MUSBA HASHMI meets young crusaders from Jharkhand and Rajasthan who have been making a difference in their respective villages with their body of work defying age barriers. Their fight is against ageold contentious issues like child marriage, casteism, illiteracy and child labour. A report
At an age as young as 13, when most girls tend to live in a make belief world, where everything is sweet and nice, two little warriors decided to initiate a fight against the evils in the society. Meet Arti Kumari and Champa Kumari who feared none and raised their voice against the villains like casteism, child marriage, child labour and illiteracy, that are there in the society since time immemorial.
Hailing from Raipura in Alwar, Rajasthan, Arti is a Class VII student and the second eldest of the four siblings in the family. Her father is a jawaan in the Army and is posted in the conflict areas of Kashmir.
Arti’s village comprises of many families from backward castes and tribes. The access to social spaces and village infrastructure depends very much on the caste of the person. Arti’s family belongs to a higher caste, and therefore is economically and socially more comfortable than many in the community.
Despite the fact that Arti has never faced any discrimination, her zeal to take up the issue of casteism at such a young age amazes everyone. “How can you decide how to treat another person based on their caste? This isn’t even something they choose for themselves,” she asks passionately.
To eradicate this evil practice, Arti started interacting with the people from the lower castes. But this didn’t sit well with many people in her village, not even her family. “My mother used to ask me what I was doing and that the whole village will boycott me, but I told her that they too are human and there is nothing to avoid them. Gradually, my family understood what I was doing, but I had to go through a lot of resistance from the villagers who used to ask my parents whether I am in my senses or not,” she tells you.
Not only this, Arti took a step ahead by having a meal in the house of one such family on the ocassion of Makar Sankranti.
The other thing that kept disturbing Arti was that none of the children from lower castes or the Banjara community went to school. “Initially, it never bothered me. But after I was told about the opportunities that open up when you get educated, I started wondering, ‘How would the future for these children be, without education?’” she tells you.
This thought made Arti and other children determined to work to change the situation. As a result, today, all 96 children in her village are enrolled in schools around the area.
When Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) started its work here in 2015, every third child in the village was either out-of-school, or not enrolled. Many children worked in the stone quarries for a meager sum of money. The area is also considered to be a source point for child trafficking. Lured by traffickers disguised as contractors, many poor families agree to send their children to work in cities. As a result, many children end up trafficked for illegal purposes.
The Banjara community, a historically nomadic tribe, lives on the outskirts of the village, ranking the lowest in the societal hierarchy. None of the Banjara children from here ever went to school until 2015.
Guided by the activists, Arti along with other children, tried to understand the rights children have. They were astonished to see how the rights of many children around them were violated regularly. This was especially common in the case of children from the Banjara and other low-caste communities. This realisation made the group ready to take the matter into their own hands.
Driven with the motivation to change the situation of children, Arti contested the Bal Panchayat elections and became an elected member.
“Along with other children, I used to organise rallies, door-to-door campaigns, and personal meetings with parents, highlighting the consequences of ill-practices like child marriage, child labour, and abuse and exploitation of children. However, initially all of them used to drive us away, showing no interest of engaging into any kind of conversation. But, I kept trying until the day they agreed to sit and talk,” she says.
Arti and the other members of the Bal Panchayat also played a pivotal role in stopping child marriages happening in their village with the support of village elders and activists.
Among all the challenges, the biggest challenge was to convince the Banjara community people to send their children to school. “Who will take the cattle out for grazing?” “Who will go earn for the family?” “Will the children from the upper caste even talk to our children?” Questions like these hounded the Bal Panchayat members.
Therefore, the group changed their strategy. They started regularly engaging the Banjara children in sports and playing with them. “When we first went to the community, they showed no interest of talking to us. They used to say hamare bachchon ko bigad degi yeh ladki and various other things. That time, I felt like giving up. It felt bad because what we were doing was for their own good but still we had to hear such bad things that demotivated us. In this phase of time, what kept us going was the words of BBA activists. They told us that fighting evil is not as easy as it seems and that this was just a small portion of it.
