Gambir Telam is caught in a dilemma. A leader of Chhattisgarh’s shikshadoot (temporary teachers) union, he believes he has a very difficult choice ahead: either continue with his job and risk being killed by Maoists or quit and face poverty.
“We are caught in Maoists’ crosshairs,” Telam, who has a BA degree, says. “Many have been threatened. Some have quit their jobs.”
Telam echoes a dilemma that many like him face. Earlier this week, a 25-year-old shikshadoot, Kallu Tati, was murdered by Maoists in Bijapur’s Lendra village on allegations of being a “mukbir (police informer)” — the sixth temporary teacher to be killed in Chhattisgarh this year and the eighth since 2023. For these temporary teachers, the killing reinforces what they had always known – the risks of holding government jobs like theirs.
“They (the Maoists) question and threaten us. They also check our phones regularly,” one such teacher said, requesting anonymity. “And when we return from work, we are questioned by the police too.”
Maoists “don’t want the children of Bastar to be educated”, Inspector General of Police for Bastar Range Sundarraj P tells The Indian Express. “The clear motive behind these killings is to deprive the native population, particularly children, of the opportunity for education. Maoists fear that an educated and aware society would no longer support their outdated, inhumane, anti-development, and cruel ideology.”
On allegations that they too question temporary teachers, one official said they question everyone, “not just shikshadoots”. “Now, after suffering heavy casualties, they (the Maoists) are suspecting everyone. It’s a matter of survival for them… they are not even conducting a public hearing like they did earlier,” one senior official says.
The difficult choice
Since 2018, district administrations of Chhattisgarh have been hiring shikshadoots as a stopgap arrangement to help reopen schools closed down by Maoist violence in the remote villages of Chhattisgarh and fill up vacant teacher posts.
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The shikshadoot – or ‘education messenger’ – scheme requires applicants to have completed Class 12. Teachers who are hired under the scheme are paid Rs 12,000 a month from the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) funds. Shikshadoots are hired through the Gram Panchayat, and payment is made by the district administration after their attendance is verified.
Since the start of the scheme, some 400 teachers have been hired in the state’s Maoist-affected districts of Bijapur and Sukma.
In 2023, after the first shikhadoot was murdered, several such teachers came together to unionise, founding the Chhattisgarh Local Shikshadoot Welfare Association. In the statement it issued, the Sukma unit of the union condemned the latest killing.
“We would like to ask Maoists why they were targeting shikshadoots. Do they have any proof that we work for the police? If yes, then they should furnish these before killing another person,” the video statement said.
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Out of the eight teachers murdered since June 2023, six are from Sukma and Bijapur and one each from Dantewada and Narayanpur.
A temporary teacher talks about the murder of his friend Suresh Meta on July 15 this year. Meta was one of the two shikshadoots murdered that day in Bijapur’s Tekameta village.
“In 2023, Suresh told me that he was threatened by Maoists. I suggested he leave his job, work as a farmer and leave the village. But he said the village residents needed to study and that, if he quit, there would be no one to teach them. This July, he was murdered with another shikshadoot,” the teacher says.
Faced with such perils, shikshadoots are seeking either permanent jobs or an increase in salary and compensation in case of death.
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“The government must either regularise us or increase our salary to Rs 20,000. In case we are murdered, our family should get Rs 50 lakh as compensation and a government job on compassionate grounds,” Kamlesh Dodi from Bijapur says.
