Child Labour

1 A RECONSIDERATION OF CHILD LABOR FROM THE PERSPECTIVES OF MULTIPLE STAKEHOLDERS IN MYSORE, INDIA by Steven Wind

_____________________ Copyright © Steven Wind 2007

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

2007

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THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Steven Wind entitled A Reconsideration of Child Labor from the Perspectives of Multiple Stakeholders in Mysore, India and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
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Date: 3/2/07 Date: 3/2/07 Date: 3/2/07

Mark Nichter
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Mimi Nichter
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Mamadou Baro

Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: 3/2/07 Dissertation Director: Mark Nichter

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STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgement of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder.

SIGNED: Steven Wind

4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation is the culmination of a long academic and personal journey. I would like to thank the people and organizations whose support made my research and dissertation possible. In particular I extend my gratitude to all household study participants and other informants in Mysore. What I learned from them amounts to far more than that which can go into an academic piece of writing. I could not have conducted my research without the reliable help of my research assistant D.C. Nanjunda. His insights as a life-long resident of Mysore helped me navigate my way literally (on the back of his scooter), logistically, and culturally as a foreigner interacting with an unfamiliar culture. Many thanks also go to M. Bhaskar for his genial help over the duration of my research in locating potential household study participants, focus group members, and key informants. In addition I would like to extend my appreciation to Professor M. Annapurna and Professor H.K. Bhat of the Department of Anthropology of the University of Mysore for their good-natured support of my work from its very beginnings. Two Indian institutions played key roles in making my research possible. My thanks go to the staff at American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) in Delhi for its aid in securing a research visa and to the research’s Karnataka sponsor, the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) of Bangalore. The staff of a number of Indian NGOs were kind enough to provide me data and allow me to participate in their anti-child labor events. I must especially acknowledge Joy and Philomena Maliekal and the staff of the Rural Literacy and Health Project (RLHP) of Mysore, who were gracious and helpful no many how many times I had already poked my head into their headquarters. They also shared photos of their events with me. Thanks also go to Organisation for Development of People (ODP) in Mysore and The Concerned for Working Children (CWC) in Bangalore. In the U.S. there are many that deserve my thanks as well. My greatest appreciation must go to my dissertation advisor, Prof. Mark Nichter. His awareness of the potential in a “non-traditional” graduate student, pragmatic guidance through the labyrinth of doctoral studies, careful reading of and suggestions for improving chapter drafts, and sense of humor all enabled me to bring this dissertation to fruition. Thanks also go to my other committee members, Prof. Mimi Nichter and Prof. Mamadou Baro. Prof. Mimi Nichter’s deep knowledge of India in combination with that of her husband helped me separate the wheat from the chaff and steer this dissertation in the right directions. I am greatly appreciative of Prof. Baro’s friendly support and applied anthropological perspectives over the years of my doctoral work. They say, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” But funding does help. I am indebted (not literally, thank goodness) to the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for providing the grants that funded my research. Last but not least are my family and friends. My parents, Dee Melodic and Harvey Mlotok, have been steadfast cheerleaders as I pursued “reeducation” in mid-life. Similarly, my oldest friends Susan Hegemeyer, Kathy Pallija, and Roy Zarow have offered their support as I pursued my advanced studies. Thanks also go to my friend and

5 fellow anthropology doctoral student Robert Emmanuel, whose insights and comradery helped keep me (mostly) sane through the process.

6 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ 11 LIST OF TABLES ……………………………………………………………………..15 ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................... 16 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.................................................................................. 18 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ........................................................................................................... 21 DEFINITIONS ............................................................................................................................................ 24 DISSERTATION ORGANIZATION ........................................................................................................ 30 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW...................................................................... 35 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................... 35 THE BRITISH EXAMPLE ....................................................................................................................... 38 Causes and Conditions of Child Labor ............................................................... 38 The Movement to Regulate Child Labor ............................................................. 44 Education ............................................................................................................. 46 Child Labor Regulation as Self-Interest ............................................................. 48 Child Labor in Colonial India ............................................................................. 49 Lessons for the Study of Child Labor in India ................................................... 50 PERSPECTIVES ON CHILD LABOR IN INDIA ................................................................................... 52 Health ................................................................................................................... 53 Empirical Studies and Advocacy Journalism ..................................................... 56 Economics ............................................................................................................ 61 Education ............................................................................................................. 64 Critique of Child Labor Eradication Strategies.................................................. 66 CHILDHOOD ............................................................................................................................................. 68 Social Science Theoretical Approaches to Childhood ........................................ 68 Historians and Sociologists…………………………………………… 68 Bourdieu and Childhood…………………………………………….... 72 Anthropologists' Contributions to the Study of Childhood…………... 74 Indian Social Scientists……………………………………………….. 79 Lessons from the Childhood Literature………………………………. 81 Children’s Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)......... 83 Chapter Summary ................................................................................................ 86 CHAPTER 3: SETTING AND METHODS................................................................. 88 RESEARCH SETTING .............................................................................................................................. 88 Broad Setting: Karnataka State........................................................................... 88 Urban Setting: Mysore......................................................................................... 92 Micro Setting: Low-income Neighborhoods ....................................................... 95 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................... 98 Introduction.......................................................................................................... 98

7 TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued) Household Study: Recruitment ......................................................................... 100 Household Study: Procedures............................................................................104 Household Study: Participating Households’ Characteristics……….…………107 Key Informants and Focus Groups ................................................................... 114 Photo Documentation ........................................................................................ 114 Secondary Data .................................................................................................. 116 Internet Resources ............................................................................................. 117 CHAPTER 4: HOUSEHOLD LIVELIHOOD AND CHILDREN’S WORK: PERCEPTIONS AND REALITIES............................................................................ 118 THE CHILDHOODS OF THE PARENTS OF WORKING CHILDREN............................................118 Mothers’ Childhood Experiences ...................................................................... 119 Fathers’ Childhood Experiences....................................................................... 123 TODAY’S CHILDREN: A VARIETY OF TRAJECTORIES LEADING TO WORK......................125 Cutting Classes and Roaming Around .............................................................. 126 Children’s Agency in School and Work Decisions........................................... 128 Moral Identity and Obligation: Becoming Aware of Household Problems .... 130 Poverty ………………………………………………………………………... 132 Hunger................................................................................................................ 133 Parents’ Greed vs. Justifiable Reasons ............................................................. 135 Getting the Taste of Money................................................................................ 137 Innate Interest .................................................................................................... 138 CHOOSING APPROPRIATE WORK ...................................................................................................139 Whose Decision to Work?: Parental Prerogative versus Children’s Agency .. 139 WORK SELECTION CRITERIA ..........................................................................................................144 Timings ............................................................................................................... 145 Remuneration ..................................................................................................... 146 Age-appropriateness: Physical and Mental Maturity....................................... 147 CONCLUSION: MANY ROADS LEAD TO WORK .............................................................................150 CHAPTER 5: PERCEPTIONS OF RISK AND THE QUALITIES OF GOOD WORK........................................................................................................ 152 OCCUPATIONAL RISK ........................................................................................................................ 152 Physical Risk ...................................................................................................... 152 Moral Risk for Boys ........................................................................................... 159 Moral Risk for Girls ........................................................................................... 160 GOOD JOBS VS. BAD JOBS.................................................................................................................. 162 APPRENTICESHIP AND SKILL TRAINING ........................................................................................167 CONCLUSION: ACCEPTABLE RISK AND TRAINING FOR THE FUTURE................................. 178

8 TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued) CHAPTER 6: HOUSEHOLD ECONOMICS AND WORKING CHILDREN’S CONTRIBUTIONS ............................................................................ 181 Children’s Contributions: Sometimes Vital ...................................................... 182 Boys’ Earnings: Spending to Fill Personal Desires ......................................... 186 How Much is Enough ?: Conflicts over Boys’ Contributions ......................... 189 Girls’ Income ..................................................................................................... 194 Earnings in Context: What Will a Child’s Contribution Buy? ........................ 198 Children’s Income: Filling Both Household Needs and Children’s Desires .. 203 CHAPTER 7: EDUCATION – PART OF THE SOLUTION OR PART OF THE PROBLEM?......................................................................................................... 205 INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................................................205 COMMUNITY PERCEPTIONS OF EDUCATION ...............................................................................208 The Value of Education ..................................................................................... 208 Perspectives on Quality and Experiences with the System............................... 216 The Road to Educational Attrition: Losing Interest, Dropping Out, Removal .........................................................................................................................225 The Cost of Education ....................................................................................... 246 Formal Schooling versus Occupational Skill Training ................................... 256 CONCLUSION: EDUCATIONAL OBSTACLES AS A CAUSE OF CHILD LABOR REALITY OR EXCUSES? ..................................................................................................................... 259 CHAPTER 8: ALCOHOL ABUSE AND CHILD LABOR...................................... 263 PUBLIC DISCOURSE ON ALCOHOL POLICY IN KARNATAKA: TEMPERANCE PROMOTION VS. INCREASING AVAILABILITY ............................................................................ 264 ALCOHOL IN THE COMMUNITY: CONSUMPTION PRACTICES, HEALTH AND SOCIAL IMPACTS, STATE (LACK OF) REGULATION................................................................. 270 A Strain on the Household Budget, an Added Burden to Women................... 270 Mothers Can’t Do it Alone: Filling the Economic Void of DrinkingFathers . 272 Sympathetic Perceptions of Men that Drink ..................................................... 273 Who Drinks? ...................................................................................................... 275 Children’s Drinking ........................................................................................... 276 THE GEOGRAPHY OF ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION .......................................................................277 Drinking at Home .............................................................................................. 281 ALCOHOL ABUSE LEADS TO WIFE ABUSE...................................................................................284 ALTERNATIVE VIEWS ON MEN’S DRINKING ............................................................................ ..286 HOW FAMILIES COPE WITH DRINKING ........................................................................................ 288 THE NEGATIVE EFFECT OF DRINKING ON MEN’S HEALTH .................................................. 289 GOVERNMENT ALCOHOL REGULATION IN LOW-INCOME AREAS: LAX ENFORCEMENT, YOUTH DRINKING, SELLING FROM HOMES, COMMUNITY SELF-REGULATION..............................................................................................................................290 ALCOHOL ABUSE AND CHILD LABOR: RECOGNIZING THE DEGREE OF LINKAGE ........ 295

9 TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued) CHAPTER 9: BEYOND THE HOUSEHOLD: OTHER COMMUNITY STAKEHOLDERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF EDUCATION, CHILD LABOR, AND ERADICATION EFFORTS............................................................................... 297 TEACHERS .............................................................................................................................................. 297 COMMUNITY LEADERS....................................................................................................................... 309 NGO INFORMANTS.............................................................................................................................. 313 NGO VIEWS: THE OFFICIAL LINE................................................................................................. 318 CONCLUSION: CONSONANCE AND DISSONANCE BETWEEN THE PERCEPTIONS OF COMMUNITY STAKEHOLDERS AND LOW-INCOME PARENTS ................................................329 CHAPTER 10: STATE AND NATIONAL GOVERNMENT CHILD LABOR ERADICATION EFFORTS – RHETORIC, REALITIES, AND REACTION ..... 336 BACKGROUND TO INDIA’S CHILD LABOR ERADICATION EFFORTS .................................... 336 OFFICIAL DISCOURSE ......................................................................................................................... 338 Washington Embassy Website ........................................................................... 338 Ministry of Labour and Employment Website .................................................. 339 Ministry of Labour Press Releases .................................................................... 344 India’s Testimony before the U.N.’s Committee on the Rights of the Child ... 348 CENTRAL GOVERNMENT DISCOURSE AS REPORTED IN THE MASS MEDIA ..................... 352 CHILD LABOR DISCOURSE AT THE STATE LEVEL..................................................................... 355 Department of Labour Website ......................................................................... 355 State-sponsored Publications............................................................................. 358 Newspaper Advertisements ................................................................................ 359 Newspaper Coverage of the Mid-day Meal Program ....................................... 361 Other News Media Coverage and Photo-Journalistic Exposés ....................... 362 POLICY VS. PRACTICE: CHILD LABOR ERADICATION IN MYSORE ..................................... 364 The Perceptions of Labor Inspectors ................................................................ 364 A Manual for Enforcing Child Labor Laws ..................................................... 371 CHILD LABOR ERADICATION RESULTS: GOVERNMENT STATISTICS VERSUS COMMUNITY REACTION ....................................................................................................................375 THE SUM OF GOOD EFFORTS: COUNTING CASES VS. WHAT COUNTS ............................... 381 CHAPTER 11: CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................ 384 THEORETICAL APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY...................................................................... 384 SIGNIFICANT FINDINGS ...................................................................................................................... 386 Causes of Child Labor ....................................................................................... 386 Working Children’s Economic Contribution ................................................... 388 Occupational Risk .............................................................................................. 390 Childhood and Children’s Agency .................................................................... 391 Education ........................................................................................................... 393 Gender Differences ............................................................................................ 397

10 TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued) Eradication Efforts ............................................................................................ 398 Summary ............................................................................................................ 400 DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH .......................................................................................... 403 FINAL REFLECTIONS........................................................................................................................... 406 APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY OF KANNADA AND HINDU TERMS, ACRONYMS .................................................................................. 410 APPENDIX B: PHOTO DOCUMENTATION.......................................................... 411 APPENDIX C. LAWS AND LEGAL FORMS .......................................................... 447 APPENDIX D. RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................... 455 REFERENCES.............................................................................................................. 461

11 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Photo of K.R. Circle in Mysore's central business district ............................. 411 Figure 2. Photo of unpaved lane in a research area, with incense sticks drying by the side……………………………………………………………… .......... 411 Figure 3. Photo of residential lane in research area ....................................................... 412 Figure 4. Photo of residential lane in research area ....................................................... 412 Figure 5. Photo of residential lane in research area ....................................................... 413 Figure 6. Photo of retail shopping street in research area.............................................. 413 Figure 7. Card used in a card exercise with informants to stimulate conversation about community problems………………………………………………... 414 Figure 8. Card used in a card exercise with informants to stimulate conversation about community problems………………………………………………... 414 Figure 9. Card used in a card exercise with informants to stimulate conversation about community problems…………………………………………………415 Figure 10. Card used in card exercise with informants to stimulate conversation about community problems………………………………………………... 415 Figure 11. Children's work card used in card exercise with informants......................... 416 Figure 12. Children's work card used in card exercise with informants......................... 416 Figure 13. Children’s work card used in card exercise with informants ........................ 416 Figure 14. Children's work card used in card exercise with informants......................... 416 Figure 15. Children's work card used in card exercise with informants......................... 417 Figure 16. Children's work card used in card exercise with informants......................... 417 Figure 17. Photo of woman doing card exercise in local rice mill, with neighbors observing....................................................................................................... 417 Figure 18. Photo of labor inspectors conducting anti-child labor raid at a small garage............................................................................................................ 418 Figure 19. Photo of anti-child labor raid at a small restaurant........................................ 418 Figure 20. Photo showing owner of a gas station arguing with labor inspectors, denying that a boy found at his station is an employee….............................419 Figure 21. Photo of labor inspectors conducting anti-child labor raid at a machine shop ............................................................................................................... 419 Figure 22. Photo of labor inspectors conducting anti-child labor raid at an auto salvage yard ..…………………………………………………………….…420 Figure 23. Photo of boy working as oxcart driver delivering a load of bricks ............... 420 Figure 24. Photo of boy selling kerosene from an oxcart ............................................... 421 Figure 25. Photo of boys working as construction laborers............................................ 421 Figure 26. Photo of boy working as sorter at recycling center ....................................... 422 Figure 27. Photo of boy working at small garage........................................................... 422 Figure 28. Photo of boys selling plastic goods from pushcart........................................ 423 Figure 29. Photo of boy working as helper at a sugar cane juice stand.......................... 423 Figure 30. Photo of boy working as mobile snack vendor ............................................. 424 Figure 31. Photo of girl working as tightrope walker in street performance in Mysore’s central commercial district……………………………………….424

12 LIST OF FIGURES (continued) Figure 32. Photo of girl rolling incense with her mother and grandmother in grandmother's two-room house……………………………………………. 425 Figure 33. Photo of boys working as rag pickers............................................................ 425 Figure 34. Photo of a discussion between boys working as peanut sellers at a bus stand...…………………………………………………………………..426 Figure 35. Photo of boy using a bicycle to deliver window security grate for his employer ....................................................................................................... 426 Figure 36. Photo of boy working as rock breaker..……………….…………………….427 Figure 37. Photo of boy helping a door-to-door buyer of recyclables………………… 427 Figure 38. Photo of boys selling fruit from stationary cart............................................. 428 Figure 39. Photo of girl making cone incense in her home ............................................ 428 Figure 40. Photo of girl rolling incense in front of her home after school ..................... 429 Figure 41. Photo of man repairing kerosene stove of type commonly used in low-income households in Mysore……………………………………….. . 429 Figure 42. Photo of focus group being conducted at a small lower-primary school ...... 430 Figure 43. Political cartoon from national newspaper, The Hindu, criticizing connections between politicians and the liquor industry………………… .. 430 Figure 44. Political cartoon from a Mysore newspaper, Star of Mysore, lampooning local politicians that supported increasing availability of liquor licenses in the city……………………………………………………………………431 Figure 45. Photo of roadside billboard warning of the dangers of drinking alcohol ...... 431 Figure 46. Photo of Karnataka State Temperance Board booth at Dasara fair in Mysore .......................................................................................................... 432 Figure 47. Photo of inside of Karnataka State Temperance Board booth at Dasara fair in Mysore…………………………………………………………….... 432 Figure 48. Photo of poster depicting relationship between alcohol abuse and domestic violence on display at Karnataka State Temperance Board booth at Dasara fair…………………………………………………………………………..433 Figure 49. Photo of Anti-alcohol leaflet distributed by Karnataka State Temperance Board at Dasara fair booth..…………………………….…………………..433 Figure 50. Photo of a bar strategically situated at the head of a shopping street in a low-income area…………………………………………………………….434 Figure 51. Photo of a hut selling neera (an alcoholic beverage) situated in open field at edge of low-income area…………………………………………... 434 Figure 52. Photo of inside of neera hut……………………………………………… .. 435 Figure 53. Photo of anti-child labor coalition's poster.................................................... 435 Figure 54. Photo of anti-child labor coalition's poster.................................................... 436 Figure 55. Photo of anti-child labor coalition's poster.................................................... 436 Figure 56. Photo of anti-child labor poster jointly produced by Mysore NGO and local governing body of nearby city……………………………………437 Figure 57. Photo of current and former girl child laborers and NGO activists gathering at Nai Subah event ........................................................................ 437

13 LIST OF FIGURES (continued) Figure 58. Photo of current and former girl child laborers drawing designs with chalk on the ground at Nai Subah event ....................................................... 438 Figure 59. Photo of child laborer giving testimony to citizen's jury at Nai Subah event.............................................................................................................. 438 Figure 60. Photo of citizen's jury listening to testimony of child laborers at Nai Subah event................................................................................................... 439 Figure 61. Photo of Nai Subah anti-child labor parade moving through downtown Mysore .......................................................................................................... 439 Figure 62. Photo of actress and activist Nandita Das and former child laborer Nagarathna at Nai Subah event..................................................................... 440 Figure 63. State government-sponsored newspaper ad extolling success of mid-day meal program ................................................................................................ 440 Figure 64. State government-sponsored newspaper ad extolling success of mid-day meal program ................................................................................................ 441 Figure 65. Photo of regular school staff and local women responsible for preparing mid-day meal at lower-primary school…………………………………...... 441 Figure 66. Photo of teacher dishing out mid-day meal at lower-primary school in low-income community………………………………………………….. .. 442 Figure 67. Photo of children eating mid-day meal at lower-primary school in low-income community……………………………………………………. 442 Figure 68. Photo of children lining up to walk to nearby school where mid-day meal is being served……………………………………………………………... 443 Figure 69. State government-sponsored 2003 May Day newspaper ad that includes anti-child labor message in wrist below clenched fist .................................. 443 Figure 70. Photo of children and parents gathered for NGO-sponsored anti-child labor event at Town Hall in downtown Mysore…………………………… 444 Figure 71. Photo of panel on stage at NGO-sponsored anti-child labor event at Town Hall in downtown Mysore…………………………………………………. 444 Figure 72. Photo of march beginning from site of child laborer rehabilitation hostel located in Mysore on the occasion of 2003 World Day Against Child Labour ........................................................................................................... 445 Figure 73. Photo of anti-child labor march moving through low-income area of Mysore on the occasion of 2003 World Day Against Child Labour ........... 445 Figure 74. Photo of anti-child labor booth jointly sponsored by state government and anti-child labor NGO coalition at 2003 Dasara fair in Mysore……….. 446 Figure 75. Photo of inside of anti-child labor booth jointly sponsored by state government and anti-child labor NGO coalition at 2003 Dasara fair in Mysore……………………………………………………………... ....... 446 Figure 76. List of occupations and processes covered by Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986............................................................................... 449

14 LIST OF FIGURES (continued) Figure 77. Show Cause Notice used by labor inspectors to cite employers of child laborers under provisions of Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1961 .............................................................................. 450 Figure 78. First page of Show Cause Notice used by labor inspectors to cite employers of child laborers under provisions of Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986 .......................................................... 451 Figure 79. Second page of Show Cause Notice used by labor inspectors to cite employers of child laborers under provisions of Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986 .......................................................... 452 Figure 80. Complaint form used by labor inspectors for court cases brought against employers of child laborers under state and national laws............... 453 Figure 81. Form used by doctors to certify that employed children have reached the age of 14, making them legally employable .......................................... 454

15 LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Goals of research methods…………………………..………………………….99 Table 2. Demographic data for household study working children…………………….108

16 ABSTRACT Internationalist perspectives towards child labor have been adopted in India by both the national government and NGOs. These perspectives conceptualize childhood as a protected period of life lasting until age 18. Education and play, but not work, are considered appropriate activities for children. Although poverty has been acknowledged as a contributing factor, the reason children work has also commonly been framed as one of ignorant or unprincipled parents exploiting their children and squandering their future. The solution, according to anti-child labor discourse, is universal primary education. This dissertation problematizes such conceptions regarding childhood, education, and child labor. Drawing on fifteen months of fieldwork in Mysore, Karnataka, I examine community attitudes towards childhood and highlight incongruencies between internationalist and local characterizations. I compare community stakeholders’ and government perspectives concerning education and children’s work, focusing on household decision-making. I demonstrate that low-income parents want their children to obtain a good education, and are willing to expend limited economic resources to achieve that vision. Frequently, however, their goal is stymied by characteristics of the Indian education system or household crises that limit the ability to spend on education and create a need for additional income that a working child can provide. I explore how decisions regarding sending a child to work are negotiated, the perceived appropriateness of different types of work with regard to age and gender, and local ideas about formal and informal apprenticeship. I also consider the degree to which children are active agents in education and work-related decision-making.

17 An understanding of parental decision-making requires exploration of the relationship between cultural, social, and economic capital and child labor. Research data revealed that low-income parents commonly lack the social connections and economic capital needed to convert a child’s educational achievement into gainful employment. This caused some parents to view occupational training from a young age as a more pragmatic means of insuring a child’s future. Finally, this dissertation provides insights into the commonly ignored relationship between alcohol abuse and child labor. Alcohol abuse often has serious economic, health, and social impact in low-income households that results in children having to work.

18 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

The road that finally led me to anthropology in midlife has been one that has passed through a number of seemingly unrelated occupations and business ventures. Over the last 10 years I have imported handicrafts from Asia as part of my livelihood. Able to purchase only modest amounts of these products at a time, I generally obtained my goods from wholesalers, almost never coming into contact with the people who actually produced them. Although my purchases were small, I nevertheless was concerned that I might somehow be contributing to the exploitation of child labor. I had read the many journalistic exposes of the horrendous conditions under which some children in northern India labored making carpets for export markets. As someone deeply concerned about human rights, I wondered whether children were exploited in other forms of handicraft production. As a long-time traveler in Asia, I also wondered to what extent journalistic accounts of child labor were telling the whole story. An anthropology class paper provided me with an opportunity to explore the issue of child labor further. Choosing India as a geographical focus, I found that the literature available to me presented a uniformly negative picture of the child labor phenomenon. It highlighted a panoply of occupational health problems faced by working children and drew attention to the fact that child workers were being deprived of an education. Working children were described as missing out on both the carefree joys of childhood and a productive future due to lack of education. The literature only mentioned in passing household poverty as a legitimate reason for children being sent to work. Based on my

19 own observations, much of what I read appeared idealistic and failed to capture the complexity of the issue of why children worked and what forms of work were deemed culturally appropriate. I began to think about how I would approach studying child labor as a fledgling anthropologist. I saw a need to position child labor within the lived reality of the households of the working poor. Several research questions begged attention. What factors led parents to send their children to work? Were all working children taken out of school against their will? How different were the present lives and future possibilities of child workers from those of impoverished children who managed to complete a basic education? Did parents exploit the earning power of their children without regard for their health or future? Are children’s economic contributions vital to poor households’ ability to meet basic survival needs? And so on. Such questions were rarely addressed in the literature I read. The voices present in this literature were largely those of academics, NGOs, and government bureaucrats. The opinions of the poor parents were eclipsed by cumulative statistics. The views of working children themselves were largely absent, with the notable exception of the publications and websites of a few NGOs advocating a child-centered approach to child labor. Early in the course of developing a dissertation proposal the website of an NGO based in Bangalore, India caught my attention. The Concerned for Working Children (CWC) NGO advocated ways of solving the child labor problem that stood in stark contrast to a largely eradication-oriented child labor movement. CWC at once provided working children the opportunity to express their opinions and claimed to help them

20 organize groups to discuss strategies for solving common problems. Children were able to use the knowledge and confidence gained in consciousness-raising exercises to advocate for their own rights in local, national, and international forums. According to material on this website, children participating in the NGO felt it was their right to work as a means to be able to secure household survival. Some wanted more equitable pay and improved working conditions, not to be forced out of work and back to school. Others supported the right to attend school and also work part-time, but wished that education be improved in quality and made relevant to their lives. The positions taken by the CWC members challenged prevailing international paradigms of childhood as a time of learning, fun, and little agency that inform Indian child labor laws and international children’s rights conventions. Intrigued by CWC’s perspectives, I made an exploratory visit to Bangalore, India in the summer of 2001 to interview members of the NGO and explore sites for dissertation research. While in Bangalore I took a side-trip to the nearby city of Mysore to meet with an anthropology professor I had been referred to as a potential resource. In the end, I chose Mysore over Bangalore as my research site for several reasons. First, I felt that Bangalore would be a more difficult political environment in which to conduct such a study. While in Bangalore I became acutely aware of the controversial debate about child labor occurring in India. CWC was in the middle of a highly politicized environment which I wished to avoid so as to carry out a more balanced ethnography. Bangalore would offer additional challenges due to its being at once the state capital, one of India’s largest cities, and home to a number of major NGOs having competing agendas

21 and regular mass media coverage. Mysore, on the other hand, is a much smaller city lacking such high intensity involvement in the arena of controversial public policy issues. Logistically, Mysore promised to be of a more manageable size for moving about and conducting research in diverse neighborhoods. Also important, unlike cosmopolitan Bangalore, most residents of Mysore spoke the state language of Kannada, making interviewing far easier to deal with linguistically. In September, 2002 I returned to Mysore to begin three months of informal pilot research to lay the groundwork for my formal study carried out between January 2003 and March 2004. I utilized that period of time to familiarize myself with the low-income areas of the city, discuss the issue of child labor with various members of the community with whom I came in contact, and develop basic Kannada language skills.

Theoretical Perspectives I employed several different theoretical perspectives in my research as a means of generating research questions and assist me in data analysis. A first perspective derives from the work of social scientists developing new theoretical approaches to the study of childhood. These approaches privilege the perspectives of children and reject the representation of children as passive vessels into which the rules of society are poured, as merely adults in training. The work of individuals such as James, Jenks, and Prout (Jenks 1996; James and Prout 1997; James et al 1998) proposes that children are perceptive observers of their household situation and society at large, capable of strategically acting to further their own goals. These social scientists have lamented the absence of children’s

22 voices in household and community research. Bringing such perspectives to the examination of child labor requires looking at the role children’s own wishes play in work and education decisions. This perspective raises two questions: 1) Do children work because they have no interest in education or because they see the dearth of jobs for educated youth and think learning a trade a more pragmatic choice? 2) Do children choose to work from a sense of moral responsibility to their impoverished families or are they forced to work as passive members of their households? A considerable body of anthropological work has focused on the household as the most important unit of analysis for understanding productive, reproductive, and healthcare decision-making. Child labor eradication campaigns by NGOs or government agencies commonly assume that a working child’s health will naturally improve after their withdrawal from work (and reentry into school and a true “childhood”). They take for granted that households can and will compensate for the loss of a child’s earnings without being seriously impacted. It appears that in such cases a child’s health is perceived as being independent of rather than intimately intertwined with that of other members of their household. A social science theoretical framework that has been proposed to overcome the limitations of such an individual-based analysis of health outcomes is the Household Production of Health (HHPH). HHPH proposes that a household harnesses its resources (social, economic, and knowledge-based) in combination with a range of available medical services to “produce” good health for its members. The theory realistically situates the health consumption choices made (or even available) to a household within the constraints of the larger political economic

23 environment (Berman et al 1994; Schumann and Mosley 1994). My research on child labor was informed by this as a means of understanding how a child’s working affects household health and as a means of understanding how the “un-health” of other household members leads to child labor. French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of “habitus” and “cultural capital” provide other theoretical lenses for examining child labor. Bourdieu defines habitus as “a system of schemes of…perception, thought, appreciation and action [which are] durable and transposable” (Bourdieu and Passeron 1990: 35). The concept may be usefully applied to consideration of class-related dispositions that influence household education and work decisions. Cultural capital refers to the knowledge, competencies, and qualifications valued in a particular society. The concept may be employed in understanding how children and parents evaluate various education strategies. Finally, one of the bedrock principles of anthropology, holism, played an important guiding role in my research. Holism refers to the importance of examining a phenomenon within its context of interrelatedness and interdependency with other aspects of the culture in which it is found rather than as a discrete subject (Haviland 1993:13, Borofsky 1994: 13). Both my secondary research and preliminary field experiences informed the need to include in my research significant attention to understanding the local education system and community alcohol use. I was reminded of what anthropologist Enid Schildkrout wrote more than twenty-five years ago about her early research focusing on child labor:
[I]f there is one lesson that anthropology has to offer in the study of child labour, it is the impact of cultural factors on social and economic activities. In studying the impact of one set of forces on

24
another, it is vital that we appreciate that social, economic and cultural forces are integrated into behavioral systems. Change in any one part of the system affects the whole. We cannot intervene in children’s lives without taking into account many factors which might at first glance seem to have little to do with them (Schildkrout 1981: 106).

