#GoodNews: Fighting Odds, A Nomadic Tribal is Educating His Kids

Vikas Burungle, a nomad, wants his family to settle down in a specific place so his kids get an education.

Vikas Burungle, a 29-year-old a nomadic tribal from Dahivadi village in Maharashtra’s Satara district, laments that he couldn’t pass his Class 10 exams. But that hasn’t deterred him from educating his three children, despite his limited means, he tells The Better India.

Belonging to a community of nomads, the Nath Panthi Davari, Burungle left home at age 18 and had to struggle to earn a living, moving from village to village in search of employment.

No Direction Home

Burungle told The Better India:

If you look at the history our community, along with several others, we have been migrating continuously and earn a bare minimum amount of money.

Burungle’s family couldn’t afford to fund his education, and he had to quit his studies midway. That is when the nomad moved to Gadhinglaj in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur district, in 2004 in the hope of finding an open space to set up his “home” in. He told The Better India: “Since then I’ve been on the lookout for an open space. Such spaces are usually where we setup our tents to stay, but this is always at the mercy of somebody else”.

Sambhaji, Burungle’s relative, says:

The housing conditions are terrifying as rains destroy the tents completely and we have to spend days and nights in the rains without any shelter.

Speaking about the challenges faced by his community, Burungle tells The Better India: “Independence hasn’t reached us, and we’ve been roaming around the country even after 70 years of Independence... Since we travel continuously with no fixed place to stay, education always takes a back seat, and this is how the vicious cycle of poverty continues”.

The nomad earns a meagre income by repairing stoves across the countryside, a skill his father passed on to him. Like Burungle, his father too was illiterate and had to travel across Maharashtra in search of labour, with no fixed income.

Settling Down

But Burungle decided that his past would not define his and his family’s future. In a bid to educate his children, Burungle, decided his family must settle down in one place, so that his children’s education wouldn’t be disrupted. So, the family settled down in Satara. He says:

Had my dad been educated, I would have never become a part of this ‘community’ business. Now, the only thing I can do to stop this is to educate my children.

For Burungle, who earns a paltry sum of less than Rs 5,500 a month, it is a challenge to provide for his family, especially educate his three sons. His eldest son is in Class One, the middle one in Kindergarten, and the youngest, is only two and a half years old.

Burungle’s day starts at 7 am, and he has to travel to different parts of Maharashtra in search of work. These days, his business isn’t doing very well. He says:

Now, since the usage of kerosene has stopped, the number of people using stoves has also come down. This has severely affected our services. So now, I am looking for a different job which will help me settle down in Satara.

A Future Brighter Than the Past

Burungle seems to be undaunted by the challenges that lie ahead, and has a positive attitude towards life. He tells The Better India:

I’ll give my children whatever they want, but they should keep learning, and never forget the struggle their ancestors had to go through. I won’t let my children suffer and for this I am ready to work more than I can, but this practice of continuous migration will have to stop somewhere.

Among his many challenges is not being able to benefit from the perks of reservation as he says: “My documents aren’t clear and this community barely knows about reservation. Whenever I go to a government office, the first question they ask is about the registration of my name in any Panchayat across Maharashtra. Since, we keep travelling, there’s no village we belong to and so my name is not found in any Panchayat, which completely discards my application for reservation”.

Burungle firmly believes that one day his situation will improve, and one way of ensuring that his future is not as bleak as his past, is educating his children.

(With inputs from The Better India)

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