: https://thedelekarchives.wordpress.com/2020/08/14/jackfruit-justice/
  8. By Shreya Prasad: https://thedelekarchives.wordpress.com/2020/08/03/back-benchers/