Raghuvansh Prasad Singh (first from left) with his collegaues. PM Manmohan singh (third from left) is also in picture
Exploiting children is a crime in India and one of the country’s top ministers has been accused of using child slaves in his farmland. Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, the rural development minister in the UPA government, a doctorate in mathematics and a former teacher, came under the scanner when television channels beamed videos of two children working in his farmland, pulling ploughs intended to be pulled by oxens. The videos also show his brother Raghuraj Prasad Singh along with the farm manager, justifying using these so-called ‘lower caste children‘ for the reason that, waterlogged fields cannot be ploughed by tractors and oxens.
One of the two children, identified as Sonu Lal Kumar, is shown saying: ‘My hands and feet ache all the time, but I cannot leave this work. I need to work for food.’
Tender hands at work. Yoh Indian....wake up !...Someone needs you...
In a large country like India, the number of working people under the age of 18 is expected to be around 50 million, a shocking majority of them less than 14 years of age. Official estimates however put these numbers at around 12 million only. It is also widely believed that most of India’s child workers are working silently in the hinterlands where they are an important source of family income. Also, these rural children go unnoticed. Miles away even in the high-tech happening metros of India, it is not uncommon to find very young children washing plates and cleaning tables in restaurants. Temple entrances in south India are like social clubs for begging children. Every small teashop or a fast-food outlet or a construction site has children who are underpaid, overloaded with work and abused. Though governments have been making laws to ban child labor, it is a hard truth that ‘children slaves‘ still remain to serve the hi-tech population. Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai in South India, which are all fat-salary IT destinations, are also child slave hubs
Recent media footage also showed rescued children from Mumbai’s prime locations being sent back to their homes in Bihar. Every conscious citizen in India would testify to have seen children working in public places. So when an Indian minister himself enslaves children and justifies it, why should the people accept it? Most public officials and politicians in India have had a history of breaking rules and regulations apart from being morally corrupt. Though last year, laws relating to ban on child labor were strengthened and expanded to include restaurants, no large effect has been witnessed in practice. Many of these outlets still employ children in large numbers.
Six year old babu at work...India shining !...Aam Aadmi...! A UPA Comedy...!
The recent demand for this minister’s resignation is totally justified, unless he proves otherwise. Laws cannot be different for ministers alone in a democracy and the media is today a non-human witness to inhuman activities of people in top posts.
A minister ‘when found guilty‘ should pay the price.
News Source: Timesonline
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