Ahmed Deepto tells the surreally inspiring story of Mohan Rabidas, who braved the social odds and discrimination to become the first from his community to complete a master’s degree from University of Dhaka
SOURAV LASKAR
First day at school for children usually ends in tears, as it becomes so hard to separate from the mother who stands on the edge of the classroom. This is why the first week at school is even more important; at least one can make new friends to make the unfamiliar classroom a little more familiar, a little more comfortable. But that first week of making new friends never really happened for Mohan Rabidas.
Mohan, 26, comes from the ‘Rabidas’ community, a minor group of a remote ‘tila’(hill) of Shamsher Nagar Tea Estate in Moulvibazar district, the North-East part of Bangladesh.
People belonging to other castes of Sanatan religion never mingle with the ‘untouchable’ community due to their poverty and low manner of work. Mohan, belonging to the Rabidas community, is one of those marginalised. No one else from his community successfully completed master’s graduation from DU before him.
Although education is one of the very basic rights of a citizen, Rabidas community has found it difficult to break into and survive in the mainstream education system. Therefore, Mohan’s feat has made him a beacon of light among his community.
Mohan is the founding president of JAGORON Youth Forum (JYF) which seeks to improve the lifestyles of the youths from tea garden communities by providing them with computer, human rights, women empowerment and similar development skills. To that end, Mohan has organised 11 workshops on ‘Computer Skills and Youth Development’ where more than 2,000 students from different tea-garden communities participated.
The young crusader of rights has become a role model not only in the Rabidas community but also for other repressed communities. Within last five years, seven students from Rabidas community passed the admission test to get into DU under Mohan’s guidance.
As far as Mohan’s own education is concerned, he did not stop pursuing his studies irrespective of his family’s abject poverty. Mohan used to mow grass and sell them to farmers and also look after cows for only five takas per month till his 12th grade. Later, at DU he earned pocket money by doing part time research work and giving freelance consultation on information technology.
Children of tea-garden workers are heavily deprived of proper schooling, let alone higher studies. Mohan finished his master’s examination from the department of Public Administration of DU in July this year. Since his admission at DU, Mohan has been working on advocacy and campaign events in his community to inspire and support more tea-garden students for higher education. This year 54 students from tea-garden communities were given free university entrance exam coaching from his organisation and among them three made it in the merit list of DU admission test.
Mohan’s journey so far has been surreal. Even his birth into his family was not welcomed by Mohan’s parents due to extreme poverty and the fear of feeding one extra mouth. Mohan’s parents however, are now proud of their son. Mohan is the fourth of his five siblings.
He started his movement against social discrimination at an early age. The Rabidas community, considered as ‘Namashudra’ is listed as the lower caste in the Hindu community.
Asim Sarkar, professor of department of Sanskrit at the University of Dhaka tells New Age Youth, ‘The “Namashudra” is the last outcaste in Sanantan religion but the discrimination is totally manmade.’
‘Undeniably, it is true that due to extreme poverty and lowly jobs, our community is considered “untouchable”,’ says Mohan, adding that the discrimination is spread even among the marginalised communities, ‘members from one untouchable community may look down upon someone from another untouchable group.’
‘Another community, “Reli”, which is considered to be of low caste, would consider us untouchables. If we touched their water pot they would throw it away. When I was a kid I used to touch their pots and run away laughing and screaming “how many times will you fill the pitcher?” I kept doing that until they finally gave up their manmade custom of “No touch”,’ Mohan elaborates.
‘When I was in high school our English teacher never beat me even if I had no homework to show because he would have had to touch me to beat me. I was disappointed to see that everyone else was getting beaten up by the teacher but he would never even look at me. Often I didn’t do my homework intentionally but still he always avoided me,’ Mohan says.
Mohan’s father Lakpatia Rabidas and mother Modhua Rabidas, both are tea workers who toil hard in a tea-garden of Duncan Brothers Ltd for eight hours a day and earn a daily wage of Tk 69 only.
Mohan also conveys that it was not only at school that he was discriminated. ‘When I was 10, I was not allowed to enter Shamser Nagar Mandir in my area by people from the higher castes.’
Time however, has changed. ‘Some of the people who beat me up during my childhood for touching their pitchers, now come to me to seek suggestion for their children’s higher education,’ Mohan adds.
Till the age of 8, Mohan had not received any formal education. ‘One day, I went to one of our acquaintance’s home with father and saw that his children were studying colourful books. When I touched their books, the man of the house yelled, “Education is not for you Baganiyas (gardeners) and Kuliyans (porters). I was so angry that day that I became determined to be educated no matter how difficult it was,’ Mohan recalls.
In 1997, Mohan made 10 takas by selling grass and walked four kilometres to take admission into Shamser Nagar Government Primary High School. While that was his entry into formal education, Mohan completed his secondary school with a GPA of 4.70 from Kashinath Alauddin High School and higher secondary school with GPA 4.81 from Suja Memorial College of Moulvibazar in 2009.
But getting into University of Dhaka would still have become difficult, he says, without support from a few people that include his Bengali teacher Babul Morshed and an elder brother ‘Mostofa bhai’, who was a student of Shahjalal University of Science & Technology and two physicians from his local area Dr Shudhakar Kairi and Dr Mohibul Haque, who helped him financially to pay for his admission at the University of Dhaka and pay for his stay in the capital.
With master’s accomplished, Mohan’s struggle is far from over. He is preparing for the upcoming 36th Bangladesh Civil Service Centre examination.
A passionate singer at heart, Mohan uses his songs to raise awareness about discrimination against tea-garden workers. He lent his voice to nine songs in ‘Gorboi to Bishwo Shamyer’ album that was released in 2012.