Balrampur, Sept. 18 -- Every morning during monsoon season, two schoolteachers in Chhattisgarh make a journey most people would call impossible to reach their classroom in a corner of Wadrafnagar block that gets cut off from the rest of the world after rain.

Dhaurpur hamlet sits beyond the confluence of the Moran and Iriya rivers, reachable in the monsoon only on foot and by those dedicated enough to cross the waters. For teachers Sandhya Haldar and Karmila Toppo, that risk is simply part of the job. Tapoo makes the crossing with her nine-month-old daughter in her arms, wading through water that rose from waist to stomach height.

Their day begins the same way each time. They park their scooters at Marna, the last point a vehicle can rea...