I come from a peasant family of six of rather modest means and have just finished school. Being a girl, I've also had to withstand several social pressures. But on the other hand, I have received ample love and support from my parents and an excellent education in the humanities and social sciences at a local school. In 2019, an NGO called the Pokhrama Foundation established the Pokhrama Foundation Academy in my village. Led by outstanding educationists and teachers, I feel this school has been the vehicle of my transformation.

The personal is the socio-political. Hence, I begin by describing my social milieu. Pokhrama is a remote and socially backward village where patriarchy and caste are deeply rooted. Our women have virtually no freedom, save the freedom to labour in household drudgery. They are beaten, abused, sexually harassed, physically and mentally tortured by their in-laws and even murdered by their own fathers! The few girls who study in Pokhrama attend our school. Girls who were my classmates when I was in the government school, have already been married off and are having babies.

Pokhrama is caste-ridden. Dalits of the rat-eating jati were turned out of Pokhrama decades ago and have created their own village, Mussheri. Many of these people don't have a pucca house and access to clean water. They live in squalid conditions. Several Pokhrama youth talk about ousting the few lower caste people that are left in the village. Elections in Pokhrama are caste- ridden and most people vote for upper-caste candidates. Pokhrama has no religion other than Hinduism and its residents threaten Muslim peddlers. They are prejudiced towards Muslims. I think, all in all, the people here are irrational, prejudiced, and believers of stereotypes.

My parents are also the product of the same society. They also suffer from the mentality I have described. In my younger days, my ideas too were similar. Even so, my parents are very supportive and loving. Here, girls are thrown into the kitchen from the age of 10-12. I didn't experience this ‘evil’ fate. My mother left me free to study and enjoy. I don't have any pressure of marriage as some of my classmates face. Also, my parents are so dedicated to my education that they do everything they can to help me become an educated and empowered woman.

I would like to describe some practical problems also that impede our education. The electric supply, network connectivity, access to appropriate information, all these are poor. I cannot plan to study for more than ten hours a day because of a compromised power supply. I have gotten to know about good universities only through my School. There is no other source or person who can guide me about what to study, which stream to choose, where to study and how to study. In general, students here simply opt for “engineering” studies.

I have been growing up in this kind of environment. But I have been fortunate that Pokhrama Foundation Academy (PFA) admitted me. This academy has made me what I am today. The vision of PFA is ‘enlightened anarchy’ and abhayadanam (the gift of fearlessness), both ideas owed to Gandhi. Its motto is Sa Vidya Ya Vimuktaye, meaning true education liberates us. In political philosophy, ‘anarchism’ means that the state should exercise as a little a control as possible in disciplining individuals. Gandhi believed that all individuals should be so self- regulating that the need for external control diminishes. Our School wants to create teachers, the non-teaching staff and students who do not need much external control because they would be self-disciplined and responsible once they agree to perform a certain role in the school. Our School also tries to teach us fearlessness – to speak freely and frankly, but respectfully, about how we feel about the School or about what is being taught to us. We should ask searching academic and social questions and not treat what we are being told as gospel truth. The School seeks to create an environment where students learn how to question and think critically. It discourages rote learning. I find freedom and happiness in my school. We are given the opportunity to put forward our arguments and formulate views based on reasoning, evidence and attention to detail. Academic freedom, usually a feature of universities, can be seen in my school.

PFA is established to provide education to disadvantaged students. The founders and the teachers are supportive and engaging. My teachers have worked with me at my pace. Their scaffolding, just ample but probing, made me learn the formal curricula and to dialogue, discuss and debate as well as to question, to look for the whys and hows. They gave me the confidence and the realisation that I am capable of doing something and can achieve my goals.

Sciences. Some of the teachers are so good that they teach not only the subject matter but also the nature of various disciplines and humanism. Dr. Anil Sethi, a former professor, has been teaching History to my class since the 9th grade. Through History (and Sociology and Political Theory), he taught me how to think, how to understand society, and how to write. I also learnt from him in one of our School clubs, Gandhi Study Circle that discusses Mohandas Gandhi, his contemporaries and critics. In class, we connect textual history and sociology with the realities of Pokhrama. These exciting pathways made me think about my own political positions. Although I topped my School in the Class 10 CBSE exam, I chose the Humanities stream in 11th and 12th grades. Humanities subjects connect the student to ground realities -- or this is what my teachers did for me! It is this aspect of my schooling that appeals to me the most.

I’ve always tried to grasp the structure and functioning of society. As I came into Grade 8, I began to realise the crucial role of gender in our lives. I began to see the toil and the powerlessness of the women of my family and how we women become victims of inequality. I was guided to look at the history and sociology texts on gender inequality when I expressed my interest about this to my teacher. It was this interest that drove me towards History. So when Dr. Sethi started teaching us History, I attended his class seriously and worked. Gradually, I found interest in every aspect of social inequality that has persisted in India and the wider world. I want to understand how different social inequalities develop and persist over generations. Will certain inequalities ever end or will they keep changing their form, “adjusting” to temporal and spatial change? Also, I want to understand the resilience of capitalism. Can we ever make a feasible and a democratic socialism? These burning questions connect me to History and Economics. And for this reason I wish to pursue an undergraduate dual degree in Economics and History. After my B.A., I will opt to study either History or Economics or some combination of these two disciplines. I look upon History, Economics, Sociology and Politics as inextricably interconnected.