by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 6, 2007 | ghaziabad girls, noida children
Remember the ghaziabad girls? Some of us may have forgotten them as so many other horror stories have come our way and they have become yesterday’s news.
Yet somewhere in the dead of winter they await justice.
Their case came for hearing at the Supreme Court yesterday. One searched furiously for some news and was aghast to find out from a fleeting item on the news channel ticker that the case had been adjourned as the NHRC failed to file their report.
Something was terribly wrong. Only a month ago the plight of these girls was splashed all over the media. Today they seem forgotten and what is worse is that one cannot even get to them as they are protected by numerous government bodies and incommunicado.
The NOIDA murders are today’s news, wonder what it will be tomorrow.
And yet somehow to me their plight seems more poignant as they are alive. Their abuse was not a momentary flare of the dark side of a Dr Jekyll but the cool calculated planned action of their supposed protector. Even the mentally challenged were not spared.
The attitude of the so called organisations made to protect children is exposed here. Why did the NHRC not file their report? How much investigation, interrogation, cross-examination do they have to do conduct to ascertain what is evident to each one of us who read the story and saw the images?
It has also been reported that the National Commission for Women knew about the missing children of NOIDA six months ago. Wonder how many innocent lives could have been spared had they acted in time.
The ghaziabad girls are waiting for justice and it is time we did something to help them unless human rights differ according to one’s social origin.
A chilling thought….
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 6, 2007 | girl child, noida children, two indias
The past week has been marked by the terrible plight of children in India, something we can in no way be proud of. The horror of the NOIDA missing kids seemed to be a catalyst of sorts.
Yesterday a nine year old Nayan was found dead, his parents still busy trying to get the ransom together. Yesterday again in a hurried drive to rid our capital city of the bad and the ugly, a 12 day old baby was bulldozed in a slum demolition drive as the mother only had time to save her other child.
The feeling of total helplessness and hopelessness gnawed at my very soul. The sense that all the hue and cry raised in these cases would soon die down after everyone had got their piece of the action was evident. What could one do..
As I sat lost in my thoughts looking for some sign of hope, little Anisha entered the room breaking the dark spell that surrounded us. Anisha is 8 months old but weighs a mere 4 kilos. her emaciated body looks line a new born’s but her eyes sparkle to show that she is a big girl who responds to her name, claps her little hands and is filled with a desire to live. But there is a catch, she has a cardiac congenital malfunctioning and needs open heart surgery.
This would be our 10th case but somehow little Anisha seemed special as she came at a time where we all needed to be reassured that hope still existed. In helping fix her heart, we would perhaps be able to heal ours a little and find the now sagging courage to carry on.
I do not know if we will be able to raise the 55 000 rs needed to give Anisha a tomorrow but somehow we feel we will. This little child who came after two sisters and was not the boy that her parents wanted needs to be saved to vindicate our belief that every child is worth fighting for and saving and that each one of us has the power to do so if we truly care.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 5, 2007 | Uncategorized
It is back with a bang. Nanhe’s lost smile was there to greet us when we went visiting yesterday, reminding us that children have their own way of dealing with problems, ways that remain mysterious as Nanhe’s battle is far from over.
But the feeling was short lived. His mother was still lost in her dream of getting a new kidney for her child and not willing to listen, let alone understand the enormity of the situation.
She was excited to share that she had found someone who had told her that were she to part with 10 000 rupees, things could be arranged. We were aghast as earlier she had told us that what was needed was 100 000 Rs. As she went on we realised that she had been caught in some network that runs deep in government run hospitals and feeds on gullible and desperate families. Lost in her own world she refused to listen when we tried to explain what a transplant meant. She just wanted to believe in what some doctor had told her and held on to those words as gospel truth.
We tried hard but were no match to the desperation and determination of a mother!
We all know that no organ transplant can be done in a paltry 10 000 Rs. At the same time we know that Nanhe’s mom is not lying. Then what does this imbroglio conceal?
At best a new found way of feeding on a poor mother’s desperation and then finding a cowardly way out when one has milked her dry. Or is it something darker and deeper. We cannot retreat into the wait and see option. Too much is at stake: the possibility of Nanhe’s mom sinking into a debt trap, the risk of some sham surgery done on the child to appease the mother and justify the monies extracted…
We need to find out more.. after all it is all about Nanhe’s smile
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 3, 2007 | common school, noida children
A friend dropped by this morning. We had not met for a long time, yet there was a time when we shared the same ideas and concern and were all set to rebuild the world over innumerable cups of coffee. At that time we both taught in universities. We liked the same books, the same songs and shared similar aspirations. I cannot remember what was said and thought, but I do recall that we both felt deeply that things were not right.
Life took its course and he remained a teacher and still teaches in a prime institution. I left my comfortable, pensionable post as I had felt stifled. Family obligations saw me criss-crossing the planet and it was only a few years back that I set roots and felt I had reached my destination.