Definitions The wide range of definitions for key terms related to child labor found in international conventions, Indian laws, and academic literature requires I clarify my use of such words. First, who is considered the “child” in child labor? Legal definitions of child vary by country, international agreements, and even different Indian laws. Although India’s current child labor eradication efforts only target children below 14 years old, I chose to utilize the more inclusive definition of a child as being any person up to the age of 18. This definition is consistent with the one codified in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989 that has since acquired 140 signatories. I chose this more inclusive definition for two reasons. First, the CRC is the central international legal mechanism driving most international debate about child labor and United Nations agencies are key actors in child labor eradication efforts around the world. In India the largest and most prominent child labor eradication program has been carried out under the aegis of the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC). Second, limiting my study to households having a working child under 14 years of age would have made recruitment for my research a difficult and extremely timeconsuming task. It also would have constrained my ability to include the breadth of types of work done by children and household situations necessary to adequately understand the phenomenon of child labor in Mysore. Moreover, such a limited definition of child

25 labor is unacceptable to the United Nations agencies fighting the problem or to most Indian NGOs involved in the child labor eradication movement. To put it in another way, both Indian and international concerns about child labor will not be satisfied even if all children under 14 years old are back in school. Eradicating child labor in that age group is only considered to be a stepping-stone towards the more ambitious goal of doing the same for all children up to the age of 18. Only a few of the working children in my household study were under 14 years of age. However, a number of older children had been working for two or more years, several having begun working before turning 14. The second word of the term child labor is problematic as well. The debate over what should be considered child labor has been a bone of contention since the issue came to prominence in international forums beginning in the 1970s. Rodgers and Standing (1981) argue that traditional analytical categories such as “economic” and “noneconomic” do not provide a true picture of the variety or multipurpose nature of the activities engaged in by children. Social scientists have frequently considered what distinctions between work, play, and education in the course of studying child socialization and human developmental in varied ethnographic settings (Anandalakshmy and Bajaj 1981; Schildkrout 1981; Nieuwenhuys 1996, 1999). For the purposes of this study it was most suitable to use a more restrictive income-related definition of work than is favored by some. First, as my study was conducted in an urban setting children did not do many of the unpaid tasks often subsumed under “work” that children do in most rural settings to contribute to family maintenance. These tasks include fuel-gathering, supplying water, watching over domesticated animals, and helping out in agricultural

26 fields. Some children in Mysore are also responsible for filling water containers at public taps or bringing fuel-wood from a neighborhood vendor, but these tasks do not involve traversing great distances or expending great amounts of time and are more in the vein of household chores. Girls in my study areas were often required to do a variety of unpaid chores, but their daily regime also commonly included some type of incomegenerating activity such as the rolling of agarbathi or beedis. 1 Beyond these definitional considerations concerning child labor, I also needed to determine what constitutes a “household.” This definition had major implications for who would be considered a “household member” to be included in the interview process. Anthropologists have acknowledged that defining household in a theoretically useful manner presents a challenge because of the social unit’s variability in membership and activities by culture and over time (Hammel 1986, Wilk and Netting 1986). I utilized this view of the household as a changeable entity with permeable boundaries in my research. In the case of several of my participating households, the fathers of brother of the working child would sometimes take jobs in other cities or towns for weeks at a time. On the other hand, a working child’s married sister or grandmother might make an extended visit to their home. At such times it was expedient to consider whoever was residing in the home in question at the time of an interview to be a household member. Such relatives often had an intimate knowledge of the study participants, either having grown up with them (i.e. married siblings) or raised one of them (i.e. the parent of a working child’s father of mother).
1

Agarbathi is the local term for an incense stick and a beedi refers to an extremely inexpensive type of cigarette made from tobacco rolled in a tendu leaf.

27 I also deviated from using a strictly circumscribed definition of household membership when considering relatives residing in nearby houses that shared resources with study participants. Those resources included food, childcare, living space, money (i.e. loans), and advice. For example, a working boy lived with his aunt and uncles, but his biological father and married siblings lived in separate contiguous buildings. All of the separate living units to some degree pooled food, money, and labor. Another participant was forced by economic need (her husband’s economic contributions were extremely erratic and he was often out of town or with another wife) to move with her children into her parents’ tiny house. In addition, one of her sisters lived meters away on the same street. As a result, interviews were often conducted in her sister’s more spacious house, with her sister and sometimes other relatives as added participants. Other definitional conundrums less involved methodological considerations than semantic ones. While the actual writing of this dissertation required terms that adequately describe the socioeconomic status of my household participants and the areas in which they reside, such terms carry a degree of relativity that demands some explanation. I most commonly characterize the areas in which household participants and most key informants reside as “low-income areas.” Although these areas uniformly lacked good infrastructure in terms of water supply, sewer systems, paved roads, and well-equipped schools, only specific sub-sections officially qualified as slums. However, middle and upper-class Mysorans as well as the English-language press commonly refer to the complete named area rather than only the recognized sections as “slums.” My observations of the equally basic living standards of households located outside the

28 boundaries of recognized slums further blurred such distinctions in my mind. I provide more specific data concerning this issue in Chapter 3. I had to make similar determinations in my use of terms denoting economic status of individual households. In this dissertation I interchangeably use “poor” and “lowincome.” When characterizing informants and focus groups I also utilize terms such as “lower middle-class”, “middle class”, and “upper middle class,” but again I believe these terms to be only relative in meaning. Initially I thought that all of the study households located in low-income areas and having working children were equally poor. However, as I moved further along in my research and became more acquainted with them I found that there was a dramatic range in their standard of living. I later came to believe that some of the better-off study participants would better be characterized as lower middle-class. Unfortunately, it was not possible to obtain reliable income data for most of my informants. Therefore, for the purposes of this dissertation I have characterized socioeconomic class based on observable facts (e.g. type and size of home, personal possessions, etc.) and on data obtained from my study participants and key informants about their work. My research assistant, who had grown up in a nearby lower-middle class area, provided me with additional insight into these matters. An additional caveat concerning semantic matters involves spelling. India’s British colonial heritage is evident in the spelling of many English-language words in newspapers, reports, and other literature published in India. Those spellings differ from American English versions of the same words. This difference rears its head most notably in one of the most repeated words of this dissertation – “labour” vs. “labor.” Another

29 common difference has the letter s substituting for the letter z in many words. 2 For the sake of accuracy, in cases where such words constitute proper names or are contained within a quote or newspaper article headline I have chosen to retain the original Indian English spelling. A final clarification is required concerning the meaning of the place name “Mysore”. Up to 1975 Mysore was the appellation of both a state of India and a city located within that state. One will find references from that earlier period to both Mysore State and Mysore City. In 1975 the territory of Mysore State was combined with Kannada-speaking sections of the states of Andhra Pradesh, what was referred to at that time as Bombay State (now Maharashtra), and Tamil Nadu to form the present state of Karnataka. Consequently, pre-1975 references referring to Mysore must be looked at in context to discern whether they are referring to city or state entities. Unless otherwise mentioned, in this dissertation the place name Mysore refers to the city. In some instances I still use the appellation “Mysore City” as an alternative to “the city of Mysore” as the former can still be found in common usage. The matter is further complicated by the fact that Mysore is also the name of a large district of Karnataka State that contains the city of Mysore, other smaller cities, and the large rural areas that surround them as well as of a large urban and rural education district. Again, whenever I use Mysore in these latter contexts I include additional words making clear that I am not referring solely to the bounded city area.

2

For example, the word criticized.

30

Dissertation Organization This dissertation consists of eleven chapters. This first chapter presents an overview of the research. I offer insight into how I became interested in the subject of child labor and the factors led me to select my research site. More importantly, I offer my rationale for studying child labor, what I felt was missing from the literature, and the questions I plan to answer with my research. Chapter 2 surveys the literature relevant to child labor. I first examine historical interpretations of child labor in Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution. This literature contextualizes the child labor of that period within the economic and cultural realities of poor households and also considers the political economic factors that caused child labor to dramatically increase. The review also highlights the conflicting political and social agendas of groups that pushed for ending child labor. The British experience with child labor eradication efforts in Britain offers an example against which we may evaluate positions taken by anti-child labor activists in India today. The literature review continues with an examination of contemporary Indian perspectives towards child labor in India. I look at literature that addresses child labor from the standpoint of health, economics, and education. I also survey empirical studies, advocacy journalism, comprehensive investigations, and critique of the India’s child labor eradication strategies. In the final section of the literature review I examine social science perspectives regarding childhood. I highlight recent theoretical sociological and anthropological

31 approaches to the study of childhood that acknowledge children’s agency and the importance of their lifeworlds as discrete areas worthy of examination. I contrast these new ways of thinking about children to earlier American anthropological and Indian social science approaches to the study of childhood. I include in this section a review of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of habitus and social capital that provide constructive perspectives for understanding child labor in sociocultural and socioeconomic contexts. I conclude the literature review with an examination of critique of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Chapter 3 provides details of my research setting and methodology. I describe the physical and demographic characteristics of my low-income research sites. I also offer a brief description of Mysore City’s cultural, economic and political environments and for comparative purposes selectively provide significant state-level demographic data for Karnataka. I follow these descriptions of the micro and macro research settings with an account of research methodologies, including a comprehensive description of the household study that served as my key data-gathering method. Chapter 4 begins the presentation of the results of my research. I start by examining the childhood experiences of the parents of child laborers as a means of better understanding factors that have influenced parents’ perceptions of appropriate childhood. I give special attention to their views concerning education and work. I proceed to explore study participants’ discourse concerning the causes of child labor. In this chapter I also importantly examine issues related to children’s agency, in terms of how decisions

32 regarding school attendance and work are made. In addition I look at work selection criteria. In Chapter 5 I discuss children’s work from the perspective of occupational risk. I examine parents’ and children’s perceptions of specific physical and moral risks associated with types of work done by boys and girls. I then look at how those perceptions of risk combined with views concerning other work characteristics shape whether a type of work is considered “good” or “bad.” The issues of risk and acquiring desirable work are both revisited in a later section that addresses vocational skill acquisition. Chapter 6 explores child labor within the contexts of household economics and the household production of health. I present data from my household study that sheds light on the controversy over whether or not working children’s contributions are vital to household survival. This chapter also revisits the issue of children’s agency. I examine working children’s and their parents’ sometimes conflicting views of what constitutes an appropriate portion of earnings due the household and the strategies children use to maintain control of money for their own use. Chapter 7 takes on the important discussion of the complex relationship between education and child labor. I examine low-income parents’ decision-making regarding where and up to what grade children attend school. These decisions are often influenced by factors such as a household’s economic condition and children’s academic performance or level of interest in education. Other factors are the dearth of good jobs available to educated youth and the fact that bribery is required to obtain them. This

33 chapter illustrates the paradox that although education is proposed as the main solution to child labor, characteristics of both public and private education in Mysore push children out of school and into the job market. The eighth chapter focuses on what I have identified as an insufficiently acknowledged significant factor contributing to child labor – alcohol abuse in lowincome communities. I examine the varied ways alcohol abuse by male breadwinners negatively impacts poor households, diverting resources necessary for maintaining the household production of health and meeting basic education expenses. I also explore the pathways by which habitual alcohol use both within specific households and more generally within the community creates an environment unconducive to studying and academic achievement. Finally, I look at the ways in which alcohol abuse-related spouse and child abuse is associated with child labor. In Chapter 9 I bring into the discussion of child labor the voices of other stakeholders in my study areas as well as greater Mysore. They include educators, politicians, religious figures, and government labor inspectors. I give particular attention to the perspectives of NGOs working to eradicate child labor. The chapter brings to light both areas of shared understanding as well as those of disagreement concerning the appropriateness of current approaches to eliminating child labor. In Chapter 10 I examine state and central government discourse and actions promoting the eradication of child labor in Karnataka. Low-income parents’ reactions to these government efforts provide an alternative perspective on what should be done to end child labor.

34 In Chapter 11, the final chapter of this dissertation, I summarize the significant findings and conclusions of my research and propose useful directions for future research. Following Chapter 11 are Appendices A, B, C, and D. Appendix A is a glossary of organizational acronyms, Kannada and Hindu words, and other important terms used in the dissertation. Appendix B contains photographs of my research areas, children working, and child labor raids. It also includes copies of some of the cards used in card sort exercises conducted with informants as well as government anti-child labor advertisements. Appendix C contains the text of Indian legislation regulating child labor and copies of complaint forms filled out by labor inspectors for child labor violations. Appendix D contains a set of policy recommendations concerning child labor and education suggested by the research findings.

35 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction Over the last three decades the issue of child labor has been attracting the attention of an ever-growing number of professionals from diverse fields. Publications on child labor span the subject areas of human rights, education, international development, household economics, child development, women’s empowerment, occupational health, international trade/globalization, business ethics, and urbanization. A review of this literature reveals widespread disagreement concerning the causes of and potential solutions to the problem of child labor and a dearth of empirical data supporting many of the positions advanced. Given the breadth of topics relevant to child labor and the enormous volume of writings on the subject, this review must necessarily be selective. I organize my review around three major subject areas. The first is the history of child labor in Great Britain during its industrial revolution. I provide this case study to sensitize us to both the cultural and political economic factors that cause child labor to flourish and the forces that lead to its eventual eradication. Next I turn my attention to child labor in contemporary India. The child labor problem has drawn the attention of many Indian academics, educators, journalists, and child welfare activists. I review the body of literature they have produced because it constitutes a major component of the public discourse that frames the debate about child labor in India today. Finally I examine the ways in which both international and domestic perspectives towards children and

36 childhood have influenced child labor debate and child labor eradication strategies in India. Great Britain’s experience with child labor is worthy of examination for three reasons. First, in terms of scholarship it has served as the iconic historical case study of the phenomenon of child labor. Britain’s historical experience with child labor has generated a plethora of in-depth thoughtful examinations of the issue from a variety of perspectives including those of political economy, child welfare, neoclassical economics, technological innovation, and societal evolution. Moreover, the relative success or failure of various strategies used by Great Britain in confronting its child labor problem are even today sometimes offered as lessons valuable to contemporary eradication efforts. A second reason for delving into the history of child labor in Great Britain is that the British experience may serve as a useful comparison with that of India. Although the historical and cultural contexts of child labor in the two countries has been very different in certain notable ways, some intriguing common themes and analogies nevertheless arise when comparing their child labor experiences. A third reason for examining the history of child labor in Great Britain is because of the country’s special historical political economic relationship with India. As a colony until 1948, India was strongly influenced by British cultural thinking and institutional structures, including in the areas of government and education, which continue to the present day. The second section of this review looks at Indian representations of child labor. No other country has received more attention than India on the issue of child labor. Why

37 might this be so? First, although some African nations may have a higher prevalence rate of child labor, due to its vast population (1.3 billion) India has by far the largest number of working children in the world today. Second, the child labor in India has been found in some major export industries, increasing its visibility and as a result drawing the attention of international agencies and anti-child labor NGOs. The third area of focus of this review is representations of children and childhood. Representations of what constitutes a child and appropriate childhood are key elements of both international and Indian discourse surrounding child labor. I will focus on recent changing social science perspectives towards childhood in Britain and the U.S. These new theoretical approaches have informed critique of the Convention on the Rights of the Child as inappropriately imposing Northern conceptions of childhood worldwide. These three areas of focus together guide the methodological and theoretical approaches taken in this research. The British historical record requires the research to address the ways in which powerful political economic and cultural forces, both domestic and international, influence community norms and household decision-making around child labor in poor neighborhoods. It consequently demands the researcher examine concentric levels of power and decision-making, starting from the household and moving outward to actors in the neighborhood, city, state, nation, and global bodies. Indian perspectives ground this orientation in the reality of how such forces manifest in contemporary India. The discussion of representations of children and childhood further illuminates how international forces have influenced India’s child labor debate, instigating a re-framing of childhood that drives child labor eradication efforts.

38 The British Example

Causes and Conditions of Child Labor British historians and political economists have long had an interest in child labor, especially as it occurred during Britain’s Industrial Revolution during the 18th and 19th centuries. Analysis of archival material from the period has documented Britain’s use of labor legislation and compulsory education laws to limit and eventually eliminate child labor. The British example has been examined with great interest by child welfare activists seeking solutions to the child labor problem in developing countries today. What the record suggests is that several interactive factors were responsible for both the high prevalence of child labor in Great Britain during the years of its rapid industrial growth and for child labor’s eventual demise. In an attempt to explain the prevalence of child labor during Britain’s industrial revolution, historians have posed and attempted to answer a number of core questions. In what ways were the lives of working-class children changed during that period? What factors determined children’s participation in remunerative work? Were children harmed by working in factories? How did working-class households pursue their livelihoods, and what roles did children have in them? Even before the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain most children of lowerclass households began doing paid work at a young age, some as early as 9 years old and most by 12-14 years old (Kirby 2003: 34-36). Children participated in agricultural labor and worked in small manufacturing workshops in their own home or those of others

39 (Horn 1997: 99; Tuttle 1999: 9-10). Well into the 19th century children under 15 years of age constituted a third or more of the population (Cunningham 1995:96; Kirby 2003:3), and their earnings were essential to most households’ economic survival (McKendrick 1974:187-188; Cruikshank 1981: 19). Working-class youth began to work as soon as they were able to do so, a pattern of behavior deemed normative both by the children’s own parents (Bolin-Hort 1989: 39) and the middle classes (Hopkins 1994: 34). Terrible conditions in many factories served as the stimulus for legislative reform to protect working children during the Industrial Revolution. Historians have documented, however, that the workshops in which many children were forced to work both prior to and during that period also had unhealthy work environments - cramped spaces with poor lighting, lack of ventilation, and exposure to extreme heat and cold (Cruikshank 1981: 9). Notably, it has been documented that some parents running workshops could be as harsh in their treatment of their own children as the worst of factory overseers (Rose: 1991 8). It is important to note that the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain was far from monolithic in terms of child participation in modes of production (Saville 1973: 1; Rose 1991: 23). Although textile factory work has emerged as the iconic image of child labor of the time, historians of the era have documented that the large majority of children alive during the Industrial Revolution worked in other sectors of the economy such as agriculture, small workshops, mines, navigation, and domestic service (Nardinelli 1990: 5; Hopkins 1994: 91-92; Horn 1997: 102). Such scholars caution against generalizing that all children were negatively affected by their work environments and that they were worse off than in the era prior to industrialization (McKendrick 1974: 173-175;

40 Nardinelli 1990: 100-102; Hopkins 1994: 93-94). For example, Nardinelli examines comparative wages, health, job mobility, and future employment prospects as indirect measurements of exploitation and concludes that most children were not economically exploited during the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain (Nardinelli 1990: 76-94). Hopkins argues that any discussion of children’s work in factories must be viewed within the context of British working-class life. The poor struggled to survive, and working to eat was the preoccupation of the waking life of all such households. All capable members were required to pitch in (Hopkins 1994: 93). Some historians have also proposed that working life must be viewed from the perspectives of working children themselves. They suggest that despite the sometimes harsh, strenuous, and monotonous nature of factory work, many children saw entering work at a factory not as the dreaded beginning of a life of drudgery and exploitation, but as a rite of passage that brought with it increased status and rights, social contact, and future possibilities (Hopkins 1994: 93-94; Horn 1997: 100-102;). These themes discussed have relevance to debates about child labor in contemporary India. Just as in the case of Great Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries, India is in the midst of a period of rapid industrialization. And also as in the case of Britain, although far more children work in agriculture, small workshops, and domestic service than factories, Indian and international coverage of the child labor issue largely focuses on the harsh conditions of a small number of manufacturing industries. There is no denying children work under terrible conditions in these settings. But what of children in other sectors? Are children working under their parents in domestic work enterprises

41 inherently treated better than those who work under the hand of others outside the home? Although some scholars have argued that this is true, unfortunately little empirical data exists on this issue affording comparison among the poor. A second major area of inquiry by historians of child labor in Great Britain concerns the reasons behind children’s large presence in one specific industrial sector, textile manufacturing. In a debate that continues to resound in discussions of child labor in developing countries today, scholars have disagreed over whether children worked due to dire poverty or as a result of parental greed. One group of historians has focused its attention on the impoverished conditions under which many working-class families lived. They describe how many family members shared cramped sub-standard living quarters without sufficient furnishings, surviving on the most meager of diets (Cruikshank 1981: 2-11; Horn 1997; Humphries 2003: 259). Kirby calls attention to the high prevalence of poor single-parent female-headed households having working children in various English cities during the middle decades of the 1800s (Kirby 2003: 28-29). Another group of historians has cited historical evidence that some parents looked at their children as “money in the bank” and were quite willing to live off their earnings (Hammond and Hammond 1937: 33; Tuttle 1999: 60-61). It has also been claimed that some of the textile industry’s technologies and factory layouts were intentionally designed with children in mind. Key machinery was built very low to the ground and small factories were jammed with looms, both necessitating the hiring of workers small in stature – i.e. children. Other technologies adopted later in the Industrial Revolution were child “friendly.” Some machines whose

42 operation had in the past had required the strength of an adult to operate were replaced by others that even children could run. Other technological innovation divided the production process into more discrete tasks that required a smaller number of adult workers, but more children as assistants (Tuttle 1999: 100-131). Historians have similarly documented that children’s small size was essential to the production strategies utilized to maximize profits in some coal mining operations (Tuttle 1999: 170-176; Kirby 2003: 77). Nardinelli and Tuttle offer another theoretical explanation grounded in household economics for parental decision-making surrounding children’s work. Nardinelli employs Becker’s model of the household production function to understand such decisionmaking. Briefly stated, Becker argues that households allocate their resources, including the time of their members, to purchase goods and services that produce a set of desired conditions for the household. A wide variety of desired consumption goals are identified including leisure, pleasure, and even children. The model assumes that a household has unitary preferences in satisfaction-oriented consumption (“unitary utility function”) and that the household attempts in its decision-making to maximize fulfillment of such preferences. According to Nardinelli, whether children are sent to work or not results from a rational economistic weighing of potential benefits and detriments to the household. Parents may also consider the type of children they wish to produce as part of their calculations – whether they wish to have a high number who will not be educated, but rather quickly put to work to begin to make an economic contribution versus fewer “high quality” children (i.e. better fed and clothed, educated, having time for play). Nardinelli proposes that the rise and eventual decline of children working in factories and

43 other sectors of the British economy during its Industrial Revolution can be largely explained by such parental calculation of returns to the household (Nardinelli 1990: 3743). Accordingly, over the latter half of the 18th century, as demand for children waned and greater returns began to be realized from education, fewer children were sent to work. Tuttle also looks to household economic decision-making for part of her explanation of why there was an increase in child labor during the Industrial Revolution. She proposes similarly that households make time allocation decisions (e.g. work at home, outside employment, leisure, education, etc.) based on a combination of inputs that include household composition and wage rates. But, in a major departure from household decision-making models that posit a unitary utility function, Tuttle proposes a household in which there is a collective utility function that is the result of a bargaining process by individual members who have differing preferences and differential amounts of power in influencing decisions (Tuttle 1999: 47-49). Nardinelli’s and Tuttle’s use of household decision-making models to explicate child labor during the Industrial Revolution suggests the utility of focusing attention on the site of the household in this study of child labor in India. In chapters 4 and 5 I will describe the complicated calculations parents make regarding when and where to send children to work. I will draw attention to the fact that parents’ decisions are influenced by many factors. These include immediate economic need, long-term concerns regarding support in old age, the status of education, moral identity associated with gender roles, and assessment of employment opportunities.

44 The Movement to Regulate Child Labor Many forces have been attributed to ending child labor in Great Britain, and as might be expected there is a fair amount of disagreement amongst scholars as to which were most responsible for change. A commonly held view is that legislation placing limitations on children’s work and the institution of compulsory education were primarily responsible for eliminating child labor in Great Britain. This is challenged by many historians who argue for the need to consider what made such legislation attractive, and how legislation was enforced. A review of major British labor legislation covering the work of children during the 19th century shows that child labor laws were enacted gradually and very narrowly targeted industries such as textiles that had garnered the most public attention (Rose 1991: 8-16; Horn 1994: 51-62). Kirby has proposed that for more than half of the nineteenth century there was minimal funding for enforcement of child labor laws then on the books. Loopholes in the laws as well as the collusion of inspectors and magistrates charged with their enforcement subverted enforcement in some districts. Moreover, it was not until the 1860s that comprehensive legislation was enacted that covered the large majority of working children, including those that worked in some of the most hazardous industries (Kirby 2003: 108-109). Nardinelli suggests that while in the short-term the Factory Acts were responsible for removing children from employment in certain industries, an economic argument provided by his household decision-making model has more explanatory power when looking at the long-term trend of decline in all child labor. Such a decline, he contends, resulted from working-class parents making rational economic decisions. Increased

45 prosperity and greater returns on education made sending children to school rather than work a logical choice (Nardinelli 1990: 149). Other historians point to different forces as contributing to the gradual decline in the prevalence of child labor in Great Britain over the 19th century. One such force was the growing European concerns about child labor and the black marks reliance on child labor was putting on Britain’s international reputation. This caused the issue to come under greater scrutiny in Parliament (Cunningham 1991: 85-86, 176; Rose 1991: 15; Horn 1997: 118). A second force was British concerns that the country needed a more educated work force to stay technologically and thereby economically competitive with other European powers. This required that children attend school rather than work (Rose 1991: 108). Britain’s eugenics movement also impacted the debate, alleging the new industrial regime was debilitating Britain’s youth and thereby the nation’s future strength (Horn 1994: 54). In addition to the reasons enumerated thus far, gradual shifts in British public sentiment towards childhood and gender roles added weight to the efforts of child labor reformers. The middle and upper classes initially objected to government regulation of child labor as interference in the free market. Working class parents at first felt the government’s policies were contrary to their children’s best interests (Saville 1973: 15; Hopkins 1994: 75,142). These objections diminished over time as attitudes towards childhood changed. Factors that influenced attitudinal change included the works of an influential group of philosophers and romantic poets. They harkened back to an alleged idyllic pastoral past in which both adults and children lived prior to industrialization. First

46 the middle and upper classes and later the working class came to view childhood as a precious formative time to be enjoyed in play and other pleasant endeavors rather than work (Nardinelli 1990: 17-21; Cunningham 1991: 88-92; Horn 1994: 53; Cunningham 1995: 74-78). Another significant change in public views towards childhood was related to new perceptions of gender roles and household economics. First embraced by the upper and middle class, but subsequently diffusing to the working class was the “breadwinner ideology” (De Vries 1994: 262; Valenze 1995: 102). This term refers to a shift from a concept of household livelihood according to which all members, including women and children, contribute economically to household prosperity, to one that holds that it is the sole duty of an adult male to fully provide for the economic needs of his family.

Education Education has also been argued to have had a limited impact on the elimination of child labor in Great Britain, only taking a more prominent role late in the 19th century. One of the earliest forms of education available to working-class children was at Sunday school. As the 19th century progressed, religious orders opened an increasing number of elementary schools, from 1833 with the aid of government subsidies (Jordan 1987: 162165; Horn 1997 75-76). Another type of school known as ragged schools, which targeted the children of extremely poor households and the large numbers of street children that roamed urban areas, proliferated during the middle decades of the century (Walvin 1982: 117-119; Jordan 168-169; Horn 1994: 67-68).

47 The passage of the 1833 and 1844 Factory Acts, limiting the number of hours children could work while requiring they attend school daily part-time, swelled the enrollment of working-class children in school (Horn 1994: 54-58). Legislators saw such education as a side-benefit of work for poor children (Bolin-Hort 1989: 65-66; Horn 1997: 71). Later revisions to the Factory Laws further boosted school enrollment by requiring a child who wished to work to show proof of school attendance over several years or minimal academic achievement (Horn 1994: 58-59). Some children who worked attended schools established by the factory owners themselves, while many attended small schools frequently run by older women in their homes (Hopkins 1994: 131-132). The quality of education supplied in most of the schools of the types described above was poor, lacking in qualified teachers, relevant curriculum, and proper facilities while being heavy on corporal punishment. Indeed, for decades into the 19th century a substantial proportion of working-class children were taught to read but not to write. Such part-time education was rather designed to instill religious piety and give workingclass children just enough knowledge to make them capable of functioning as compliant workers knowing their position in society (Walvin 1982: 1113-115; Cunningham 1991: 85; Hopkins 1994: 139-141, 145). It was not until 1870 that compulsory education was introduced in some locales, and not until 1891 that children could receive it without their parents being required to pay fees (Hopkins 1994: 234-240). By the time of the introduction of the first such laws the prevalence of child labor was already well into a downward trend (Kirby 2003: 133), although it was observed that school fees, clothes and shoes as well as the loss of children’s income continued to be reasons for non-

48 attendance by poor children (Horn 1997: 89). West, however, in an argument similar to that of Nardinelli noted above, suggests that the upward trend in school enrollment over the 19th century resulted from a growing belief amongst working-class parents that the education of children was a worthwhile investment (West 1975: 75).

Child Labor Regulation as Self-Interest Some historians have proposed that many aspects of the 19th century British antichild labor policies described above amounted to the promotion of group self-interest couched in humanitarian terms. Upper and middle-class reformers had class-based fears of a youthful underclass that committed crimes and was capable of fomenting future political instability. Their support for a campaign against child labor was only a small part of a larger social agenda (Cunningham 1991: 101-106; Horn 1994: 65-66). Workers’ organizations also supported child labor laws from a position of enlightened self-interest. Their support of proposed legislation varied to a large degree on how such legislation might affect their own work situation. Some groups strategically supported legislation as an indirect means of obtaining improved working conditions for adult workers. Others saw such legislation as a way to control competition for jobs. But in industries such as coal mining in which the children of adult workers were also employed, there was fierce opposition to proposed legislative restrictions (Kirby 2003: 102-103) The humanitarian veneer of the child labor campaigners veiled a growing class struggle for political and economic power in Great Britain. Some of the most famous child labor campaigners were landed members of the aristocracy who feared the rising

49 power of the nouveau riche industrialists. Their political party (Tories) believed that restricting the use of child laborers in factories would cause an increase in factory production costs that would create a major economic hardship for the factory owners. This would reduce their wealth and thereby the influence of the party they supported (Whigs) (Hopkins 1994: 87; Kirby 2003: 98). Some scholars have even suggested that large urban textile mill owners did not oppose the early Factory Acts because they saw the new laws as giving them an advantage over smaller less-modernized rural waterpowered mills that depended more on child labor (Nardinelli 1990: 132-133).

Child Labor in Colonial India The humanitarian veneer of the upper-class efforts to regulate child labor in Britain is further damaged when we examine British handling of the issue in colonial India. Attempts to regulate child labor in India first occurred in the early 1920s during the colonial administration of Great Britain in response to the proposed convention of the International Labour Organization of the League of Nations that set a minimum working age of 12. British factory owners and legislators in the colonial assembly of British India at the time raised many objections, some of which continued to be heard in other settings even in recent decades. Namely: 1) children are especially suitable for certain aspects to the work due to their small size and energetic nature; 2) if the convention were ratified machinery especially designed with the size of child operators in mind would be made obsolete; 3) children are better off working until a system of universal education is put in place; and 4) the state should not interfere with parents’ wishes to have their children

50 work. The colonial legislature eventually recommended British India sign on to the minimum age convention, albeit with a number of conditions that exempted small enterprises and allowed for a gradual transition for others. Additional attention to child labor in British India resulted from the establishment in 1929 of the Royal Commission on Labour in India. The body conducted a two-year field study of labor conditions in the colony that included extensive disclosure of the harsh conditions under which children worked in a number of industries, among them carpet weaving and beedi rolling. It also documented the meager wages provided for such work and the high prevalence of bonded labor. Descriptions of carpet industry contracting and hiring agreements involving business owners, master weavers, and child workers are amazingly similar to those reported 50 years later. Colonial era policies, thus, tolerated or in some instances even encouraged a reliance on child labor (Burra 1995: 3-8).

Lessons for the Study of Child Labor in India The historical data presented in this section has highlighted some core issues that need to be carried forward when analyzing the child labor issue in India today. First, we need to recognize that a country’s development may involve uneven industrialization across sectors of its economy, with older modes of production continuing to survive for an extended period time alongside new evolving modes. Some goods in India are still commonly manufactured in the home or small workshops. Second, although preindustrial forms of labor often have characteristics harmful to children’s health, it is the new and unfamiliar factory work sites that that have evoked the most moral outrage. In

51 contemporary India similarly it has been a select number of high-visibility industries such as carpet production and gem polishing that have garnered the most national and international attention, despite the fact that the larger number of children work in more mundane settings such as agriculture, domestic service, and shop work. A third issue is the way in which international forces involving moral identity and political economy exert influence on national debates and policy directions. In part, the British government was spurred on to put restrictions on some forms of child labor by pressure from other European countries. Child labor in British factories served to lower Britain’s reputation in the world as a civilized nation. It was also seen as weakening the nation state’s competitiveness and readiness for war. This issue is highly relevant to India today and is confounded by child labor public policy that influences global trade. A fourth issue that emerged during the latter stages of Britain’s industrial revolution involves the way children have been re-conceptualized in child labor discourse. Children move from being conceptualized as economically contributing members of a household to being characterized as being vulnerable, in need of protection, and without agency. The ramifications of this international characterization will be discussed at length in this dissertation. A fifth issue raised by the British historical record is the problematic nature of depending on anti-child labor and compulsory elementary education legislation for the elimination of child labor. Poverty continues to push parents to send children to work, and employers to attempt to cheat even in the face of legal sanctions. As the country’s prosperity grew and with it the wages of living standards of the working-class, so child

52 labor became a less necessary option and community norms evolved that looked down on parents who continued to send their children to work rather than school. Workingclass parents became more accepting of educating their children as educational quality improved and associated occupational opportunities became more prevalent. Moreover, the movement towards total elimination of child labor and universal compulsory education was a gradual one, with the half-time system of children’s work surviving into the second decade of the 20th century.

