Deceivingly Festive Season
January 23, 2009
I must confess, it seems like it’s been ages since I celebrated Diwali ago. At school, we had our last “Say No to Crackers” assembly four years ago, when we were still young and impressionable. Teachers admonishing kids and preaching posters used to be the very spirit of Diwali. The week before the holidays would be dominated by the same, droning speeches by children, reciting out gruesome facts about child labourers at the behest of their teachers. They never gave up hope with us ten year-olds, wishing that just this year, we would go back and actually practice what we preached all week. But as a part of the majority, I can tell you that most of us did burst crackers, even if a little hesitantly. It was always at the back of our heads though, the pitiable plight of children of our age, forced to work in hazardous conditions, under ruthless and cold-blooded bosses.
But now, at age fifteen, they just seemed have stopped trying at all. No more feeble attempts at putting up a pretence merely for a class assembly and actually itching to go back and burst those crackers. We’ve outgrown that sweet age when we made anti-crackers posters for competitions, ever so diligently, if only for winning. Looking back at those campaigns at school by a few concerned individuals and at my present state of blissful ignorance, I realised that the facts remain, whatever our age.
Under aged children are still toiling at odd hours, with soot on their hands and an adolescence lost to this horrid industry. Forced child labour is still a grim reality at Sivakasi, the capital of the cracker industry in India. Thousands of children working (illegally too, but that’s another matter) and risking their lives with no fire fighting safeguards, in perilous working conditions. According to sources from NDTV.com, “at least 2000 children are being exploited this way for a paltry sum of Rs 10 to 40 a day.” Think again, do they deserve this sorrow when there’s an alternative?
I haven’t burst crackers in years, but not because I bothered or cared for the miserable life of children employed in the cracker industry. I seem to have outgrown the age when I enjoyed buying crackers and bursting them along with my friends who had better, louder ones. I should say, I had just as much of fun without those horrid things. Helping my neighbours with their rangolis, lighting up our balcony with diyas and a box of kaju barfis to gorge on can make your Diwali just as joyous. Diwali has of course, always been synonymous with loud and eye-catching crackers. But wouldn’t it be better if it were to symbolise joy, happiness and kaju barfis for everyone, even for that old couple coughing away because of the smoke and those toiling child labourers?
In plain language, if we continue purchasing crackers, the factories stay in business and thousands of poor kids continue getting exploited. It would be naive to assume that someone doesn’t know how the crackers’ industry in India works, employing under-aged children without sufficient safety measures. Ignoring facts does not change them, and it’s up the each one of us to decide. Your decision could make a ton of a difference to more than thousands of children like your own. It’s time we stopped being selfish, being happy in our own little community and disregarding the rest of the population. Change now.
