By  
Nagaraja Kolkere
President
Namma Sabha
Kundapura,India

Presented at the Urban Childhood Conference
Trondheim

June 9-12, 1997 

I would like to extend my gratitude to the people of Norway on behalf of Bhima Sangha, Namma Sabha and the working children of Asia for recognising Movements of Working Children from three regions of the world and for inviting us to participate here as resource persons. 

Today I am taking you all on a journey. This is my journey. This is a journey undertaken by millions of children like me. I am inviting you on this journey with a hope that you will participate in this journey and empathize with it. 

I start this journey from a tiny village, Naagaramata, on the west coast of India. It is my grandfather's era. I am not yet born. Naagaramata is on the banks of Mabukala Hole (river). It was then surrounded by thick forest, grasslands, paddy fields, coconut and fruit trees. Ours was a family of weavers. The clattering of the hand looms could be heard all day. There were 15 members in my grandfather's family. Compared to other families in the village, ours was small. In some families there were 50-100 members. 

Besides the looms, our family had cattle. We also had some land. We got fodder from the forest and unpolluted water from the river.  We grew cereals and vegetables in our land. Our house was full of people and there was plenty of work for everyone. They were engaged in reeling, weaving, dyeing and in agricultural work. Children used to work according to their capacity. This way they also learnt a skill. 

In the village, there were makers of baskets, mats, jaggery, oil and toddy. There were farmers, carpenters and boatmen. The raw materials needed for pottery, baskets, mats, oil, carpentry and construction were available locally. 

My father, then a young boy, used to bring fruit, honey, greens and herbs from the forest. My grandmother used to fetch fuel and fodder. My grandfather and uncle used to get greens and vegetables. It was easy to get utensils, baskets, ropes, mats, oil and other household essentials from our village or the next village. The villages were either self-sufficient or mutually dependent. Every household had its own occupation. The eldest man was the head of the family. Regardless of how much each member earned, everyone had food and clothes. The head of the family was responsible for all transactions. The womenfolk spent most of their time cooking, cleaning, weaving and helping in agriculture work. 

Children generally worked under the protection and close scrutiny of the family. There was little exploitation and abuse. There was the hope of learning a life skill. 

But all was not rosy.  Boys and men were given more prominence.  The caste system clearly ruled and everybody had to take up their family occupations. The village craftsmen were not given much prominence. Professions were decided on the basis of caste and class. Even if a family learnt an occupation other than its own, it could not take it up as a family occupation for fear of social restrictions. 

Social and economic inequality and discrimination between boys and girls were clearly visible. Very few had access to education and information. Agricultural land was taken on lease from landlords. Apart from being given an annual share of the produce, we had to work without wages for the landlord during festivals, weddings and such other family functions. 

The landlord was the head of the panchayat (local government). This post was inherited. Small landlords and priests were members of the panchayat. All decisions were made by them, which could not be questioned. They fixed the prices for our products. However, most of these decisions were made at the village level. This situation was common to thousands of villages like Naagaramata during that time. At times, this social stratification became extremely rigid. In some parts of the country, it exists even today. 

But this self-contained state of our village did not last long. Once upon a time, from Barkoor, near Naagaramata, spices, rice, clothes, jaggery and arecanuts were exported to various places. After the Second World War, these exports were banned. Wood and tiles were exported and foodgrains, cutlery items and clothes were imported from Mumbai. 

Urban products from far-off cities slowly made an entry into villages. Mill-made clothes, metal utensils and cutlery items came in. Cotton was replaced by nylon. Aluminum and plastic were increasingly used instead of mud pots. This was a serious challenge to local products. Our handloom cloth could not compete against the allure and low prices of nylon. But nobody questioned this. Grandfather said:  "The time has come when our villages are going to get destroyed." Eventually, the looms at home were relegated to the attic. 

Walking tracks and cart tracks disappeared and roads were constructed for vehicles. The forest produce, paddy and other foodgrains started going out of the village on these very roads. Tile factories came up and entire forests were chopped down to fire these tiles. Trees were uprooted and sent to paper factories in lorries. Leaves and waste were no longer available for agricultural manure. Chemical fertilisers came from cities. Agriculture became costly. 

Oil containers were transported from the mills in the city. The oil presses in the villages closed down. Paddy, copra and sugarcane from villages went to the city mills and in return, polished rice, sugar, polyester sarees and plastic products attacked the village market. 