Perspectives on Child Labor in India

The second section of this review moves from literature examining the history of child labor in Great Britain and colonial India to writings about child labor in postindependence contemporary India. The issue of child labor has garnered the interest of many Indian academics, journalists, and NGO members. These researchers and critics have produced an extensive amount of literature about child labor, much of which has appeared in small special-interest journals or NGO publications. This review will, therefore, necessarily be selective. It includes literature that addresses child labor from the perspectives of occupational health, economics, education, and eradication strategies. A notable proportion of the literature I refer to is from edited volumes containing short contributions examining child labor from varied perspectives.

53 Health The health of child workers, particularly occupational health, has drawn substantial attention in the literature from both Indian academics and journalists. The Unit for Child and Youth Research of the Tata Institute of Health (Naidu and Kapadia 1985) produced an early edited volume on the subject composed of papers presented at a 1982 seminar co-sponsored by the World Health Organization in Bombay. The themes of the papers illustrate the wide range of health concerns experts associate with the types of work children do, including musculo-skeletal problems, chemical exposure, mental health disorders, eye strain, injuries, and sexually transmitted diseases. The book notably concludes with the seminar participants’ consensus that child labor was not likely to be eliminated in the near future and, therefore, emphasis should be placed on improving children’s working conditions and access to health care. The health of child workers has also been examined in the context of particular localities or industries, such accounts generally transcending mere descriptions of occupational health to include broader health measurements. For example, a study of the health of 73 working children from a Bombay slum found few notable health problems amongst its sample (Mehta et al 1985). A larger-scale study conducted in the same city by Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC) concluded that 90% of the approximately 50,000 boys (27% of the city’s child labor population) employed at eating establishments and tea stalls had suffered cuts and burns at their jobs (Patel 1990: 11, 21).

54 Waste collecting and recycling (sometimes referred to as rag picking or waste picking) is another type of work children do that has attracted a substantial amount of research attention because of its ubiquity and unhealthy characteristics. A study of waste pickers in Bangalore (Hunt 1996) compared the health of child waste pickers with that of other children from the same locality not involved in such work. Hunt found that even after household income differences were factored in, the waste picking children were more than twice as likely to test low in some important health indicators. A Karnataka NGO, The Concerned for Working Children, sponsored a study of the risks associated with the types of work children do as unpaid household chores and for remuneration. The study is unique in that it was conducted by children and it reported children’s own perspectives towards the age and gender appropriateness of different types of work. The young researchers considered the physical and moral risk associated with work as well as the intellectual maturity and physical strength required to do each job. The children concluded that only a very limited number of household and paid jobs are appropriate for young boys (under 9 years old) and girls of any age. Of particular interest to this dissertation are the study’s evaluations of specific types of work also done by children in Mysore. For example, the study disaggregated beedi and agarbathi production into a series of steps. The study reported that its child informants considered some steps in the production of both commodities to be unsuitable for a child of any age (i.e. 0-18 years old), while they judged others to be appropriate on an age-specific basis. The study found that children thought agarbathi production was unsuitable for all children because it requires a substantial amount of physical strength, involves sitting for

55 long periods of time in a position that leads to musculo-skeletal problems, is from the standpoint of local health beliefs “heat-producing”, and causes a child to inhale substances that cause respiratory and other health problems. Beedi rolling was also classified as being inappropriate for children for essentially the same reasons. Picking up supplies from and delivering the finished product to an agent, however, were deemed suitable respectively for children of at least 9 and 12 years of age. The children’s elected representatives, however, ruled that beedi production was unsuitable for children of any age. This was the only instance in which the representatives overruled a classification decision that had come out of small group discussions held by youths in the area (Children of Balkur Panchayat 1999). Unhealthy and dangerous working conditions are common to many types of work in India, regardless of the age of the worker. In 1983 the central government signaled its commitment to improve working conditions by including provisions addressing occupational health in its long-term health policy (Joshi and Smith 2002: 377). The government later co-sponsored with the International Labour Organization a major conference in New Delhi to develop new comprehensive occupational health and safety legislation for India (International Labour Organization 1986). In the following year, amendments were made to the Factories Act that required greater oversight by physicians of all industrial units as well other measures designed to improve occupational health. Later examinations of occupational health in India, however, concluded that many small and medium-sized enterprises were not in compliance with the amended law. Moreover, enforcement resources were grossly inadequate and the country’s ubiquitous cottage

56 industries were outside of the law’s purview (Joshi and Smith 2002; National Referral Centre for Lead Poisoning in India 2006; Pandita 2006). India’s leading occupational health professional organization, the Indian Association of Occupational Health, has called the central government to task for not ratifying several ILO conventions concerning public health and some members of the organization have been struggling, thus far unsuccessfully, against business interests to have asbestos banned in India. Joshi and Smith argue that while some strides have been made (particularly at large industrial concerns) towards protecting occupational health in India, there remains a dramatic shortage of properly trained industrial hygienists who should be monitoring occupational health rather than physicians (Joshi and Smith 2002). Given such critique of occupational health enforcement in India it is significant that, as White has pointed out, ILO convention 182 dealing with the worst forms of child labor leaves it up to individual signers to define most of the kinds of work to be considered harmful to children’s health (White 1999: 141). Moreover, even the minimal enforcement of occupational health standards beginning in India is largely absent from the informal sectors in which most children work. A notable exception was a joint Indian and Dutch project to improve the occupational health of adult and child carpet weavers in Mirzapur (Das et al 1992).

Empirical Studies and Advocacy Journalism Responding to growing international and domestic concerns about child labor in the 1970s, academics and NGOs in cooperation with the central government began to conduct community-based studies of the problem across India. Although the studies

57 documented the harshness of children’s working conditions, they more generally explored the socioeconomic environment of working children’s households and parents’ and children’s attitudes towards work and education. The Indian Council for Child Welfare conducted a study of children’s involvement in selective occupations that included a household survey component (Indian Council for Child Welfare: 1977). A much larger household-based study of child labor conducted around the same time in Bombay similarly relied on a survey questionnaire supplemented by a small number of interviews. The authors of this study significantly concurred with their informants’ view that poverty was the main cause of child labor (Singh et al 1980). The Institute of Psychological and Educational Research (IPER) as well conducted several studies of large cohorts of working children in Bombay in the course of running one of India’s early informal education and health projects for child laborers. IPER notably sought out the views of a variety of stakeholders (parents, working children, and employers) regarding children’s work and education, albeit using multiple choice answer questionnaires rather than interviews for data gathering (IPER 1985). Other empirical studies were conducted in Bangalore (Patil 1986), Calcutta (Nath and Majumdar 1991), Bhubabeswar City in Orissa (Pati and Swain 1991), amongst rural tribal people in Orissa (Panigrahi 1991), four urban and rural districts of Tamil Nadu (Sumangala and Nagarajan 1993), Bhavnagar in Maharashtra (Swaminathan 1998), and Azanghar District in Utter Pradesh (Manocha et al 1998). The study conducted by Patil in Bangalore in1984-1985 for The Concerned for Working Children is of particular interest to this dissertation due to its urban child worker focus and its setting within Karnataka

58 State. The data gathered from child workers and their families led the author to challenge a number of common assumptions about child labor. Patil concluded that large family size and low family income were not the prime causal factors of child labor and that poor families were more likely to send a girl to work than a boy. Patil also observed that only a very small percentage of households lacked both parents, hours of work required by employers decrease with age, and a substantial proportion of parents had sent their children to work for non-economic reasons (e.g. training, disinterest in school, separation from bad influences). In addition, Patil found that children made significant contributions to household livelihood. In his study sample 6.33 % of the child workers were the sole economic supporters of their households, a significant 18.33 % contributed at least 50% to household income, and another 21% gave between 26% and 50% (Patil 1986). Street children constitute an often studied sub-set of child workers in India. The term street children has come to be used to characterize both children who live (work or beg, eat, socialize, and sleep) full-time on the street as well as those who spend a substantial amount of time working or playing on the street but maintain connections with or even continue living with a family (Panter-Brick 2001: 83). In the 1980s and 1990s the National Labour Institute sponsored a group of studies of street children in major urban centers including Calcutta, Hyderabad, Kanpur, Bombay, New Delhi, Madras, and Bangalore. Phillips’ study of street children in the far smaller industrial city of Indore in Madhya Pradesh documented a substantial number of street children living

59 and working under conditions virtually indistinguishable from those of street children in India’s metropolitan centers (Phillips 1992). A substantial portion of the child labor literature has focused on selective sectors of the economy, often utilizing data from academics or NGOs. Jodha and Singh’s (2000) examination of children’s involvement in dryland agriculture, for example, is typical of this type of small-scale study of a single economic sector. Other examinations of child labor have looked more widely at children’s work across an array of industries, often as part of a broad overview of the issue. Burra’s influential 1995 book Born to Work stands out as a work that combines the best of scholarly research, ethnographic inquiry, and advocacy journalism. The author investigated a number of geographically-specific industries known for their high involvement of child labor. These industries included lock-making, pottery, glass, and brassware. Burra’s approach is notable for its inclusion of a large amount of ethnographic data and a historical explanation of how each industry had evolved to its current production mode. Her liberal inclusion of quotes from child laborers, employers, and other community members as well as a number of stark black and white photos of children at work graphically convey the harsh realities of children working in such industries. She refutes all of the excuses normally offered to justify children working – poverty, vocational training for the future, socialization – and supports universal compulsory education as the appropriate solution to the problem. Another significant work in this vein is Mishra’s Child Labour in India (Mishra 2000). Mishra draws on both a range of empirical studies of children’s work in specific industries as well as his own deep field experience as a government administrator to paint

60 a broad picture of child labor in India. Beyond a review of key industries, Mishra examines the roles of the courts, labor unions, NGOs, and government programs in ending child labor. Mishra, like Burra, staunchly advocates compulsory education as the solution to child labor, although he is willing to accept 15 years of age as its upper limit. Some of India popular periodicals have taken a muck-raking approach in their coverage of child labor. For example, an article by Menon in the popular weekly India Today titled “The Wages of Innocence” documents the gross exploitation of child workers in the carpet industry of Utter Pradesh (Menon 1986). It includes photos of small children laboring under crude conditions. Articles of this genre focus on the most exploitative forms of child labor. The bulk of the literature reviewed in this section consists of small-scale studies that may be characterized in several ways that reveal their limitations. The studies were generally conducted over a short period of time, relied on a questionnaire for data collection, and focused on factors causing children to work, working conditions, and a limited number of household variables (i.e. income, parents’ educational status). Their descriptive power, even within their limited settings, would have been greatly enhanced by greater use of qualitative data-gathering methods. The book-length examinations of child labor, including edited collections of essays, may be characterized broadly in a different way. They attempt to demonstrate with an extensive range of data that all child labor in India is unacceptable and advocate swift and forceful remediation of the problem, most centrally by means of compulsory education.

61 Economics The literature on child labor in India includes examinations of the problem from an economic perspective. A strand of such literature looks at the economics of child labor within the context of particular industries. A 1996 ILO study (Levison et al 1996) looked at the knotted carpet industry. Levinson et al used data measuring children’s employment and the profit margins of weavers, middlemen in India, and wholesalers and retailers in developed countries to determine whether children’s work was essential to the industry’s international competitiveness. The study found that not as many children worked in the industry as has been claimed by some anti-child labor activists and that those children were more often found working for employers who owned five or more looms. Levison et al observed adults working on high quality carpets requiring a large number of knots per square inch, debunking loom owners’ assertions that detailed work can only be done by children’s small fingers. The researchers found that although the international carpet industry was extremely competitive, modest wholesale price increases could occur in India without causing a switch to suppliers in other countries. The researchers cautioned, however, that the owners of small weaving enterprises could not afford the cost of replacing child workers with higher paid adults and suggested such costs would more readily be absorbed within modest price increases paid by buyers in developed countries. Gulrajani also conducted a sophisticated economic analysis of child labor within the carpet industry, but arrived at somewhat different conclusions from Levison et al (Gulrajani 2000). The author concluded that India’s knotted carpet industry requires the cheap labor supplied by children for its survival. She argues that the government should

62 concentrate on economically uplifting the poorest segments of society before instituting compulsory education and completely banning child labor. Gulrajani significantly observes that that weaving and most other processes involved in carpet-making have moved from factories to the unorganized cottage industry sector to avoid child labor restrictions and other labor law requirements. Chandrasekhar conducted an economic analysis of child labor use in the match industry of Tamil Nadu State, another Indian industry that has gained international notoriety (Chandrasekhar 1997). He concluded that the high involvement of children in match making had occurred more as a result of the industry profit-making strategies than because of local conditions of poverty. Manufacturers had consciously cultivated a manner of production and segmented labor market that provided limited employment to male adults and depended on children to create a low base wage that pushed down the wages of women workers as well. In this way even small producers had been able to reap good profits in spite of the high cost of distributing an inexpensive locally made cottage industry product with a limited profit margin to distant locations in India. Chandrasekhar predicted several ways that the industry and local households would be affected if children involved in producing matches were replaced by adults. First, the industry would not necessarily move from the area, although some units might relocate to other parts of the country to benefit from reduced distribution costs. Second, wage rates for some jobs would increase to draw in additional male workers, with the female wage rate increasing as a result as well. However, while the earnings of such workers would increase, the total number of workers would decrease as a result of cost cutting measures and the relocation

63 to other regions of some businesses. More significantly, the small percentage of households that contribute a majority of child workers to the industry and depend heavily on children’s economic contributions would be severely harmed by the changes. These economic studies as well as historical accounts of industries dominating specific locales (such as Burra’s) offer useful insight into the ways in which large employers can manipulate a local labor market to their advantage through the use of child labor. Of more relevance to this dissertation, however, is the economics of child labor at the household level. Community studies of the type cited earlier more commonly focus on the economics of child labor at the micro level of the household. It is worthwhile to keep in mind that early household and community-level studies of the economics of child labor conducted in varied settings around the world have been criticized as being too limited in scope and lax in methodology and definitions used (Hull 1981, Rogers and Standing 1981). Patil’s (1986) Bangalore data indicated significant economic contribution by many working children. Sumangala and Nagarajan (1993) observed that the earnings of children similarly constituted an important proportion of household income in several study areas. Corbridge and Watson (1985) approached the study of the relationship between child labor and household economics in Bihar from the perspective of fertility decisions. They sought to determine whether children are a net asset or expense to households and to see how this influenced family size decisions. The researchers found that from a young age (9-10 years old) children contributed more in economic value to a

64 household than they cost to raise, but cautioned that the same results might not obtain in other regions having better investment opportunities and different cultural values. This section has been limited to a review of literature on the economics of child labor in macro industrial and household contexts. It is worth noting that a body of significant literature also exists dealing with purely theoretical econometric approaches to child labor (see Basu and Vanh 1998, Ranjan 2001, Jafaray and Lahiri 2002).

Education Literature concerning education in India constitutes a body of work particularly salient to my research given that compulsory universal education is often proposed as the solution to child labor. Two recently published collections highlight the varied perspectives of prominent voices in the child labor and education debate. A volume edited by Kabeer, Nambissan, and Subrahmanian (2003) consists of papers from a 1999 workshop held in New Delhi at which the organizers requested participants to address the seemingly intractable contradiction between children’s right to be educated and poor households’ economic needs. Some contributors argued that the success of programs that had moved children from work to school demonstrated that compulsory formal schooling is the most effective means for ending child labor. Other contributors to Kabeer et al’s collection asserted that children and their rights cannot be viewed within a cultural and economic vacuum. The livelihood situations of households must be taken into consideration when prescribing remedies to children not attending school in order to work. Kabeer (2003) in her closing synthesis to the volume attempts to make sense of the wealth of sometimes contradictory information

65 and opinions presented and suggest effective future policy directions. One concept she unpacks is that of poverty as a reason for children not attending school and as a cause of child labor. She proposes that even amongst the poor there is differentiation based on degree of employment regularity, assets, savings, and access to credit. Moreover, she asserts that poverty is a variable that operates differently in varied settings, interacting with other variables such as caste, religion, ethnicity, and a locale’s degree of development. Kabeer further suggests that boosting school attendance and reducing child labor will require complementary programs that both address educational needs and improve the livelihood security of the poor. The second edited volume of interest consists of case studies of innovative NGO and government primary education programs operating in locations across India. While the contributions are more tightly focused on ways of bringing education to out-of-school children, child labor inevitably comes into the discussion. The theoretical and ideological underpinnings as well as methods of the successful programs described vary considerably, underscoring the facts that there is more than one way to insure children are educated and what counts most is results. These approaches include mainstreaming children into the government education system, nonformal education classes, bridge courses, and education camps. Other programs, in contrast, offer early morning or evening classes as an alternative to regular government schooling to accommodate children who must work during daytime hours. Contributors also describe programs that seek to transform teaching pedagogy, change the relationship of schools to the community, integrate education with other community development projects, and

66 empower children. The highlighted programs range in size from those centered at one school or in a particular district to some that operate in hundreds of districts in a state or multiple urban centers in different states. Despite such diversity in educational perspectives and geographic settings, many NGOs and experimental government programs nevertheless share a common strategy of making community consciousnessraising and mobilization concerning the need for education a first step in any new effort (Ramachandran 2003a). The education literature reviewed in this section reveals a wide divergence in ideologies and strategies of education experts and NGOs working to end child labor. On the one side are those who believe it is unacceptable for children to work in any capacity for pay and that elementary education must be compulsory. This group rejects nonformal education for working children as being substandard and unacceptable. On the other side are those who assert that the issue of children working rather than attending school must be looked at within the context of structural poverty, and that solutions to child labor must be developed as part of a broader effort to improve the lives of the poor.

Critique of Child Labor Eradication Strategies A final area of Indian child labor literature relevant to this dissertation examines child labor eradication strategies utilized by the government and NGOs. Such literature includes analysis and critique of Indian laws as well as specific rehabilitation programs. Ramanathan (2000) criticizes the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 as being nothing more than a reiteration of laws previously on the books. Mishra is highly critical of the legislation as well, citing both its failure to comprehensively include all

67 forms of hazardous work children do under its purview and its inability to deal with the highly prevalent multi-layered subcontracting mode of production (Mishra 2000: 315318). Other commentators have been critical of international pressure on India to eradicate child labor, asserting that they are based on protectionist self-interest rather than sincere concern for children (Agnivesh 1999). Literature of this genre has also focused on attempts by NGO to limit the involvement of child labor in specific industries. In a single volume several authors address the efforts to remove children from the knotted carpet industry, looking particularly at the achievements and limitations of the Rugmark “child labor-free” labeling project (Agnivesh 1999: 34-35; Beckmann 1999; Gupta 1999; Kebschull 1999; Khan 1999). Scheu (1999) details the strategies used by NGOs to convince manufacturers of cotton clothing in a south Indian city to not hire children. An additional thread of this type of literature is concerned with propagating more effective strategies for ending child labor. Mahanti (1991) suggests the need to provide both nonformal and vocational training to working children to enable them to move into better quality employment. Notably, her plan includes developing these schemes also for children 14-18 years old who are outside of the purview of the current child labor law. Ashraf (1999) describes additional steps NGOs and trade unions can take to help end child labor. Khan’s (1999) more activist approach proposes grassroots-level organizing, enforcement of child labor bans, and the provision of quality education as the only proven effective strategies for ending child labor.

68 Childhood

The previous section highlighted the fact that societal conceptions of appropriate childhood can significantly shape a country’s child labor debate. This was the case in Britain during the 19th century when working-class parents increasingly came to believe that their children should attend school rather than work from an early age. The present section will look at a second body of literature dealing with theoretical perspectives towards childhood and the concept of children’s rights. The latter subject will be examined in the context of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the international convention that has spurred on India’s child labor eradication efforts.

Social Science Theoretical Approaches to Childhood

Historians and Sociologists Scholars from varied disciplines have over the last 40 years challenged long-held conceptions of childhood. Historian Philip Ariès is universally acknowledged as initiating this reexamination. Ariès argued in Centuries of Childhood (1962) that it was only gradually over the 15th-18th centuries that European civilization developed a sense of childhood as separate phase of life. Ariès did not contend that in earlier times parents had lacked affection for their children, but that children were not regarded as a class of individuals requiring separate forms of activities and treatment.

69 Ariès’s book sparked a re-visiting of the subject of children’s lives across European history, but the author’s theories did not go unchallenged. Some historians charged that Ariès relied on data pertinent only to upper-class families. They asserted that the childhood of the poor and even some middle-class children for most of the period was characterized by limited affection from and gross mistreatment by parents, only gradually changing towards the 19th century (deMause 1976, Stone 1977). Others argued the historical record demonstrated that European parents had always treated their children with affection (Pollock 1983). Ariès’s ideas also served as a catalyst for a re-examination of theoretical perspectives towards children in the social sciences. Sociology, drawing on the principles of developmental psychology, had historically approached the study of children from a perspective of socialization (James et al 1998: 22-23). Beginning in the 1970s some British sociologists began to critique this dominant paradigm. They asserted that sociology had mistakenly adopted psychology’s view that childhood was a life phase characterized by children progressing through universal stages of cognitive and emotional development. They demanded that childhood rather be viewed as a social construction (Prout and James 1997: 9-11). The main implication of such a conceptualization is that childhood takes a multiplicity of forms over time and across cultures. Three principle proponents of a “new sociology of childhood” are Prout, James, and Jenks. Beyond their central principle that childhood must be viewed as a social construct, they have also proposed that it must be considered like race, class, and gender as an important analytical variable. In addition, they assert that children and their life

70 worlds is a topic worthy of study on its own, and that children must be seen as active agents in creating their own social worlds and society at large. They see ethnography as being the most appropriate tool for gathering data that allows children’s voices to be heard and view the act of creating a new vision of childhood as having broader social and political repercussions (Prout and James 1997: 8). Notably, these sociologists see the study of childhood as being interdisciplinary in nature and draw, for example, on theoretical perspectives and data from anthropology (James and James 2004: 43-44). James and James (2004) have continued to develop the new paradigm of childhood, using a theoretical perspective they call “the cultural politics of childhood”. They enumerate three important thrusts of their approach. First, sociologists must seek to understand the various forces, structures, and discourses within a society (and children’s ability to influence them) that assign children particular roles while excluding them from others. Second, they should describe the way these forces, structures, and discourses are utilized together to construct childhood. James and James are particularly concerned about the ways in which normalized traditions and ideologies are more formally incorporated into a society’s social policies and jural realm. Third, sociologists should illuminate how children experience the controlling structures which they encounter in many aspects of their lives (James and James 2004: 6-7). James and James also highlight the problematic conflation in public discourse of the terms the child, children, and childhood and the implicit ideologies driving it. They assert that the child has been incorrectly used to represent a collectivity and that such usage blurs diversity with a group. Moreover, it is often the case that a dominant group will use a singular noun to

71 denote a politically marginalized population, such as “the elderly” or “the poor”. According to James and James, “ ‘childhood’ is the structural site that is occupied by ‘children’ as a collectivity [a]nd it is within this collective and institutional space of ‘childhood’…that any individual ‘child’ comes to exercise his or her unique agency” (James and James 2004: 14). A final issue James and James raise relevant to this dissertation concerns the way in which concepts of age and their relationship to specific activities and social spaces have evolved over time. This evolution has involved the delineation of children’s social world from that of adults based on standardized chronologically-based boundaries. James and James write, “The overarching reach of such institutional processes to define and separate children as a group apart emphasizes the hegemonic control that concepts of ‘childhood’ – what is thought right and proper for children – exercise over children’s experiences at any point in time” (James and James 2004: 23-24). Growing out of such concretization of meanings associated with age has been more a formal governmental distinction between childhood and adulthood. James suggests that in some societies children taking on additional responsibilities serves as a more significant marker of adulthood than the age-determined dividing line (18 years old) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (James 2005: 249-250). These new sociological theoretical perspectives towards childhood are particularly salient to this dissertation. First, the new framework demands that the study of children’s lives include empirical data gathered directly from children. Children must not be looked upon as powerless agents without opinions about factors that affect them.

72 Second, if we accept that childhood is socially constructed then we must question the usefulness of NGO and international discourse about child labor that utilizes a universal model of childhood. Even the fact that the name of the main treaty addressing the rights of young people (CRC) utilizes the words the child may seen as promoting such a model of childhood if we accept James and James’s assertion that ideology permeates the words used to describe young people.

Bourdieu and Childhood French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of “habitus” and “cultural capital” can serve as useful lenses for examining childhood in the context of child labor. Bourdieu defines habitus as “a system of schemes of…perception, thought, appreciation and action [which are] durable and transposable” (Bourdieu and Passeron 1990: 35). Habitus develops through the gradual and often nonverbal processes by which children are socialized from an early age. The concept may be usefully employed to explain the unconscious attitudes shared by social classes, the social reproduction of such attitudes, and how class relations involving domination are subconsciously internalized by the dominated class. Fowler explains that Bourdieu posits habitus as functioning in a general manner as an unconscious impediment to the poor. This explanation is helpful for understanding household decision-making regarding education and child labor. Fowler writes: “The habitus of the dominated frequently leads them to choose actively what they are objectively constrained to do. Thus they ‘make a virtue out of necessity’, [and]…[a]spirations are…limited” (Fowler 1997: 18).

73 Other social scientists have critiqued and attempted to fill in perceived lacuna in Bourdieu’s theory of habitus as applied to educational achievement by the lower classes. Nash, for example, observes that there is a problematic absence of specifics in Bourdieu’s theory as to the manner in which class dispositions are mediated through individual perceptions and actions. He argues that a conceptualization of socialization as a process leading to a universal group disposition is inadequate for explaining why some children stay in school while others drop out. He proposes that using the concept of habitus to explain educational outcomes must be contingent on ethnographic data that demonstrates how preferences leading to practices develop for a group in a specific cultural setting (Nash 2003). Such perspectives also allow for a more realistic view of agency and variation in decision-making surrounding education and child labor. Pajak and Green foreground other aspects of Bourdieu’s theories to explain the manner in which fallacies regarding education contribute to the reproduction of unequal class relations. First, they point out that Bourdieu observed that the limited number of high social and economic positions available in any society makes it impossible for education to raise up a whole group or class. Moreover, Bourdieu and Passeron identify the dual nefarious roles educators play as they disseminate dominant culture knowledge and values to poor children while as the same time upholding the false proposition that educational success is a ticket out of poverty. Bourdieu’s notion of “cultural capital” offers an additional theoretical lens for reinterpretating childhood. Cultural capital refers to the accumulation of knowledge and skills highly valued in a society. Important forms of cultural capital are educational

74 attainment and language skills. A society’s upper classes both define and possess such capital. Bourdieu believes that lower-class habitus largely precludes children from accumulating the cultural capital necessary to move up in society. Moreover, he sees habitus as blocking poor parents from realistically visualizing the existence of future positive possibilities for their children (Bourdieu 1995: 42).

Anthropologists’ Contributions to the Study of Childhood Anthropologists from varying subfields have questioned the absence of focus on children in most studies and the lack of a fully theorized “anthropology of childhood” (Scheper-Hughes and Sargeant 1998: 13-15; Kamp 2001; Roveland 2001; Schwartzman 2001; van Santen 2001; Hirschfield 2002). Hirschfield, however, offers a list of cultural and linguistic anthropologists who have conducted significant child-centered studies over the latter decades of the 20th century. He goes on to argue it is not that such contributions do not exist, but that they have remained marginal to the interests and theoretical development of mainstream anthropology. He suggests that anthropology’s lack of interest in explicitly exploring the social worlds of children is due to its view of children only as “adults in training” (Hirschfeld 2002: 611-614). Hirschfield and others moreover assert that giving more attention to the study of children is vital for fully explicating adult society (Toren 1993: 462; Hirschfeld 2002: 612-13). Schwartzman’s (2001) conducted a thorough review of 100 years (1898-1998) worth of issues of the American Anthropologist to ascertain how much attention the journal had given to the study of children and what forms it had taken. Her review

75 revealed some interesting trends over time in the thematic orientation of articles dealing with children. She groups the earliest studies published (1898-1940) under the heading of “Collections and Specimens” The first studies in this category concentrate on comparing the physical characteristics of children of different ethnicities, “races”, and nationalities. Others are inspired by Boas’s focus on documenting the customs and material artifacts of disappearing cultures, including the games, objects, and rituals associated with children. Schwartzman sees the years1940-1970 as being broadly characterized by anthropological studies often referred to by the rubric “Culture and Personality”. These studies investigated various forms of child-rearing practices in an attempt to explicate the interactions of biological, environmental, and sociocultural forces in the production of personality. The work of Margaret Mead is most associated with this type of focus. Anthropologists’ interest in culture and personality led in the 1950s to experimentation with new methods with which to gather data about children’s psyche. During that decade anthropologists subjected children to writing and drawing exercises, doll-play interviews, and a variety of projective tests borrowed from psychology. It is intriguing to consider the possibility that there was an implicit connection between anthropology’s theoretical casting of children as powerless subjects and its choice of intrusive modes of psychological testing for gathering data. The 1950s and 1960s saw two areas of common interest related to the study of children. A number of anthropologists utilized extensive cross-cultural surveys to compare the effects of different child-training methods. Others focused on initiation ceremonies and rites of passage. Schwartzman sees the 1970s studies involving children

76 as being chiefly concerned with developing new models of socialization and social structure. Again, she finds that children’s relevancy to anthropology was only in terms of how they are shaped for roles in the adult world. During the 1980s articles in the American Anthropologist that dealt with children largely did so in the context of studying reproductive behavior and fertility decisionmaking. It was not until the 1990s that there was a blossoming of more child-centered published studies. Schwartzman sees the decade as being a period of transition to a new “anthropology of children”. Schwartzman views the approaches to children taken in the literature she reviewed as demonstrating crucial theoretical flaws in anthropology’s study of children. First, by choosing to focus only on how adults and adult-run institutions monitor, indoctrinate, and control children (an adult-centric approach) anthropologists have neglected the influence of what Schwartzman terms the “local and global forces of change” such as migration, wars, and consumerism. Such an approach also ignores children’s agency in creating their own social world, and portrays them being passive to the hegemonic projections of adults’ power. Schwartzman further finds that anthropology has privileged the parent-child relationship (and within that the mother-child dyad) over all others, paying scant attention to how children interact with other children or adults. One of the new directions American anthropology has taken in recent years in the study of children and childhood has been to properly describe the varied levels of politics that impact children’s lives. Given that such work often focuses on children’s health and child survival it is not as concerned with giving direct voice to children’s experiences as

77 in describing how structural forces often impact children’s lives in negative ways. A recent influential book edited by Scheper-Hughes and Sargeant (1998) is of this vein. The editors state that the contributions to their book “demonstrate how the treatment and place of children…are affected by global political economic structures and by everyday practices embedded in the micro-level interactions of local cultures” (Scheper-Hughes and Sargent 2000: 2). Stephens’s (1995) edited collection similarly frames childhood as a social construction continuing to be shaped by both global and local political forces into a multitude of culturally specific iterations. Besides such trends and critical movement in American anthropology, British cultural anthropologists have in recent years also similarly criticized British anthropology’s history of limited attention to children and have begun to reorient and revitalize that area of study. Benthall observes that anthropology’s valuing of participant observation, its attention to cross-cultural comparison, and its proven ability to bring previously neglected variables such as gender to the center of its analysis all offer hope for ending the failure to adequately study children (Benthall 1992a: 1). He notes, however, there is problematic aspect of merely studying children to increase the anthropological knowledge base. He recounts a meeting of professionals from varied fields concerned with child welfare: “There was a divide between anthropologists, who are more interested in documentation and interpretation, and social reformers who are anxious for practical proposals to remedy instances of child abuse” (Benthall 1992b: 24). Since the 1990s British anthropologist Catherine Panter-Brick’s research on Nepali street children has attempted to bridge the gap between theoretical research and

78 practical solutions to children’s problems. Her strong critique that earlier international discourse had essentialized the characteristics of marginalized youth populations is salient to this dissertation (Panter-Brick 2002). She argues that until recently discourse regarding street children overly emphasized physical, emotional, and moral risks, stigmatized the children so characterized, and drew attention away from the larger proportion of children negatively impacted by poverty. She also asserts that it homogenized a wide variety of life circumstances under one category, ignored children’s agency, and neglected children’s own views of their lives. Panter-Brick points out that the adoption of the CRC with its emphasis on children’s rights of participation has stimulated new research approaches that consider children’s abilities to resourcefully deal with adversity. As with child labor, Panter-Brick notes that an important element of street children discourse that characterizes them as being deviant is based on Western normative ideas about the geography of childhood (Panter-Brick 2004). In both cases, children should be living at home under the control of adults and attending school, not operating independently out in public spaces. Panter-Brick believes that “international, national, and local action on behalf of specific groups of children in adversity…closely reflects the construction and management of a social and political issue (Panter-Brick 2002: 153). Her theoretical emphasis encourages anthropology to re-examine previously neglected marginalized categories of children, both in contemporary and historical contexts (Panter-Brick and Smith 2000).

