by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 29, 2006 | Uncategorized
Wonder what mr p. is thinking as he climbs the steps to a temple he decided to visit on his monthly day out.
This is the same kid who should not have been around had all things remained as they were in the life he was born to live. So what is it that altered his life? A simple question with a multitude of answers starting with the now jaded and tired karma. From a boiling pan to a boarding school has been a quantum B&B leap.
Everywhere around us with fashionable and compulsive regularity people talk about the need to change things, build a better tomorrow, save children, impart education. The list goes on ad nauseam and often stops there: a string of words that often end with a cynical shrug at the numbers.
And yet if even an infinitesimal percentage of these well meaning should make the effort to translate their words into action, the change would be huge. What one should understand is that even one life saved or changed or even touched carries within it a ripple effect no one can stop.
That has been our philosophy all along and I can say that our success has been far greater than expected and heartwarming. The problems encountered have strangely and unfortunately come from the very people who master the art of juggling words and expounding on the need to change things. They have the power to do so, and it would not take them much. All we ask them to do is to dip in their pocket and give us one coin each day, but we have learnt that the coin in question is very elusive.
One of the stumbling blocks of organisations trying to work at the grassroots has been sustainability, which translates into the act of finding that elusive coin. Somehow between the thought and action lie a host of obstacles that can all be bundled into one word: mistrust. I do agree that present NGO sector is replete with dubious organisations, but among those lie some who do reach out and transform lives.
The reason why we thought of seeking a-rupee-a-day donors was based on the prevailing scenario in the hope that people would agree to set that mistrust aside as the amount sought was almost invisible. We still hope to be able to do it but at the same time we are aware that the ultimate power of change lies within the beneficiary group and that is and has been our ultimate goalpost, or to say it in other words the high road.
One has to however realise that this will take time and were we not to survive that the whole exercise would come to naught.
We will not give up, but this i a road we cannot walk alone, i hope someone is hearing?
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 26, 2006 | Uncategorized
In the land of the downtrodden and the illiterate, all is not as it should be. One would think that anyone who gives jobs to people considered unemployable, works towards containing drop out rates with success and cares for the differently abled should be welcomed with open arms..
Well that is not quite the way it works. A pack of hungry and almost desperate wolves lurks at every corner waiting for the slightest chance to attack. In a normal environment rude behaviour, personal slander and unwarranted physical attack of another would justify termination of services without compensation. We learnt a year back that, that was not the case. No matter what you did, and how you did it, no matter how many lawyers you consulted and papers you got signed, you were still open to attack as in this dark world there were unwritten laws that got amended and modified to suit any situation.
But what is even more worrying is the ease with which simple people get manipulated and pushed to act in ways that defy all reason. When the behaviour of one of our staff members warranted at least a temporary suspension, no matter how we tried to explain the situation, it is the roaming wolves who got the last word.
The wolves in question are petty politicos and shady unions waiting either to be fed as they are by factory owners who defy all laws and get away with murder, or to pounce on those who are honest, righteous and law abiding and particularly on those who are trying to make a difference and eroding their vote banks.
So in a jiffy your are faced with a letter packed with incredible lies, and with a visit from a labour inspector and a summons to the labour court. The first time it happened we were taken by surprise and vexed and in a hurry to settle matters. This time one is faced with a dilemma as one can see the larger picture and feels a little saddened at the way our staff is being used.
We could stand our ground and we know that after a few appearances the matter is likely to be set aside. Even if it is not we all now how our lower courts work. If we settle with the person a large chunk of the settlement will be taken by the unions and others. The sad part is that we had asked our staff to wait for a couple of months and would have found another option for her. Now things being as they are, one has to tread carefully.
The reason for this post is not to recount a simple incident, but to view it in a larger context. First of all it vindicates the stand that powers that be are not in favour of seeing education percolate to the lower strata of society as most of their ‘issues’ will come to nought once people comprehend the sinister game plans. But more than that it shows how easily people can be manipulated and how easily the carefully nurtured divisive elements of our society are used, be it caste or creed, state of origin or economic profile.