Menfolks began to migrate to far-off cities in search of jobs. In our house, my father and his brothers left for Hubli and Hyderabad. The women started working as labourers in the landlord's family. This was the story not only of my family but of many families in my village. From our research we know that there were 100 jaggery refineries 15 years ago in Hattikudru, an island. Now there are only 20. Out of the 125 hand looms at Basrur, only 10 remain today. At Shiriyara, out of the 20 families who used to be engaged in leather work, Sanjeevanna (55 years old) is the only person who now knows this skill. 

As migration started, joint families became nuclear families. Small agricultural landholdings disintegrated and had to be sold for low prices or adjusted towards loans. It became inevitable for my mother to work as a labourer to support the family. 

There were too many mouths to be fed at home. My mother left the house with my elder brother, younger sister and me. We built a hut on five cents land given to us by the government and started living in the Janata Colony.  We had been forced to move away from our village where we were born and brought up. We left behind our river, our forests and our grandmother who always told us stories. 

Kolkere was a dry place. There was no water and no trees to give us shade. My life here began with others who had also left their villages like us. People in the nearby town Basrur looked down upon us and treated us like untouchables and inferiors. We had to walk at least 2 km to fetch water, rations, fuel or even to school. For work, one had to go even farther. 

Initially, I was enrolled in a school. Every morning, I had to run to fetch water. In the evening, I had to walk all the way to Basrur to collect fuel and rations. I did not have time to study.  I could not follow the lessons at school. I was scared to question the teacher as we only got beatings in reply. My teacher always said to me: "It would be better if you went to graze cattle." To me and my friend Gangadhara, school only meant boredom and fear. 

By then my younger brother was two years old. He was not able to walk. As my mother could not stop working, I was taken out of school to take care of him. In a way, it was a relief. I did not feel that school and education were useful to me. Now I had to work at home - looking after my younger brother, cooking, fetching water and fuel, washing clothes and dishes, cleaning the house, buying provision from the market...  I had leisure for a while only when my mother came back from work in the evening.  A lot of children in Kolkere like Raju, Rajiva, Ananda and Lakshmi had also left school by then. One reason was the problems they had at home. The other reason was that they were not at all happy with school. 

At that time, activists of the organisation, The Concerned for Working Children, were running a centre near my house. I went there, like many other working children, during my free time. 

By the next two years, my younger brother had started walking. I had some free time now. I started going to work in a farm near my house in order to help the family. By then, my friends Rajiva and Ananda left for Hyderabad, 800 km away, to work in a hotel. They were taken there by a middleman. Rajiva and Ananda were very enthusiastic. I was scared. They were going very far away. I often wondered what the future held for them. 

My father came back home when he was 40 years old. He came back empty-handed. He had not learnt any new skill and had forgotten his earlier skills. His health had deteriorated due to hard work, stress and abuse. He was forced to work in a hotel nearby. The precious time when he could have learnt new skills, earned money and enhanced his personality was lost in washing plates and dishes in the hotel. 

My friend Lakshmi had by then started rolling beedis (small Indian cigarettes) at home. If girl children are sent away from home, it is to work as domestic help. They have to work hard and are often physically and sexually abused. If they do not leave home, they have other difficulties. In case they are sent to school, the more they get educated, the more difficult it is to get them married. 

Vanaja, a girl in our group, had to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning. She had to sweep, fetch water, wash dishes, cook and run to school. Everyday she was beaten and scolded at school for being late and not doing her homework. As she was not able to bear the harassment and shame, she dropped out. When she went to work as a maid, she was not allowed inside the houses as she belonged to a lower caste. She had to purify the place where she sat. She was not supposed to touch anybody. For this reason, she stopped working as a maid. 

The collapse of village economy on one side and the promise of job opportunities in the cities on the other hand led to large-scale rural-urban migration.  Earlier, elders like my father and uncle migrated. But, now children like Rajiva, Ananda and Lakshmi migrate. As these children have no vocational skills, they end up doing small jobs which do not offer any security either for the present or for the future. They work for long hours and in shameful and unhealthy conditions. 

Children who live on the streets are viewed as criminals. They have no protection. They are harassed by police and local rowdies every day. Society scorns them. Girls who live and work on the street are worse off. They have absolutely no privacy and are constantly under the threat of sexual abuse. 

Children uprooted from their villages and caught in the web of cities are distanced from their social and emotional relationships and from their culture. 

But some people feel that working children are a necessity in cities because some tasks have to be done by children. In the city of Bangalore alone, the number of working children exceeds a hundred thousand. Only in the recent past has any effort been made to recognise our existence in cities. When cities are constructed, no one thinks about the immigrants or their needs. In our country, it is the cities which have more slums than villages. For children, cities have become monsters. 