79 Indian Social Scientists Indian social scientists have also given substantial attention to the study of children and childhood. They have done little, however, to break new theoretical ground or further a social science of childhood in which children’s voices are heard. In fact, a thorough review of several extensive anthropological and sociological data bases finds that most study of children in India has been in the context of a limited number of themes. These themes include socialization, health (e.g. child survival, nutritional intake, comparative anthropometry, dental and bone development, psychological problems, mental development), fertility and child spacing, child marriage, child abuse, gender discrimination, juvenile delinquency, and child labor. Amongst these themes socialization has received the most attention. An annotated bibliography by the Tata Institute of Social Science reviews more than 150 studies conducted by Indian social scientists in the 1970s. In almost all of these studies, the focus was completely on the views and practices of adults concerning one or more aspects of child-rearing, not on the perspectives or practices of children. Indian studies of this type tend to examine socialization within a particular ethnic, religious, class, or geographic setting or in a comparison between different groups, one of which is inevitably of much lower social and economic status. Singh and Pothen’s (1982) study in the slums of Indore examined how children were fed and their physical and psychological health. An edited collection from the same period (Sinha 1981) included studies of child socialization amongst different group, in terms of psychological differentiation and from the perspective of creating social identity that may lead to aggression or prejudice. Bhogle (1981) contrasts

80 the child-rearing practices of caste Hindu, “backward Hindu”, and Muslim mothers in Hyderabad. Anandalakshmy and Sinha’s (1981) study of socialization in a weaver’s community in Varanasi offers a more contextualized view of children’s lives more relevant to this dissertation. The researchers describe differences between how girls and boys are raised and how an important part of a boy’s early life is training for his future career. Kakar (1979), in contrast, utilizes a psychological approach for examining childhood in India. He draws on an eclectic range of data from Freudian psychology, anthropology, Hindu beliefs and mythology, and Indian popular culture in his explanation of the culturally conditioned psyche of Indian children. Few studies of childhood in India stand out in terms of being either methodologically or theoretically more inclusive of children. Khan’s (1980) household study of child development in rural villages in Karnataka, however, was one of the few I came across that went beyond questioning adults to elicit the opinions of children. Khan obtained his data largely from answers to survey questions on a wide variety of topics that included education, work, corporal punishment, and fathers’ alcohol usage. Although Khan’s data is not qualitative in nature, he presents it in a manner that both conveys a strong sense of how children think and the importance of their views to his research. This section has focused on the writings of Indian social scientists published in India. There is one Western anthropologist, however, who has contributed significantly to re-theorizing children and childhood in India. Olga Nieuwenhuys’s (1996, 1999, 2000) work on the lives of children in Kerala is distinctive in that it has directly confronted

81 prevailing Northern paradigms of appropriate childhood in developing countries by privileging children’s own views about the work they do. Nieuwenhuys challenges several major stereotypes about child labor and the ideology of child labor eradication. She disputes a common truism of child labor discourse that working at home under one’s parents is salutary to children (i.e. socialization in a protected environment) while outside work for others constitutes exploitative drudgery. She demonstrates that the low-valued types of remunerative work that children are limited to, whether they are in the home or out in the community, are vital to both household livelihood and the survival of important local industries. Nieuwenhuys illustrates the gendered nature of such work. Boys’ petty work involving the catching and marketing of fish is seen as a stepping stone to later finding placement in a fishing crew while girls’ work in preparing coir is seen as just a contribution to their mothers’ “housework.” In addition, Nieuwenhuys shows that children are pragmatic in their views about work and childhood, valuing the concurrent pursuit of food, money, and education (Nieuwenhuys 1999: 198-201; Nieuwenhuys 2000). Commenting on the evolution of attitudes towards education amongst the poor she observes, “Schooling has come to embody…the accepted way for working children to improve themselves and escape from the miserable surroundings of everyday life” (Nieuwenhuys 1999: 199).

Lessons from the Childhood Literature The literature concerning childhood reviewed in this section raises some important issues for this study of child labor. First, it suggests that childhood is socially

82 constructed and consequently differs according to cultural setting. We may then ask the question, are there other more pragmatic yet humane versions of childhood in India than those promoted by NGOs and international agencies that rely on the Northern model? That model views childhood as lasting 18 years and being a time when children attend school and play. A second issue raised is both methodological and theoretical in nature. How can anthropological studies give appropriate attention to children’s agency? The core of the research on which this dissertation is based is a household study and as such included the views of a variety of household members. Although the research approach cannot be characterized as being purely child-centered, children’s voices are nonetheless heard throughout it and the subject of children’s agency is extensively discussed. The substantial body of Indian literature dealing with child socialization suggests a third issue salient to this dissertation. Examining socialization strategies in poor communities can be useful for understanding child labor if it is given more contextualization and richer description than in previous studies. Consequently, I will explore how parents socialize their children through formal education or vocational training and work. In contrast to most Indian research of socialization, this study’s qualitative approach foregrounds the perceptions of low-income parents. The literature concerning childhood raises a fourth issue - the ability of research data about children to be put to positive use. There is a perception that social scientists are more interested in documenting and interpreting problematic aspects of child welfare than developing needed remedies. This suggests an ethical dilemma for any

83 anthropologist who studies the problem of child labor without also attempting to identify pragmatic solutions.

Children’s Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) The literature reviewed in previous sections raises substantial doubts about childhood having universal meanings across time and culture. But it is just such concepts as contained in the CRC that drive child labor discourse and eradication efforts in India today. Boyden asserts the CRC and other recent international human rights legislation incorporate from the North “highly selective, stereotyped perceptions of childhood – of the innocent child victims on the one hand and the young deviant 3 on the other” (Boyden 1997: 197). Children’s rights (most often from a welfare perspective) has been a part of international human rights discourse for more than 70 years. These rights were formally recognized in the Geneva Declaration of the Child (1924) and later in the U. N. Declaration on the Rights of the Child (1959). With the ratification of the CRC in 1989, published literature on children’s rights grew exponentially. A significant section of the convention that has drawn the interest of social scientists is Article 3.1. It states: “In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child must be a primary consideration” (United Nations 1989). The concept of “best interests” has sparked extensive discussion that again demonstrates the
3

Boyden uses the term deviant to refer to children who spend much of their time on the street, unsupervised by adults.

84 importance of cultural considerations to human rights protocols. An-Na’im argues that parents from different societies and religious backgrounds may have varied ideas about how children should be raised and the values to be imparted to them. Therefore, a universalist interpretation of “best interests” is problematic. An-Na’im asserts that the United Nations must allow adequate time for a process of intra-society discourse and cross-cultural debate so that an enforceable universal interpretation can be reached (AnNa’im 1994). Woodhead’s comment on the inappropriate use of the word “needs” in child welfare discourse is relevant to the interpretation of “best interests" as well: “[W]hile in very general respects, ‘needs statements’ may have universal validity, detailed prescriptions about children’s needs are normative, and depend on a judgment about processes of cultural adaptation and social adjustment” (Woodhead 1997: 73-74). Another theoretical attempt to reconcile culture and the best interests mandate posits children’s rights as being situated within a set of concentric circles. It envisages moving outward from a center of vital unalienable rights to encompass rights increasingly open to flexible interpretation in the context of local culture (Alston 1994: 19). Goonesekere (1997), in contrast, documents the long evolution of the concept of children’s best interests in South Asia. With roots in ancient religious precepts the concept was later enshrined in colonial era law and more recently prominently written into national constitutions and litigated in the courts of all countries of the region. Social scientists have raised concerns about other aspects of the CRC as well. I have previously noted James’ criticism of the convention’s utilization of a EuroAmerican demarcation of adulthood (18 years old). Ennew argues that using such a

85 sharp division broadly lumps together disparate age cohorts having dramatically different needs and abilities. Moreover, it neglects major differences in the physical and social development of boys and girls (Ennew 2002: 340-341). Scheper-Hughes and Sargent note that the wholesale application of universalist human rights for children based on Western values in societies having varied social and economic structures may have unintended negative consequences. They also suggest that even one of the convention’s seemingly innocuous rights, to be officially registered at birth, may more enable unscrupulous states to monitor their citizens than benefit children (ScheperHughes and Sargent 1998: 7-8). Bajpai’s (2003) comprehensive work demonstrates that international concerns about children’s rights have been widely taken up in India in the form of government legislation, court decisions, and the activities of voluntary organizations. Against the backdrop of these widely varying views on how to best guarantee children’s rights and well-being Boyden’s comments may be viewed as both a critique and a useful signpost for more constructive approaches: “Undoubtedly countless children in poor countries live extremely precarious lives and are deeply exploited; they deserve all the support and assistance they can get. But the point is that the human rights discourse tends to detract from careful ethnography, as often as not calling forth simplistic explanations and solutions, many of which are inappropriate or ineffectual” (Boyden 1997: 220).

86 Chapter Summary This review examines three major bodies of literature relevant to this dissertation. The first section considered historians’ interpretations of child labor in Great Britain during its Industrial Revolution. The British experience with child labor suggested several core issues relevant to the study of child labor in contemporary India. First, as a country industrializes child labor may be found in both old modes of production and new factory settings. Second, public outrage against child labor may focus more on work in new modes of production than older, more familiar settings. Third, national debates and policy directions may be influenced by international forces involving moral identity and political economy. Fourth, child labor eradication discourse significantly reconceptualizes children from economically contributing members of a household to vulnerable individuals lacking agency. Fifth, elementary education can serve as a viable solution to child labor only in coordination with poverty reduction. The second section of this review primarily examined Indian literature dealing with the child labor issue. The review focused on empirical community studies, critique of child labor eradication efforts, and work in the areas of health, economics, and education. It demonstrated that although child labor has undergone intense scrutiny by Indian scholars working in a broad range of fields, there remain strong differences of opinion as to how the problem can best be solved. The third section considered social science perspectives towards childhood. It demonstrated that in Great Britain and the United States the last 25 years have brought a

87 dramatic shift to seeing children as active agents in society and as rich subjects of research in their own right.

88 CHAPTER 3: SETTING AND METHODS

Research Setting

Broad Setting: Karnataka State The research was conducted in the city of Mysore in the southern Indian state of Karnataka from January, 2003 until March, 2004. Mysore is situated approximately three hours by rail from the booming information technology center and state capital, Bangalore. Although the social and economic environments prevailing in Mysore are important proximate factors affecting the livelihood of its citizens and the prevalence of child labor in that city, the lives of the people living there are also strongly impacted by state government policies and societal trends of the state of Karnataka as a whole. Before focusing on Mysore it is instructive for me to provide a thumbnail sketch of Karnataka state utilizing statewide statistics that will enable me to make useful comparisons with the city in which my household study population resides. For variables which have had data disaggregated into urban and rural designations, I have chosen to present the more useful urban ones. While the majority of the state’s population (69%) is rural and depends on agriculture for its livelihood, the urban population has steadily increased from 24% in 1971 to 34% in 2001 (International Institute for Population Sciences 2001: 2). The large majority (82.68 %) of Karnataka’s population is Hindu, with smaller proportions of Muslims (11.20%), Christians (2.00%), and assorted other groups (4.12%). Of the Hindu

89 population 17% are from Scheduled Castes (SC), 29.80% from Other Backward Castes (OBC), and 4.70% from Scheduled Tribes (ST) (Patil 2001: 54). The state’s literacy rate was 67% in 2001 (Census of India: 2001). Health and other social indicators for Karnataka reported in the second National Family Health Survey for India (NFHS-2) conducted in 1998-99 illustrate the continuing development challenges facing the state. Although the infant mortality rate of 52 per 1,000 is well below the Indian mean, figures show that a high number of the state’s women and children continue to be malnourished. Of children up to 35 months of age, 36.6% are stunted, 20% are wasted, and 43.9% are underweight. Of the female adult population of the state, 38.8% have a low body mass index. While a relatively high percentage (86.3%) of women received antenatal care, only 59.1% received medical assistance at delivery and 47.3% of births were considered high risk. Almost a fifth (17.3%) of the births for which a birth weight was recorded were low weight. Only 60% of children 12-23 months of age had received all recommended vaccinations (International Institute for Population Sciences 2001: inside frontspiece). Data from NFHS-2 consistently demonstrate that the urban population of Karnataka has access to far better public infrastructure than the rural population and that their homes as well are better built and equipped. A substantial proportion (66%) of the urban population owns their own home, with 69% of those houses being characterized as pucca (i.e. of high quality materials such as cement) and 93.8% having an electrical connection. Almost all urban households (90.7%) get their drinking water from pipes, although the location of those pipes varies in terms of ease of access (inside their own

90 house, in their yard, or near the house). Although water delivered by pipes is considered optimal, there is no guarantee it is of drinkable quality. Never the less, 44.6 % of households use no water purification methods and of those that do 15.6% only strain the water through a cloth. While most urban households in Karnataka also have toilet facilities (47% a flush toilet and 34% a pit toilet or latrine), a still significant 19.0% have none. Urban households possess a variety of durable goods including furnishings, but the dichotomy between rich and poor is obvious in the large percentage differences relating to specific items. While 69.0% own a cot or bed, 82% a chair, and 75.7% a TV, only 25.6% have telephones and 23.8% refrigerators. According to a summary index that compounds a variety of survey variables (including some which I have enumerated), 39% of urban households in Karnataka State enjoy a high standard of living, 14% have one that is poor, and the remainder of households are considered to be in a medium grouping (International Institute for Population Sciences 2001: 26-30). Looking next at the economy of the state, although agriculture has traditionally played an important role in Karnataka’s economy (and as mentioned above, many households still depend on it for their livelihoods), that role has been decreasing in recent years as economic development in other sector has increased. Thus agriculture as a portion of the state domestic product decreased from 43% to 33% from 1980-81 to 199697, while manufacturing, information technology, and other sectors correspondingly grew in volume. The establishment in Karnataka of several large and successful public sector companies helped contribute to industrial diversification and increased job opportunities

91 in the state (International Institute for Population Sciences 2001: 2). But more central to the state’s development and job creation policies has been the promotion of small scale industrial units (SSI). Recent trends, however, indicate the number of workers employed by SSIs has been falling, with businesses instead investing in new production technologies. Observers caution that part of the fall may be due to attempts by small enterprises to keep under the radar of various types of government regulation (e.g. pension fund contributions, child labor prohibition), to avoid attracting the attention of unions, and to benefit from the lower cost of temporary labor (Rao 2001: 207-208). Of the almost 1,000 large and medium-scale industrial units employing a total of 450,000 workers in Karnataka, 11.8% were reported as being located in Mysore (Government of Karnataka, Department of Industries and Commerce n.d., as cited in Rao 2001: 208-209). In the high-tech sector, Bangalore as the home of many homegrown as well as multinational information technology companies is regarded by many as the IT capital of India. The projected continuation of the exponential growth of the IT sector in Karnataka is expected to increase jobs in the sector from a mere 75,000 in 1998-99 to 1,000,000 by 2010 (Rao 2001: 217). Despite the rapid growth of selective sectors of the economy, some observers have expressed concerns about the state’s fiscal policies and its inability to reap adequate financial benefits from its growing GDP. Rao (2001) suggests that continued economic growth and poverty reduction are linked and contingent on the state dramatically increasing investments in the state’s ailing road system, electrical generation, irrigation, education, potable water, and sanitation infrastructures. That this will not be an easy

92 matter is illustrated by figures that show an almost continuous significant gap since the mid-1990s between Karnataka State’s revenues and expenditures. Rao further proposes that the state must take the politically unpalatable steps of cutting back on its generous subsidies to numerous business sectors, tightening up collection of a variety of taxes, raising the cost of public services, and stemming the huge losses of public enterprises.

Urban Setting: Mysore The contrasts between the boomtown buzz of Bangalore and laid back atmosphere of Mysore are striking. While Bangalore’s population was put by the 2001 census at 4,301,326 (surpassed in size only by Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Chennai) the figure for Mysore was 742,261 (Census of India 2001). Only in the city’s central business district does one observe anything like the frenzied traffic that flows along the far wider streets connecting the huge expanse of Bangalore, and that traffic is made up of a noticeably larger percentage of scooters and motorcycles when compared to Bangalore’s growing throng of private automobiles. 4 In Mysore there is nothing akin to Bangalore’s information technology industry-fueled construction craze rapidly throwing up modern multi-story office and apartment towers around the city. Moreover, although both cities have traditionally laid claim to being “the garden city” because of having large swaths of semi-tropical vegetation in parks and residential areas, a substantial proportion of Bangalore’s greenery has fallen victim to the city’s increasing hunger for vacant land for business and residential development.

4

See Figure 1 in Appendix B.

93 Mysore dreams of emulating the economic growth of its successful neighbor and the state’s desire to relieve the growing pains of the capital city and decentralize its high concentration of jobs and wealth have focused on encouraging IT companies to expand their operations into Mysore. Thus far, however, such investment remains modest. On the other side of the coin, in the 1990s Mysore’s economic base took a strong hit when some of its largest manufacturing concerns went out of business. Yet the production-oriented industries Mysore has been most associated with do not involve huge factories or high technology but rather traditional handicrafts. In particular, the city has a longstanding reputation for high quality silk and assorted sandalwood products. Mysore silk continue to be highly regarded in India (although as is the case with all silk subject to increasing competitive pressure from imported Chinese varieties), but a major element of sandalwood use, statue carving, has gone into decline due to the scarcity and everincreasing high price of the raw material. The city’s most robust industry is one that produces no material consumer goods: tourism. The image of Mysore many Indians hold in their minds is of a place rich in cultural history, that history tightly interwoven with India’s religious heritage. The city was the setting of a major story found in ancient Hindu texts, an epic10-day battle in which the goddess Chamundeshwari vanquished the demon king Mahisha Asura. An important temple built on a hill at the edge of Mysore to honor the goddess is a major pilgrimage site for Hindus from across India. More secular tourists flock to the city yearly to attend a colorful 10-day cultural festival held to celebrate the goddess’s victory that includes parading floats and costumed elephants. Grand palaces of maharajas and

94 nearby archaeological sites and nature preserves are other draws of the area. A pleasant year-round climate adds to the city’s attraction to tourists as well as retirees. Mysore is also known as a center of higher education in Karnataka, being the home of the sprawling 739-acre University of Mysore and numerous other public and private colleges. Established in 1916, the University of Mysore was the state’s first university and in addition India’s first outside of British control (University of Mysore 2006). Several additional facts about Mysore are useful for understanding the political and cultural environments of the city in which I conducted my research. The municipal government of the city is the Mysore City Corporation (MCC), composed of representatives (known as corporators) elected from the city’s 65 wards. A mayor is chosen by the corporators from their ranks for a two-year term. The elected body oversees a city that encompasses 128 sq. kilometers (Mysore City Corporation 2006). Mysore, like most cities in India, geographically consists of a mix of socio-economically demarcated areas, often in close proximity to each other. Some areas of the city are known as wealthier havens, having quiet well-maintained tree-lined streets, mostly larger well-constructed houses, good water and sewage infrastructure, and a vibrant shopping district with a full range of retail shops. Others are commonly recognized as being middle-class in character, although it becomes clear to an even causal observer based upon an examination of the size and condition of houses found within the border of some such neighborhoods that many areas in the city are composed of a patchwork of middleclass and poor “zones”.

95 Micro Setting: Low-income Neighborhoods Participants in the household study I conducted lived in seven different mostly low socioeconomic areas of Mysore. The large majority resided in two contiguous neighborhoods located in the far eastern portion of the city, while some of the more geographically scattered members of the sample were those recruited through a middle school located in west Mysore that had children attending from as far away as several kilometers. It should be noted that some of the areas were formerly discrete villages situated outside the official boundaries of the city, eventually subsumed as the city grew over the latter decades of the twentieth century. Many living in such areas, including the parents or grandparents of some of my household study participants, had illegally constructed homes on agricultural land rather than on government approved revenue sites. In recent years MCC has begun a movement to regularize illegally constructed homes by having their owners pay the corporation a large fee. The overall physical characteristics of the neighborhoods in which the study sample resided exhibited strong similarities, although there was substantial variation even in the poorest of areas in regards to public infrastructure and housing size and quality. Although the environmental characteristics and housing quality of the poor areas had changed in positive ways from descriptions of Mysore’s slums found in an earlier anthropological study (Venkatarayappa 1978), many remained strikingly the same. Houses bordered both sides of narrow lanes (10-15 ft. wide) having sparse greenery and sometimes a rudimentarily paved surface. 5 Many of the lanes had no or minimal facilities

5

See Figures 2-6 in Appendix B.

96 for water drainage. Some households still depended upon community water taps for drinking water while others had small cisterns sunk into the ground directly in front of their houses that were connected to piped water. It was a common sight during the dry season in those neighborhoods to see women and children lined up at community standpumps waiting to fill to plastic or metal open-mouthed vessels with potable water for their homes. During the period of my research in Mysore, the state was two years into a severe drought, causing serious water supply problems in my study areas. Residents reported receiving water supply only every 3-4 days. 6 During the last six months of my research, I observed a variety of infrastructure projects being undertaken by the city and state governments in lower socioeconomic areas, including the construction of a new school building, concrete-lined drainage ditches, parks, and community toilets as well as the widespread paving and resurfacing of both narrow lanes and more major streets. This frenzy of community development activity, I was told, often occurred just prior to an election. To help present a more complete picture of the physical characteristics of the areas in which my study participants live it would be useful to use one such area as an example. An instructive locale to use for this purpose is VL Nagar 7, a place I visited often and in which I conducted numerous household study interviews and focus groups. Thirty to forty years ago the area had been a rural village, described to me as being in a forest. Just 10-15 years earlier the area was still considered the periphery of Mysore, with
6

A newspaper article from 2005 documents growing dissatisfaction with Mysore’s water supply problems. It reports that even in a year when the reservoirs serving the city were near overflowing after the monsoon rains, many areas of the city (even some considered middle or upper-class) continued to receive water only on alternate days of the week (The Hindu 2005: ). 7 VL Nagar is a pseudonym for one of the low-income areas that served as my research sites.

97 bus service to it being extremely poor. But now VL Nagar is a built-up locality with a busy commercial zone serving community members. The heart of VL Nagar is a small traffic circle from which two narrow but busy shopping streets vee-off, running 100-200 meters in both directions. Near the end of the shorter of the two streets is a popular Hindu temple dedicated to a local deity. The streets are lined by shops that are open to the street – i.e. most have no front windows but only metal shutters that roll down to secure them at closing time. The shops fill the gamut of basic needs of the surrounding area’s poor to lower-middle-class residents and include provision stores, bakeries, barbershops, butchers 8, shoe stores, and photography studios. Of special interest to this study because of their negative economic impact on many poor households is the plethora of two other types of establishments, those that sell alcohol and others that sell lottery tickets. Emanating from the length of the shopping streets are narrow unpaved or semi-paved lanes like those described above, lined with the small houses of the low-income area’s residents. While the VL Nagar and most of my other research neighborhoods to a knowledgeable observer have the appearance of slums, whether they may be legally defined as such is more problematic. According to data I received from the Karnataka Slum Clearance Development Board (KSCDB), the government agency charged with rehabilitating the state’s slum areas, Mysore had 52 officially recognized slums encompassing a total area of 101 acres and 28 guntas 9 and with a total population of

8

The slaughtering of animals is done on the street in front of the shop, with portions of meat then being hung uncovered from hooks or displayed on a table. 9 100 guntas = 1 hectare = .45 acres

98 33,233 inhabitants (Karnataka State Slum Clearance Development Board: 2001). I was told by an employee of the board that for an area to receive government designation as a slum 100% of its residents must be living below the poverty line (BPL). I was able to establish from a KSCDB list of Mysore’s slums that only parts of four of the low-income areas in which my household study participants lived were officially labeled as slums. Of those, two were sections of the VL Nagar in which my informants were most concentrated. Together they constituted 4 acres and 30 guntas with a listed population of 565 inhabitants. The other two official slums in my study areas were somewhat larger in size (6 and 7 acres) with 1,315 and 400 residents respectively. However, as was the case with my main study neighborhood they were visually indistinguishable from the surrounding locale.

Research Methodology

Introduction The research utilized a number of data gathering methods to investigate child labor in the geographically and culturally specific context of Mysore (see Table 1 below).

99

Table 1. Goals of research methods Data-gathering Method Household study Key informant interviews

Focus groups

Photo documentation

Secondary data

Internet Resources

Goal of Method To gather the views of a diverse group of working children and their parents concerning children’s work, education and related issues To investigate the opinions other stakeholders in the community have concerning child labor, education and related issues towards understanding public discourse on those subjects in Mysore To examine the perspectives held by specific socioeconomic and professional groups in the community concerning child labor, education, and related issues to further understanding of public discourse on those subjects in Mysore; in the case of lower-socioeconomic focus groups, to collaborate information given by household study participants To have a lasting visual record of the range of work done by children in Mysore and government child labor eradication efforts, to compliment written dissertation descriptions for the reader and for use in public presentations To gather “grey” literature and published academic and NGO material about child labor and education not available in the United States; in the case of newspaper and magazine clippings to document public discourse on child labor coeval to my research study To collect data from anti-child labor NGO websites and official discourse concerning child labor from Karnataka State and Government of India websites.

These methods were chosen to get at the multiple dimensions of child labor and provide a systemic overview of the issue from the vantage point of varied stakeholders. These stakeholders included households having child workers, residents of neighborhoods in which child labor is prevalent, teachers, local political leaders, anti-child labor NGO

100 workers, religious leaders, government employees charged with eradicating child labor, residents of more prosperous areas of Mysore, and state and even national-level government officials. With tapping into the perspectives of such a broad range of stakeholders in mind, I gathered data using a household study, key informant interviews, focus groups, event attendance, library searches, photography, and a print media clipping file. Beyond facilitating the inclusion of data from a wide variety of sources, the use of multiple data-gathering methods additionally served as a means of data triangulation. Thus, data regarding a particular anti-child labor event might come from a community participant, an NGO organizer, and a newspaper article.

Household Study: Recruitment For the purpose of answering my main research questions concerning intrahousehold decision-making surrounding child labor I conducted a household-based study of poor to lower-middle class families having at least one working child. I was assisted by D.C. Nanjunda, a research assistant having a Master’s Degree in anthropology who had recently worked as a teacher in a large private school located in a low socioeconomic area of Mysore. The school attracted many of its students from some of my field sites, and my research assistant had a reputation amongst his students as a being a diligent if strict teacher who went to great efforts to see that they succeeded. His reputation in the community was also enhanced by the fact that he and his family lived in a lower-middle class area not far from the school (making him a “local boy”). I benefited enormously from the substantial amount of social capital my research assistant

101 commanded because of that. Being so familiar with the local culture, in fact, allowed him to sometimes transcend the role of research assistant to that of key informant. While for the most part this was extremely useful, at times it led to my research assistant becoming emotionally involved about a subject under discussion and to relate too familiarly with an informant. I used several routes for recruiting participants into my study and the process with each individual finally selected involved several steps. My research assistant’s solid community connections were utilized to recruit a large portion of my household sample. A number of his former students residing in low-income areas were contacted and their help and that of their parents (usually a mother) was solicited for locating households in their neighborhood that had at least one working child. Those former students and their parents helped arrange, usually within their own home, informal conversations with members of households in their neighborhood having working children. A second initial contact method, however, was also utilized that involved taking a walking tour of the neighborhood while accompanied by a former student, a person familiar to neighborhood residents. As we walked through the neighborhood we would ask acquaintances of the former student whether they knew of any houses in the area having working children or, not uncommonly given the presence of a foreigner, would ourselves be asked about what I was doing in the area. A third recruitment method was utilized to expand the size and geographic spread of the household study area beyond that of neighborhoods familiar to my research assistant. In several other low socioeconomic areas principals at local primary schools

102 were requested for help in identifying students they knew to be doing work for remuneration. The parents of these students were then contacted regarding the study. In all three recruitment methods a prime consideration was obtaining a varied sample for the study – children of both sexes involved in a wide range of work and households having differing membership, economic, and religious characteristics. After reviewing the details of the households of the individuals I met with the help of my research assistant’s former students, I returned to the homes of those I wished to recruit to provide them with further information and obtain written informed consent. Parents to whom I was referred by the school principal were usually recruited, if their household met my criteria, at the time of the first meeting. For the purposes of this study I have chosen to selectively focus on children’s work having certain characteristics. This includes work that children do for remuneration independently (e.g. buying goods wholesale and selling them on the sidewalk) or is done for an outside employer for pay either in money or in kind. Another work type of interest is work that is considered training (i.e. apprenticeship) with little or no pay and which may or may not involve a relative as a teacher. A final type of children’s work I focused on is work done within the household and for which a child’s parents receive payment. It is acknowledged that many studies as well include as “child labor” the household chores or babysitting done by children, given that such work may free up time for adult household members (especially women) to do paid work. Although households having children making substantial contributions to housework were not purposively selected,

103 this was not an uncommon phenomenon amongst the girls in my study who worked part-time or full-time at home-based production (i.e. rolling agarbathi or beedis). In accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, I defined a child as any person under 18 years of age. 10 I purposively selected a study sample of 41 households to give as broad as possible a view of children’s work in Mysore. Although several of the child workers from those households were not far from 18 years old at the time of recruitment I nevertheless chose to include their households to achieve the kinds of diversity I required. Moreover, given the fact that in all cases those children had started working years earlier, their households were able to contribute useful information about children’s work trajectories over time. I chose to include in my sample a small number of households having children doing only part-time work in order to compare the economic contributions of part-timers to full-timers. I also wished to examine whether any aspects of part-time work might contribute to their dropping out of school and entering full-time work. I originally planned to include some street children in my sample. I dropped the idea, however, when it became apparent that it would be difficult to recruit street children and time-consuming to maintain regular contact with them while still visiting the number of households I wished to have in my sample.

The CRC states that its provisions must be applied to all individuals up to the age of 18 (“children”) unless a country has a lower age for the beginning of majority (i.e. adulthood).

