Archive · 17 Sep 2026
How a Teacher Opened Schooling’s Door for Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd
When Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd was a young boy, a teacher named Rajalingam visited his home.
The teacher asked Ilaiah’s mother to send her sons to school.
She was afraid because an older son had died after being sent to a private teacher.
She also believed a religious superstition that education could hurt children from her caste.
Rajalingam told her that education would help rather than harm them.
After asking other people for advice, she enrolled Ilaiah and his brother Kattaiah.
The teacher wrote their names and approximate birth dates in the school register.
Ilaiah felt school was confining, but it gave him a written identity and a chance to build his own future.
In May or early June 1960, teacher Rajalingam visited Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd’s family and urged his mother to send her sons to school.
His mother initially resisted because she believed education had caused the death of her elder son and feared Saraswati would harm her children.
After consulting relatives and learning that another family had enrolled a daughter, she sent Ilaiah and his brother Kattaiah to school.
Rajalingam registered the boys and assigned approximate birth dates, creating official school records for children without ritual birth records.
School separated the brothers from cattle grazing and village life, which Ilaiah remembered as freer and more exciting than classroom routines.
- Who
- Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd, his brother Kattaiah, their mother, and teacher Rajalingam.
- What
- Rajalingam persuaded Ilaiah’s mother to enroll her sons in school, where their names and approximate birth dates were recorded.
- When
- May or early June 1960, when Ilaiah was about six years old.
- Where
- At Ilaiah’s family home and village school; the village is not named.
- Why
- Rajalingam wanted the boys to receive an education and challenged their mother’s belief that schooling would harm them.
- Teacher
- Rajalingam visited the family and encouraged the boys’ enrollment.
- Students enrolled
- Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd and his brother Kattaiah.
- Approximate date
- May or early June 1960.
- Family belief
- Ilaiah’s mother believed education had caused her elder son’s death and feared Saraswati would harm her children.
- School record
- Rajalingam estimated and entered the boys’ birth dates in the school register.
- Caste context
- Only Ilaiah’s family and Kore Veeraiah’s family, among about 50 families of their caste, could afford to send children to school.
- School routine
- Children attended from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a one-hour lunch break.