Balkur is a panchayat near my village. Long ago, it was an inexhaustible source of foodgrains. It was famous for its variety of rice, vegetables and sweet potatoes. Now, there is a rush to grow sugarcane. Loans for cultivation, information on sowing the seeds and chemical fertilizers are all made available at the doorstep. Pumpsets have been installed, roads constructed and lorries are available to transport the sugarcane.  What needs more support - production of rice and vegetables which are the basic needs of people or production of sugar? As a reply, I am told: "You do not understand all this. Sugarcane is a commercial crop. By growing it, it is easy to make money." I wonder what will happen if we do not get any rice tomorrow. Is it possible to eat only money and sugar? 

A few years ago when I heard that people buy water in cities, I thought it was very funny. When I was young, my grandmother used to say that anyone who poisons water is bound to end up in hell. I used to believe it then. But now, I pray to God that it should not come true. If not, imagine the number of people who have to be accommodated in hell! What can one say about such a development? 

I do not understand the current paradigm of development or its policies. I believe 'development' means people being enabled to access benefits of improved facilities, food, clothes, shelter, health and a safe environment to live in. But in reality, development has led to more hunger, more discrimination, more ill health. All these are a result of 'development'. The current paradigm of development has not only proved to be dangerous and harmful to a lot of people, it has also plundered natural resources, culture, art and heritage. 

As science progresses many problems have cropped up. For instance, earlier, agricultural work was very safe. Today, with the advent of machines, chemical fertilizers and insecticides, it has become one of the most dangerous occupations. Our present model of development has made many kinds of work dangerous. 

Today, development is characterised by war, oppression, exploitation of marginalised people, rising numbers of working children, more diseases and more hungry people. This very development has strengthened the practice of child labour. 

This model of development centres around urban development. It ignores rural development. Though more than 70 percent of our population is rural, it gets a meagre share of our developmental budgets. This lopsided development has led to a rise in agricultural expenditure and a fall in production. It has dealt a severe blow to rural economy. Lack of raw materials, deforestation, soil erosion and other man-made disasters have cropped up. Water sources have dried up. Because of this, rural artisans and tribals have been marginalised. Their children are being forced by circumstances to work as child labourers. Women and children are the worst affected. 

The very nature of this development is faulty. The relationship between man and nature is fast deteriorating. Children have no opportunities to become partners in development.  Rajiva and Ananda were brought back by their fathers. Though they had worked for years, they did not have any money. All their wages were cut towards glasses and plates that were broken, their food, medicines and loans. They had very little money left. They could not even buy a set of a clothes or a pair of slippers. 
  

By the following year, I had migrated to a nearby town. It already had residential areas, commercial establishments, and hotels. Even in this town, we had to pay money to get water in bottles. 

Once again we met in Kolkere in the centre run by the organisation, The Concerned for Working Children. We began to think about building a working children's union. We launched Bhima Sangha, a union of, by and for working children in Karnataka. 

We had many questions. Why is our situation like this? What happened to our forests, our rivers, our raw materials and our occupations? How and when did this happen? Who will answer our questions? 

We requested the river Varahi - once our lifeline, now silted and abused - to answer our questions. We travelled with her from her origin to her confluence with the sea. It was a journey undertaken by children along with their mother. Our journey led us to new avenues. 

It became startlingly clear that the relationship between people and nature is on the verge of destruction. The power to take decisions today lies with people who do not have any concern or affection towards nature and her resources. 

In our society, businessmen are always viewed with suspicion. There is a feeling that every move of theirs is profit-oriented. They exhibit excessive religious and social concerns and capitalise on this. Today, capitalist countries like America exhibit excessive social and environment concerns. The way they consume natural resources scares us. Their inventions, their consumption rate and consumerism are responsible for all our problems. 

These are the people who sell arms and at the same time propagate peace. Today in our country, self-sufficiency, decentralistion and protection of weaker sections have been affected by structural adjustments. Social concern is exhibited in the name of boycotts and trade sanctions. I wonder why we are treated as untouchables and criminals. 

Our elders have lost their occupations and their future. They have become beggars in the cities. Where did 'social concern' disappear when governments and international powers forced expensive technology on us? They did not consult us then and they will not ask us now. We want to ask them: "What are you leaving behind in this world for us? What have you done to our Mother 
Earth?" 

