Hindustan Times ·
Education
CJP to launch ‘Adivasi School Thik Karo’ campaign from Gadchiroli
Starting with the tribal-dominated Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, CJP representatives will conduct ground-level inspections of the infrastructure, safety standards, and living conditions in remote institutions for tribal students
NAGPUR: Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke on Wednesday announced the launch of “Adivasi School Thik Karo” (Fix Tribal Schools), a campaign focused on improving the condition of tribal schools, which he claimed have faced government apathy ever since India gained independence.
Starting with the tribal-dominated Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, CJP representatives will conduct ground-level inspections of the infrastructure, safety standards, and living conditions in remote institutions for tribal students, Dipke said.
The movement is an extension of School Thik Karo, a movement launched by the CJP last month to improve the condition of government schools. The focus on adivasi schools comes in the backdrop of recent tragedies, including three children dying from snakebites at a state-run tribal residential school, known as an ashramshala, in Gadchiroli in August and over 30 student deaths in Balaghat over the last three months.
Speaking to reporters in Gadchiroli on Wednesday, Dipke condemned what he termed institutional negligence and deep-seated discrimination against tribal students. “Over the last 80 years, successive governments—regardless of political banner—have turned a blind eye to tribal education,” he said.
“Political parties spend crores of rupees constructing lavish district headquarters, yet claim they lack the funds to fix tribal residential schools operating out of cramped, rented properties,” he added.
The initiative comes on the heels of widespread hunger strikes by students across Maharashtra’s tribal belt, prompting the Bombay High Court to intervene and issue stern directions to the state government to safeguard students, emphasising that “no more young lives should be lost”.
According to Dipke, more than 590 tribal students have died in Maharashtra in the last two years, with many succumbing to preventable hazards like snakebites. Similar fatalities have recently been reported in neighbouring states, including over 30 deaths in Madhya Pradesh’s Balaghat district within two months, along with casualties in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, he said.
“If these tragedies had occurred in premier schools in Mumbai or Pune, the entire nation would be in an uproar. Instead, these children die in silence, and their grieving families are dismissed with insultingly nominal compensation—in some states, as meagre as a couple of goats,” he added.
Dipke also called out broader systemic failures across the country, noting that key initiatives such as the Eklavya Model Residential Schools are crumbling, with 477 out of 720 sanctioned facilities currently non-functional.
Higher education enrolment among tribal students remains stagnant at just 22.8%, he claimed. Only 130 Scheduled Tribe (ST) applicants secured admissions to the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), highlighting severe pipeline gaps and faculty underrepresentation, he added.
Questioning the national narrative of rapid development, Dipke urged political leaders to look beyond macroeconomic figures. “Boasting of a 7.8% GDP growth rate or chasing a $5 trillion economy means nothing if we abandon our vulnerable rural and indigenous youth,” he said. “Students in tribal belts possess immense potential. They deserve the exact same dignity, safety, and quality of education as children in major metros.”
