The Unspoken Truth of Carnival

3 weeks back, me and my brother happened to watch a Bollywood movie ‘super 30’. The story was so moving that the pathetic state of deprived kids made me realize a fictitious fact widely spread among the youth i.e. ‘India was devised on 26^th January few decades back on the belief that everyone who is resident of India will have maximum equal freedom& fundamental rights. Nobody will be considered inferior or superior based on caste, creed, race, identity, and status’. I certainly call it fictitious because the reality is quite different and uninviting. This thought itself emerged as a source of motivation for me to write and share this opinion by means of a blogpost.

Known to many, Ganesh Chaturthi is like feed boon for every photographer due to easily accessible content related to streets and people documentation. Unlike every year posting pictures on Instagram of chaos amid of festive season as an amateur street photography self assignments, this year I decided to capture and share in descriptive way the dark side of festivities that are being badly shunned by us.

While I was on a photowalk to capture the ongoing preparations of idols made by the local artists and migrants who come here to earn bread and butter through selling sacred idols prior to the 10 days pious festival, I met a family of 16 involved in idol making business from past 2 decades. Meeting and interacting is heavily involved in any sort of street photography, this time it was no exception. I came forward and started a very informal talk which later took pace and our conversation went really well. The family every year migrates from outskirts of major cities of Gujarat to Maharashtra in search of market that demands the skills of cheap cost sculptors. All the family members including kids engage in lease idol making job. After 2 months of seasonal income, the family returns back to their places and engage in labor work. Similarly, there are more than 12 such families working in this business in our city alone. This is enough to imagine the Statistics of whole state of Maharashtra. I won’t mention much about their modus operandi that doesn’t concern either of us, but I here want to highlight the darker side which is ‘CHILD LABOUR’.

All the kids in family act as supporting hand to their parents in the business. Speaking of my personal witness, these kids are malnourished and deprived of basic necessities like proper health care and food, cease to think of education. The financial havoc have shown no mercy on these kids to bloom and access their part of privilege. Meanwhile, A part of crowd which awaits the arrival of bappa at their homes every year, another part of crowd comprising of such kids awaits their livelihood through a cheap and unhealthy job.

unknown of their rights and victims of political polarization in India, these people continue to lack behind and steep deep into the rot of poverty which ultimately results into the  forceful child labour in nation. This not only shows the compromise and ignorance of quality life but also brings the issue of financial burden on kids into limelight.

Children are at risk from chemicals and lot of other hazardous stuff. Some are treated like slaves while some are abused mentally and physically to work forcefully. Children are hired on low wages thus beneficial for employer (read offender) creates higher unemployment among deserving adults.  Going to work and not school will again end up these adults into a low wage job because a desk or formal job asks for education as well as skill sets. So happens with their kids and the cycle continues. Its really very necessary to break this cycle and utilize the skillful youth for nation building.

Despite of all the legislation and laws on papers, the unlawful child labour is still present in society. The divide among privileged and unprivileged, rich and poor is constantly growing and in developing 21^st century this will surely act as an barrier for country’s social, economical and overall development.

What can we do to tackle this?

India is a young nation. Its population consists of more than 40% youth. India has a potential to grow and lead the world in various sectors. Youth when trained and utilized efficiently could be proved as asset for large nation like India. But as far as we are discussing about sculptors and artists I’ll keep my opinion restricted to the topic.

With training at skill development centers the artists could be given an opportunity to amplify their skill sets in fine arts. While not stopping kids from being aide to their parents, basic education and  admissions to the government schools can be ensured. Additionally, commitment to the health care, employment through various means, temporary shelters to the migrants, nutrition to the malnourished, and most importantly the human dignity these folks deserve after long suffering of continuous caste based abuses, ill treatment and poverty. There’s nothing wrong in being rational and suggesting what deft and exemplary moves government should take to uplift the deprived from their poignant state. Such government with landslide majority at center and most of the states the expectations rise even higher.

I’d like to conclude with the introspective fact that the venom of class based division is stirred deep inside that need to be treated with anti-venom serum i.e. love, tolerance, acceptance and compassion. I’ve always associated myself with centric right ideology. I might be a staunch supporter of capitalism where your income & contributions to the economy and society are based on your qualities and efficiencies, but in a developing nation like India, being a neo-socialist to understand and address the plight of necessitous and needful is faultless. I pray to the lord of wisdom- Ganesha on the occasion of ganesh chaturthi to shower his blessings on all. 

-Harshvardhan Kabra

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pictures in the blog and aforementioned opinions are solely mine. let us take our own initiative to bring positive change in society. comments and healthy discussion is always appreciated.

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