The last time we met, we only knew one side of the invisble divide that fractures our country and conjured the other the way we wanted to see it. But this time it was different, I had crossed the line and experienced first hand what reality was, seeing each and every of my preconceived notions being blown to pieces, and re-looking at the very issues we had debated upon with new eyes.
It took me but a few minutes to get to my pet subject and talk about my dream of seeing the children of India grow together, side by side, without any labels stuck to their foreheads, taking time to build their own. Somehow I had expected T to agree to what I said. I was astonished to see his reaction and stunned when he mentioned public-private partnership in education.
A pall was cast on what had started as a happy meeting. We fumbled through the next few minutes and bid farewell. For a long time I sat in silence wondering what had happened in those years to change things between us. Why was it that felt so deeply about bridging gaps whereas all others be it politicians, educationists and so forth maintained that solutions lay in widening the gap. Had history past and recent not given us sufficient proof of how the very fabric of our society was getting destroyed by the multitude of divisive policies we were following leaving far behind the ‘we the people of India..’ of our Constitution?
T’s reaction was disturbing as I knew that he was intrinsically a good person, truly wanting to see change. He taught the best minds and thus could impart new ideas and ideologies were he to believe in them. Then why a total rejection of a common school idea. And why on the other hand was my belief strengthened each and every day. What had happened to both of us who started much in the same way?
Maybe it was the fact that I had experienced the other side, or was it that time was not yet ripe, that our social baggage was so heavy that we were still not ready to accept our children rubbing shoulders with ‘their’ kids!
All these questions plagued me all day along.
Yet I was to be validated sooner than I thought. The evening news carried the following: the brutal murders of many young children in NOIDA have touched a chord around India. For the first time, residents of NOIDA’s bungalows are now venturing out, offering a helping hand to those who work in their houses.
The year 2006 was a year that saw so many conviction. Now taking the same spirit into 2007, the battle has just begun and so tragic as it is that it’s taken the horrific serial killings to bridge the glaring class divide between an urban slum and a swanky suburban town.(NDTVnews)
Sad that so many innocent lives had to be lost to see this. I wonder how many of the mothers must have sought help when the child disappeared. I can also imagine the reaction of the likes of me who must have offered kind words and maybe money but were unwilling to make that trip to the police station.
But it is not time to cry over what cannot be changed, but celebrate this new beginning and to ensure that this very fragile spark is kept alive. There are so many who can get justice if they have our support and maybe it is a way of redressing a system that has run amok. Filing a simple FIR, as one discovered today, is a nightmare even for an educated person. Simple rights have been usurped by a feudal attitude that sets the rules turning victims into accused.
One has to also ensure that this new found compassion does not become another power game or get hijacked on the way by those waiting in the wings for any cause to espouse to fulfil their own agendas.
I said earlier that maybe the time was not ripe for the elusive common school system. However I want to believe that if people have found it in their heart to reach out to their poorer brethren, then slowly they may also come to accept one day to have their kids share a school bench.
I guess the penny will drop when one comes to understand that in doing so we are not doling out any charity but investing in our own tomorrows.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 3, 2007 | ghaziabad girls, noida children
How many more children will have to be abused, mutilated and killed, how many more mothers will have to live with questions than can never be answered before we become responsible as a civil society and say enough!
We are supposed to have a law and order mechanism but what we forget is that these work only for those who have money, power or at least a vote. The parents of the dead children of Nithari did not have any of these. Migrants from other states, they came in search of work with a hope that maybe they will be able to give their children a better life. Instead they sent them straight to a horrific death.
Imagine the plight of a parent whose child has disappeared. Imagine his sense of utter defeat as he knocks at the portals of a police station and is sent away over and over again with contempt. Imagine his despair when he is told that the children of the likes of him do not exist for the so called system. Imagine the days and nights spent in waiting for a miracle that never comes. And finally imagine that closure comes with a set of clothes, a heap of bones and the realisation of the horror that one cannot begin to imagine.
Then try to envisage what that parent feels when in the dead of night and numbed with excruciating pain he realises that just a stones’ throw away another child also disappeared and within moments everyone was on their toes: policemen, politicians, admin bigwigs et al and within days the child was back home.
Welcome again to the great divide of India, one that is even more poignant in a land where democracy is supposed to protect each and every one. Have we forgotten the preamble of our constitution where we promised to secure to all citizens among other things justice, social, economic and political.
When did invisible barriers appear along the way and segregated people and marginalised some. When did our constitution get hijacked by hidden agendas and why did we just sit and watch it happen. Was it because the likes of us knew that we would remain on the right side of the fence.
Once again one’s head hangs in shame. The past months has been filled with such moments: the orphanage in ghaziabad, the little fingers for a handful of spinach, and now countless children mutilated and killed, their organs traded so that someone with money could live making some rich on the way.
2006 was the year of people power but before that power also falls prey to the great divide it, we need to act if we are to redeem the right to be worthy of ourselves. Or let me put it another way, one that maybe is better understood in our pathetic times, it is time to act now if we are to protect and secure our own future, as the day is not far when the cumulative pain and anger of those we have shunned away will rise and I know that on that day all the gods in heaven will be on their side.
