Lost in Translation

Snehal Mutha | 06 April 2025 | The Hindu

Avinash Shrirame, 35, enters the room that holds about 30 students wearing red-and-green checked uniforms. They greet him with a loud “Good morning, Sir,” and a “Jai seva” shouted out thrice, to the rhythm of clapping. Shrirame asks students to open their textbooks as he turns to the blackboard. Flanking the board are portraits of Rani Durgavati, the queen of Gondwana who fought the Mughals in the 16th century; and Baburao Shedmake, a Gond chieftain who rose against the British in the 1857 war.

Shrirame is a volunteer on an honorarium, teaching Gondi in the Paramparik Koya Dnyanbodh Sanskar Ghotul School in Mohgaon, Gadchiroli. Gondi is the language of the Gonds, a tribe spread across at least seven States, including Karnataka, where the first standardised dictionary was published in 2018 by Kannada University. India has the world’s second-largest tribal population, at 8.9%, as per the 2011 Census…

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