They rise with dawn, their palms still bearing the ash of yesterday’s toil. Fathers lug wood and leaves, mothers step into the brick kilns and the children — barefoot, hair uncombed, uniforms in tatters — trudge to school, often on empty stomachs. Education, for them, is a fragile hope.
But in Jhargram, a backward pocket of West Bengal, that hope has found a sturdy ally— the police.
The Jhargram District Police have turned guardians of learning through their free coaching initiative, Disha. Every evening, classrooms across all 79 gram panchayat areas come alive with children from Class I to X. More than 4,500 students — many of them first-generation learners — now study under this unusual arrangement.
Launched on June 4, 2022, by Superintendent of Police Arijit Sinha, the programme has transformed police stations, outposts and community spaces into makeshift schools. Officers, fresh from their shifts, swap uniforms for chalk and textbooks. Inside the lines of Jhargram police station or in the farthest tribal hamlets, the blackboard has become their new beat.
“We engage our post-graduate staff to teach after duty hours. We feel teaching these children from poor backgrounds is our social responsibility,” said SP Sinha, whose initiative has already pulled dozens of dropouts back into the fold of education.
The impact is visible. “Children study regularly. Even during school holidays, their learning doesn’t stop. Bags, notebooks, pencils —even geometry boxes — are provided by the police,” explained DSP (Headquarters) Sameer Adhikari, who oversees the programme.
For students like Joydeep Saha, a Class IX boy, the change is life-altering.
"Police teachers explain everything— from physical science to geometry. We can ask questions and clear doubts. I want to become a police officer one day,” he said, eyes gleaming with ambition.
Parents, too, are both relieved and astonished. “We cannot afford tuition. The police are teaching our children for free, and they understand everything,” said Dipali Sardar, mother of Shanti, a young student.
It is an experiment in compassion that blends khaki with chalk dust. Police officer Uditasish Pathak summed it up: “Isn’t it remarkable that, instead of resting after duty hours, our men and women are teaching children? That, in itself, is a victory.”
In Jhargram, where poverty has long smothered opportunity, the police are scripting an unlikely narrative. One where classrooms echo with laughter, not silence. Where uniforms may still be tattered, but the dreams stitched inside them are sharp.
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