Many will say it is a lost cause, and frankly at moments like this even a die hard optimist like me wavers a little. But mercifully these flitter away as many success stories flash by. Change is slow but it is there. It is your staying power that is put to test. Over the years base accusations that sent me flying seem to have lost their effect and what keeps one going is the fact that even one person changed is a success.
To say that one does not feel alone and lost at times like these would be an untruth, but to give up would be letting one’s self down.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 25, 2006 | Uncategorized
The picture is a little hazy, just like the dreams these kids dare to dream…maybe it is better that way.
These are children celebrating Independence day 2006. It was their decision, their planning and they even invited to local SHO, Mr Khan who always makes it a point to come.
They sang patriotic songs and spoke about freedom and what it meant to them. It is with pride that they hoisted the national tricolour and saluted it, their eyes looking up with hope and barely formulated dreams.
Most of them are OBCs or belong to some reserved category and yet not one of them knows it, let alone what it means and how it can change their lives. Most of them did not even go to school when pwhy decided to clean up a garbage dump and start its work. Today most of them have integrated school and some even topped their class. Suddenly the dreams seem less hazy.. or so they believe with their tiny hearts..
When I see these kids and realise how they trust us, I am at a total loss. The reality that they will grow up to seems bleak if not black! The protection that was so carefully crafted by those who wrote our constitution got hijacked without their knowledge and remodelled to suit other interests by the very people who should have guarded them. These kids will have their dreams shattered one by one at some stage or the other, it is is just a calamity waiting to happen.
As I watched students being doused by water guns in one of the anti quota rallies, I somehow felt that they may not have protested had children like the ones in the picture been the beneficiaries. But to reach that door, they have to walk passed many that still remain shut. The portals of the primary schools, the gates of the secondary one and then the entrance to higher education.
One does not need to be a rocket scientist to see the game Machiavellian game being played. The vested interests will ensure the loyalty of their vote banks while also perpetrating their illiteracy and hence their manipulability and all will be well in independent India where children of lesser gods have no voice.
I wonder what those like Gandhi or even simple people like my mother, who decided not to marry unless her land was free so that her child would not be a slave to the British would say?
Sixty years down the line, Indian children are still slaves: slaves to the greed of others, slaves to hidden agendas and much more. The Right to Education Bill lies unattended, dismissed, sent off to states whereas the bill to raise MPs was passed without a murmur.
That is the state of India, a tale of unkept and hijacked promises
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 19, 2006 | Uncategorized
A well rated TV channel has been airing dramatic pictures of instances of child labour, and we all agree that child labour should be banned as it goes against the essence of human dignity.
Then why have I been so disturbed by some of the stories and in particular the one of the little Mania?
This little child has nowhere to go if he stops working at his dhaba. His whole world will crash. His huge deformity will bring endless taunts and without his work he will have no shelter, no food and not even his surrogate family.
There are many many Manias who will suddenly find themselves alone and lost. Mania did want to study but circumstances shattered his dreams and though he has a right to education enshrined in a constitutional amendement, the law executors cannot find the money to make sure it gets to the likes of him.
True child labour should be abolished, but what are you going to replace it with particularly for children who have no homes to go back to, or whose parents can barely feed the siblings that are still there.
My work on the field for the last six years has taught me that things are not quite how they look and making laws without keeping the human factor in mind is more dangerous than the prevalent situation, however abysmal. Kids like mania will roam streets, steal to feed their hunger pangs and then find themselves branded as thiefs or bad elements. The number of working children is staggering, and a month down the line when the ban comes in force they will have nowhere to go.
Has anyone thought of mechanisms to get them back home, if home they have, or to give them a safe shelter and three meals a day; are there schools where they can learn or does the powers that be expect small organisations to do the job while they bask in the glory of having passed a great social law. Organisations like us are constantly trying to survive and prove that we are not crooks. But we also are the ones who open our hearts and meagre resources to anyone who is hurting. But how much can we do?
