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Dark childhood

CHILDREN ARE OFTEN the most abused in society. Their rights are violated. Their aspirations are ignored, and their dreams fast dissolve. Despite progressive laws and court orders, millions of India's boys and girls lead nightmarish existences. At the last count, there were reportedly 15 million labourers under 14 out of the global total of 250 million. They often toil for a good 15 hours every day in dark, dingy, cramped workplaces producing some of the most dangerous goods that fetch fancy profits for manufacturers, but do little to brighten the young lives. It may not be an exaggeration to say that businessmen who hire children at abysmally low wages do not stop there: they torture them into submission, beat them into obedience and bond them into a Dickensian subsistence. And the irony is that out of this horror emerge some of the most fascinating products: regal silks, exquisite glassware, and delightful fireworks. All these products come with huge human costs. For example, continuous exposure to the stench of dead worms in silk factories causes terrible diseases, and making fireworks, especially in the kind of primitive conditions seen in India, is obviously fraught with peril.

The recent tragedy in a firecracker unit in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district merely reaffirmed our nagging suspicion: child labour exists, and worse, thrives. Eight teenagers died in an explosion there on the eve of Deepavali. While India lit up its skies with myriad hues of light, it must have been dark in the homes of those children, who perished trying to bring joy and smiles to the faces of countless others, who may not even have paused a moment to think of those miserable, unfortunate boys and girls. If the millions of people who buy fireworks are guilty of abetting a crime as heinous as child labour, manufacturers are even more so. They are ruthless in their pursuits of profits, and their misdeeds are a shameless pointer to a country where laws are flouted every day, but where very few of the guilty are caught and punished. Admittedly, the owner of the Villupuram unit has been imprisoned, but the sad truth is that there are thousands of such men who bribe their way to freedom and misdemeanour, whose arrogance kills and maims the innocent.

There is no doubt that the Government is ultimately responsible for disasters such as the one in Villupuram. About 200 million people still go to bed hungry. Government promises of eradicating poverty are still as elusive as water in a desert. What is more, minimum wages and free education not only remain distant dreams to many but are in a way important reasons for child labour. Parents who earn reasonably well may not be compelled to send their sons or daughters to a firecracker factory. They would rather educate them. But, in a democracy such as India's that empowers every citizen with the right to protest, even literate men and women outside the Government appear strangely mute. Delhi's schoolchildren have set an example by not buying fireworks made with child labour. Adults are yet to awake. And, in their callous slumber, they let the administration get away with murder. Look at the agony of a child fettered to a life of servitude. And, each one of us is guilty for its anguish.

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