10

104 Household Study: Procedures Each household that participated until the completion of the study received at least 9 “formal” visits, with additional informal interaction occurring in-between formal visits. Interviews were generally held in the home of the participant, but for a number of reasons this was not always possible. These reasons included lack of space, excessive heat, or other activities occurring in the participant’s home, fear on the part of a participant of potential problems with a mentally unstable husband, and a participant’s perception that it was socially inappropriate for a woman to meet in private with two males. On those occasions interviews were held in locations such as a neighbor or relative’s house, in an open courtyard, and twice at a small flour mill. Near the beginning of the study I quickly recognized that I could not demand complete privacy for the interviews. Houses in the slum areas are generally built extremely close together and in a manner such that the front door opens directly onto the street with no sidewalk buffer. In the case of female participants given for the reason previously mentioned closing of the front door was not possible. Moreover, I felt it was only natural for people to be curious about why a foreigner was visiting their neighbor (who in some cases was also their relative) and that it would hurt my rapport with the neighborhood and possibly my informant to be too strict about who could be present during an interview. My research assistant confirmed that even if I wanted to, it would be counterproductive to try to exclude neighbors from interviews. Only in cases of a large number of noisy neighbors (often children) or individuals without any strong connection to an informant were people asked to leave. Thus, especially at the beginning of the study there were often curious

105 neighbors present during an interview. When this was the case I sometimes tried to turn it to my benefit by obtaining a second opinion on certain subjects. In at least one case, a participant’s married daughter in whose house I conducted interviews proved to be a valuable informant as well. It is possible, however, that at times participants may have felt constrained from giving information due to the presence of others, although by an alternative logic in certain instances giving information in front of “witnesses” may have served as an impetus to tell the truth. Formal visits were of two types, the first being interviews covering themes such as health, education, childhood, and household economics. The second type consisted of exercises utilizing sets of drawings or photos to elicit views on boys’ and girls’ work, health and injury risk in everyday life and work, community problems, and government efforts to eradicate child labor. For example, in one exercise I showed my informants a set of large cards drawn to my specifications by a local artist depicting various scenes one might witness on the streets of the community or within particular households from a “fly-on-the-wall” perspective. 11 These community problem cards contained scenes that included alcohol use, illness, and marital discord. I asked my informants to construct a possible scenario for each, which I then used as a jumping off point to discuss the card’s theme. In another card exercise utilizing pictures of boys doing different types of work, I requested my informants to choose the ones that would be appropriate for an imaginary relative who was coming from the countryside to live them with them. 12 They were asked

See Figures 7-10 in Appendix B. See Figures 11-16 in Appendix B for examples of the cards. Figure 17 shows an exercise using these cards in progress in a small rice mill.
12

11

106 in two interviews to choose for both boys and girls, children under 14 years old and 1418 years old, and part-time and full-time work. In a third such exercise I showed to informants and focus group members photos I had taken of child labor raids, anti-child labor events, and government anti-child labor programs in action. 13 The photos served as a way to have a discussion about my informants’ feelings about the events and programs in question and more broadly about their feelings about the government’s child labor eradication efforts. I should again emphasize that in all such exercises involving cards and photos the purpose was not to collect quantitative data but rather to stimulate conversation on a specific theme. Both interviews and card/photos exercises were taped, translated, and transcribed from the local language Kannada into English by paid transcribers fluent in the two languages. In addition to periodic interviews with the parents of working children I originally intended to also have regular interviews with the working children alone, but this proved logistically impossible due to the long hours many worked, a lack of interview locations having privacy, and the cultural inappropriateness of interviewing the children at locations away from their homes without a parent present. I did, however, have both formal and informal interviews with the working children of those households whenever the occasion presented itself, most often during lunch breaks and on days off. At the end of each formal interview I gave the household study participant involved an envelope containing 100 rupees as a gift of appreciation. The amount of the gift was arrived at after consultation with a number of local informants and deemed to be

13

See Figures 18-22 in Appendix B.

107 a fair exchange for an informant’s time and commitment, but not large enough to possibly taint the quality of the information provided.

Household Study: Participating Households’ Characteristics Of the 41 households originally recruited into my study, 35 remained as participants until its completion. Households left or were disqualified from the study for a number of reasons including informants moving to another city, marital discord resulting in household dissolution, an informant’s work requirements being so burdensome that they literally had no free time for interviews, and the consistent breaking of interview appointments over a two-month period. A large majority of the 35 households completing the study was of the Hindu faith (80%), with 40% being from scheduled castes or scheduled tribes. The remainder of households were Muslim (14.29%), Christian (2.86%), and one mixed Hindu/Muslim (2.86%). Almost a quarter (22.86%) of the households was female-headed. The median age of fathers was 45 while that of mothers was 38. Median household size was 5 members. All households were nuclear in structure, except for one that included a working child’s grandmother and a second in which grandparents served as a child’s guardian in the absence of his parents. The 35 households had a total of 56 children working for remuneration (38 fulltime, 18 part-time) with boys and girls respectively constituting 60.71% and 39.29% of my sample. The median age of all of child workers at the beginning of the study was 15.50 years old. Children working full-time had a median age of 16, with boys

108 predominating (81.58%). Amongst part-time workers the proportions were nearly reversed (83.33% girls) and the median age noticeably lower (13.5 years). The children worked in a wide range of jobs, almost all involving physical labor, sales, or home-based production (see Table 2 below). 14 Some children changed occupations in the course of the study and in a small number of cases an additional child in a household began working during that period as well. Most of the girls working in home-based production did so part-time, and the large majority rolled incense sticks (agarbathi). Two girls that made incense, lacking skill in rolling, instead made the Table 2. Demographic data for household study working children Gender and Age at Type of Work Religion Recruitment male, Hindu 17 tailor trainee male, Hindu 15 paint store helper, fabric shop clerk male, Hindu 17 fruit selling male, Hindu 14 fruit selling male, Hindu 16 cable installer female, Hindu 14 housecleaning female, Hindu 13 housecleaning female, Hindu 13 housecleaning female, Hindu 15 clothing shop clerk male, Hindu 17 provision store clerk male, Hindu 17 flower garland stringer female, Hindu 14 beautician trainee, cone incense maker male, Hindu 17 metal goods shopkeeper female, 15 agarbathi roller Hindu/Muslim male, Hindu 13 carpenter’s helper male, Hindu 17 carpenter trainee

14

See Figures 23-38 for photos of children doing different types of work in Mysore.

109

Table 2. (continued) Gender and Age at Religion Recruitment female, Hindu 11 female, Hindu 14 female, Hindu 10 female, Hindu 12 female, Hindu 16 male, Hindu 15 male, Hindu 17 male, Muslim 17 male, Hindu male, Hindu male, Muslim male, Muslim male, Christian male, Hindu female, Hindu female, Hindu female, Hindu male, Hindu male, Hindu female, Muslim male, Muslim female, Hindu male, Hindu female, Hindu female, Hindu male, Muslim female, Hindu female, Hindu male, Hindu female, Hindu male, Hindu male, Hindu 17 14 16 13 15 12 13 12 14 15 14 16 15 14 16 17 16 15 10 12 10 10 15 16

Type of Work agarbathi roller agarbathi roller agarbathi roller agarbathi roller agarbathi roller bangle store clerk carpenter trainee sandal maker and seller, goldsmith trainee tailor trainee tailor trainee knife maker tinker trainee cement plastering helper sandal maker helper agarbathi roller agarbathi roller agarbathi roller cement plastering and plumbing helper food stall operator beedi roller scooter/motorcycle seat upholsterer agarbathi roller cement plastering trainee agarbathi roller, school office aide agarbathi roller vegetable seller domestic agarbathi roller helper at food cart agarbathi roller rock breaker cart driver, cafeteria worker

easier-to-produce cone-shaped variety. 15 The second most common kind of work done by

15

See Figures 39-40 in Appendix B.

110 girls was housecleaning/domestic work, with most of them helping their mothers at jobs in other homes before going on to school. Only two girls in the study worked outside of the home: one as a trainee at her aunt’s beauty parlor and one as an office aide in the same school where her mother worked as a cleaner. In households that dropped out of the study, one girl was a beedi roller, a second worked in a women’s clothing shop, a third worked full-time rolling incense at a small factory, and a fourth at first rolled agarbathi and later worked doing housecleaning. In contrast with the work done by girls in my study households, boys’ work was far more diversified, often more physically strenuous, generally done at locations outside of the home, and almost universally full-time. A number of boys were learning skilled trades, usually under their fathers. Three boys worked as apprentice tailors, two doing so as full-time work. The third boy worked part-time with his father during high-school, but his father planned to find him another more lucrative job when it presented itself. Several boys worked in various aspects of carpentry. Two older boys were receiving comprehensive training under a father or older brother while two younger boys were working as carpenter’s helpers with promises that they would eventually be completely trained. One boy worked with his father learning to be what was described as a tinker. Much of the work involved fabricating tin containers out of sheets of tin, but the boy also was adept at repairing the small kerosene stoves commonly used in poor households. 16 Another boy was making and selling sandals at the beginning of the study but was

16

See Figure 41 in Appendix B.

111 offered the opportunity by a friend of his uncle to become an apprentice goldsmith. The subject of apprenticeship will receive more extensive discussion in Chapters 4 and 5. Two of the boys whose households stayed with the study until the end (and one whose household disintegrated during its course) worked as construction laborers. This work involves carrying bricks, cement, pipes, and other construction materials to where they are needed on a construction site. One boy worked as garland stringer and seller at a large stand in a market. Two brothers worked with their father selling fruit from pushcarts at steady locations. Another sold cucumber slices or tomatoes from a cart he pushed through areas near his home, later switching to working for a vegetable seller at the wholesale produce market in order to pay off debts incurred from his vegetable cart business. Two boys in the study were proprietors of small businesses. One boy, with the financial backing of his parents, opened his own small metal goods and scrap metal purchasing shop while the other was in charge of the family’s small night food stall. Four other boys worked in retail shops as well – one in a cloth shop, two in provisions stores, and another in a bangle shop. Other types of work done by boys from study households during the period of my study included ox cart rider, cable installer (for a cable TV service), knife maker, sandal maker’s helper, mechanic’s helper, truck mechanic trainee, scooter and motorcycle seat reupholster, and cafeteria employee. Beyond the demographic and type-of-work data already presented, additional information regarding the homes and possessions of household study participants also provide valuable insight into the standard of living and lifestyles of my household study participants. Although none of their houses could be said to be luxurious, they did show

112 wide variation in their measurable physical features, construction quality, terms of occupancy, and type of furnishings. Almost two-thirds (62.86%) of the participants owned their homes, 34.29% rented or leased houses or portions of houses, and 2.86% (one household) “squatted” in a makeshift shelter erected against the side of a relative’s house. Of the families that owned their own homes, 68.18% owned them free and clear while others made payments on mortgage or remodeling loans. The median cost of the rented houses of study participants was 300 rupees. 17 Houses were predominantly constructed of plastered mud walls (68.57%) and clay tile roofs (57.14%), but some participants’ homes had higher quality cement (25.71%) or brick (2.86%) walls. Most houses built with higher quality walls and even some of plastered mud had roofs made of a sturdy water-resistant material capable of protecting a house from heavy monsoon rains, with 22.86% using zinc sheets and 17.14% using cement. Study participants’ houses varied dramatically in size with 25.71% occupying a space of less than 100 square feet, 25.71% having between 100 and 200 square feet, 37.14% with 200 to 300 square feet, 8.57% consisting of 300 to 400 square feet, and 2.86% comprising between 400 and 500 square feet. The number of members in a household had no direct correlation to housing size, with the median amount of living space for a family being only 199.66 square feet. Plumbing was largely shared and outdoors – 34.29% had their own outside water source and 48.57% shared one. In the case of toilets, 20% of study participants had their own unit located outside (sometimes free-standing like an outhouse, sometimes built

17

In 2003, US$1 ≈ 46 Indian rupees.

113 against an outer wall of the house) while another 57.14% shared one with others. Almost all (97.14%) of the houses had electrical service, but in the case of 14.29% it was shut off for at least for part of the duration of the study (and for some, had been so for a number of years) due to failure to pay bills. Other information concerning the inside furnishings and facilities of homes is also useful towards generating a picture of the living conditions of study participants. Many households use mats (caape) unrolled directly on the floor when needed for sleeping and sitting purposes, but most households also have a minimal amount of rudimentary furniture. A table is most common (54.20%) followed by a chair (45.71%), armoire (42.86%), and bed or couch (34.29%). Almost 2/3 (65.71%) of the study households had a TV (usually black and white), with 40% having cable service. Participants generally relied on at least 2 fuel sources with kerosene having been used by 75.29% during 2003. Secondary fuel sources were wood (65.71%), sawdust (17.40%), and coconut shells (5.70%). The latter two fuels are cheaper but more inconvenient to use and were therefore normally limited in use in all but the poorest of households (willing to sacrifice convenience for cost savings). Some households (17.14%) had either in the recent past or during the course of the study switched over to LPG (liquefied petroleum gas), a fuel that offers the utmost in convenience and reasonable economy, but requires a large initial investment in the form of a deposit on a gas tank and does not facilitate the purchasing of fuel in small amounts. 18

18

The most commonly used LPG tank size at the time of my study cost 263 rupees to fill.

114 Key Informants and Focus Groups A second major thrust of my research involved gathering the views regarding child labor of a variety of community stakeholders. Using a broad definition of stakeholder as one who might affect or be affected by the achievement of a particular public policy goal (in this case the eradication of child labor) more than 50 key informant interviews were conducted with residents of low-income neighborhoods that included NGO leaders and workers, religious leaders, labor inspectors, government bureaucrats, continuing education teachers, child labor hostel/school managers and teachers, and elected members of the city government. In addition, a total of twelve focus groups were conducted with teachers, low-income parents, middle-upper middle class men and women, and university students. Focus groups consisted of 5-8 participants, with the person hosting the group or one of their relatives sometimes acting as an “unofficial” member. 19 Almost all focus group participants were married individuals 30-50 years old. Focus groups involving low-income participants were arranged with help of community contacts in areas where the household study was conducted while those with middle and upper-middle class participants were arranged with the help of professors at the Mysore University and generally involved neighbors or friends of neighbors.

Photo Documentation A third data gathering method employed was photo documentation. I carried a digital camera much of the time during the study period as my assistant and I traveled

19

See Figure 42 in Appendix B.

115 around Mysore on a small scooter en route to interviews. At such times I would frequently notice a working child traveling on the same road (e.g. pushing an empty cart to the wholesale vegetable market, carrying a load of goods on a bicycle) and quickly instruct my assistant to turn around and ride past the working child to a stopping place the child would soon be reaching in order to take his picture. In addition to taking advantage of the not uncommon but unpredictable sightings of working children on roadways I also had the opportunity to accompany inspectors from Karnataka’s Department of Labour as they searched for and raided business establishments employing children. Thus, I was able to photographically document the working conditions under which some children work in Mysore, interactions that occurred between the labor inspectors and working children and their employers as India’s child labor eradication efforts were implemented, and at times community reaction to such efforts. I had originally hoped to take photos of the working children of the households participating in the study at their places of work if it could be determined that such an action would not imperil their continued employment. However, after observing the reaction in some neighborhoods to child labor enforcement activities and after becoming more familiar in general with the cultural milieu it was decided that in the case of most of the children the reaction of employers would be too unpredictable and not worth the risk to the children and their families. For the same reason I took few photos of children working at stationary locations such as retail establishments, tea stalls, restaurants, and workshops.

116 Although the use of photography was principally designed to document in a vivid visual way the broad range of work children do in Mysore (with the child labor raid photos only adding to that picture), in the end it also made an significant addition to data gathering in three other areas. First, photos were taken of the physical surroundings of the slum and other low-income areas in which most of the participants in the household study reside with the purpose of supplementing written descriptions of the slum environment. Second, photography was use to record some of the public discourse on child labor and other community issues (e.g. alcohol abuse) as it manifested in the form of wall posters, billboards, and information booths at fairs. Finally, as previously described photos taken of child labor raids and other scenes related to the subject served as key props for eliciting the views of informants.

Secondary Data Beyond collecting primary data I was also able, by virtue of my extended residency in Mysore, to gather a substantial amount of locally specific (i.e. relevant to Karnataka State) secondary data regarding child labor and related social issues. I made several visits to the libraries of the Regional Institution of Education (RIE) in Mysore and the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) in Bangalore. The libraries of NGOs such as Rural Literacy and Health Program of Mysore, Concerned for Working Children CWC of Bangalore, and South Indian Cell for Human Rights Education and Monitoring (SICHREM) also located in Bangalore were other sources of useful literature on child labor.

117 An additional important source of secondary data was the print media available in Mysore. Throughout the course of the research I maintained a clipping file of articles containing mostly local news concerning child labor and other relevant topics such as education, health, alcohol abuse, and gambling. Almost all articles were taken from English-language daily newspapers, mostly from the Bangalore edition of The Hindu and the locally produced Star of Mysore. Although I did not as meticulously follow the local Kannada-language newspapers, I also cut out and had translated some relevant articles they published. In addition to news articles, I collected occasional national and state government-sponsored advertisements addressing the child labor issue.

Internet Resources The Internet was a final source for gathering secondary data that I utilized both before and after conducting my research in Mysore. I used the Internet to collect data from anti-child labor NGO websites and most importantly to gather official discourse concerning child labor and education from Karnataka State and Government of India websites.

118 CHAPTER 4: HOUSEHOLD LIVELIHOOD AND CHILDREN’S WORK: PERCEPTIONS AND REALITIES

The Childhoods of the Parents of Working Children

In the previous chapter I described the household study that constitutes the core of my research as well as the low-income settings in which it was conducted. The present chapter focuses on the inner dynamics of the households participating in the study. I examine the sociocultural and economic contexts within which decisions regarding child labor are made. Let me begin by looking at the characteristics of the childhoods of the parents of working children. The early life experiences of parents influences their ideas about what kind of childhood is believe appropriate for their own children, their attitudes towards children’s education and work, and their sense of children’s duty to their parents. Although studies in India have documented that many of the parents of child laborers did not attend school when they were children, they contain little explicit data regarding those parents having been child laborers. Economists working elsewhere, however, have recently extrapolated models and tested empirical data to suggest the mechanisms by which child labor may be intergenerationally transmitted (Emerson and Souza 2003; Emerson and Knabb 2006). The parents of the working children in my household study cannot be said to have experienced a single type of childhood. Their descriptions of their childhood were often framed around a series of themes: economic security, economic responsibility and a sense

119 of duty to their family, a nostalgic remembrance of better times when food was cheaper and more obtainable and family life was less stressful, and life in a joint family that involved a need to cope and adjust to the needs of the household. Amongst the parents in my household sample, some had grown up in the countryside while others had been raised in various areas of Mysore City. Some had even lived as children in one of the areas in which I conducted my research, although those informants were careful to note that the area had been like a forest in the days of their youth, with few houses and lots of grazing livestock. Most had grown up in large families with 5-7 other siblings. There was no absolute direct correlation between whether as a child the individual had been raised in a household in which the father had earned a good living and whether childhood had been a happy time for the person, although in many cases the former was a major determining factor. Must of the discourse of happiness (or lack of it) during childhood centered on several factors: plentiful food versus frequent hunger, the need to work hard versus time to play with friends, treatment by parents, and the impact of the death of a parent. Some of those factors obviously have the potential to be, and in case of my informants had been, interrelated.

Mothers’ Childhood Experiences For the majority of adult female informants, childhood was remembered in terms of work of one type or another, although not necessarily as an unhappy period of life. Many had only been sent to school for five or six years, and a notable proportion had not been sent at all. Instead, they had been required to carry out various tasks at home. Some

120 were put to work within the household doing basic chores and childcare. A woman recalled her childhood: “Because my father was a villager, he did not know that he should send us to school. He used to ask me to take care of my younger brother and sister.” Another responded to my questions about how she had spent her time when she was a child: “Not much of play. I am the eldest, so I had to look after the younger ones…cook and graze cattle…My parents used to go off to the fields, so we had to take care of the house.” Despite such a workload and set of responsibilities she had experienced at a young age this woman characterized those days, as did a number of others, as having being good and without worries. Some women, however, did not recall their childhood days of domestic duties in such a positive light. Recounting living in a very large extended family of twenty people, an informant told me of her arduous childhood:
[W]e never played. We had to work all day - collect firewood, bring water and mill raagi using a grinding stone. We were not allowed to rest. Otherwise we would be beaten… A lot of hardship. Not happy. It was hell.

A few women told of having been sent as girls to work in the fields of their parents or neighbors, sometimes in addition to household chores. Still others were made to do income-generating work, with members of that group having perhaps the most unhappy memories and grueling tales of childhood. A large proportion of them would by today’s standards be considered to have been child laborers. Such individuals were generally members of households in which the male breadwinner (their father) was sick, had died, was an alcoholic, or had abandoned the family. One woman told me that her childhood had been a difficult time for her, filled with carpentry-related sanding and polishing work rather than play from the age of eleven or twelve: “Our parents used to

121 make us work…As far back as I can remember, I was working. I was not happy, I had to work throughout.” The story of another woman strongly illustrates how hunger was a frequent occurrence during the childhood of some informants, despite the fact that they had worked and earned money at that time. One of them had been a live-in servant and described her difficult early life:
When we were 8 years old when we started working in houses. We were sent to Ooty to work…My father died when I was very young…We had friends, but as we went to work we couldn’t play with them… They gave us very little food…We can’t demand food when we are in other people’s house.

Yet even amongst my informants who had a difficult childhood there were some who recalled it in a positive light. A woman whose father had put her into a residential school for the school after his remarriage fondly remembered the five years she spent at the institution, recalling the kind care of the swami and workers who ran the hostel as well as the reliable and satisfying daily regimen of meals, study, play, and baths. A widowed woman who headed one of most destitute households participating in my study, one that consisted of only of she and her six children, described a childhood of equal hardship with fondness. She had first worked in the countryside doing agricultural work from the age of twelve. Later her mother brought her along with five of her siblings (but without her father) to Mysore where she worked carrying mud and rocks in palm leaf trays at construction sites. Yet she fondly remembered her childhood as a happy time, recalling that her mother managed to always provide them with a sufficient regular supply of varied foods by scavenging, cleaning, and then selling grain that spilled at Mysore’s freight yards.

122 The story of one last female household study participant who worked as a child is also worth mentioning. She, too, described a childhood characterized by work, yet one that she remembers as being happy. As with some of the preceding informants, the manner in which she managed to obtain food (by earning through work of various types or “crashing” wedding functions at a local choultry) 20 was a major element of her memories of the time:
I was not interested in studies. My father was an asthma patient. I used to go to work in the Aravinda Parimala [ashram incense] factory… I would earn 25 paise for 1000 sticks. One set of dosa was 15 paise… Many a times we would run away [from the choultry when caught]. The choultry was next to the factory…They used to give clothes once in a year…We would get 20 rupees a day…[w]hen I was 10 years old…We would roll, do housecleaning work, and help old people to walk, eat, etc. Get water…We were all very happy. Those times were good. Now it is different…Our parents used to look after us; we would go to work and come back. Those days for 25 paise we would get 4 idlis, which would fill our stomach. Now you will not get a single biscuit for 25 paise. Those days 1 kilogram of rice was one rupee 25 paise.

In contrast to most of the preceding accounts, a small proportion of my female informants recalled their childhood as being lived at what might be usefully be considered a middle-class standard of living for the times. Their accounts stand in sharp contrast to those who had experienced various hardships during their youth, including having had to take on paid employment or a lengthy list of household chores. A woman now struggling to raise three children on her own recounted: “My parents raised us well. My father was working in the Electric Department. We were very well fed, no problem for food.” In the case of some female informants a happy childhood is thought of in sharp contrast to their later life. For example, the woman just quoted told me as part of the same exchange: “We didn’t know any difficulties or problems of life till 16 – 17 years old. But my children are already facing problems. My problems started after my
20

A choultry is a large hall where wedding feasts and other celebratory functions are held.

123 marriage”. Another woman expressed similar sentiments: “In my father’s house I was happy…Not many difficulties. Only after I got married and came to Mysore, now a lot of hardship.”

Fathers’ Childhood Experiences The childhood memories of adult male household study informants, who were fewer in number, contained similar themes as those of their female counterparts. Many of the men had also experienced a childhood fraught with poverty that necessitated the need to work from an early age. The woman whose memory of an unhappy childhood full of sanding and polishing work I included above is married to a man who similarly told me that his childhood had been a difficult economic time for his household, with him beginning to do full-time carpentry-related work from the age of ten. When I asked him what he remembered from his childhood he replied “mostly working”. Another woman also told me about her husband’s hard childhood: “He started cement plastering at the age of 8 when he was in third standard. He has no hair on his head because of carrying heavy cement pans on his head.” A third man participating in the household study had also worked from an early age at various jobs, at one point being placed by his mother as a bonded laborer in a wealthier household. His story is another of a childhood lacking education and play:
We had lot of difficulties. My father was not there, my mother had to feed us. We didn’t have food to eat. I was a house servant…I was maybe 15 years old, maybe 10 years old… For 3-4 years. After that I joined somebody’s house in Gokul…[As a bonded laborer I was] clearing garbage, grazing cattle, cleaning.

124 Another male informant had also grown up in a household that experienced serious problems, but had managed to get a minimal degree of education before being put to work full-time. His early childhood was filled with part-time work and education, but according to him, no playing or recreation. He told me about his childhood:
We were 8 - 4 boys and 4 girls. Only I was sent to school. I have studied till 7th standard…[T]here wasn’t enough [food or clothes]. My father used to get 620 rupees as salary. Around 1981. 21 My father used to take loans and sometimes he wouldn’t come home… He wouldn’t give money to the house. All 4 of us used to work… I would work early in the morning. I would work from 6-9:30. My school was at 10 o’clock…I used to carry bricks...I started working when I was 12 years old…My father stopped me from going to school after 7th standard. Then he sent me to cement plastering. I worked for a year there. After that I went to learn tailoring…11 years I was there… [A]fter that I started on my own.

But for others, not attending school and having had to work from a young age did not inherently mean that childhood was remembered in a pejorative way. Sometimes other positive aspects of the period caused it to be viewed as the “good old days”. A man who had grown up in the countryside very near one of my research areas told me: “Childhood means we were doing farming and working in the fields. We were doing all the work, we had land, we were happy, we used to be happy. There used to be rains on time, the crop used to be good, so we used to eat well.” Another male informant who had unlike the vast majority of my other male household study participants completed ten years of schooling, told me that he had had a happy childhood growing up in Mysore, while acknowledging that it had not been so for many children of those times:
My childhood was good. My father was earning well (as a plumber)…He used to get 150 rupees salary in 1960 22…But he used to drink, also…A heavy drinker…I used to go to a gold-silver shop, chain shop, making anklets…I used to play football…Yes, sir, it was very happy. Father used to earn well, no worries. We were 8 children…[E]ven though he was busy, he used to talk to us with love and affection. He never used to play with us… Those days it was difficult, sir. Children never had proper food and clothes. Now it is better. We used to somehow manage with a single income.
21 22

In January 1981, US$1 ≈ 8 rupees. (Wall Street Journal 1981: 29) In 1960, US$1 ≈ 7 rupees (Wall Street Journal 1960: 27)

125

Today’s Children: A Variety of Trajectories Leading to Work The comments of both my female and male adult household study participants although not uniform in content make it apparent that for many childhood was a difficult period of life, with the need to work either full or part-time being common. While a knowledge of such formative experiences provide some insight into parents’ views on childhood, it does not offer a satisfying comprehensive explanation of the decisions parents make today around the issue of children and work. To obtain such an understanding requires situating their perceptions within the present-day economic and socio-cultural realities of the households and communities within which they live and suggests the need to answer several important intertwined questions. First, what factors cause children to become child laborers? Given that poverty is the most frequently given reason for the existence of child labor, household economics must undergo careful scrutiny in this respect. Specifically, is the economic contribution working children make vital to household livelihood? Intimately connected to the preceding questions is the issue of child autonomy. Do children have a say in whether they go to school or work (or both) and by whom and according to what criteria is the type of work a child is to do decided? Understanding such household decision-making regarding child labor is usefully approached by first examining the trajectories children follow from school to work. Some of the common precursor conditions and actions that precede children beginning to work include losing interest in studies, cutting classes, dropping out, and being removed from school. But in actuality there is often no straight line from dropping

126 out of or being removed from school to work and, more importantly, there are many different reasons why children’s education prematurely ends. Contrary to the common assertion that there exists a ubiquitous causal relationship between education deprivation and child labor, data from my research confirms the claim contained in an earlier largescale study 23 that although some children leave or are taken out of school to work, the opposite is equally true - children are often put to work because they are idling about after having left school (PROBE team 1999: 15). Accepting the previous proposition as being true leads logically to the conclusion that at least some children are “busy work” child laborers, doing remunerative work as a default activity rather than primarily for other frequently suggested reasons that include their own driving interest in doing so, household need, or parental negligence and greed.

Cutting Classes and Roaming Around A term that was commonly mentioned in the course of my discussions with parents about how their children came to be working was roaming around. The term refers to children who are cutting classes or have dropped out wandering idly around the city. Roaming around has a mildly pejorative connotation of children being out of their proper place and time – on the streets, often outside of their own neighborhood, at the very time when they should be in the school. The term also has an undertone of moral risk, of the opportunity to be engaged in unacceptable (for children), and to some people, even unsavory activities such as gambling on games played with marbles, smoking, and
23

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE) is a comprehensive study utilizing quantitative and qualitative methods that was conducted by a large team of social scientists in four Indian states.

127 going to the cinema during weekday daytime hours. 24 The father of two working boys explained his reasoning for putting his boys who had no interest in studies to work: “I earn money, she cooks, and they just eat and roam and learn bad habits.” During a card sort exercise in which study participants chose appropriate jobs for boys and girls of two age groups, a mother explained her choice of the work of incense rolling for boys under 14 years of age in similar terms of moral deterrence: “He should not be free. If he goes out he will be ruined. So his parents make him sit and roll agarbathi even if he can get only ten rupees.” A working boy’s older sister told of how her household had in the past confronted the boy for cutting classes and roaming around: “[T]hat’s why we told him, “If you are not interested in studies, go and work instead of roaming with friends.” Roaming boys are even associated by some informants with illegal and immoral activities such as drug use, drinking (for a minor), and stealing. In addition, such idleness goes against the working-class consciousness of many parents who work hard to make ends meet as exemplified by the words of the father quoted above who rejected the idea of having to feed sons who consume food but do nothing productive all day. And productive for a child can mean only one of two things – getting an education (attending school, studying, and educationally advancing to a point where the education translates into a job and an economic contribution to the household) or working and learning a skill with which he can similarly contribute to the household and later be able to support himself and his own family. Thus, it is not uncommon for the parents of a boy who has dropped

24

The role of the movie theater as a primary site in the geography of moral risk for boys and girls was a common theme in the discourse of the low-income parents I spoke with and worthy of further study. See Figure 31 in Appendix B.

128 out of school to ask or insist that he find a job to end a period of idleness that in their minds is not conducive to a positive future and rather offers the potentiality for engendering bad habits capable of ruining his life and even bringing a bad reputation to the family name.

