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Burning issues
The name, `Kutty Japan', was given to Sivakasi by none other than our beloved Chacha Nehru, whose birthday we observe as Children's Day. The paradox is that this town in Tamil Nadu plays home to 45,000 child labourers who work day and night to render our Diwali night spectacular.
While browsing the pavement shops that mushroom during the Diwali season, seldom do we realise this truth. We fuss over the precautionary measures, and ensure the gallery for our kids. While the bravest of us venture out to detonate the "bombs", the meek ones plug their ears.
The truth is devastating.
A major chunk of child labour in India involves pyrotechnics.
According to the International Confederation of Trade Unions, about 90 per cent of India's production of fireworks is at Sivakasi, in both licensed and unlicensed factories. Most of the output is used on one day - Diwali, the festival of lights. In the industry, they say, "We produce for 300 days a year, we sell for 30 days, and the whole thing goes up in flames in three hours."
For the child in rags, who works on the sulphur and the fuse day in and day out, Diwali night is the darkest on earth. "Diwali is a holiday for the child workers. But their employers do not give them a single firework. They are supposed to buy it, and usually cannot afford to do so," says Karunakaran, a social worker. Of the 45,000 children working in the 291 plus fireworks factories in Sivakasi, nearly 90 per cent are girls under 14. Reportedly, most workers are forced to work overtime without wages.
India has, long back, won the dubious distinction of being the nation with the largest number of child labourers in the world. The official figure of child labourers is 13 million. The real one is, presumably, much higher.
The million dollar question is: How does a country that can't find jobs for 36 million adults find jobs for over 13 million child workers? As always, the answer is missing.
The risk of working in firework factories is great.
It can cause respiratory problems, accident and even death. Innumerable incidents have been reported wherein child workers fell victims to on-site accidents. One should realise that the life of a Sivakasi child labourer is no better than that of a human bomb. Every new day could be the last.
Efforts are on to make the public aware of the health hazards posing the children involved in the making of fireworks. Recently, there was a drive by Delhi schoolchildren against burning firecrackers during Diwali.
All said and done, the reality continues to stare us in the eye. Come next Diwali, and we would, once again, write and speak for the thousands of kids languishing in the firework `dungeons' of Sivakasi.
The three-hour spectacle would go on. We would retire, merrily discussing the super hits and the damp squibs.
The smell of sulphur would irritate us. But then, it's time for the sweets...
Not so far away, in `Kutty Japan', a child would be staring at the dark cloud hovering over him -- the festival of darkness. And he knows that there are miles to go, before he could sleep...
V. G. MURALIKRISHNAN
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