Will the road be clear for Jyoti Kumari to finish high school?
Heroic deeds by ordinary folks, triggered by accidents and necessity rather than the pursuit of glory, are very popular with the public. Hence, politicians honor the folks with medals and philanthropists offer them financial rewards. Some journalists spend more time on the story and write books, hoping to sell the movie rights. Opinion writers see deeper meaning in the acts. Dozens of psychology, sociology and other scholars analyze it in their articles and some of their students research it for their Ph.D. thesis.
Meanwhile, the heroes carry on with their usual life and its burdens, their bravery a valued memory for family and friends. A few years later, even the journalists who wrote books and won awards for narrating the story, have no interest in checking to see how the heroes have fared, and if the various promises made to them by politicians and philanthropists were ever fulfilled.
This cycle of events, including praise from political leaders, is now unfolding for Jyoti Kumari. Earlier this month, amidst an India-wide lockdown to tackle COVID-19, the fifteen-year-old bicycled for nine days to transport her injured papa, Mohan Paswan, back to their home. The stories and videos of their journey, from a Delhi suburb to a village in Darbhanga, Bihar, 750 miles away, are getting wide media coverage and public attention around the globe. “I think people are fascinated because I am a girl,” Jyoti told a Reuters reporter.
Jyoti and her unemployed papa, forced to make the journey after running out of money, were lucky to reach home. They were given free food and water by generous strangers, slept at gas stations and got a ride in a truck part of the way. But hundreds of migrants similarly cycling or walking home, after losing their jobs in cities and towns in India due the lockdown, were hit and killed by trucks or trains or died of exhaustion and starvation.
Following the media coverage, politicians in India and elsewhere rushed to applaud Jyoti’s “lionhearted” act. Officials installed a water tap in the Paswan home, a great luxury in many poor and lower-income Indian houses, without charging them a fee. The bare brick outer walls of the home were plastered with cement, again for free, by volunteers from her village.
Jyoti has gotten several gifts, including three bicycles. The Cycling Federation of India invited her to try out for the Indian team, saying they will pay for her air-conditioned travel to Delhi and test her cycling abilities using computerized machines.This invitation has been criticized as a publicity stunt.
Politicians and philanthropies have said they will provide financial support to enable Jyoti to resume her high school education and then go on to graduate from college, perhaps even become an engineer or doctor. Some business owners are reportedly trying to gain publicity by offering academic help, including a coaching class for the entrance exam to the prestigious IIT engineering schools.
Jyoti faces major obstacles to finishing high school, let alone college. Over 60% of the women in Bihar, one of India’s most impoverished states, do not finish high school. One major reason is that about 40% of Bihari girls are married before they are 18-years-old. The other major reason, evident from details of Jyoti’s situation, is financial hardships faced by families.
Twenty years ago, Paswan, a landless laborer from a lower-caste, migrated to the Delhi suburb of Gurugram. There he drove a three-wheel autorickshaw cab, which he leased from its owner. He sent much of his income to his family in Bihar. Jyoti’s mother is a domestic worker who cleans and cooks in the homes of wealthy villagers.
Jyoti has four siblings, an elder sister and three younger brothers. The family lives in a one-room home, in an area of the village with similar tiny homes occupied by other lower caste families. Last year Jyoti had to stop going to school after finishing class VIII. “I am very fond of studying…(But) If I went to school, we would face a financial crunch. So, I dropped out,” she told a writer for The Wire. Her parents pulled her out of school to help them financially by doing domestic work, like her mother, as well as to take care of her three younger brothers. In January, she went to Gurugram to take care of her papa, after he was injured in a road accident.
That month, after the injury, her mother took out a bank loan of $500 (Rs.38,000) to support the family. Jyoti too borrowed $14 (Rs.1,000) to buy the purple women’s bicycle she used to transport her dad. The parents may also have other loans outstanding, including to cover costs and perhaps pay a dowry for the marriage of their older daughter.
If donors follow through on their pledge and pay for Jyoti’s school textbooks and other educational costs – government-run schools in India don’t charge fees - her family will continue to need additional income to cover their living expenses. Paswan remains injured and, even if he recovers quickly, it will be several months, perhaps longer, before he finds a job. The unemployment rate in India is currently 25% due to the collapse of the economy, resulting from the COVID-19 lockdown and the global economic recession.
So, a donor who funds Jyoti’s high school education, will also have to help the family meet their living expenses and repay their loans. Such a total funding package could happen, according to reports of a grant of $1300 (Rs.111.000) made in Jyoti’s name by a union of bank employees.
Perhaps a journalist or a social worker will track to see if and how the funds are used as well as monitor Jyoti’s progress towards her ambition. Her first goal, she says, is to finish high school.