Karlamunda: Jitendra Suna, a 29 years old from a nondescript Pourakela village under this block in Kalahandi district, is running for presidentship of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU).
His struggle in his formative years that saw him working as a farmhand and helper in a gas company has made him the centre of attention in national media.
Jitendra was born to a poor family. While his father was working as a farmhand, his mother was a green grocer. His mother passed away when he was in Class VIII. Since the entire responsibility of running the family fell on his father, he chose to help his father by putting in manual labour.
Jitendra worked as an MGNREGS labourer in his area while continuing his study.
Later, after finishing high school, he went to Delhi in search of a job. One of his relatives working there at Indraprastha Gas Limited (IGL) helped him bag the job of a helper.
However, he came back to his village and somehow completed his graduation. Then he enrolled himself in a ten-month course on Ambedkarism and Buddhism at a Nagpur based institution. This enlightened him on the issues of untouchability and caste discrimination inspiring him to study history at a greater detail. After completing his MPhil in 2013, he is now continuing his Ph.D on ‘History of Identities and Exclusion; Ambedkar and the Marginalised’.
PNN