Gondi, one of the most ancient languages of India, is on the verge of becoming extinct. This is despite the language being the mother tongue of millions of people inhabiting the Gondwana region in Central India that includes large areas in Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha..
In our childhood, my siblings and I would often converse in broken Gondi. But as we grew up and began going to schools, we became distant from our mother tongue ... ..Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), is the largest residential school for indigenous children in the world. Nearly 30,000 tribal children from across the country are enrolled there. The school teaches indigenous students to look down upon or disrespect their history and society. It antagonises them towards their culture, lifestyle and language, forcing them to consider it a sign of backwardness...
The Ramakrishna Mission Ashram provides free education and accommodation to tribal children in the Narayanpur district of Bastar until Class XII. Especially in the Abujhmad area inhabited by the Maria tribe, their schools are the only option for locals. ..Juhar was our traditional greeting for another person. We would shake hands if the other person was of the same age or touch their cheek if they were younger. But our school taught us to touch the feet of elders...Whenever the Mission’s swami or maharaj visited the school, we were made to kneel or prostrate before them. Such customs or practices were imposed upon us... We did not think of it as ‘imposition’ then, because we had already been brainwashed into believing those customs were ‘superior’ or ‘high-class’. We began internalising that the culture, customs, practices and the language we had inherited from our families were ‘backward’ or ‘poor’. - Santoshi Markam https://thewire.in/culture/alienation-adivasis-identity-culture-hinduisation-education