Assam town’s love for English earns jobs for hate-hit Manipur women

Kalgachia is a town of about 30,000 people, mostly Bengal-origin Muslims. But it boasts of more than 20 private English medium schools and junior colleges, making it an education hub for a large chunk of Barpeta district. The town, whose name means ‘a place where banana plants are abundant’, is about 120 km west-northwest of Guwahati, Assam’s principal city.

An Assam town’s love for English has opened up jobs for women displaced by hate in Manipur.

Kalgachia is a town of about 30,000 people, mostly Bengal-origin Muslims. But it boasts of more than 20 private English medium schools and junior colleges, making it an education hub for a large chunk of Barpeta district. The town, whose name means ‘a place where banana plants are abundant’, is about 120 km west-northwest of Guwahati, Assam’s principal city.

“Assamese continues to be the primary medium of instruction in our schools, the first of which was established in the 1910s. The aspiration of parents for their children to be more globally relevant is making English medium schools more popular nowadays,” Abu Bakkar Siddique, a retired professor, told The Hindu.

The thrust on English is not just attracting children from habitations within a certain radius of Kalgachia, which is also a regional business hub. The town’s private schools and colleges have become a magnet for English teachers, mostly women from Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, and the hilly Karbi Anglong district of Assam.

Some of these teachers, like Boicy Khongsai from Manipur’s Kangpokpi district, have helped others from their hometowns or native villages get non-teaching jobs in Kalgachia too.

Kalgachia’s eateries were modest until Rajibul Islam opened B-Mezban, the town’s first upmarket air-conditioned restaurant, a year ago. But smart English-speaking staff were hard to come by. Manipur’s misery offered him what he was looking for.

Hatneimoi Baite, Nengpithem Baite, and Domneithem Touthang had left their homes in Mongneljang village soon after violence broke out in Manipur on May 3. Like the members of 48 other families in the Kuki village, only their fathers, uncles, and adult brothers stayed behind, to defend their homes from possible attackers.