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.
