Shantanu Thakur
(thakur.santanu@gmail.com)
Sainik School Goalpara is celebrating its Diamond Jubilee today, the 12th of November, 2024. On this very date in 1964, the school had taken its first step with about 100 boys to begin with. This was the first Sainik School in the entire North Eastern States of India then. Assam then included what later became independent states—Meghalaya and Mizoram. Arunachal was then known as the NEFA, and Nagaland had become a full-fledged state just a year earlier.
The country was just out of the trauma of the Chinese Aggression of ’62, and an idea of the need for an institution to groom boys from the region who could, in due course, hold officer positions in the defence services of the country surfaced. GoI had been nursing this concept for some time, and the political executive of the region also welcomed it. Hence, in a way, Sainik School Goalpara was an idea whose time had come.
There was another silent, significant factor at work. The parents and the guardians of the boys who were sent to this august institution belonged to a generation who had had their summers at the peak of the Freedom Struggle. They were aware of the benefits of a public school education but had not been fortunate to have it themselves. They now wanted a good residential school for their children—a school that would combine the best of a public school curriculum with a strong sense of identity with the roots of the country and its culture—and something that parents with modest means of income could also afford. A good boarding school, but at the same time, less elitist, less anglicised, and more inclusive than the known public schools of their time. The freedom movement was a nationally inclusive surge, and this generation of parents, whose psyche was awash with nationalistic idealism in their struggling youth, wanted to shape their children in a new, secular environment free from any colonial hangover.
The first batch included boys from all over the state and its neighbourhood, which in itself was a fresh development in the landscape of school education in Assam. It helped to add a cosmopolitan, all-embracing character, which inculcated a comprehensive, broad, all-India temperament amongst the boys right from day one. Prior to their entry into Sainik School, these boys were studying in the government schools of the day. SSG opened up a new window and vista to their vision and growth. The boys were selected through a neat, clean entrance examination, which was held in almost all the district headquarters of the state.
A small existing campus meant for a BT College was taken up for starting the fledgling venture. Two halls were used for the accommodation of the kid-cadets, appropriately named the Lachit House and the Chilarai House. Two more Houses, created immediately thereafter, were also imaginatively named Lohit House and Udaigiri House. Such house names for boys in residential schools are important factors of identity formation. They live their childhood away from their parents. The values that define the names of their houses leave imprints on their impressionable minds, at least in the subconscious. The school presently has as many as nine houses, all appropriately named.
The founder principal was Lt. Col. DN Sahni, a disciplinarian and an inspired soul whose hard work and commitment succeeded in engaging and propelling the institution forward, who must be remembered with gratitude and reverence due to him on Diamond Jubilee Day. All other principals that came after him benefitted from the foundations he had laid. The list of the principals who followed him is also illustrious. Each of them has added their contributions to the institution, but to Col. Sahni goes the singular credit for raising it from scratch with exemplary commitment.
Not only the founder principal, most of the others in administration as well as the teaching staff, were from outside the state, and yet they had the vision and the sensibility to give distinctive names to the houses that echoed the hallowed history of the state. In these makeshift dormitories, the motley group of kids grew up with a common culture and a common routine devoid of any divisive indoctrination of caste, creed, and religion—values that have stood them in good stead and seen them through in life with dignity and decency. The school represented the heterogeneity and the wonderful cultural mosaic of the entire region.
To the parents and guardians, SSG came in like a godsend. The fee structure was so designed that scholarships were calibrated to the income of the parents; for some it was almost all-found. The parents were not necessarily or consciously thinking of a career for their boys in the defence services (though that is the main objective of Sainik Schools), but, more importantly, for a good residential school for overall character-building with the benefits of modern education, and SSG did not fail to live up to these expectations. Starting with just the bare minimum infrastructure but an excellent teaching faculty, the school, over the years, has stood out as a centre of excellence in the state, not only in academics but also in the arena of sports and allied activities. SSGians not only have a good presence of officers in the defence forces but have also made their mark in different walks of life, including a Speaker of Legislative Assembly and a Chief Minister, the late Padi Yube, and Jarbom Gamlin of Arunachal Pradesh. A committed Old Boys Association is also a force to reckon with—a body that has abided with the school through all kinds of weather. The bonds created at school have been nurtured and sustained.
As the school marches ahead, the government of Assam needs to be a constant, evolving source of support and strength to this unique institution. Newer career options may be emerging in these ever-changing times, but the defence forces, despite opinions to the contrary, will not, and should not, cease to be an attractive portal to our youth. The services provide a steady, secure, well-paid career with improving career progressions along with high levels of respect in society. These factors are likely to grow in the future. No nation can ignore the welfare of its forces.
Hence, it’s in our own interest that the state comes in with all help to strengthen the school. Much more so now, as good-quality education seems to be fast slipping out of the government sector. The few surviving ones need to be strengthened with world-class facilities. In the sixty years of its journey, the school now has 7,000+ students on its rolls. From the year 2021 onwards, SSG has also opened its gates to girl students from class VI.
SSGians have already reached the second highest rank in the hierarchy of the three arms of the defence services. Assam now awaits eagerly to see a day when all three chiefs of services might as well be manned by proud, deserving products from Assam’s own first Sainik School. We wish SSG a glorious Diamond Jubilee celebration and many more milestones of progress to come. As its school motto puts it succinctly: “Sarva me Sadhyam.”—everything is achievable. Sainik School Goalpara will continue to matter in the scheme of things in the years to come.