Boycotts, trade sanctions and compulsions do more harm than good. There are examples for this in countries like Bangladesh and Morocco. 

There are two approaches towards working children. One approach looks at us with pity and compassion. According to this approach, working children are in a very difficult situation; our parents are illiterates; our families do not have any responsibility towards children. People who hold this view believe that children should be in school and not at work. They should have love, affection, education and entertainment. These people forget the reality and want a dream childhood for us. 

The second approach looks at working children as uncivilized dirty children who grow up to become thieves. They should not exist because they are a disgrace if seen on the street by foreigners. They should be banned from working, they should be swept aside like dirt. 

They do not identify the responsibilities of a working child. They only see working children as a problem today. This is a problem forced on us by the existing system and the present model of development. Seeking solutions to the problem of child labour without identifying and addressing systemic problems is like disinfecting the plants. This is a very cruel approach. 

When a working child and his family look at work as an avenue, they would have examined the different options available to them and only then arrived at a final decision. 

I recall the discussion my mother had with me when I had to leave school to look after the house. "Can an alternative arrangement be made about my brother? Can the water be fetched in the night? Can mother take my brother to her workplace? Can mother find work close to home? Can my brother be sent to the creche with other children? Can I take him to school with me?" All these possibilities were discussed. Mother asked me for my opinion on all these options. But my mother was not in a position to take any decisions. I took the decision to leave school because of the shame and cruelty I suffered there. 

We had to work hard to access even basic facilities like water, fuel and fodder because forests, rivers and common lands had disappeared in the name of 'development'. In worse situations, we had to migrate to cities and start working in hotels, garages, small industries and on the streets. 

Today, we have become guinea pigs. For children working in hazardous sectors, new formulae like boycott, compulsory education and Prime Minister's Programme are created and experimented with, year after year. We are experimented on like rabbits and rats in these social and economic laboratories. No thought is given about the impact it may have on us. As a result of one such experiment, girls working in the garment sector in Bangladesh were driven to the streets. In another instance, the lives of girls in Morocco became miserable. We have such examples in every country and continent. 

It is now inevitable for us to work. This is because of the sins committed by the adult world. We are proud about our work. In our country, 20 per cent of the nation's economy is our contribution.  But we want to stop exploitation at work. We do not want work that is exploitative.  We want respect for our work. If every worker in the world is proud of being a worker and a master craftsperson, and receives respect from others, we too want the 
same respect. 

We often hear about 'bringing working children to the mainstream'. People talk about integrating us into society by putting us in school and by banning our work. Do we have a real opportunity in this mainstream  society? Do we really want to belong to such a society? 

In spite of all our struggles and pain, we have built a movement. Some adults are not able to recognise this. We have a tough path before us. It is not easy to convince adults. I would like to remind you of a historical event where working children's movements from around the world met to discuss about the working children of the world. We have discussed and arrived at some decisions in Kundapura, India and we call this The Kundapur Declaration. These decisions have to be kept in mind in all instances where decisions regarding working children are made. 

While taking decisions with regard to any adult group, decisions are taken with the participation of those directly concerned. But when it comes to taking decisions about children's lives, adults consider themselves most eligible to make the decisions. All the mistakes in the world are a result of  the decisions made by adults. When adults hand over this world to children, I hope that they will be modest enough to ask us about what kind of a world we would like to live in. 

We have to create a social system based on partnership. It is possible to realise our dream only when children are partners in development. 

When we look at the problem of child labour in all its magnitude, it appears to be so huge that it needs a magic wand to be solved.  But, when we look at it  at the local level in a decentralised manner it is easy for us to participate actively in seeking definite solutions. We have to create an opportunity to make this participation happen. This has to happen from the grassroots to the global level. Only then will it be possible to solve the problem of child labour. 

We have launched Makkala Panchayat (Children's Panchayat) in five panchayats in Kundapura Taluk on the west coast of India.  This is a panchayat of, by and for working children. The aim of this is to make working children join hands with the adults' panchayat to draw up rural development plans, keeping children as its main focus. The children have been participating with adults at every level - identifying working children's problems, seeking solutions and bringing them into effect. Only when such participation takes place from the local to the international level can we build a new society. 

We do not want to join the mainstream where hatred between castes and races prevail; where there are disparities between rich and poor; First World and Third World and men and women; where people plunder nature. 

We dream of a world where all children and adults participate together - where environment is treasured, where there is no discrimination, where power is decentralised, where the basic needs of all are met, where there is peace and abundance. Our dream is to build a new society. Will you join hands with us to do so?