Bhubaneswar
What is a cashless transaction? What is QR (Quick Response) Code? Does the ‘barter system’ of ancient times still exist? Is ‘bhaga bikri’ (share sale), a practice in the tribal weekly haat, still in vogue?
The answers to these posers were provided in the ‘artificial market’ on the campus of Government Ucha Prathamika Vidyalaya (Upper Primary School) in a remote village called Jabanpali, about 10 kilometers away from Kalimela block headquarter of tribal-dominated Malkangiri, Odisha.
One got the feel of a tribal haat where cashless transaction and QR Code amalgamated with barter system and bhaga bikri to whip up a congruous synthesis of modernity and tradition.
“QR Code is Quick Response Code. It is a two-dimensional barcode that stores data and can be scanned with the help of a smart phone,” the visitors were informed.
“The artificial market had all the feel of a real tribal haat that we took part in to enjoy it as a game,” said Arjun Musiki, a Class 6th student of the school belonging to the Koya tribal community.
“In the artificial market, about 70 out of 252 students of our residential school, where mostly Koya tribal children study, played the role of different vendors. On the hand, a majority of other students put on the caps of buyers,” said Class 4th Koya student Deba Markani.
Organised at the prathana mandap (prayer platform) on the premises of the school, the artificial market was a veritable hub of students, teachers, parents and inquisitive visitors. However, only the students of the school played the role of vendors and buyers. Vegetables like brinjals, lady’s fingers, tomatoes and potatoes grown in a small patch of the three acres of the school, were on sale, according to Ramakrishna Choudhury, the secretary of non-government agency ‘Tribal Empowerment and Awareness Mission’ (TEAM) in Malkangiri Town.
Vendors and buyers used QR Code and resorted to the services provided by Indian digital payments and financial companies like PhonePe to do cashless transaction. Barter system, practiced in a tribal weekly haat in the district to get one thing in exchange for another, was also carried on. Similarly, bhaga bikri, in which some vegetables or saleable things pile on a piece of sack or a siali leaf is sold at say Rs.10 or Rs.20 in a tribal haat, was practiced in the artificial market.
Apart from vegetables, brooms, traditional utensils and many other things including the shoes provided by the State government for the students of the school were displayed for sale, according to Naba Kishore Mallick, the headmaster of the school
“In a nutshell, we can say that trading in the artificial market had a mix of modern and traditional business make-ups,” said Ramakrishna, who visited the artificial market out of curiosity.
The innovative market was organized on the basis of a written instruction issued by the Odisha School and Mass Education Department. It was a step to infuse a feel of the changing trading scenario into the students outside the walls of their classrooms, according to the school headmaster.
When asked about the value of business transaction in the artificial market, Naba Kishore said that business transaction is not important here, as the artificial market helped student vendors and buyers calculate mathematically by doing addition, subtraction and multiplication for a transaction.
“All the items that were displayed for sale in the artificial market are available in our school. We purchased only a few things from outside. For it, all our nine teachers including me paid from our pocket,” said Naba Kishore, who got the State Teacher Award in 2013 and the National Teacher Award in 2017.
“We also gave Rs.50 to each buyer to get their things in the artificial market. The amount given to a buyer comprised currency notes of Rs. 10, Rs. 20 and coins of different denominations so that they could apply their mind to do calculations easily while selling and buying things,” the headmaster said.
The whole scenario was really exciting for the tender students as they experienced it as ‘real-life’ game. “Before the start of the artificial market, our teachers had counselled us for about two hours about how to pose as vendors and buyers, how to bargain and how carefully to do transactions through calculations,” said Class 8th student Raghunath Benia, who belongs to the Desia tribal community.
“As we have no smart phones, we used our teachers’ to use QR Code and to do cashless transaction,” he added.
