By: South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude
New Delhi, India -- Being on the streets is nothing new to Babloo, but this time the 10-year-old former child labourer is on a 'yatra' or pilgrimage to secure for himself and 72 million other Indian children the right to an education.
Braving the intense heat of the Indian summer, Babloo is a participant in the 'Shiksha Yatra' (Pilgrimage for Education) that started out from the southern state of Kerala on Jan. 21 and is now winding its way up through the northern part of the sub-continent to reach the Indian capital on Jun. 19.
The pilgrimage aims to create public awareness and attitudes conducive to legislation to make education free and compulsory. 'Roti, Khel, Padai, Pyar - Har Bacche Ka Adhikar' (Food, play, education and love is the right of every child) is the message these young marchers have for people who come to watch them make their slow but impressive progress in the trek.
Already the children have used the 'yatra', an ancient but powerful tool for mass mobilisation, to create public awareness in much of the peninsula and is poised to cover the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, where literacy levels and school attendance are abysmal.
Those along the long route recalled other 'yatras' which have caught the imagination of the people and changed India's destiny. ''Maybe the 'Shiksha Yatra' will have more constructive results and ensure that children in this country are no longer deprived of an education,'' said Bijon Basu, who watched the children as they marched through the streets of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta).
The 'Shiksha Yatra' has been organised by the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude (SACCS) led by Kailash Satyarthi, a leading activist against the twin problems of child labour and illiteracy.
According to UNICEF, India has from 75 to 90 million child workers under the age of 14, though other estimates put the figure at 100 million.
The UN agencies even sent a position paper on the issue to the Indian government and have pledged their support to get children out of tedious, heavy and often hazardous labour and into schools.
But the biggest initiative, so far, has been 'Shiksha Yatra', which aims to rouse the conscience of citizens and mobilise the necessary political will in favour of deprived and abused children.
According to Satyarthi, one of the immediate aims of the 'yatra' is to ensure passage and implementation of a constitutional amendment pending in Parliament, which would make quality education free and compulsory for all boys and girls up to the age of 18. The SACCS campaign also demands fair and regular salaries for teachers, properly equipped classrooms and the supply of quality textbooks and educational materials -- all of which are conspicuously missing in most parts of India.
Nearly a million people, including hundreds of thousands of children like Babloo, have been mobilised for the 'Shiksha Yatra', which breaks the long marches at important towns to organise street plays and performances to bring their message home.
''We need to explain to people why military expenditure and other unnecessary expenditure should be reduced and public expenditure on education raised to at least six percent of GNP,'' Satyarthi said. At present, India's spends just 3.2 percent of its GNP on education. Satyarthi thinks that one way to mobilise resources would be to impose a special education tax on foreign investors and transnational corporations as well as the private sector that is keen on taking advantage of new liberalisation policies.
''The biggest failure of the Indian State has been the failure to invest in its biggest asset -- human beings,'' he said.
(For further information please contact Seema Gaikwad, Co-ordinator, SACCS; Tel.: (91 11) 622 4899, 647 5481; Email: saccs@ndf.vsnl.net.in)
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