HAS CONSTITUTION BEEN AN ALLY IN PRODUCING THE CHILD LABOUR FORCE?

I wrote this one for a contest organized by Sukriti, the social wing of Saarang - the annual cultural festival of the Indian Institute of Technology - Madras. This went on to fetch me the first prize and also gave me the rarest of rare opportunity of being the STUDENT PANELIST in a panel that comprised the likes of  Dr. Sumanth C Raman, political analyst and host of BSNL Sports Quiz in DD, Mrs. Shantha Sinha, founder of MV Foundation, an NGO that fights against child labour etc. In the panel discussion, since I was the last one to speak in the first part, I spoke about things other than the acts and legal stuff. I don't know how much I sounded relevant to the context, but when two people came to me and said, 'You pierced through us; we could feel the sadness of chiildren being forced into child labour', it felt good personally.

Here it is - my 700 word writeup - that made me a speaker on the podium of the Central Lecture Theatre Auditorium of  the campus I envy and long for.

HAS CONSTITUION BEEN AN ALLY IN PRODUCING THE CHILD LABOUR FORCE?

         Before going into the concept of child labour, there is thought to ponder over the difference between work and labour, which makes all the difference first of all. While work is something that one does with passion and commitment, labour is inflicted by force due to the dire need to satisfy basic amenities or by external force. That’s why a mother’s pregnancy sufferings are termed labour pain.

         Child labour cannot be seen as a mere linear connection between the constitution and the age limits of the budding citizens of the country; it is a vicious circle that forms by connecting several points like unequal social strata, lack of proper education, insufficient appropriate employment and other such factors. Though employment cannot be stated as a valid reason in the context of such a vast and diverse landmass, appropriate employment is something that a person gains by means of his/her educational proficiency and professional exposure.

The constitution is a guideway that outlines the right, duties, privileges and limits of each and every human being living in India. Constitution is an agent that performs a kind of SWOT analysis to represent everyone as a part in a wholesome basis. So, this cannot be blamed for the child labour problem that is prevalent throughout our motherland.

The acts like Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 and The Factories Act (1948), The Mines Act (1952), The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) of Children Act, 2000 and The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (2009) and other such policies have been diligently framed by the policy makers in order to eradicate this evil practice to the maximum extent. These acts clearly lay out the instructions on who can be employed on what kind of environments, and what would be the punishments if the regulations are followed as stated.

There are several factors that either directly or indirectly aid a helping hand in the increase of child labour in India. Poverty can be stated as the prime reason, but in a subtler way, the deficiency in satisfying the needs of a family makes the elders force their child into labour. The Macaulay Education System has changed the opinion on what education is drastically, rooting deeply in the thought process of children and adults, altogether, and there have been dropouts from schools due to the aversion in the mark-based curriculum that creates a false notion on the word called ‘competition’.

The country is getting flooded by schools and colleges, mostly run privately, and this is also one element in the vicious circle. Now that people at the non-creamy layer are unable to afford even the primary education for their wards, respectively, there is no other way than to send the young, innocent faces to work in harsher environments that do not cater to even the experienced workmen.

So, the issue of child labour has to be viewed in two different perspectives, with the first one being the inability to afford the ‘education’ available, and the second being the lack of interest in studying. It has to be noted here that education is radically different from what we do in the present system. The same thing which is called ‘child labour’ for a 13 year old teen becomes an internship at 16 years of age. Education is not a single-step but it is a series of algorithmic processes that primarily is attained from observation based learning, and environmental aided thought modification.

Work gets transformed into labour only when the necessary component of one’s life gets disturbed on account of the nature of the work. Imagine a child working after his/her school hours, thereby quenching an extent of his family’s thirst of monetary need while also taking a gradual step towards educating himself, simultaneously. The mere visualization of this gives blissful tantalization. This is the future we can strive for rather than blaming the constitution as an ally.