Adivasis boycott Lambada teachers

ADILABAD: Many Adivasi parents are not sending their children to schools under their self-rule protest against Lambada government employees. 

Adivasi students do not want to go to schools where Lambadas work as teachers. The Adivasis ask why they should send their kids to schools when Lambadas discriminate against them.

This problem is visible in Utnoor, Narnoor, Indravelli, Kerameri, Jainoor, Asifabad, Sirpur(U) and Ichoda mandals in the old Adilabad district.

The district administration is trying to replace the Lambada teachers with non-tribal teachers in agency areas. Most of the tribal ashram schools are witnessing only 20-30 per cent attendance especially in the tribal areas in the old Adilabad district. While the Adivasis are allowing the Lambada teachers into schools in their villages and not sending their children to schools which have Lambada teachers, they are not disturbing the non-tribal teachers.

Adivasi Hakkula Porata Samiti (Thudum Debba) state president Soyam Bapurao said the state should recruit the contract residential teachers (CRTs) from among the qualified Adivasi youth replacing the Lambada teachers.

He alleged that Adivasi teachers who were active in the Adivasi agitation and were being transferred to far-off places. Mr Bapu Rao also informed that the Thudum Debba would going to stage a dharna in front of the ITDA office at Utnoor against the harassment of Adivasi teachers by the police and other officials on June 11.

The Adivasis started the self-rule movement on June 1 by raising signboards and sentry posts in their villagers in the old Adilabad district. The signboards said that Lambadas would no longer be allowed to work in the villages.

The sound of the thudum, the traditional drum, reverberated through the villages at midnight, signalling the declaration of self-rule.