NEW DELHI: After protesting for three days and threatening to block a railway line , the people of Ghevra village in west Delhi got back their beloved headmaster. Arun Kumar Bhatia had been transferred out of the local Government Sarvodaya Co-ed Senior Secondary School, allegedly after a conflict with the Mundka MLA’s daughter-in-law. The education department reinstated him at noon on Monday.

Ghevra is immensely grateful to Bhatia, 51, for turning around the failing school. The infrastructure is still poor, there are tin roofs and peeling plaster, yet dozens of small touches ever since he took over as vice-principal two years ago have made it the best school in the area. Uma Chaudhary, a teacher, lists some of the measures—catching kids playing hookey; a “creative corner” in every class and charts covering stained walls; regular cleaning; news-reading and quizzes every morning; word-of-the-day posts to improve vocabulary, and taking schoolgirls on their first Metro ride.

Bhatia dealt with sexual harassment with a heavier hand. A wall was built between two buildings to separate boys from girls. “The entire atmosphere changed. Teachers were motivated, focus on academics and sports improved immensely,” Chaudhary says. Students became regular, school became fun.

Most crucially, Bhatia introduced a parallel high-school programme in English medium from April 2014. “I was planning to move to a private school because I’ve been studying in English medium. But I chose to remain because it started here too,” says tenth-grader Ritika Rana, who was one of the protesters. She’s been a student of the school since fifth class and, like Chaudhary, has witnessed the transformation. “For 15 years this school was in very bad shape. Now villagers are pulling their children out of private schools and admitting them here,” says Suraj Bhan, resident of Ghevra and one of the protesters. Another resident, Balwan Rana, adds, “Most villagers have not studied beyond Class VIII or X. They themselves didn’t have a clear idea about education till Sir came along.”

Bhatia started his career in teaching in 1986 but quit three years later for a brief—till 1991—stint as Class II officer in the Air Force. He returned to Delhi classrooms in 1991. In ’94, he wrote and cleared the civil services exams. “Passion,” is all he says to explain why he always returns to chalk, duster and blackboard. But the years outside the school system have taught him discipline and order.

Locals say Bhatia was marked when he refused to grant leave to the daughter-in-law of AAP MLA from Mundka, Sukhbir Dalal. “She registered some complaint with the MLA and got him transferred. The principal was moved a week ago,” says Bhan. Dalal denies the charge. “This is nonsense. Vice-principals of eight schools have been transferred. The other parties are spreading these charges,” he told TOI.

Bhatia got the order to shift to a school in neighbouring Savda Ghevra on April 23 and obeyed. But Ghevra wasn’t letting him go. “First the children sat at the gate. Then the parents, and finally the entire village. They were protesting even today morning and the mid-day meal had to be served outside. If the department hadn’t reinstated Sir, we would have blocked trains,” says Jitendra Rana, a resident.

After the panchayat met on Sunday, hundreds of villagers, including members of the school management committee (SMC) and the vidyalaya kalyan samiti (VKS), blocked the road. An attempt to play the Jat card—Bhatia isn’t one—also failed. “They argued we should support fellow Jats. But if he is making an effort for our good, we don’t care about his community,” says Bhan.