Children’s Agency in School and Work Decisions The fact that so many boys are able to realize their desire not to attend school (i.e. to drop out) and then roam around for an extended period of time implies a certain degree of agency on their part. But the degree of agency a child has in the decision of whether or not to work is a controversial aspect of the child labor debate. Children in countries across the globe with the aid of local NGOs have spoken out about their work situations and organized themselves to agitate for the right to work and better working conditions and pay. But some who favor complete eradication of child labor have asserted that such children do not in actuality have an independent agenda but rather have been instigated to speak out and are controlled behind the scenes by adult activists. My data suggests that although boys can exercise some agency in leaving school, most children (both boys and girls) have limited power over the decision of whether or not to work. Some parents may consult with their children about the type of work they will do (this issue will be dealt with in a later section on how work is chosen), but if the parents for one reason or another want a child to work they are not in a position to be able to resist that wish. A mother asked about whether it had been her son’s own decision to start working repairing sandals replied: “No, we ourselves put him in that work. If he stays here, he might get into bad

129 company or go a bad way.” Coercion to work can take a number of forms. With regards to boys, the ones most commonly mentioned were verbal haranguing and beating. A mother participating in a focus group asserted that neither she nor her husband had forced their son to work, but that assertion appeared to be contradicted by her recounting of her husband’s words to the boy: “If you don’t go to work, you do anything, but you have to give me twenty rupees per day.” 25 A psychology professor who has done work amongst deprived groups in Karnataka asserted, however, that parents more subtly mentally “condition” children to make them amiable to working: “They say, ‘It’s inevitable, you have to work.’ Mentally they prepare the child to work, and therefore the child will adjust better. He continues to work even if there are difficulties.” Idle boys, in particular, face pressure from their parents, siblings, and other relatives to end their unproductive lifestyle. A mother described the situation with her son who had only sporadically worked since leaving school several years earlier:
He doesn’t go anywhere. We keep scolding him. His uncles, also, scold him. But he is helpless. He says, ‘I don’t know what to do. You people get me a job.’

An interesting variant on parents sending a roaming or idling boy to work as a form of moral protection was mentioned by the mother of a working boy. She explained how some parents put a child who is cutting classes and behaving in anti-social ways to work as a way of getting him back on a proper moral path: “Maybe they will put him in coolie work…When he doesn’t obey his parents, to teach him a lesson they might make him to do a difficult job.” Other informants spoke similarly of parents sending a child to work to teach him responsibility.
Twenty rupees is an amount equivalent to or sometimes even more than a day’s wages for many young working boys.
25

130 Although parents may be able to cajole, shame, or in other ways force children to work, in the end they hold two other powerful cards - children are totally dependent on their parents to meet all of their material needs such as food and clothing and to play the key future role of arranging for and paying for their marriage. Thus beyond the social norm of obeying one’s parents there are some immediate and long-term incentives to follow one’s parents’ wishes in regards to working. Even in cases where children themselves make the decision to work, that decision is often made in the context of living in a household in which the father is failing to provide for the household’s most basic economic needs including food, housing, clothing, and children’s education expenses. A boy’s decision to leave school and begin to work under such conditions, therefore, is driven by material deprivation, a sense of moral identity of what it means in south Indian society to be a responsible son and elder brother. In some cases we might even describe the dominant element of such feelings to be altruism.

Moral Identity and Obligation: Becoming Aware of Household Problems Themes of moral identity and obligation run through parents’ and children’s discourse concerning the reasons children work. A mother explained her son’s reason for leaving school and beginning to work: “After my son-in-law died we had to shoulder the burden of his family as well. So when we asked our son to go to school, even though he was young, he asked us if his father’s earning was enough to take care of six members.” Another mother recounted the sentiments of a son who works part-time after school and

131 during school vacations as a helper in manufacturing sandals: “Now he says, ‘I will earn at least 8-9 rupees. Don’t worry.’” Parents told of working children expressing feelings that they worked partly so their siblings could go to school: “They say, ‘We didn’t have any support and so we had to leave school and look after the house. We are there for you. We will earn and will make you study well.’” 26 Cards depicting family interactions and altercations used in a card exercise elicited many similar descriptions of what the boys pictured in them might be thinking or saying. Reports of children working out of a sense of empathy or obligation are tightly interwoven into stories that report alcohol abuse, wife battering, gambling and abandonment by male household heads, serious health problems or death of male breadwinners, men having two wives, and more broadly poverty as the reasons for such work. As an example of such interwoven perceptions concerning the causation of child labor, a household study mother framed in stark terms the options of a mother and her children in dealing with a husband/father who is a heavy drinker: “What can the poor wife do? She is hit and abused so badly that the children who see all this feel, ‘Let us go and earn and give my mother something rather than putting up with these scenes every day.’” Another mother commented on the ubiquity of such a situation in the slum area where she resides:
Yes, there are many boys. Some of them leave school. Their mother may say ‘Your father is a drunkard, I can’t pay the fees. So stop school and go to work…What to do?’ The mother has to run the family if the husband is a drinker.

In this household the boys’ father had died when they were respectively in their ninth and tenth years of schooling. The boys were asked to work at that time.

26

132 Poverty The previous quotation illustrates a common perception of my female informants: that a man’s excessive drinking is seen as inevitably pushing his household to an unbearable level of poverty, with the only solution being a child going to work to bring in the needed money. Indeed, regardless of any specific mention of alcohol abuse, poverty was the reason most frequently cited by my informants as to why children work rather than attend school. Many studies of the problem in India and around the world have similarly identified poverty as a key cause of child labor, but this is a conclusion whose legitimacy has been most vehemently challenged by anti-child labor NGO activists and international agencies. They assert that proposing poverty as the reason children work merely serves as a smokescreen for a number of more controllable causes and offer as proof the documented fact that in many underprivileged settings even extremely poor parents are willing to send their children to school. While this was also true for the poor parents I spoke with in Mysore, they did not appear to find any contradiction between that fact and their positing of a poverty/child labor connection. In the course of explaining their perceptions of poverty as a cause of child labor, informants commonly used the euphemism “problems at home” to describe a complex of negative economic and social conditions. A mother explained how some children become aware of the household’s dire economic situation and act on that knowledge: “Some smart intelligent children will know by themselves, we need not tell them. ‘My parents have problems, so let me help them.’ Some children just don’t bother.” For other children, however, that awareness comes to them in a less subtle manner. A part-time

133 working girl explained: “If the parents are quarrelling every day about having no money, the children may feel that they have some problems, let us work instead of going to school.” A man participating in a low-SES male focus group in one of my research areas supported the legitimacy of his friend’s one-word reply of “poverty” to a question asking why his son had left school for work:
This is an example of many families. He is the only earning member. He works in a hardware shop. He gets 1,000 rupees and it becomes very difficult to bring up 5 children on that money. He has one son, so he put him to work.

The data I have presented in this chapter thus far demonstrates that in the setting of Mysore’s low-income areas there are numerous manifestations of social ills that may be viewed as both the causes and effects of poverty and which appear to function in a vicious circle to perpetuate child labor. According to such a conceptualization in many households there are poor uneducated male heads of household unable to obtain a sufficient amount of or adequately paying work. They drink excessively, quarrel with and beat their wives, and fail to properly provide for their children’s educational and general subsistence needs. These together lead to children dropping out or being taken out of school to work. As that group of uneducated boys grows into adulthood within the same work and community environments some proportion becomes the next cohort of male household heads manifesting the same negative habits that create a need for child labor.

Hunger Hunger is another aspect of the environment of poverty I have been describing that was frequently mentioned in the context of why children work. Some households experiencing financial problems have difficulty meeting on a daily basis even the most

134 rudimentary dietary requirements, meaning in the context of local culture three meals a day of rice and sambar. 27 In some households two meals a day was the norm, with one meal sometimes being leftovers or what could be brought home from a housecleaning job. Meat, poultry, or fish was rarely consumed more than four times a month and fruit or side dishes of vegetables were only sporadically eaten. Thus a woman explained why she had in a card exercise chosen certain jobs as being good for girls 14-18 years of age: “They do the jobs for their stomach. They may have a problem, that’s why they work.” Another quoted what the mother in a household experiencing such problems might say to her son: "Your father is not good. At least you go and earn ten or twenty rupees. Then we can at least eat something.” A third woman explained why in a card exercise she had chosen hotel work as being good work for a boy: “Instead of idling away their time, if they work in a hotel they will get a meal and also will be of some help to the parents.” An interesting aspect of what I heard concerning poverty as the cause of child labor is that such discourse often normalized and omitted any moral judgment regarding the types of behavior (and their potential avoidability) by male household heads that create the need for children to be sent to work. When discussing government efforts to eradicate child labor with my informants, they frequently asserted that it was necessary for the government to help households deal with their money problems in concert with compulsory education/child labor eradication programs or as a precursor to dealing with such issues. Playing the devil’s advocate I would tell them that the government plans

Sambar is a sauce made by pounding together on a stone pestle fresh coconut, chili peppers, fresh cilantro, spices, and other varying ingredients, and mixing them with water. Each individual spoons some sambar onto their portion of rice.

27

135 included steps to help some parents of child laborers, for example parents who are disabled. But I would then ask whether the government should also be expected to help households that were in desperate straits because the male head of the household drank excessively, gambled, or had a second wife and family. Some acknowledged that the government could not ultimately be held responsible in such situations, but that nevertheless a son must do what he can to maintain the family. In this way structural and labor market-related unavoidable causes of poverty (and indirectly, child labor) are often conflated with others associated with addictive consumption or lifestyle choices.

Parents’ Greed vs. Justifiable Reasons In a similar vein, some informants acknowledged that the greed or laziness of one or both of a child’s parents can act as the instigation for the child being sent to work. As the aunt of a working boy put it: “Some are ready to do anything for their children. Some will say, ‘Let our children go and work and earn money.’” A member of a women’s focus group held in a slum area, reacting to photos of a crowd angry at child labor raids , being conducted in their area, also saw culpability residing with parents: “It is wrong; how can they blame you? Actually, parents want money. Even though children are young they want them to work and earn money for them.” A participant in a focus group composed of the heads of women’s self-help groups organized in slum areas by a local NGO recounted the responses of women in her neighborhood to admonitions not to send children to work:

136
They say, ‘We have plenty of difficulties. Our husbands are not good, they are drunkards, they don’t work. So we send our children to work. Suppose we sent the children to school. How could we manage?’

But some causes of household economic difficulties transcend issues of culpability and are at the same time similarly perceived as justifiably requiring resources that are only obtainable by sending children to work. The poor health or premature death of a male head of the household (i.e. the main income provider), the advanced age (and, therefore, inability to work) of parents, the cost of caring for an elderly relative, dependence on predatory moneylenders, and the expenses associated with marrying off a female child were other causes of economic difficulties for a household that were given as explanations for why children work. A mother explained her son’s enthusiasm for his current job: “He can earn more money daily and can help his father in marrying off his sisters.” A woman participating in my household study posited the reasons that the children pictured in photos of child labor raids were working: “Maybe the father is not alive or the mother is not alive or may be sick or they may be very poor. So they might have sent him to work…If the parents are old and there are many people at home, then he has to go to work.” Of course it may be argued that children having to work as a result of the poor health or early death of a male head of household due to particular diseases may also be regarded as indirectly resulting from some of the same social ills (i.e. alcohol abuse and tobacco addiction) that create the impoverished home environment that often more proximally leads to the same end. But the following comments of a group of poor women participating in a focus group perhaps most poignantly take in within one short exchange a spectrum of these issues, demonstrate the serious way in which they impact a

137 slum household’s economic condition, and again point to the interwoven relationship between many of the problems experienced by poor households and child labor:
Woman 1: We have so many problems at home. We will be deep in debt, with the moneylenders at our door every day. We cannot listen to their abuses and the only way to get some relief out of this is to send the kids to work and use the money they bring. Woman 2: My son goes to work because my neighbor’s son goes to work. I had problems buying medicines, so he decided to go. Woman 4: In our house, we had taken a loan to build a house. We couldn’t send them to school. So now they earn and we live off their money. Woman 3: There is an old woman, too, staying with us - my mother-in-law. We have to take care of her, also. Who will help us? We don’t have anybody. So the children go to work. Researcher: What about her husband? Woman 3: He is dead…One of my boys is 14 and the other is 17 …One fellow failed in 10th and the other fellow did not go beyond 7th. He did not take up the exam at all. His father died on the day of the exams. Woman 2: My husband, too, drinks and just sleeps in Santhepet. 28 Since we cannot rely on him, my children and I are rolling kaddis.

Getting the Taste of Money Another intriguing reason for children working offered by a number of informants involves part-time and vacation jobs. Those informants suggested that some children become overly attracted to money from their first paid work experience. The question of how the money working children (including part-timers and vacation workers) earn is used will be looked at in a later chapter, but it appears that some believe that either from being able to use part of what they earn as they choose or just from becoming aware of their ability to earn is seen as turning children away from their education and towards leaving school to work. The older sister of a working girl gave the example of a younger male cousin: “One thing which is key is, he should not have been sent to work when he was young. Because once he has had money in his hand he has lost interest. During the

Santhepet is the primary location for the loading unloading large trucks carrying goods to and from Mysore’s downtown commercial district. Many day laborers (known as “coolies”) from low-income areas work in this area.

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138 holidays, from the last 2-3 years back, he was sent to sell clothes on the pavement.” The mother of a part-time working girl observed: “Some children now by 10 years old will know the taste of money. So they will stop going to school and start working by doing coolie.” Some NGOs working to eradicate child labor have a similar perspective concerning the dangers of vacation or summer work. A young girl from one of my research areas who gave a short speech at an anti-child labor event organized at Mysore’s town hall by the major local anti-child labor NGO explained part of the logic of a vacation camp for poor slum children that the NGO was running: “The reason for conducting this camp in the mornings is because children generally go to work in the mornings. But if the camps are conducted, they will not go to work but come to the camp.”

Innate Interest A final perspective I heard as to why children end up in work instead of school involves cultural ideas regarding human beings’ inherent qualities. Some informants expressed the view that a child may innately be more interested in working than studying. The older sister of a full-time working girl argued against automatically sending children who are caught working to a child labor hostel, claiming “Some children are interested only in working. So can those children be forced to stay in the hostel?...It is their nature by birth.” The head of a women’s self-help group observed: “Some children are not interested or don’t want to study at all. Such children have to go and work…Some children, however hard we try, they don’t show interest [in education].” In the case of

139 poor households, a child’s orientation towards education can force parents to see the situation in a very pragmatic manner: why waste limited funds on education if the child is not interested in it?

Choosing Appropriate Work

The previous section of this chapter examined parents’ perceptions of the factors that lead to children working and included some discussion of the degree of agency children have in such matters. Having explored those aspects of children’s work trajectories, it becomes necessary to then understand the calculus poor parents use in choosing one type of work over another. According to some traditional views of child labor, the parents of child workers are only interested in reaping the greatest possible economic benefits from their children’s efforts. But my data identifies that both cultural norms and hopes for a better life for one’s children’s among other reasons also play key roles in parents’ decisions. Understanding how parents choose work for their children must include an exploration of perceptions of age and gender-appropriateness, risk, and future potentialities of various occupations.

Whose Decision to Work?: Parental Prerogative versus Children’s Agency It became obvious to me as I visited more and more households and spoke with an increasing number of children and parents that the work done by children in Mysore

140 varies dramatically in terms of pay and fringe benefits, required physical strength and stamina, occupational risk, proximity of the job-site to the home, timings and number of hours worked per day, presence or absence of co-workers, physical features of the work environment, and other characteristics. Therefore, beyond parents’ perceptions of the causes of children working and of the degree of their say in the ultimate decision that they work, I began to also look more deeply into the actual process of choosing and finding jobs: Did a child, their parents, or all together decide on the actual job? How was the job located and obtained? What criteria did children and their parents use for selecting a job? Or in other words, what constitutes a “good” part-time or full-time job? The process by which a child’s job is chosen is another opportunity to utilize the theoretical lens of children’s agency. The same lens was utilized earlier in this chapter in the context of whether children make the decision to work on their own or whether they are directly or indirectly forced to do so by their parents. Here I would like to look further downstream from that point to one at which the specific job to be done is chosen, albeit at times the two points may occur in quick succession. Given that the types of part-time jobs available to boys are limited (e.g. newspaper or milk delivery 29, shop boy) and relatively non-controversial as the boys are still in school and that virtually all girl’s part-time work is done within the home, this discussion is most relevant to full-time work. As a way of learning about the job selection process I asked my informants whether the decision about which job a child will take should be made solely by the child, by the parents, or jointly by the child and their parents. This question elicited a mix of responses
Newspapers and milk products packaged in plastic sachets are commonly delivered boys on bicycles early in the morning before school.
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141 (sometimes even within the same interview) that I believe expose some changes over time in the fabric of child-parent relations in Mysore’s low-income neighborhoods. The responses I received may also reveal a dissonance between the way parents believe such decisions should be made and the reality of how they are. Of the three ways of choosing I have mentioned, none stood out as the “norm” and the process described by most was actually a hybrid. Some informants continue to adhere to the traditional Indian belief that it is a father’s right to decide what occupation his children will enter when the time comes for them to work, and it was mentioned that some children not interested in studying are happy to leave it to their parents to find them a job. During a household interview attended by a young (11-year-old) part-time working boy, his grandmother/guardian, and other relatives, I asked the boy what he wanted to do after his grandmother ended his education in another year or so as she had just told me she planned to do. He responded that he would work anywhere, but when pressed said he was interested in tailoring. The boy’s aunt, who had helped raise him, quickly responded to his comment: “We can’t leave him to do what he likes or what he wants. We will put him in some shop.” Even those who believe parents should decide on a boy’s work, however, allow for consideration of his wishes at some point in the process, whether in giving him the option of bringing a job of interest to them for consideration or in giving him the right, after trying out a job, to quit it if it is not to his liking. 30 In fact, regardless of the manner of decision-making they favored, many parents felt that it was important
30

An informant told of how he had allowed his son to take a job with a shirt company that had recruited a number of teenage boys at the same time to work as salesmen. The boy was allowed to quit the job after three days’ time when he complained to his father about work conditions that he described as being like “a graveyard”.

142 that a boy be allowed to ultimately do a type of work to his liking. That especially appeared to be the motivation of parents who believe the job choice should be made together with the boy. A father saw the potential for a serious negative outcome if parents did not take a boy’s wishes into consideration: “We should let them continue in the line they are interested, and then he may succeed. If we force him to do something which he is not interested then, he may be a failure.” The subject of how a child’s job is decided upon becomes more inflected with hints of changing moral values and intergenerational power dynamics when we consider the third manner of job choice, a child deciding for himself. Some of my informants answered my question with an explicit reply that a boy should be allowed to do so. This may be seen as recognition of a boy’s agency or merely as a pragmatic tactic to insure that a boy feels enough liking for his work to continue at it. In some such cases, though, allowing a boy to decide on the work of his choice it not so much a matter of granting him power or of his exercising agency as of his merely enabling him to fulfill expectations of economic help. A mother choosing appropriate jobs for boys between 14 and 18 years old in the card sort exercise justified her all-inclusive choice by mimicking an iconic poor mother’s exhortation to her son: “Any job you can do, earn money and give it to us. We have to eat and run the family. Do any work, but earn money.” Another refrain commonly expressed by parents, irregardless of their position on how a boy’s work should be decided upon, was one of how times had changed in reference to such decision-making. When a mother was asked if it wasn’t the case that parents decided what work their child would do, she responded: “Nowadays boys say, ‘It

143 is our future, we will look after it.’ 90% of the boys talk like that.” A working boy noted that most of his friends were working at jobs of their choice. During one of my household study interviews a boy from a neighboring house who was present gave his perspective on why the situation was so: “Till 15 years old they will listen. Later on they will not listen. Parents can’t control them.” Taken as a whole the data presented in this section demonstrates that the choice of work for a child is an aspect of household decision-making in transition. This is not to say that many boys won’t consult with parents regarding a job they are interested in taking or that parents won’t similarly discuss their choice with the boy in question. It only means that nowadays boys are more able and willing to exert their own wishes regarding job choice, even in the face of parental disagreement. For girls, however, the process is far more constrained. The vast majority of poor parents in Mysore (or for that matter, of any socioeconomic class) do not wish to send their daughters to a job outside the home. Girls are rarely found doing jobs beyond home-based agarbathi and beedi rolling or flower stringing. Tightly woven issues of moral risk, family reputation, and potential impact on marriage prospects together make the phenomenon of girls working at an outside job uncommon. In the rare exceptions where it is found it is a result of dire economic need on the part of the household or merely of a girl helping out at a family business, usually under the supervision of her relatives, and generally not past the point when she reaches menarche. Throughout the discussions of children’s work with my household study parents and other community informants there was little if any suggestion of girls being able to, in the same way as boys appear to, make their own

144 choice in regards to the work they will do and insist on it even over their parents’ objections in the same way. The issue of parents’ perceptions of the moral risk that is associated with different types of work will be dealt with fully in the next chapter.

Work Selection Criteria Having examined the process through which children and parents select a job I will now turn my attention to the criteria by which the work is selected. I should note at the start that for many poor parents the occupation that their boy ends up in is often far from the one of their dreams. Many low-income parents start out with high hopes for their boy’s educational attainment and occupational future, only to have those hopes dashed by the boy eventually dropping out. Therefore, it is more realistic to look at the work a boy is sent to as not necessarily being his parents’ first choice, one that reflects their most selective criteria. Nevertheless, I will examine a range of important job selection criteria that include ease of finding and acquisition, timings, level of remuneration, age-appropriateness, fringe benefits, family occupation, future potential, and risk. Ease of finding and acquisition refers both to the manner in which a boy who has decided to work finds and secures a job as well as how his parents locate an opening and place him in it. In both cases what is important are personal referrals and social connections. Boys spoke of being told about a job and brought to the meet the person doing the hiring by a friend. This is most common for unskilled manual day-labor jobs (i.e. “coolie”) such as that of construction labor. Indeed, the older brother of a girl who rolls agarbathi full-time said that a major reason he likes doing construction labor is that

145 he can go to and work beside other boys from his neighborhood. When I asked the father of an older boy who when first encountered was selling flip-flops from a cart but later secured a good job as a trainee in a goldsmith shop how the boy had gotten the job, he informed me it was the result of a referral by one of the boy’s uncles.

Timings Timings are a major criterion in the selection of part-time work, but virtually not a factor in the context of full-time employment. Regarding the latter form of work, I never heard a boy or his parent speak in terms of rejecting or quitting a job based on overly lengthy work hours. Timings were considered an inherent aspect of the work and one chose a particular type of work knowing and accepting its hour requirements. Thus, boys who did construction work would return home in the early evening while boys who worked in shops would often have to work from morning time until 8 or 9 p.m. I can remember only one instance of hearing a complaint about excessive hours of work. A mother told me that she had gone to express her concern to her son’s employer when he requested that the boy work an hour longer on a regular basis at the bangle shop in the central market where he was employed. The boy was already arriving home at about 10:00 p.m. after a long bicycle ride along semi-dark roads. Work ending at a late hour is even more problematic for girls and will be examined below in a discussion of occupational risk.

146 For part-time work it was a different matter. As mentioned above, part-time work is most often work that is done by children still attending school, and therefore work timings are crucial and limited to hours before and after those of school.

Remuneration A second job selection criterion, the amount of money a boy can earn, is more relevant in regards to full-time than part-time work. A child can only earn very little money at part-time work, irrespective of the specific job they do. But when it comes to full-time work, a higher rate of pay does appear to be a motivating factor for both working boys and their parents, a fact that became apparent to me during discussions with informants regarding occupational risk. Therefore, while I prefer to reserve the larger part of discussion of the issue of risk for later in this chapter, it becomes unavoidable to bring up at least one aspect of it when considering rate of pay as a job selection criterion as well. The aspect I am referring to is how the prospect of garnering higher pay trumps concerns about physical risk. Again and again in answer to my question about why don’t parents who know of the risk involved in construction labor send their children to other jobs I was told that the boy could bring more money to the house if he did that work rather than some other type. According to one mother: “If he goes for some other work, he can’t earn that much money. If he goes as a helper he can earn 70 rupees. Other jobs may fetch him 15-20 rupees.” She is referring in the latter part of her reply to work in a shop or hotel, which might only pay a young boy 400-600 rupees a month. Working boys, too, are aware of the pay differential between

147 construction labor and other kinds of work available to them. A mother recounted her son’s response to her appeal to him to seek out some other type of work after being out of work for months due to illness: “I told him, ‘After the jaundice, you go work in some other place.’ But he doesn’t listen. ‘In other shops I may get 800-1,000 rupees [a month], but in this job I can get 50 rupees a day.’” Another mother complained about her son’s unwillingness to seek out higher paying work: “I asked him to take up a better paying job. But he says that in other jobs he will have to carry heavy load, whereas in this job all he has to do is sit in the shop and attend to the customers. So he prefers to stay in this job.”

Age-appropriateness: Physical and Mental Maturity The age-appropriateness of different kinds of work was another job selection criterion about which I questioned my informants. Although their responses in regards to particular jobs often clashed, there did emerge some areas in which a notable number agreed, particularly concerning what kinds of work were not suitable for children. Even that limited agreement mostly revolved around jobs believed unsuitable only for the younger of my two age divisions (under 14 years of age), and not for the older one (14-18 years old). The primary reason parents and children believed certain kinds of work were unsuitable for children under the age of 14 was because children of such a young age lack the requisite physical strength to do them. I asked a working boy to explain why he had classified a variety of such jobs, including LPG gas tank delivery, rock breaking, cable

148 TV installation, selling vegetables on a pushcart, and ditch digging as suitable only for boys 14 or older:
These are all heavy jobs. Younger boys don’t have much strength...They have to climb houses, sometimes tall buildings. The cable may be heavy. Younger boys will not have much idea about climbing, etc. The older boys can manage well…[Selling vegetables], too, needs a lot of physical strength. The younger boys can’t push the cart on steep roads...Boys must be older and also taller to dig ditches. They need strength, too… Above sixteen.

While the jobs this working boy mentioned as being inappropriate for boys under 14 years of age included most of those commonly mentioned by other informants, some additional physically strenuous jobs were also frequently mentioned in the same context. For example, a number of informants felt that ox-cart riding was not suitable for young boys, as they would lack sufficient strength to control the oxen pulling the loaded cart. 31 Others jobs that were singled out are associated with the construction industry – bending rebar and carrying pans loaded with bricks or wet cement. 32 Besides physical strength, some parents spoke of young children lacking the necessary mental abilities to do certain jobs, referring to the general intelligence, discipline, and level of concentration needed to do work in a safe and proficient manner. A working boy clarified why he had chosen cart riding work for the older of my two age groups, but not the younger: “This is not a question of strength. The younger boys can’t drive a cart properly, whereas the older people drive carefully.” A mother similarly explained why she had chosen carpentry as being suitable for 14-year-old and older boys,
Oxcarts re still used in Mysore to haul construction material, fodder, and goods. As mentioned in chapter three, as I traveled around Mysore on the back of my research assistant’s scooter I would ask my assistant to pull over ahead of working children I observed using the same road so I could take a photo of them. Not infrequently those children would be riding an oxcart. See Figures 23-24 in Appendix B. 32 This latte type of work, both the skilled masonry work and more mundane associated tasks (i.e. mixing cement, carrying materials) is known in Kannada as garae kelasa. The unskilled manual labor portion of garae kelasa is the most common type of work done by boys that have dropped out of school and even ny many adult men in my research areas. See figure 25.)
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149 but not for those under 14: “Because they are a bit more mentally mature they will have the desire to learn. They may observe others and learn some skills.” Some informants also felt that a young boy would not be able to properly do the math required in a business such as selling vegetables from a cart or might not have the maturity and confidence necessary to keep from being cheated by adult customers. My informants’ perceptions of the age at which such mental maturity developed varied substantially, with 14 or 15 years old commonly being mentioned as being the dividing line. A father explained that he had not chosen factory work as being appropriate work for boys under 14 years old: “He is small and has no mental development…no knowledge, no responsibilities, no common sense.’ Some spoke of the years under 14 as being a playful age during which work such as beedi rolling with its sedentary requirements was not suitable. But interestingly, many of my informants distinguished between fully doing a particular job versus acting as a helper on the job. Therefore, it was often felt suitable even for a boy under 14 years of age to act as a helper to a person doing work believed to be out of the young boy’s scope of abilities. A father qualified his choice of garage work for boys: “Below 14 he can learn and will be helpful for his future…Under 14, there may not be much mental development. But at 18 they are fully developed mentally and they perform their work with full mental responsibility.” A mother explained this distinction in reference to one of the jobs she had chosen as being appropriate for boys under 14 years old: “If the boy is hired as a painter he is asked to sand the wall. Small boys are not allowed to paint.”

150 Such perceptions that a level of mental maturity sufficient for serious work begins at 14 or 15 years of age are significant in that they are consistent with India’s child labor enforcement policies, but not with the broader requirements of the CRC and other ILO conventions dealing with children and work.

Conclusion: Many roads lead to work This chapter has examined various aspects of children’s work from the perspectives of working children and their parents. It has revealed a diversity of views and some degree of inconsistency between discourse about the subject and what may be observed as reality. My exploration of parents’ own childhoods showed that a notable proportion grew up in an environment of poverty and hardship, with many being forced to sacrifice schooling in lieu of work. Yet at the same time their perspectives on how children come to be working show that it would be unfair to characterize those childhoods as being purely predictive of their own children’s futures. Instead, they view a number of factors including poverty, a child’s interest in education, and a child’s inherent interests as playing roles in whether a child receives a complete education or leaves school for work. In addition to such perspectives on what causes children to work, the chapter also looked at many of the criteria used in deciding on the kind of work a child would do. Not surprisingly, remuneration and availability were major factors associated with the jobs done by boys, although for some parents whether or not a job would offer a child a good livelihood once fully trained and an adult was also salient. Gender was shown to be a

151 major determinant in terms of job opportunities, with cultural norms regarding gender appropriateness and women’s physical strength limiting the range of work open to girls. The next chapter will continue to address the issue of children’s work, focusing on three additional significant aspects. First, I will look at the issue of occupational risk, both of a physical and moral nature, in regards to the types of work children do in Mysore. Moral discourse surrounding such risk has been a significant element of both international and national child labor debates on the issue. Concerns about the harmful impact of work on children have been highlighted in the media as incontrovertible justification for immediately removing children from work and have driven the adoption of the ILO’s Convention No. 182 (Worst Forms of Child Labour) to supplement the antichild labor provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Secondly, building on the data already presented concerning job selection criteria I will examine how such criteria are weighted in terms of which types of work are considered good jobs versus bad jobs. Finally, I will look at the important areas of apprenticeship and on-the-job vocational training. Apprenticeship warrants scrutiny in the discussion of child labor because it is frequently criticized as being nothing more than a mechanism through which unscrupulous employers are able to exploit the work of boys for an extended period of time without imparting any skill to them of use to their future.

152 CHAPTER 5: PERCEPTIONS OF RISK AND THE QUALITIES OF GOOD WORK

Occupational Risk In the previous chapter my examination of how the work children do is chosen looked at issues of timings, money, physical strength, and mental maturity, all of which dovetailed with a broader consideration of age-appropriateness. But throughout the discussion an additional important work selection criterion has been both implicitly and explicitly been raised: occupational risk. During the course of my research I devoted substantial attention to learning about how parents and children thought of risk, particularly in regards to the work done by children. I questioned them as to whether they felt particular jobs involve physical, mental, or moral risk and as well explored gender aspects of the issue.

Physical Risk To gain a better understanding of the larger context of risk perception within which that concerning work is only a portion I asked my informants to give me their impressions of a special set of cards I had drawn that depicted an assortment of risky scenes I had witnessed around Mysore. I discovered that parents had well-developed schemata of the occupational risk associated with the types of work done by children, particularly in the realm of physical risks. Grouping those risks involved in different types of work according to their similarities, I was able to establish a basic taxonomy.

