Friday, Mar 29, 2024 | Last Update : 02:38 AM IST

  New law actually kills childhood

New law actually kills childhood

Published : Jul 27, 2016, 11:13 pm IST
Updated : Jul 27, 2016, 11:13 pm IST

The Lok Sabha passed the Child Labour (Prohibition and Amendment) Bill 2016 on Tuesday. This is a retrograde measure.

The Lok Sabha passed the Child Labour (Prohibition and Amendment) Bill 2016 on Tuesday. This is a retrograde measure. It severely dilutes the Right to Education Act which came into effect in 2010 to school around one crore children of school age who are out of school.

Since laws such as RTE aim to alleviate the conditions of the poor, what the Lok Sabha has just done, in effect, is to pass an anti-poor measure.

The measure has opened two big loopholes to permit child labour. It allows children of school-going age to be employed in what has been termed “home enterprises” and in agriculture. Two, the legislation has reduced the number of “hazardous” industries which could not employ children from 83 to just three. For all practical purposes, therefore, children may now be employed in hazardous industries. The law is a clear invitation to kill childhood.

Effectively, the Narendra Modi government has given a free pass for the re-introduction of child labour in larger numbers than hitherto. Nobel laureate and child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi has spoken out against the new child labour law. Unicef has criticised it. BJP MP Varun Gandhi has not minced words and called the measure “lunacy”.

Through various pronouncements, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sought to give the impression that he is taking up cudgels on behalf of “development”, which really means a policy framework that takes the national wealth to the hands of the poor too. This cannot be done if the poor do not gain even the rudiments of education. For that matter social equality is unthinkable without the spread of literacy and education.

The PM has spoken in forceful terms about “Skill India”, which is also the name of one of his government’s key programmes. He also coined the slogan “Beti bachao, beti padhao” to promote literacy and education for the girl child. The new law shuts out any positive meaning for such programmes.

Especially in our age, mass literacy and education are intrinsic to the idea of raising individual incomes and upgrading the quality of economic activity which, in turn, are key to increasing national income and wealth. If there is no grand bargain with the poor of the country, the country will stagnate at a particular level of earnings and experience intolerable inequalities, which come at a high social and political cost.

Schooling a child does not end with school hours. After classroom teaching, follow-up is needed at home through practising in a fun way what’s been learnt. Ideally, community institutions should be created to make this happen since poor parents are themselves frequently illiterate. But the government seems intent on imprisoning a child through work, and enhancing low-grade capitalism built on zero wages.