And who will bell the cats a.k.a the professional, well educated, well connected people who employ so many children in their homes and sometimes treat them in disgraceful and terrible ways while nodding their heads in public places and parties while someone disparages the practice of child domestic servants.
And last of all, has anyone looked into the number of little children just a walk away from where we sit comfortably who are taken out of school to look after their siblings while both parents work, maybe to build that extra room we need?
mybe little mania will find someone after his national TV debut, but what about the other little manias who can barely comprehend what awaits them.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 19, 2006 | Uncategorized
Three news item caught my attention today. Little Pakhi, age 6 is thrown out of her school bus as the driver brakes suddenly and dies on the spot, her school barely a 10 minute drive away from her home; 665 migrant labour come Delhi everyday and four years down the line, our government has not found the time to ensure that the the 82nd amendment is passed as mandated by the constitution of India to ensure that every Indian child has a right to free and compulsory education..
In my mind, all these issues are linked by one thread: education. If pakhi could have walked to school she may not have dies, if the 665 migrants had better options for their children – read good school – in their habitat of origin they would not have come and as for the last item it simply that the right to education bill is a bill without a will!
I would like to ask our politicians and law makers if the 3% extra allocation needed to give children their fundamental right at a time when we boast of a 8% increase is because children are not yet a vote bank to woe, or because they do not have a voice or because having large number of illiterate people will ensure manageable and influenceable vote banks: in a word, is this right not been given to children for some Machiavellian reason.
There are others rights enshrined in the constitution that are the right if everyone born in this land, but without education they become superb tools of manipulation and political battles using the cleverly nurtured illiterate base.
What our law makers do not understand is that education is the only way India can change. A citizen who can read, write, have access to knowledge, will undoubtedly rid the land of corruption ensure that projects are executed, make the rulers accountable.. and democracy functional.
But then the question that comes to mind is do we really want democracy or have we just shrouded our feudal ways in the garb of democracy.
I get appalled and my blood runs cold when i see the sustained care with which governments are wanting to privatise education. Why not democratise education and have a common school to which little Pakhi could have walked.
The 665 migrants who will bring kids with the hope of a better education will soon find that education is better in small towns as we have seen time and again. They will go looking for some shady mother nonsense convent and spend their meagre resources on trying to get their kids educated till their own illiteracy because the cause of the kids dropping out, their homes relocated to barren areas or too poor for join the tuition raj and though they belong to the OBC quota policy, the system would have made sure that they are never likely candidates.
Common schools all children would walk to could have with peer bonding may have made that possible. Mothers like mine wanted their child to be born a in a free India, but 60 years down the line are Indian children free..
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 12, 2006 | Uncategorized
Away from the petty problems that we are facing with misguided staff and our plethora of ‘well-wishers’, little Deepak fights his valiant battle vindicating thereby the raison d’être of project why.
His journey has not been easy. What should have been a simple heart surgery, turned to be, once again because of external adult games, a battle for life. The wrong doings of a quack lead to his heart stopping and his having to be revived, a true code blue, just as in movies! Then a total strike while he was in hospital resulted in an abdominal abscess that took over a month to heal.
he came visiting today, a little disoriented and very tired, but two days from now he will be admitted again and we hope that the much needed surgery will finally happen.
To me this braveheart’s battle is almost the sign from above that i needed to find in me the strength to carry on. I must confess there are moments when one wonders why one tried to do something positive in a world that abhors people who do so. Why does one have to prove at every turn that one is honest, sincere … Even an accused is presumed innocent till proved guilty, but no so in the case of people just trying to make a difference.
I get emails asking me how does one know whether a person is genuine or fake.. and frankly I do not know the answer. But I know that if I give up then there maybe another deepak somewhere who would lose his battle without a fight.