153 The categories I identified were risk of injury or other negative health impact from: carrying objects of a weight beyond age capacity; dropping something heavy on the feet; inhaling harmful substances; falling from heights; puncturing, cutting, or otherwise injuring the skin in a minor way with a sharp tool or in handling another work-related object; seriously cutting, cutting off, or maiming a portion of the body; work-related material being flung into the eyes or other parts of the body; skin reactions or abrasions; electrocution; sitting in one position for a long period of time; and customer violence or robbery. Some types of work were seen as having more than one form of risk. Since the large majority of the occupations pictured on my cards are almost always done by males in Mysore, the physical risks associated with them were only relevant in reference to working boys. Moral risk, on the other hand, due to gender norms in south Indian culture took on more importance in discussions of the work done by girls, although it was also associated with a handful of occupations in which boys are involved. Moral risk was such an overdetermining factor in terms of girls’ work, in fact, that only two of the girls in my household study were allowed to work outside the home. In addition to questioning informants about the physical and moral risks boys and girls face in the work they do, I also inquired about a third type, that of mental health risks. The mental health risks faced by child workers proved more problematic for my informants to conceptualize and discuss. I described this type risk to them as one in which the work environment negatively affects a child in such a way as they come to feel anxiety, depression, or fear even when not on the job. Most of my informants, however,

154 did not see most of the types of work pictured on my cards as causing such mental conditions. Given that informants had identified a large number of physical and moral risks associated with many of types of work and that such perceptions appeared to be common in their communities, it was important to understand the degree to which they felt such beliefs influenced parents’ decisions regarding job selection for their children. Although some informants felt that parents that sent a boy to a particular job may not actually be aware of the full scope involved in the work (and, therefore, be ignorant of the job’s risks), a larger proportion believed that the parents of such boys are aware of the risks. Working boys themselves were generally thought to be aware of the physical risks associated with their jobs. Given that knowledge, why then did parents send their sons to such work? The answer to this question proved to be multifaceted and interesting. Some of the more obvious explanations have already been touched on in the context of different aspects of children’s work discussed in other sections of this chapter. First, my informants observed that there were only a limited range of jobs which an uneducated boy can do. Second, for some parents occupational risk is of secondary concern to the money a boy brings home. Third, in regards to girls working outside the home, consideration of whether a particular job presents moral risk in most cases becomes a mute point as a girl is only sent out to work under the most extenuating circumstances. A mother described such circumstances: “A girl whose father is no more or not responsible, whose parents have no son, then she will be forced to work to run the family. Whatever the timings are, they are compelled to work.” A father similarly observed: “[W]here the

155 father is a drinker or she may not have parents or only one parent…Not everyone will send his or her girls to work. Only very poor people will send them for full-time jobs.” Another informant told of a different scenario under which a family might need to send girls out to work: “If the parents have only one daughter they will not send her. If they have 4 or 5 daughters, they may have a problem, so they may send them to work.” 33 A mother’s words perhaps put the issue most into perspective: “People who have money will always be concerned about the moral risks. Poor people like us just need money at the end of the day.” Reports of limited job opportunities and household economic difficulties both have a ring of truth to them, but many of the opinions expressed about why parents send their boys to jobs having occupational risks transcended such facile explanations. A common refrain I heard was that all jobs have physical risks, the implication being not only that particular jobs were not “worse” (i.e. riskier) for children than others, but also that those same jobs would continue to present at least some risk to them even if they did them as adults. A father in my household study who is a carpenter showed me as proof of that assertion a scar on his leg where years earlier he had cut to the bone as well as a fresh work-related wound on his hand. Another father viewed the issue in a similar way: “There is no job that does not have risks…Some more, some less…If you are only bothered about that, how can you earn?”

This informant did not specify the problem to which he is referring. He likely means either that the household has only daughters and no sons to send to work to bring in income or that the household must find a way to come up with the extremely large amount of money needed to marry off several girls.

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156 While believing that workers of any age were susceptible to sustaining occupational accidents, a strong thread of the discourse was that the risks are higher for young and inexperienced workers, and that the degree of such risks go down substantially in a relatively short time as they become familiar with the work. Asked whether parents know about the risks their son will face at a job, a mother answered: “Yes, they know. But they say, ‘Till you learn, it will be like that. You go.’ Working boys, too, saw the risk as being higher for a novice worker, but continuing at some background level even for experienced workers. The boy in my household study whose job is breaking stones responded to my questions about age and experience in relation to the occupational risk associated with his work: “For everybody it is risky, they can get hurt. For beginners the chances of getting hurt are more.” A boy who had done construction manual labor for two years spoke of his work:
It depends on us. Gradually, once we gain experience, the risks are reduced. If you work for one year you know the job, and then the risks are negligible…Very young children are more prone to risks.

But for many of the parents and working boys I spoke with the heightened physical risk an inexperienced boy must face for a period of time when first learning an occupation is tolerable, though not desirable, and should best be looked at as being a fair trade-off for the potential to learn a skill that can insure a good livelihood for the rest of one’s life. A father explained: “Though the parents know about the risk, they let them work to learn the skill.” When I asked a mother which jobs present mental health risks to a working boy, she responded: “If he has a mind to come up in life, however difficult the job may be, he should do it to see a bright future. In that case, he will have no problem.

157 If he does the job for four days and on the fifth day he decides to leave the job, then there will be problems.” The mother of a working boy spoke of her own son’s situation:
Yes, sometimes (son’s name) comes and tells me, ‘My whole body aches and it is difficult.’ But he has to learn it. If he learns it is good for his future and he has to do it… Parents think about the risk in a job. If he leaves the job because he is at risk, he can’t learn the job. So whatever it may be, they want him to go.

While some of my informants believe that the parents of working boys see occupational risk as a necessary evil associated with a boy learning a useful life skill, that is not to say that they think that all parents lack concerns about putting their child in harm’s way. Several of my informants noted that parents urged their working child to exert caution at the work site and, moreover, mentioned “being careful” as the expected way (in the sense of a responsibility) for a boy to trump physical risk at work. A mother touched on this fact in the course acknowledging that working boys know they are at risk: “Yes, they know. But they think, ‘Let us work carefully. Anyhow, we have come to work, so whatever the owner says we have to do it.’” Others felt there was little a boy’s parents could do and rather that his employer and more experienced co-workers hold a crucial responsibility in the matter. Sitting in on a household study interview, a male neighbor who does cement work on construction jobs said: “They [parents] can’t do anything. Those who teach him the job and those who are on the site should guide them…He should have the patience and guide the kids properly.” An interesting alternative viewpoint regarding whether parents worry about the occupational risks their child faces came from the mother of a working boy: “If they have one child they may worry. If they have three or four children, they may not worry too much.”

158 Although, as mentioned above, girls are generally restricted from doing remunerative jobs outside the home, informants sometimes chose one or more types of such work (e.g. construction labor, tailoring) as being suitable for girls. In those cases the physical risks mentioned were the same as for boys doing the same work. Housecleaning was one of the few “outside” jobs done by girls but not boys. Its physical risks were said to be rashes of the skin, dropping of cooking utensils on the feet, and having to carry heavy laundry. Other types of work done only within the confines of the home were also identified as having physical risk. Rolling beedis was mentioned as exposing a girl to respiratory problems and even TB due to the inhaling of tobacco dust. Stringing flowers was said to have a risk of pin-pricks to the fingers as well as problems from inhaling the flowers’ scent. But the most discourse concerning the physical health risks of girls’ work unsurprisingly came in reference to the most common income-generating activity amongst the women in several of my research neighborhoods – agarbathi rolling. My female adult informants noted a plethora of health risks that both they and their daughters faced in rolling the incense sticks. Musculo-skeletal problems involving the knees, back, chest, shoulders, or hands were frequently mentioned. Many problems that were associated with rolling agarbathi were framed in terms of the Indian humoral system of health. According to such a system, many foods and activities are “heating” or “cooling” to the body and have the potential to throw its functioning off balance into ill health. It is believed that rolling agarbathi is such an activity, with the roller taking in the harmful substance through respiration or contact with the palms when rolling.

159 Moral Risk for Boys In regards to the issue of children’s work exposing them to moral risk, the large majority of my informants felt that a child adopting bad habits or an immoral lifestyle was not a result of exposure to moral risk intrinsic in any particular job, but rather dependent on the child’s own nature. The mother of a working boy strongly supported this idea: “Whatever jobs we send them to, if they are prone to get spoilt they will. No specific job, this and that. If they have a tendency to get spoilt, they will get spoilt.” A working boy denied that bar work or, indeed, any other type of work presented moral risk: “If he is a good boy he won’t get spoiled; otherwise he will get spoiled...It can be any kind of work – if the boys are good they will remain good even if the job atmosphere is bad.” A household study mother vociferously denied that moral risk associated with work could be the cause of a boy “going bad”:
No, nothing. Everyone has to do his work and keep going. If they go down a wrong path, then it is totally their fault. If he wants money, he must work sincerely. Wherever, whether in cleaning sewage or a being a scavenger, it is a question of money.

But some did believe that there was moral risk associated with certain types of work done by boys, particularly those in which a boy is paid daily. Speaking about cement plastering/construction manual labor in this way, an informant observed: “How means they get money. You get money daily. In this they will get onto a bad path.” Another spoke similarly about the selling of small goods on the pavement: “If there is another person who is doing business, he will meet other guys. Then they may say, ‘Don’t give all the money to your parents. Keep something for yourself, let us drink.’” A mother characterized rag picking as presenting moral risks and being suitable only for a particular caste: “It is not for us. Only scavengers’ children.” It is important to

160 note that boys who do rag picking are often the ones associated with using marijuana, alcohol, and solution. 34

Moral Risk for Girls When it came to working girls and exposure to moral risk, my informants had similar views about the decisive power an individual’s inherent nature has in regards to whether an individual resists or given in to immoral temptation. A working boy observed: “If the girl is good and has nothing in her mind, even if she works outside in the city, there’s no problem if she decides to do that.” A woman disagreed with her husband’s judgment that it was a certainty that a girl sent outside the home to work would encounter and succumb to moral risk: “No. If we are clean at heart, nothing will happen. If she shows her teeth, [smiles at a boy], she’s finished.” But it was another potent influence that informants also believe the individual is directed by, that of fate, that was even more frequently mentioned as having a major role in influencing whether a moral or physical risk a working child is exposed to results in harmful fruition. During a discussion about the occupational risks faced by boys pictured on a card doing construction labor, I asked a woman how she felt about the risks faced by her own sons who do the same type of work. She replied: “Always I feel anything might happen anytime. But it is all fate…It means nobody can change what is written. We can’t change our fate.” Another mother described the responsibility held by the parents of a working girl to make sure that she has the company of another local girl when traveling
34

Solution refers to various solvents or other industrial fluids, the fumes of which are inhaled for a high. Its use is commonly associated with rag pickers.

161 home from work at night and then added: “As parents we will see to all this. Beyond that it is their fate.” When I asked a mother whether before sending a child out to work his parents think about the occupational risks they will face, she replied: “They think, but finally they leave everything to fate.” Although not directly addressing the issue of how a child’s inherent nature or fate interact with occupational moral risk, a working boy’s view of the limited ability of parents to keep a boy from keeping bad company supplies a useful insight into traditional local views about the enduring influence of the nature with which one is born:
They can beat him or try to give him advice. Apart from that, they can’t do much. You can’t change the nature a person is born with. There is a saying in Kannada ‘Hutta Guna, Suttaru Hogodilla’ [The nature a person is born with cannot be burnt even by fire]. If a person is inclined to vices, not much can be done to correct him.

While risks of a physical and moral nature were the types primarily identified as being associated with the work children do, mental risk was mentioned by more than one informant as being a characteristic of one type of work – that of the jeetha 35 domestic work done by some girls. A mother described the possible mental state of a girl doing such work: “Like maybe they’ll feel, ‘Look how they have sent us. All life long maybe I’ll have to do jeetha.’ So they start constantly brooding.” A working boy painted a similar picture: “Yes, they may be fed up with jeetha. She may be worrying a lot about her situation.” A psychology professor at a local university who has done work with child laborers, however, saw mental risk as not being limited to just a select group of jobs such

35

Jeetha refers to bonded labor. The form of jeetha I most commonly heard about involved a girl being brought to work in a house as a domestic servant for an extended period of time (often several years or more), with her parents receiving periodic lump-sum payments for her services.

162 as jeetha domestic work. He saw the negative influence as originating with a child’s parents and potentially leading to physical injury as well:
Every child gets problems. At some point of time he gets exhausted and doesn’t want to go. But he’s forced to go. He goes and starts working. Under this kind of pressure, there’s a conflict, which says ‘Work!’, and he says ‘No’. In this conflict, anxiety is produced, tension is produced. From this tension they get into accidents. Is it not a health point? Anxiety, tensions are all psychological health concepts, which they are not aware of. Supposing the child says he doesn’t want to go to work. Will the parents listen? They won’t listen if the child says, ‘I’m not fine today’. Unless the child shows some injury, the parents will not agree…Because health as far they are concerned, is only physical.

Good jobs vs. Bad Jobs Given the density of highly-developed opinions I have presented above regarding the range of criteria by which children’s work is chosen, it seems worthwhile to briefly sum up what constitutes a “good” job versus a “bad” job for a child in the minds of my household study parents. Such an exercise must necessarily exclude the context of a household experiencing conditions of extreme deprivation, because in such a setting immediate need trumps all preferences. These considerations aside, the evaluation of work as good or bad is best looked at along gender lines. For a boy, a good job is one that, as mentioned by some of the informants quoted above, offers the chance to learn an occupation that can provide him with a good livelihood when he becomes an adult so that he can ably support a family. The majority of such professions involve a period of skill acquisition or even more formal apprenticeship. In the case of most of these professions, therefore, during his early years of employment a boy will not earn much money. Two professions that were repeatedly mentioned as offering a boy a bright future were scooter/motorcycle mechanic and carpentry. In regards to both of those professions my

163 informants expressed the belief that a person who practices them can always find work and can do so wherever he may live. High remuneration was, as is to be expected, also mentioned by some as being a quality of a good job. A woman spoke of why she had years earlier steered her son into carpentry when he dropped out of school rather than allowing him to get into the mechanic’s work that he preferred: “It is a good job. If you are skilled and intelligent, you can earn a lot of money.” Other features mentioned of a good occupation were that it was relatively unaffected by seasonality or availability of work, that one could be one’s own boss, and that it is liked by the boy. A father explained why house painting would be a satisfactory career choice for a boy, but mechanic’s work would be better: “Yes, it will be helpful. But it is difficult to find jobs. This mechanic job he can do on his own.” In reality, few of the occupations practiced in Mysore fail to experience seasonal fluctuation. Any work done outdoors, depending on the vagaries of a particular year, may be particularly impacted by rain during the monsoon season and many other occupations as well are affected by the yearly patterns of religious festival-driven expenditures. Another feature of good work for a child that was cited by informants was that it is “easy”, with the word having more than a single connotation. I have noted above that a major criterion for judging certain types of work inappropriate for boys, especially those under 14 years of age, is that they involve carrying heavy items or performing tasks that require considerable strength. A quality of good work in general was similarly that it did not require moving around heavy items or extreme physical effort. But beyond aspects of muscular exertion, a central factor in what is considered to make work easy is another in

164 which the analytic dichotomy of inside/outside exhibits relevance. I refer to the fact that several of my informants described a good job as being one that can be done indoors, shielded from the sun. A mother whose son makes sandals explained why that work was better than work as a coolie: “In coolie work he has to work hard, carry heavy things under the hot sun. So it is a difficult job. But if he sits with his father, he can sit in the shade and make a pair and earn money.” The fact that generations of one’s family have been involved in a specific type of work is another characteristic that makes work “good”. Some of my informants were emotionally adamant that only their family’s traditional occupation (or at the most, that occupation and one or two others) was a good one for a boy, especially a son or male relative of theirs, to take up. A woman whose husband was a tinker who was teaching his drop-out son the trade said: “My son will not do garae kelasa and such other trivial, menial jobs. He will take up his father’s occupation. If he takes up his father’s occupation, he can earn well and live like a king.” While some specific occupations were singled out as being good for a boy, others were mentioned in a negative light as being “bad” jobs, generally based on a key unattractive characteristic or unfavorable cultural connotations. The flip-side of the good quality a mother felt sandal-making to have (that it could be done indoors out of the sun) is the negative characteristic that some felt made certain jobs bad – that they had to be done under the hot sun. For example, earlier in this chapter a working boy’s negative description of the TV cable system installation work he had earlier done included as one of the job’s onerous conditions that it had to be done under the hot sun.

165 When I spoke with the boy in my study who is a rock breaker about what constitutes a good versus bad job, occupational health came up as a salient factor. I asked him whether he would characterize his job to his friends as being good or bad and he responded with the future in mind:
I’d say it’s not a good job…We get chest pain. Now I’m not getting any. But if I continue like this definitely one day I’ll get it…Not more than 4-5 years.

Characterizations of good and bad work for girls were very different from and far more limited than was the case regarding the work boys do. This is largely a result of parents’ stronger beliefs regarding the physical and moral risks various types of work present to girls. As with the identification of good work for boys, the categorizing of work as bad for girls often had an emotional tinge, observable in some of the earlier quotes of parents concerning the moral risks faced by working girls. Even though the moral risk of a job is only a potentiality, the fact that a girl may get “ruined” while engaged in a specific occupation gives it the imprint of “bad work for girls”. Gender considerations enter into parents’ judgment of specific types of work as being good or bad for children in another way as well. When in the course of doing my occupation cards exercise I questioned my informants about why they had not chosen a particular job pictured as one that would be appropriate for a certain age group of the gender we were discussing that day, I was often told that in general it was not a good job for a child of that gender. The following words of a mother are typical of the refrain I heard from many: “These are all for boys. There is one here and there for girls.” Sometimes such words were based on the belief that girls are not strong enough to do a job, while at others it was more a matter of a girl doing such a job as being outside the

166 social norms in Mysore (and likely in a majority of other communities in India as well). At times, however, gender considerations worked the other way, with jobs done mostly by females not being viewed as good jobs for boys. A woman explained to me why she had not chosen the housecleaning job during the boy’s occupation card exercise: “He is a boy, so it is not fit for a boy. It is a girl’s job.” A working boy who rolled agarbathi for a year after leaving school explained the current status of the work in his area: “A lot of them [boys] used to do that. Now everyone has stopped because people laughed at them.” Several qualities of “bad jobs" were relevant to both boy’s and girl’s work, one of those being if doing the job made one dirty. A job mentioned several times in this context was rolling agarbathi. A mother recounted that although she had previously rolled it, she hadn’t had her daughters do it because it was a dirty job. The same mother whom I quote above speaking of good pay as being the reason she preferred her son to do carpentry rather than vehicle repair on a later occasion gave further details of the vocational advice she had given her son that illustrates the same negative perception of dirty work: “‘Garae kelsa is difficult, mechanic is a dirty job. Carpentry is a good job, you go for it,’ I said.” When I asked a working boy which of the jobs he had done was better, the scooter and motorcycle re-upholstery work that he presently did or the hotel work he had done previously, he chose the re-upholstery job: “It’s a good job, there is no mess, it’s clean work… There you had to wash the plates, spoons, etc. It was messy and dirty work.” A final category of bad jobs is one that includes jobs that both have negative physical characteristics as well as unsavory cultural connotations. Such jobs are felt to be

167 below the social level of the speaker and were a child of their family to do it, would lower the family’s prestige within the community. Iconic of this category is rag-picking. Rag-picking carried with it the image of dirtiness, but that dirtiness is even of a lower quality than that associated with more respectable jobs in which the worker gets dirty as a result of handling particular materials used in the work. In rag-picking one touches and must sort through the full range of filthy discarded materials heaped for removal near houses and shops, materials that the average person would avoid coming into contact with after throwing away. Their own clothes are frequently dirty and in poor condition as well. Begging is another type of job that fits well in this category, although it did not commonly come up in discussions of children’s work. Selling at the bus stand, also, had similar negative cultural connotations, with one father mentioning that such work was only done by girls of a particular caste.

Apprenticeship and Skill Training The data presented in the previous sections make it clear that parents and working children view a specific sub-set of the types of work children do as being highly desirable, offering good future employment opportunities and the ability to earn a decent living. Most such types of work share the characteristic of requiring either a formal or informal extended period of training. Again, as in previous sections of this chapter, much of the discussion will address the work done by boys. This is because as I have previously noted girls are excluded from most types of work based on fears of moral risk, a perception that they lack adequate physical strength, and more generally the constraints

168 of other gendered cultural norms. Of the small proportion of the girls from low-income households who continue to work as young adults outside the home at better paying and more prestigious jobs, most do so in gender-acceptable work such as teaching. Teacher training is acquired through attending tertiary educational establishments, rather than purely through working experience. One of the most significant findings of my research, with important implication for child labor eradication efforts, involves parents’ perceptions regarding the acquisition of occupational skills. I repeatedly heard from the parents I spoke with the belief that for a boy to learn a job well he must begin doing so from an early age. The male neighbor of a household study participant, sitting in on an interview in which photographs of child labor raids were displayed, remarked: “See if the boys are made to join work at a young age, they will learn the job. They can’t learn the job after they are fifteen.” When I asked a working boy whether or not any very young children from his neighborhood were working, he replied: “Yes, some of them by ten years old. If they start at a young age, they can learn better.” For many informants, starting at a young age was not merely a matter of optimality, but a strict requirement for fully obtaining occupational mastery of the jobs most often mentioned as offering the best potential for a boy to support himself well in the future – carpentry and scooter/motorcycle repair. My informants saw the process of learning such jobs as being very gradual, with children doing so through observation and the carrying out of progressively more difficult tasks over a period of time. A working boy described the initial period on the job for a boy learning carpentry: “When they start learning they will do small odd jobs like sanding, helping, etc.” A tailor

169 who had taught his profession to numerous boys in the past offered a similar description: “They do only buttons or button holes for 2-3 years. Then cleaning and oiling machines.” The same man described the situation for a boy learning to be a vehicle mechanic: “To bring tools…He [the employer] will keep him as a helper for 2-3 years, and then slowly he will be given other work. He can learn by observing slowly.” Informants believed, moreover, that an employer would not hire an older boy for training, and that certain occupations are best learned or even must be learned from a family member over a period of years. These last perceptions implicitly bring to my discussion of apprenticeship and skill training two pointed questions aimed by critics of child labor at those that justify the practice as vocational training: What constitutes actual occupational training, and what merely exploits a young worker by assigning him basic unskilled “grunt” or “go-fer” work? And how long a training period is necessary to fully learn a job? To better understand these issues it will be useful to examine in detail and compare the perceptions and experiences of some in regards to training in specific occupations. The mother of a school drop-out who had been trained by his father for several years by the time of my study shared her observations:
Even if carpenters take in apprentices, they use them to bring coffee, tea or snacks from hotels. 36 They do not teach them anything. I have seen this happen. So I did not want to send him to work under anybody. I insisted that his father teach him the trade…We want him to learn properly.

The same woman’s husband and son also had well-developed opinions on the matter of training. Her husband related that he had trained many boys beginning when

36

In Mysore, hotel refers to a (commonly small-sized) restaurant.

170 they were 10 years old, and that they were fully trained in less than 5 years. 37 He and his son described the economic and learning advantages of starting to work in carpentry from a young age. The working boy noted: “They [boys under 14 years of age] can [go to school], but if they start at a young age they can get good training. If he is young he will get 35 rupees [a day], a little older he may get sixty-five rupees.” His father added: “By 18 years old he can earn 100 rupees or 120 rupees…If he starts at the age of 18, even when he is 25 years he would not have learnt more.” The working boy added that in such a case the 25-year-old’s wages will be lower than a male who started learning at a younger age and added a further thought about his profession: “It requires a lot of concentration; it has to be learnt from a very young age.” The carpenter I have just quoted had in fact already begun to teach his 4 and 6-year-old grandsons the carpentry trade, having them bring him particular tools he requested as well as do sanding work. A boy from another household in my study was having a very different training experience. The boy, who was 13 at the end of my study, had been working by then for more than 2 years in a carpentry workshop that had several older workers as well. The workshop specialized, as did the previously quoted carpenter, in producing ornate Hindu shrines for the home. Although the boy on more than one occasion told me he liked his work and was always outgoing and in good spirits on the occasions I encountered him when he came home for lunch, his mother felt that he was neither getting sufficiently remunerated (only 20 rupees a day at the time) nor being adequately trained. She had not been given any set period of training time by the boy’s employer. His mother told me on
Another informant also explicitly mentioned the age of 10 as being a good one for a boy to begin learning to be a carpenter and as well said that a boy must learn the occupation from his father.
37

171 one occasion of the boy’s friendly treatment by his employer, but on another that the man sometimes yelled at and beat the boy. The boy had also admitted during another home visit that his body ached from carrying heavy shrines down stairs for loading into a delivery truck. The boy had an older brother who was also learning carpentry, but from an uncle. His mother told me that due to the slow pace the younger boy was being taught carpentry she wanted to send him join his brother at his uncle’s shop, but that the boy’s employer gave her a string of excuses: “His employer has said that for 2-3 years he will not let him go…He says, ‘He is a keen learner, let him learn fully.’… He says, ‘Is money important, or work important?’” During that same interview the boy agreed with his employer, saying: “If it’s less money, that’s fine. But I can learn the work well”. It was not clear if the boy would be fully trained as a carpenter at the end of the additional 2-3 year period. At another interview she told me that it would be 5 more years before he would be a fully trained carpenter. The preceding descriptions present a picture of the degree to which the carpentry training experience, including the duration of time required to reach a professional level of skill, may vary depending on by whom a boy is trained. Another profession’s training processes that I obtained extensive information about was that of cement plastering/masonry. This is the same type of work that I have previously described in the context of presenting physical and moral risks to working boys in entry-level positions. At the time of interviews with them, boys from two different households in my study had been doing cement plastering work for about two years. One of the boys had been taught

172 a lot of his skills by his father, although it is not clear how formal this process had been. The boy had initially been pulled from private school and sent to work when the man slipped into alcoholism and no longer was able to work to the degree he previously had. The boy said he had learned 75% of what he knew from his two years of working and needed two further years to learn everything he would need to do a job completely on his own. He described the process by which a working boy moves up a rank in his field:
Sometimes the maistry 38 will give me a chance to do patch work…[Or] [t]he maistry will tell the main plasterer. The main plasterer will give us a chance…They will see our job first, how we work. Then they will consider.

This boy’s description of his training and the advancement process for a cement plasterer was echoed by the second boy I spoke with. The second boy’s father had actually been a maistry, but the boy had not benefited from his instruction as had the first because he had attended school until his father’s early death. According to the second boy:
We learnt gradually, from experience and observation…It [promotion] depends on our work. If our skill is good, we get better and more skilled work and with it higher wages… Increased wages does not depend on age, but quality of work.

Other informants involved in or familiar with cement plastering confirmed that training is most often an informal process of observing a skilled worker and gradually being given chances to prove through one’s work that one has picked up particular skills and is capable of reliably reproducing them on a regular basis. I was told by one informant that it is common for an older brother to serve as a teacher for his younger
38

Maistry is the term used to refer to a supervisor in a variety of professions, although in my research areas it generally was used in reference to the head of a crew doing masonry work on a construction project. The maistry hires all the workers and oversees their work, insuring that a high level of quality is maintained. But the maistry does not himself have to do all of the hard work involved in getting the job done, and if the job is done correctly can garner substantially greater earnings than the men working under him. The maistry is frequently spoken of as the iconic successful man who has risen up from the ranks of the masons.

173 brothers and by another that if the maistry knows the boy well he will allow him to work alongside him, enabling him to be in a position to readily observe work procedures and receive important pointers. Thus in the same way as was described in regards to carpentry, close connections with a skilled professional who is commonly a relative or a family friend appears to be a vital for a boy to learn a desirable occupation in a timely way and to a professional degree of proficiency. The issue of whether or a not a boy receives adequate and timely training is a serious one in the minds of parents, as proper training in a good profession from a young age can mean for a boy the difference between a life of abject poverty and one of a modest middle-class standard. Such a concern was evident in the earlier quote of the mother who did not want her son trained in carpentry by anyone other than her husband. Near the end of my research I happened to be visiting a female-headed household that already had one working boy on occasions just preceding and immediately after a second son left school to work. The boy’s mother had tried to keep her younger son in school, but as described above a speech impediment caused by a harelip had made learning required languages very difficult for him and made him an object of ridicule in his class. The boy had on his own located a man who he said would take him on in his mechanic’s shop. His mother, however, wanted to first receive some guarantees from the boy’s employer: “Even if he gets 5 rupees [a day] it is fine, but he should learn his job well under a well-trained person...I will first ask everything about the time, and I will ask him to teach in 2 or 3 years, fine. If it is more I will not send him.”

174 Some working boys, too, are equally aware of the importance of learning a good skill and advancing professionally. The second boy quoted above involved in cement plastering work spoke of the kind of future faced by children who work rather than getting a good education and of his own aspirations: “If children work hard and save money, later they can do supervisory work and can lead comfortable lives even without good education…I want to excel in my work, earn money, and prosper.” Beyond information concerning skill acquisition and advancement in carpentry, masonry, and vehicle repair work, I also learned about the same subjects for other occupations as well. For several of these professions the desired end result for parents was a boy learning the requisite occupational skills well and opening up his own shop. A mother whose son worked in a bangle shop in the central market told me of the plan she and her husband had for the boy: “If he stays there for 6-7 years and if he learns the trade well, then we can open a small bangle shop.” For tailoring I had another example of a man teaching his offspring the family profession. The man explained that his sons could not yet stitch a shirt completely on their own, and expounded on the learning process and his future plans for the boys:
I have just begun to teach them. They are learning bit by bit….The older boy is doing quite well….When I am stitching, I make them stand next to me and watch closely...I feel it is better to teach my boys my work. If they learn the work well, I am ready to set up a shop for them in the future. 39

One son had been training with him for a year, and the second for six months. By near the end of my research period, the man had put finished walls and a roll-down metal front onto a small garage-like space on the street level of his house, converting it into a small tailor’s shop. Unfortunately, the man’s house was located on a street that received only a marginal amount of passing foot traffic. The man and his sons opened the shop for a limited number of hours each day, doing most of their work in their main shop. By the end of my study the new shop had been closed, at least for the time being. The tailor told me that for the new shop to succeed he would need to spend more time there, as potential customers would be hesitant to patronize a young tailor working on his own.

39

175 Another boy in my study also was learning a profession from his father, that of a tinker. The boy had earlier had a wild streak, cutting classes and roaming around with a bad crowd, and had only recently settled down into a life of learning from and helping his father. The boy’s mother described his progress and the hopes she and her husband had for the boy’s future:
For the past three to four months, he has not been meeting anybody. He spends all his time working with his father or at home. If his father needs a sheet or something, he goes to the city to get it. He is helping out with the work....He has learnt well. He can easily repair stoves. He can’t cut tin sheets yet, because he is not strong enough. He does all other small jobs like repairing stoves, etc. (to which the boy’s father immediately added) We will set up a shop for him, once he learns the work well.

The case of another working boy in my study was unique in that the boy in question had managed to achieve what the parents quoted just above spoke of, which is parlaying the experience gained working in a particular field into opening up one’s own shop. This working boy, who was actually at the upper end of “official” childhood when I began my study, had worked in several different metal goods shops over a period of five years both as a part-time job while still in school and as full-time job after dropping out. He had recently opened up a small metal goods/scrap purchasing center in my main research area. His situation will serve as one of the case studies to be more extensively discussed below. A final and rather unique case of skill training involved a working boy of similar age as he one I have just described who was learning to be a goldsmith. I have noted above that when I first met the boy he was selling sandals from a mobile pushcart, although soon after that time was placed by an uncle in a goldsmith’s shop. The goldsmith was a transplant from another state and quickly came to rely on the boy for

176 help in many aspects of his business, with the boy even coming to live in the man’s house. Despite the fact that the goldsmith was not a relative and of a different religion (the goldsmith was Hindu while the boy was Muslim), it appeared that the boy was getting good training in a desirable business. The boy’s father said that it would take a total of about 2 ½ years for the boy to completely learn the business, although it is not clear if that was his own estimate or based on an agreement with the boy’s employer. Given that it is not easy for a boy to secure a position in which he will receive quality training in a good occupation, it becomes relevant to consider whether changing jobs is a viable option for a working boy. During the course of conducting the boys’ work card exercise in a household, I was told by the father and mother of two working boys that when boys are young they commonly change jobs until they find one they like, which they then continue for the rest of their lives. A mother in my household study rationalized her choices for 16 to 18-year-old boys in the same card exercise in a similar way: “When they are young, they don’t know which job to do and which job not to do. They can’t decide. As each year passes they will realize that they should stick to a job which is good for their future.” The reply of a working boy to my question as to whether he would continue with the same job in the future or pursue an alternative occupation offered a somewhat different view of the thinking behind a working boy’s decisionmaking in such matters: “No, the same job, as I have learnt a lot about it. Who will teach me some other work?” Of the working boys in my study a significant portion changed occupations during the course of my research, although for some the work being done at either of the jobs was not necessarily considered serious in terms of a potential career. At

177 least one boy however, the one training to be a goldsmith that I just described, did make a serious career change while I was in Mysore. A carpenter in my household study who was having his youngest son taught the craft by an elder son that he had earlier trained told me an interesting story about how he changed occupations as a young man to become a carpenter. It is a story that illustrates other forces that may lead to a boy or young adult making an occupational shift. He described how starting as a boy, for the first 13 years of his working life (until he was 25 years old) he had worked on an agricultural estate:
Actually, I also didn’t want to continue. And one of my relatives came there and saw me working and said the job didn’t suit our family and our tradition. He came and told this to my father. He was my cousin. He rebuked my father, asking why he made me do all this work and asked him to put me into some job which I like or which is a little more decent.

