Dreamz Grounded!

The Law prohibiting Child Labour came into force in October 2006,. This was the provocation for this write-up, published in the Asian Age on 14th October.

"The Obligation to Inform

Chotu is seven years old. He washes cups and plates and pots and pans at Ramlal’s Famous Hotel in Bhandara. He works 14 hours a day, seven days-a-week. He was not informed that the Parliament of India had passed a Law prohibiting child labour, and the law has come into force. Ramlal also does not know about it; if he somebody had informed him, he would have uttered some choice abuses and waited for one more inspector to come around collecting ‘hafta’. 

Chotu’s mother, Hema, carries headloads seven-days-a-week, 12 hours a day, at Shyamlal’s Great Building Company. She gets barely one-fourth the prescribed minimum wages. She does not have any information about the Minimum Wages Act and the Rules framed thereunder, as they write in Bureaucratish. Shyamlal factors in all the ‘haftas’ in his contract price, and the savings on the labourers’ wages is his reward for entrepreneurship. Shyamlal is a conscientious contractor; he delivers the cuts, as per established tariff, to all the inspectors on schedule; the inspectors are quite pleased with his dependability, and they take their allowances without actually doing the tours as their entitled CTG i.e. cost-to-the-Government.  

Chotu’s elder sister, Tina was married off when she was barely twelve, and in stead of paying a dowry, Chotu’s parents received ten thousand Rupees from Babulal, the Munshi of the Collector Sahib. Babulal knows that there is a law forbidding child marriage but obviously didn’t care. The thanedar actually pays him so that inconvenient complainants or complaints do not reach the Sahib’s office.

Chotu’s father, Govinda is a coolie at the Mandi. He has ration cards for the family. Last week, he had to shell out two Rupees extra for a bottle of Kerosene. The shopkeeper told him that the price has gone up because Amrika is fighting where the Kabuliwalas come from. Govinda does not know that he is paying two-and-a-half times the administered price nor about the Essential Commodities Act and the Kerosene Control Order framed thereunder. Govinda has no clue of the unique political consensus to subsidize kerosene to poor people like him, nor the political identity of the wholesale dealer, Munnalal.

Chotu had a younger brother, Mithun who died last year because the Government Hospital only issued a prescription. The free medicines were not available because the public tender for purchase was under ‘negotiation’ for last year-and-a-half. They cremated the small body, wiped their tears and went on with their lives. No one told them that there is full-fledged Department for Public Grievances. They remembered Mithun’s death anniversary but did not know of the celebration of the anniversary of the Right to Information Act.

I am not writing the plot of a Bollywood masala-mix where Chotu grows up to be Amitabh Bachchan who becomes Collector Sahib, bashes up Ramlal and Shyamlal, rescues Tina and reforms Munnalal. He goes chasing Priyanka round the bend on distant shores, and the inspectors, wearing Dockers, join the dance sequence. The Dockers are colour-coded for departments, and the pockets are labeled for specific account-heads. Since the producer took only thirty inspectors for the jaunt, scores of departments went unrepresented and there was serious discussion in the Department for Prevention, Detection and Correction of Bovine Lunacy to file a PIL. Back to the main story-line, Amitabh goes on to become Chief Secretary and then, as is customary, becomes Information Commissioner on retirement. At this point, the classic line “… and they lived happily ever after” slowly rolls up on the wide-screen.  

The Parliament has passed a series of Laws for the benefit of the disadvantaged. Successive Governments have launched a series of welfare programmes. In recent years, the Prime Ministers have made a practice of announcing grand schemes from the ramparts of the Lal Killa. All the Budgets provide thousands of Crore of Rupees for the benefit of the poor. Why, then, Chotu and Tina and Hema and Govinda remain without hope, without the knowledge that there is hope?  Why did Mithun have to die?

In “The Fountainhead”, Ayn Rand defined the concept of the sanction of the victim. The premise is that victims knowingly accept victimization. Chotu, Hema, Tina and Govinda accept victimization because they do not know and therefore, they accept. When they come to know, they go into the liberated jungles.

The RTI is potentially useful only to those who know. Information can be sought only when the availability of the desired information is known. Whether the information is revealed, and if so, whether it is the truth and the whole truth is another story. My case is that the RTI is inherently a reactive process. The disadvantaged can use RTI only through third parties who often have their own agenda. The media reported that on the first anniversary of the RTI, the President talked about a Rs. 23,000 Crore e-Governance scheme. Will the disadvantaged have access to the terminals in the citadels of the Collector Sahibs? Will they know how to log in? Will they know how to read on the screen and write on the keyboard? Do they know how to read and write?

The answer, I propose, is television. TV transcends literacy. TV reaches everywhere. Of all the media channels, only TV has a truly national audience. The idea is to have one TV channel, with national reach in all the languages except Bureaucratish, which will exclusively show and tell people what are their rights under the Law, what are the schemes for their benefit, what are the systems for rescue and relief. A National Channel where the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition will together assure the citizens that the disadvantaged have hope, and this capsule will be telecast morning, afternoon, evening and night, every day of the year. A channel where every MP and MLA will be required to inform the people how their constituents have benefited from the legislations meant for socio-economic reform. The details of all the schemes will be consistently communicated in simple and effective terms so that the intended beneficiaries know what they are being deprived of. Seeing, after all, is believing. 

Mr. Speaker, Sir, why not transform the Parliament channels into Peoples’ channels?"

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What happened next?

In less than two hours, I received a call from the Hon'ble Speaker, Mr. Somnath Chatterjee. He told me that tears had come to his eyes when he read my article, the best compliment I ever received for my writing. He was calling me on way to the airport, and asked me to meet him on return.

We met and the Speaker asked me to join the Advisory Committee of Lok Sabha Television and I agreed immediately.

The Committee met in due course and what transpired was strange, indeed! Almost all participants were upbeat on the success of LSTV, its' fast-growing viewership, innovative programming, fast response to breaking news and all these achievements called for much compliments and many self-deprecatory smiles! In between, I also came to know that the Secretary General of the Lok Sabha was refusing to release imprest funds to the CEO for buying crockery of his choice. This went on for about an hour and a half. 

I had sat quietly all this time, a highly demanding exercise as my friends and acquaintances will readily certify. The CEO did notice this, and invited me to take the floor just before the tea-break. I spoke my piece, acutely aware that most of the participants had switched off after the first couple of minutes. At the end, I said that if we do all these and more to truly empower the people without money or contacts to get their dues, there will be blood on the streets - blood of the parasites who have been fattening themselves on the pervasive ignorance. 

I don't know if the Committee met afterwards; I never went back. Nothing changed.