“We started visiting the community regularly. We tried conversing with the children but all went in vain. The parents gave strict instructions to the children to not indulge in any talks with us. Then we started playing games amongst each other. This lured the Banjara children and gradually we earned their trust. We developed a deeper relationship with them. We then we were able to convince the children about the importance of education and play. And eventually, both the parents and the children agreed to go to school,” she tells you.
The Bal Panchayat also had a Banjara boy elected as the sarpanch (head), which was groundbreaking. Arti, as the secretary of the council, continued focusing on regularisation of education for children from the Banjara community. The group also campaigned against caste-based discrimination, and for improving the quality of education and infrastructure in their schools.
Arti has also spoken fearlessly against the caste system and reservations on many platforms like rallies and campaigns at the village level. She debates that reservations should be on the basis of one’s economic condition, and the benefits should percolate down to the ones who need it the most.
The Gram Panchayat also recognises this Bal Panchayat and thus acts swiftly on children’s concerns. Due to their impact, the Block Development Officer and other administrative officials also cooperate with them.
They have collectively been able to contribute to the village’s development tremendously, especially the condition of schools. Improved attendance of enrolled children in school owing to regular teachers, improved meals, better student-teacher ratio, and better play grounds have been some of the major achievements of this collaboration.
At this point, the challenge for this group of resolute children is to get the route of an open drain adjacent to their school diverted. The drain overflows during the rains and spews waste around the school and on the play ground, making it inaccessible, and also creating foul smells.
“We have already communicated about this to the Gram Panchayat, and they have told us that they will act on this soon,” Arti says, with a twinkle in her eyes that speaks of the confidence these kids have in themselves.
There is a lot many changes that Arti hopes to see in the girls of her village. “I would want that the girls should feel empowered. Though, the change has come. Earlier, these girls never went to the school without a companion. So if one was absent from the school, the other will not go as well. Most of them preferred staying back at their homes. But now, none of them wants to miss the school. Even if someone is absent, the other will go by her own. This is the change that I would like to see on a larger scale that the girls should come forward and stand for their rights,” she says.
While Arti is much wiser than her age, Champa, a resident of Jhamdar village, is no less. She is the Vice President of National Maha Bal Panchayat. She has also won the prestigious Diana Award for her work against child marriages in mica-mining areas of Jharkhand and was felicitated by Dropdi Murmuat, Jharkhand Governor at Raj Bhawan in Ranchi.
Champa Kumari was once a school dropout and used to go to mines to collect mica as her education was never the priority of her family. In the year 2016, Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation intervened in Champa’s village with the aim to put an end to evil practices like child marriages, child labour, child trafficking and all forms of child exploitation as well as ensuring 100 per cent enrolment of children in school.
“Like me, there were a lot of children in my area who were taken to the mines to collect mica by their parents. Their age was never a concern for the parents. Even children as young as eight years were involved in the work. Once the parents thought that the child is big enough to become a helping hand, they would take them to work,” she says.
Being a child who had been into mica mining, she understands how hazardous it is and all she wanted was to stop other children from falling prey to such jobs.
Apart from being a mica hub, her village practises child marriage as a tradition, but Champa wanted to put an end to this. Therefore, with the intervention of Champa Kumari and other members of Bal Panchayat two child marriages were foiled in her village.
“I got to know about the marriage through some villagers. A 12-year-old girl was being married off to a man much older to her. I went there along with other members of the Bal Panchayat and we stopped that horrendous act. It was difficult to convince the parents to not marry their daughter in one go, but after multiple attempts we were able to save the girl,” she says. In her village, girls aged between 12-14 are usually married to boys between 18-19 years of age.
The whole village stood against Champa, but the young heart had no plans of back tracking. “My parents told me not to intervene in such matters. The villagers used to call us names for not abiding by the so called laws of the village. But maine kabhi himmat nahin haari. I told me parents that the way I was rescued from child labour, it is my responsibility to help others and somehow they were convinced and supported my decision,” she tells you.
The largest impact of Champa’s efforts that could be seen is the reduction rate of child marriages in her village. She has become a catalyst of change not only in her village, but in the nearby villages as well.
There are many children like Champa who are dedicated to making child friendly nation through developing the collective leadership by children themselves using democratic process across India.
