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Helping hand Despite his age, octogenarian Kanailal Datta continues to help disadvantaged children, says Anjana Jha Working for the welfare of the less privileged has always engaged 87 year-old Kanailal Datta. A government employee in the department of rural development, he was conversant with the economic scenario in his home state, West Bengal. The huge refugee influx from East Bengal following Partition created a crisis in West Bengal. By the early 1950s, rehabilitation had become a major issue. Taking the initiative, Datta and his friends helped set up a refugee colony in New Barrackpore, a suburb of Kolkata. The government later stepped in to assist in acquiring land and around 5,000 families were eventually rehabilitated. Realising the vital importance of basic education, he was a founder member of the Naba Barrackpore Shiksha Samaj (New Barrackpore Educational Society) established in 1962. Seven basic schools and two colleges were set up. However in the mid-1960s, the government in power in West Bengal decided to ban basic education in the state. Converting the institutes into primary and secondary schools, it took over management of the colleges as well. Datta's interest in academics and literature helped keep him busy. With a passion for writing, he has several books to his credit. One of them is a translation of a book on the sayings of Vinoba Bhave from the original Hindi. "The Bengali translation is titled Aapon Kothai Vinoba," he mentions almost nonchalantly. "I received a Sahitya Akademi Award for it in 1995." It was not long before Datta found another outlet for his social activism. He noticed that though New Barrackpore - largely dominated by Bangladeshi refugees - had a large population of school-going children, a sizeable percentage was being deprived of education because of physical or mental disability. A door-to-door survey in New Barrackpore and neighbouring areas established the fact that the poorest children were being further disadvantaged. "I was always inspired by Gandhiji's principles," he says. "I decided to try and make a difference in the lives of these children."