Thousands of teachers from primary and middle schools across Bihar carried empty jute bags on their heads to hawk them at their block headquarters on Friday despite the state government’s efforts to cow them into silence.

The teachers were protesting the state government’s July 22 order asking schools to sell the sacks in which food grains had been sent to them under the midday meal scheme, and the suspension of a school principal for openly hawking the sacks at a market.

At several places, the teachers marched to the block headquarters with banners and placards, shouted anti-government slogans and demanded the revocation of the July 22 order and the suspension of Muhammad Tamizuddin, principal of a primary school in Kadwa block of Katihar district.

They converged at block offices or marketplaces and hawked the empty jute bags for a couple of hours, sometimes succeeding in selling a few.

“See where the government has brought us,” a primary school teacher in Fatuha block, Patna, said.

“We already have to help conduct censuses and elections, form human chains to please the chief minister, buy kitchen items to run the midday meal scheme, see that everything is cooked and distributed properly. Now we have to sell sacks too.”

The Bihar Rajya Prarambhik Shikshak Sangh, one of the largest associations of primary teachers in the state, said the protest was successful and vowed to intensify the agitation if the demands were not met.

“We will sell the sacks at all the district headquarters on August 16 if the July 22 order and Tamizuddin’s suspension are not revoked,” the association’s president, Pradeep Kumar Pappu, told The Telegraph.

Sanjay Choudhary

“The government tried to frighten and deter the teachers from participating in the agitation but failed. Chief minister Nitish Kumar should intervene immediately and act against the officials who issued the shameful order to sell sacks.”

Bihar police headquarters had sent a letter to all the district magistrates and superintendents of police on Thursday, informing them about the teachers’ agitation programme and saying: “We expect administrative vigilance and precautionary safety measures.”

Sources said several district magistrates had verbally warned local teachers of strict action and suspension if they went ahead with Friday’s protest. A few district magistrates had invoked Covid-19 protocols to dissuade the teachers from participating in the agitation.

State education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary claimed ignorance of the action against Tamizuddin or the agitation. “I have no personal knowledge of this,” he told reporters.

Choudhary added that any embarrassing act by any teacher (selling sacks) would tarnish his or her own image rather than that of the government.

However, Tamizuddin was suspended on Sunday for “tarnishing the image of the state government” by carrying a stack of sacks on his head and hawking them at the local market, a video of which was widely circulated on the social media.

Government officials have since suggested the schools should have invited traders and sold the sacks in bulk, but the teachers say that traders were unwilling to come and buy old sacks.

The July 22 order was issued after the office of the comptroller and auditor general raised the spectre of revenue loss in its reports relating to the financial years 2014-15 and 2015-16.

The government order asked the primary and middle schools — where the midday meal scheme is implemented — to sell at Rs 10 apiece the sacks they had received in 2014-15 and 2015-16, and deposit the money with the treasury.

The teachers say that many of the bags had been distributed among students to sit on in the absence of benches and desks in classrooms. Many of the remaining sacks had been damaged by rats, floods and the passage of time.