In regards to occupational training for girls, the household study sample had only one example of significance in regards to occupational training. As with the data presented above, this example illustrates the difficulties a child may face in obtaining high quality instruction in a good profession. A girl who completed SSLC was sent to study with her aunt who ran a successful beauty salon. Both the girl and her mother felt that it was good opportunity to learn a profession that could provide a good income. Over a number of months of living with and studying under her aunt, however, the girl experienced only a marginal amount of training and instead was used for baby-sitting and housework, eventually giving up on the plan and coming home. The data presented in this section highlights a number of important aspects of apprenticeship and skill training as they pertain to working children, most of it relevant particularly to boys. First, boys generally (but not always) receive superior quality and

178 timely occupational training when the teacher is a close relative or friend of the family. In other cases it appears that a boy’s placement is often opportunistic, not subject to a formal apprenticeship agreement, and that adequate training and career advancement depends on the good will of the boy’s employer. Such a situation allows an employer to benefit from the low-paid services of a working boy for a period of time longer than should be necessary for a boy to fully learn the skills requisite to taking up the profession on his own. As to the type of work a boy takes up and sticks with, boys not uncommonly change jobs until they find one that suits them and then continues on with that one as career. An additional aspect of such a career trajectory is that it is inherently difficult to find a mentor to teach a boy a good occupation and, moreover, employers are disinclined to “re-train” from a beginning level an older boy or young adult. But it should again be emphasized that the work a boy ends up in, even if it is the family profession that a boy can receive good training in, is not necessarily they type that his parents originally had in mind for him. In fact, many of the parents of working boys had no intention of their sons working prior to adulthood (except in part-time jobs) at all. The mother quoted above whose son is training under his father to be a tinker eloquently expressed just such a sentiment:
I wanted him to study and get a job. I would educate him even if I had to sweep people’s houses to earn money. But, my bad luck, he turned out this way. Hence, I keep telling him day in and day out to learn his father’s occupation well. If he does, he will have a good future.

Conclusion: Acceptable Risk and Training for the Future Although risk, specifically moral risk, was an important limiting factor in regards to girls’ work, neither moral nor physical risk proved to be particularly relevant in

179 parents’ deliberation concerning what job a boy would do. Some jobs and job sites were, however, perceived as presenting physical risks, moral risks, or both types of risk to working boys. But for some of the types of work boys do a degree of physical risk was considered a normal and unavoidable aspect of learning a good profession for the future. The prospect of offering a good livelihood in the future was, in fact, one of the main criteria used for classifying a job as being good. Such jobs were thought to take a number of years of formal or informal apprenticeship. Learning by observation is culturally perceived as being the appropriate way to enter many occupations. Employment from an early age, therefore, is optimal for vocational skill acquisition. However, just as anti-child labor discourse has asserted, some of the training situations I heard of appeared to be exploitative in nature. They had no specified timeline according to which a boy would be fully trained and were, in fact, limited in their scope of training. The next chapter will examine children’s work within the context of household economics, addressing the question of how the money children earn is utilized within the household. Data already presented in this dissertation have demonstrated sharp disagreement regarding this aspect of child labor: a variety of informants have claimed that due to extreme poverty working children’s contribution is essential to household survival while others assert that such a claim merely masks parents’ irresponsibility and greed. Such a discussion inevitably again brings in the related question of children’s agency, in this respect referring to the degree of control working children retain over their earnings. The examination of these issues in the next chapter will show, again, that black

180 and white distinctions are insufficient for explaining the multiplicity of facets of the child labor phenomenon.

181 CHAPTER 6: HOUSEHOLD ECONOMICS AND WORKING CHILDREN’S CONTRIBUTIONS

The purpose to which the money children earn is put to use is central to the child labor debate for two reasons. First, it cuts right to the key question of whether or not their work and resulting income is vital to household survival – would they and their families go without food and other necessities if they did not make that economic contribution? Second, it addresses questions of children’s agency: Do children work only as result of pressure from their parents and largely to benefit others, or to fulfill their own life-goals and consumption desires? To what degree are working children able to maintain control of their earnings in the face of competing household demands? The issue of youth agency in relation to obtaining monetary and other benefits from the work they do is one that has been given some attention by ethnographers working in diverse settings in Asia and Central America. They have reported that the money earned by young people is used by them in ways that don’t benefit their whole household. A key observation was that for some young people fulfilling material desires serves as a means of creating a self-identity associated with modernity and a Westernized lifestyle. Mills found, for example, that for young rural Thai women that migrated to Bangkok for work, the wish to fulfill consumption desires was an important motivating factor in making the move and, moreover, that modes of material consumption served as important markers in transforming self-identity (Mills 1997). Wolf similarly observed that many rural teenage girls in Java, Indonesia entered into factory work, often against their parents wishes, in

182 order to have money they could call their own with which to purchase items they wanted such as good quality body soap. It was not uncommon, in fact, for girls to remit very little of their wages to their families (Wolf 1997: 122-124). Green reported that young Guatemalan girls working in foreign-run clothing factories contributed little of their earnings to their households, preferring to put them towards the purchase of increasingly expensive traditional clothing. Young men in the same setting commonly spent the money they earned on consumer electronic goods (Green 2003: 65). Black noted that ILO studies of children working in the hotel, tourism, and catering industries in four countries had found that even beyond the ability to earn money, part of the attraction of such work to children was the ability to spend time outside of their own cultural constraints in an environment populated with individuals living a modern lifestyle (Black 1995: 34). A comment by White in an article critical of international pressure forcing developing countries to utilize Euro-American cultural standards in child labor legislation is cogent to the issue of children’s agency in obtaining and using money: “[I]t is contradictory and unjust for society on the one hand to bombard its children with all the messages of global and national consumer culture, underlining the importance of having money and spending it in certain ways, and on the other hand to deny the same children the right to earn money” (White 1994: 874).

Children’s Contributions: Sometimes Vital My data confirms that in Mysore as well the wishes of children play a part in how the money they earn is used, but that household problems will often be acknowledged as

183 taking precedence over such wishes. There also appear to be gender and age elements in the ability to maintain control of any substantial portion of one’s earnings. Such ability is further influenced by a household’s family structure, specifically whether it is male or female-headed. Working children’s control of their earnings also can be found in a thread of cultural discourse concerning boys and girls who spend on themselves rather than passing the money on to their parents. These issues are most pertinent to situations involving working boys, as based on the cultural constraints that I have described in an earlier chapter it is boys who make up the large majority of children working full-time away from home. They are therefore in a position to receive into their own hands either daily or on some other regular basis sums of money of which they can without great difficulty lay claim to a portion. In some households a child’s earnings were vital to meeting basic needs such as purchasing food and making loan payments. A woman told me that with her husband (a carpenter) without work and she unable to obtain the materials for producing agarbathi her household was running on the 20 rupees a day her son was bringing in as a carpenter’s helper. In another study home as well I heard of a boy’s 20 rupees per day, earned working for a food cart operator from 5-11 p.m. nightly, as being the household’s only income. It should be noted that the boy’s able-bodied young uncle, who lives in the same household, only sporadically worked. A woman whose son worked as a construction laborer, explained why she was sending her son back to work soon after recovering from a major illness: “I have also borrowed 500 rupees from outside. So I have to clear 1,000 rupees. That is why I am sending him back to work.” In a household

184 headed by a widowed woman who worked irregularly as a rock breaker, two working boys’ earnings provided the bulk of funds for everything – food, clothes, loan payments, and the educational expenses of a younger school-going brother. In another area, a mother told me about how her son’s earnings from working part-time during vacation time, while the rest of the family went to the countryside, would be used: “[W]e can’t take him along. Because, if he works till the school re-opens, he can make a little money that will enable him to buy books and a uniform…He is asking us to somehow save five rupees [out of the eight].” My photos of child labor raids as well as various card exercises (boy’s work, risk, community problems) also elicited responses that indicated my informants felt that in general boys worked to help their households meet basic subsistence needs. A woman’s response to a question regarding whether parents know about the risks associated with certain kinds of work done by boys shows that she feels the income such boys bring in is earmarked for essentials only: “They know, but it is a question of their survival and two square meals a day. What can they do?” Another woman, asked to choose appropriate types of work for boys from my set of occupation cards, answered by saying what she thought a typical mother in any needy household would say to her son: “ ‘Any job you can do, earn money and give it to us. We have to eat and run the family. Do any work, but earn money.’” A man participating in one of my low-income focus groups told me he had in the past pulled a son out of school and sent him to work to help ease the family’s problems. When I asked if the minimal 300 rupees per month the boy had at first brought into the household had actually made much of a difference, he replied: “We had had

185 trouble eating, too, but that was sort of eased.” A woman participating in the same income level focus group told me of a relative’s education ending so that he could work to help out his family: “His father was loading sand into lorries [trucks], but he had no permanent work. Now this boy works in Bangalore and sends them money every week.” A study participant spoke of how her son’s addition to household earnings had been an important factor when the household had been forced to respond to the death of a young son-in-law. At the time they had to take on supporting their widowed daughter and her two young sons, paying off large housing loans the deceased man had taken out, and finishing the construction of his half-built house so that it could be occupied. She explained: “We had to maintain two families. Since our boy is also working now, we are managing to maintain both the families.” Another informant’s comments revealed a more common large expense faced by many households that a working boy’s earnings may be put towards, that of the marriage of siblings. A woman told me that her son was very interested in his new job as compared to how he had felt about his previous work. When I asked her why this was the case, she replied: “He can earn more money daily and can help his father in marrying off his sisters.” But other uses to which boys’ earnings are put suggest that children’s work is not always essential to meeting household subsistence requirements. A young boy whose sister did domestic work daily in a neighbor’s home and who’s mother withdrew from the study due to having to take on additional work had two low-paying “helper” jobs during the course of my research. Sitting in on a neighbor’s interview late in the study, when I inquired about his job at a tailor’s shop at the time he told me that he received two rupees

186 a day with which he purchased sweets. An informant whose brother had been forced to leave his government job due to massive gambling debts explained how the man planned to use the money obtained by putting his son to work in a shop: “He thought that what the boy will earn can be paid towards some chit [savings and loan fund] or something.” Informants also made mention of fathers who take all or part of a working child’s earnings for drinking.

Boys’ Earnings: Spending to Fill Personal Desires Other discourse raises further doubt as to whether a boy’s earnings are always channeled to meeting household survival needs and moreover paints a picture of the control of a boy’s earnings as being a bone of contention in some homes. It demonstrates that it is not uncommon for working boys to spend some or even all of it as they wish, although boys who did the latter were generally viewed with disdain. In any case, the money boys use for themselves is an economic resource that is not being channeled to benefit the household as whole. One example of how boys utilize some of their income for themselves is that of buying food or snacks. A woman told me that her son gave her 20 rupees from his daily pay of 30 rupees, spending the remaining 10 rupees on items such chocolate, grapes, and chewing gum for himself. The woman kept a tight rein on her son’s social activities to insure that none of his money went towards tobacco or alcohol and appeared to have no problem with the monetary arrangement she described. Other informants, too, spoke in terms of working boys using a portion of their earned money for food, sometimes due to

187 the fact that they had to leave home early in the morning or worked far from home and therefore would need to purchase meals outside. A working boy told me he kept 100 rupees out of a thousand rupee monthly salary, which he spent on breakfasts and a weekly movie. But some referred to boys diverting their wages to harmful consumption habits. The mother of two working boys told me: “Our children at least give 10-20 rupees. Other children don’t come home at night. They just go for some movies, they stay out there with bad friends, they learn to drink, [smoke] marijuana.” When I asked a young woman who had told me that boys smoke beedis where they get money to purchase them, she said: “They do work. Maybe part-time workers like garae [cement plastering] or cable or cutting wood.” As noted earlier, some specific types of work are associated with moral risk because of the very fact that boys are able to receive pay with which they can purchase cigarettes and alcohol. A girl that worked part-time suggested that having regular access to pocket money is seen by many working boys as being an important positive aspect of being employed. She told me: “Even if parents force them to go to school, before they are used to having money with them. So he may think, if I go to school, they may not give me any money.” Beyond channeling small portions of their income to pleasure-oriented consumption habits, some working boys spend larger portions of their earnings on other purchases (frequently just for themselves) that go beyond meeting basic needs - for more stylish clothing than their parents can provide, better quality foods, and more expensive consumer goods. Boys may want to use such purchases to connect themselves with the

188 world of higher-class lifestyles that have not previously been available to them within the context of their household’s low standard of living but which they are exposed to sometimes where they work and most certainly on the cable TV programs and films they watch. Neither such cultural influences nor the variety of desirable mass-produced consumer goods were a presence during the childhood of their parents. A working boy answering a question as to whether a child working full-time can be happy gave some insight into the matter: “They will have money. When they get the wage, half they give it to the parents. The remaining money they keep and will be happy.” A mother in a more prosperous household told me that her son, who worked alongside his carpenter father, was neither a smoker nor a drinker yet had larger consumption desires: “He has no bad habits except that if he wants something he will somehow get it…He wants proper food and a new vehicle. He wants to sell all the property and build a new house here.” On the occasion of a visit to another household participating in my study I was surprised to find a large new model color TV perched in the house’s one room. I was told by the female head of that household that her son, an older working boy, had put down a sum of money on the unit and was paying the rest off in monthly installments. A man responding to a question regarding the problems faced by 14 to 17-year-old boys in his neighborhood spoke of the more modest wishes of some boys: “They will want to buy new clothes, [but] they will not have the money. Their father is not helping, their mother may earn some money by beedi rolling, agarbathi, or house cleaning. If that is also not enough, then?” When I asked a woman if a child can be happy if his parents are poor, she responded negatively, giving the example of her own working son’s unfulfillable material

189 desires: “If we are poor what can we get them?...Now he is saying he can’t ride the bicycle and that he wants a scooter. Can we get him one?” In the course of answering a question about why children lose interest in school, the married older sister of a working girl offered one of the best explanations I heard of working children’s thinking about work and money. After mentioning that some children were motivated to quit school so that they could earn money to help out their parents, she went on to contrast them with another type:
Some children want to go to films, eat different varieties of food, buy nice good clothes, and have fun with friends. We have a neighbor boy whose name is (boy’s name). He is like this. His mother is facing lot of problems…[For such boys before] [t]here was no chance for all of those things because poor people can’t afford them… ‘I feel I want to buy a bicycle. If I want to buy a bicycle, my mother cannot buy one for me. So I must earn and buy it.’

The previous quote highlights how a household’s abject poverty may lead some boys to the conclusion that they only way they can fulfill even their most minimal material desires is by earning the money on their own. A participant in a focus group comprised of the heads of neighborhood women’s self-help groups organized by a Mysore-based community development NGO offered similar insight into the cause of educational attrition: “They want money, sir, because at home they don’t give money. They can’t buy anything. If their employer gives them 20 rupees, they will not give it to their mother.”

How Much is Enough ?: Conflicts over Boys’ Contributions In one household in particular the proportion of earnings a son (who moved from childhood to young adulthood during the course of my study) contributed was the subject of more serious disagreements. When I asked his mother how much her son gave her to

190 help run the household she told me: “He gives 30 out of the 80 rupees daily wages.” The boy’s older sister suggested that the figure was more like 50%, and in answer to what purposes her brother put the money he withheld, she replied: “Clothes, movies, food.” The young man himself, when confronted with the allegation of having in the past given his mother only a small proportion of his daily earnings contended that those occasions were days when he only had half a day’s work. During the same interview his sister asserted that working boys in the area commonly kept substantial portions of their wages to use for themselves, despite the fact that they were aware of their household’s poor economic condition. She told me:
They don’t give all of the money to the parents. None of them give the full money…Yes, they know [about their household’s problem]. Sometimes young boys drink in spite of having no money for their food…[What they give is] not a fixed amount. How ever much they feel like, they give.

When I asked a female neighbor sitting in on that interview whether what the young woman had just told me was true, that working boys in the area did not give the money they earned to their parents to help cover household livelihood needs, she responded: “Yes, many of them are there. They watch movies, drink, and come home. They don’t give money.” The ability of a working boy to fend off household demands on his earnings and utilize them as he wishes that has been described so far in this section is determined to some degree by who heads his household. I found that in most houses where a father was still alive and present he was the ultimate arbiter of how all money coming in would be spent, including that earned by any of his children. In one household in which two sons (a working boy and a young adult) were working full-time, they turned their full salaries

191 over to their father, who in return allotted pocket money to them. Although the man was a full-time tailor, the contribution of the two sons working full-time (and a third, part-time) must have constituted a significant portion of the household income each month. In a family-run business, too, a boy could have little control of the income he helped to generate. When I asked a boy who ran a night food stall with his father how much profit the business earned, he replied: “It depends. If my father comes, he deals with the money, I never know about it. He takes the money after the business [closes].” In another of my study households, I learned from the father of two boys who worked under him in his tailoring shop that he gave the boys only a minimal amount of pay, based on figures I heard elsewhere even less than what they would have received working at any other type of job. In response to my question of how much he paid the boys, the man replied: “To (older son’s name) 30 rupees per week, for (younger son’s name), 20 rupees per week.” The basis for the different amounts was not explicitly spelled out, but it should be noted that the older son had been working with him longer and was capable of doing more than his younger brother towards producing the shirts and pants that constituted most of the shop’s business. This is not to say that all fathers manage family finances without considering the wishes of their sons. One father was willing to take out a loan on his insurance policy in order to purchase the latest model motorcycle his son wanted. In that case the son was an only-son and a hard worker who greatly added to the production capacity of the family’s shrine manufacturing business. Parents may also have in their minds that they would like to keep on good terms with sons who they expect to care for them during old age. This is

192 likely an especially important factor in female-headed households. In general, the women heading such households appear to be both less able to gain full control of a working boy’s earnings as well as less likely to try to do so. In the course of speaking about the difficult nature of her son’s rock-breaking work, a mother revealed her attitude in regards to what she expected him to contribute to the household versus spend on himself: “I also don’t demand money from him. Let him eat well [outside].” During an earlier interview the same woman, when I asked how many of the pans of rocks her son broke in a week as that determined his earnings, replied: “We don’t ask him the account. We take whatever he gives, we don’t ask anything. He gives us 50-60 rupees [per week].” In another female-headed household a woman spoke of her older son as being lazy and not regularly contributing economically, but of a young working son as a good boy who would be there for her and his younger siblings in the future: “I hope he grows up fast. After he grows up, I will need nobody else. The only person I will need is him.” Some female household heads, however, had no problems in getting or compunctions about controlling all or most of a working son’s income. The mother of a working boy and male young adult who worked together as cement plasterers told me that her boys gave her all of their earnings, from which she returned a small portion for lunch money. In households where parents make demands on a boy’s earnings, regardless of whether they are male or female-headed, a boy may resort to various tactics to protect a desired portion of money or to elicit a specific desired response from his parents. One method that I heard from several informants involved a boy telling his parents that he earned less than he really did. In such a case, the boy is able to easily retain for his own

193 use the difference in the two figures. When I asked a woman where boys got the money to drink, she told me: “Some people won’t know. The boy will say he gets only that much [the amount he has given his parents].” A woman living in another area of the city similarly told me that working boys hide some of their earnings from their parents so that they can have money for smoking and drinking. The same woman mentioned on a different occasion that she did not know how much her youngest brother was making, only that he gave their mother 20 rupees a day and she happy he was not just roaming around with other shiftless youths. One of the working boys in my study happened to be friends with another who was also participating. That latter boy’s mother complained on more than one occasion that her son’s job was too low paying, that she had tried to get him to find a better one but that he insisted on staying at the same one saying others would be too physically strenuous for him. His friend, however, revealed at least one of the reasons for the boy’s refusal to switch: his salary was actually greater where he presently worked than he had revealed to his parents. Other working boys used threats of withholding all economic contributions to their household as a means of either keeping their parents at bay in regards to how much of their earnings they were required to turn over or for getting them to do something they wanted. The woman whose disagreement with her son regarding the proportion of his earnings he gives to the household was highlighted above told me of her son using such a tactic. She explained: “You know what (son’s name) says when I ask for money? He says, ‘I will go away to Bombay.’” I heard from other informants of boys making similar threats to deter their parents from forcing them to attend school against their wishes. An

194 interesting variant on a boy threatening to cause a large reduction to household income unless he got his way was the case of a household that had taken a large loan from a neighbor for an older boy to open his own metal goods/metal recycling shop. The boy’s parents had pleaded with him to keep his job at a larger established shop of the same type to get more experience, promising to help him open his own establishment in the near future, but he remained unwavering in his demand. His mother told me: “He didn’t listen. He said he would not go to the shop, and so [there would be] no money for the house.”

Girls' Income While as noted above I have far more data concerning the economic implications for low-income households of boys’ work due to the fact that cultural mores allow them greater latitude than girls to do a variety of types of full-time jobs outside the home, the economic contribution of working girls is nevertheless worth examining. As has been mentioned earlier, most of the girls in my study who worked did so at home, the large majority rolling agarbathi part-time or full-time alongside their mothers. While earnings are low for such piecework, a girl’s economic contribution may still be important depending on the household’s economic situation and how much time a girl can and is willing to devote to the work. In the case of school-going girls, at least during the school year there is only time to roll a limited number of sticks before and after school due to the need to do homework and help out in the home in other ways. Although at 8-9 rupees per thousand sticks rolled a girl could in a month of rolling only after school and on weekends theoretically roll 40,000 or more sticks, in most cases this did not appear to be

195 the case. It is worth noting, however, that even if a girl only rolls a smaller amount, in some of the households there was more than one school-going girl doing the same kind of work. Moreover, there is no doubt that even the consistent rolling of a small number of sticks was nevertheless helpful in such households since the income it generates can be used to offset school supply and uniform expenses. In one of the study households in which school-going girls rolled larger quantities of agarbathi during their summer holidays the larger than usual amount of money that was earned was used to pay off a substantial portion of accumulated debts. But even in cases where girls brought in regular income from rolling that appeared to be helpful if not vital to the household, I found that it was not uncommon for certain conditions to exempt a girl from being required to roll. For example, when a girl reached menarche she was not allowed to roll for 6 months to a year due to the belief that, from a humoral medical perspective, the work caused harmful heat in her changed body. I found this to be the case in three households. Beyond such a health-based exemption from rolling, girls also use the increased academic demands of higher grades as a reason to be excused whenever possible from rolling. Mothers who have sacrificed to see their daughters achieve a higher level of education that they hope will enable the girls to get good jobs in the future are loath to make too many demands on their homework and study time. In some households, however, a girl’s full-time (and sometimes, part-time) agarbathi rolling generated income that was absolutely vital to a household on the edge. In a female-headed household that I have described above as having severe economic problems, an older working girl daily rolled agarbathi as well as helped her mother with

196 household chores. I have also extensively reported in this dissertation about a de facto female-headed household in which there was a girl who had been removed from private school due to her household’s economic problems. During her time out of school she regularly rolled agarbathi alongside her mother and grandmother. Although during the course of my study the girl was sent back to school, she continued to be required to roll daily and was certainly vital to her mother’s efforts to towards keeping even a minimal amount of food available on a daily basis. But there also existed amongst informants discourse similar to that heard about working boys, about girls wanting to spend money from their earnings on items for themselves. As noted above, for more than one such girl working part-time, their wishes more often than not involved purchases of school supplies. For example, a woman told me about her daughter giving her extra help during vacation time cleaning the two houses in which she worked: “(Daughter’s name) used to come with me to work in a house. So the owner gave her 50 rupees as a gift. So (daughter’s name) bought 5 notebooks for school.” In another household I was told that the schoolgirls living there that rolled agarbathi used the small sums their mother gave them out of their rolling income 40 for purchasing items such as cosmetics, bangles, and stickers in addition to books and pencils for school. During the course of a card exercise I learned of another potential use of a girl’s earnings, one of a more long-term nature. Creating a scenario for a card that showed a girl, her mother, and a pile of completed agarbathi, a woman explained how

40

When a mother and daughter roll agarbathi at home, the output of the two is combined prior to turning in the completed sticks for which the mother will be paid.

197 the money from the incense the girl rolled might be used: “They might be using it for the family's expenses and also must be saving some for the daughter’s future.” 41 My informants, however, were also aware of girls in the community who either did not wish to work to bring money into their households, or if they did work, chose to spend it on themselves. In response to a question regarding the proper age at which parents should tell a daughter about the household’s problems, a woman told me: “Girls say, ‘Why should we earn and give it to you? You are my parents, you have to feed me. Ask for money from your son.’” Another woman who knew of such girls also spoke critically of their attitudes and behavior:
They become bold and independent once they start earning. Their parents can’t say anything to them…They may spend on clothes, cosmetics…Usually they do like that. They don’t give money to their parents…They earn for their own happiness and well-being…They [their parents] ask [them to contribute some money] but still they say, ‘What did you buy for us? Except for food you don’t provide anything to us. So we buy on our own.’

Additional moral discourse on working girls was provided by an informant in the course of commenting on why parents might not want to send a girl to work rolling agarbathi at a small factory: “Some are good, some or not. Girls, if they roll at home, will give the money to the parents. If she goes to the factory others may say to the girl, ‘You are rolling, it is your money, use it for your personal use.’” The contrast between the attitudes and behaviors of “good” versus “bad” working girls was described by another female informant:
It’s their wish!! They say they’ll go [out to work] if they like…Parents will ask her not to go at all…Parents say, ‘Why do you want to go? Sit at home.’ But they ask, ‘What do I do sitting at home? I’ll go. I want to buy something, maybe a dress or bangles. Will you give us money? So I This informant is likely referring to the expenses related to the girl getting married. At a minimum, even in low-income communities a bride’s family is responsible for providing clothes, jewelry, and other consumer goods to the groom’s family as well as paying for an affair with a meal (often at a catering hall). The bride is also supposed to be sent off with clothing, jewelry, and some cooking utensils.
41

198
want to go.’ So they say this and push off…She gives [money to her parents], sir. But even if parents say don’t go, she’ll say she’ll go. So they also say, ‘Okay. Let her buy…’ Like if poor girls like us go, they’ll say, ‘Okay. Let me give to the family. My parents are in trouble, let me not keep anything for myself.’...They can buy this and that. Whatever much is remaining, use it for the house.

Finally, it is worth noting that as with the money that boys bring in to their households, my informants saw the possibility of girls’ income being hijacked by fathers for drinking. As one woman told me: “Many husbands take money from their wives. So will they not take it from their daughters?”

Earnings in Context: What Will a Child’s Contribution Buy? This chapter as well as preceding ones have included numerous mentions of the amount of the pay children receive for different types of work. This amount is typically in the range of 20-70 rupees a day for boys, the specific amount depending on the type of work, skills involved, age of the child, and whether it is day labor or computed as a portion of a monthly salary. In the case of girls, given that they are mostly involved in piece work (i.e. rolling agarbathi or beedis, stringing flower garlands) done at home, remuneration largely depends on speed, accuracy, and hours worked, with 50 rupees being a more likely top figure for a long work day’s income. To understand the relative significance of children’s contribution of some or all of such sums of money to their household, however, we need a metric against which to measure the value of those figures. It is therefore worthwhile to briefly examine the cost of selective essential commodities and services they purchase. As I noted in the earlier chapter describing my research setting and study participants, there was quite a range of difference in the economic levels of my household

199 study participants, with some living in tiny homes at the edge of destitution consuming a minimal amount of the most rudimentary types of food while others occupied much more spacious although still simply constructed houses, had an ample and steady supply of quality food, and owned a motor scooter or even more than one piece of property. The same amount of contribution from a working child obviously had significantly different impact in households whose economic foundations were so vastly different. A household’s bottom-line economic situation might also be influenced by other variables. These included whether it had diversified sources of income (from multiple members working, rental property, etc.), whether the house it occupied was owned outright or required a mortgage or rent payment, whether it possessed a below-poverty line rations card enabling it to purchase some basic commodities at a subsidized rate, and its degree of indebtedness. In some cases a child’s work contribution was completely subsumed within the pay received by a parent. Based on such distinctions it difficult to characterize any one household as “typical” of my entire sample. Most of the data I will present regarding household expenditures was gathered in the course of an end-of-study survey conducted with household study participants concerning the outflow and inflow of their household’s income. I first questioned informants regarding how much they spent in various expenditure categories that included housing, groceries, cooking fuel, electricity, health, food eaten outside the home, durable goods, entertainment, body care products, clothing, ornaments, alcohol and beedis, transportation, education, religious functions, wedding gifts, loan payments, visits to the family’s home village, savings, and clothes laundering. I then proceeded to

200 inquire about the sources of income needed to pay for such expenses. As previously noted, getting accurate income figures was problematic – stated income amounts always fell far short of expenses. At the same time it can be said that my informants appeared to be extremely aware of how much they spent on a daily or monthly basis for a number of the categories I inquired about. I will, therefore, depend more on those figures for this discussion. Before looking at the expense examples of specific households, it is helpful to enumerate the prices of some basic commodities in Mysore at the time of my research. The dominant component of the diet of all of my household study participants was rice. But rice could vary greatly in price depending on the quality of the type purchased and to some degree whether or not it was purchased from a government sponsored cooperative society at which the cost of goods were controlled. Thus, the cheapest quality of rice, one having many broken kernels, went for 8 rupees per kilogram while a high quality variety could sell for 20-22 rupees for the same amount. During my time in Mysore, mutton was selling for 120 rupees per kilo and chicken 45 rupees per kilo. Most of my study households, even the more prosperous ones, consequently ate very little meat or chicken. At the most, such consumption amounted to one time a week. Milk sold for 11 rupees a liter, although given their low food budget and lack of refrigeration the households I visited only purchased it in even smaller portion packages (or from local people owning cows) to use as an ingredient in tea or coffee. Eggs varied in price seasonally, but 1 ½ rupees per egg was a common price.

201 I heard varying prices for kerosene, the most commonly used fuel for cooking. My informants said they could buy a limited amount (8 liters per month) at the society nearest them for 12-16 rupees per liter while the rest would be purchased on a the black market for roughly 20 rupees per liter. Many people used wood as a supplementary fuel for purposes such as heating bath water. Wood was priced as 10 rupees per kilogram. Cable TV service, which all but the most impoverished households availed themselves of, usually cost 100 rupees per month. A household I visited many times during my study consisted of a widowed woman, a working boy who passed into adulthood in the course of my study, a 16-yearold girl, and a 13-year-old girl. The family lived in a small one-room house that it owned, therefore spending nothing but the yearly 800 rupees property tax for housing. The household spent 2,000 rupees a month on food, 188 rupees a month on fuel, 480 rupees a month on transportation, and 50 rupees a month on electricity. The mother estimated they spent as much as 3,600 rupees a year on religious functions (with an additional 1,000 that year for a coming of age ceremony for one of the girls) and more than 3,000 rupees for education expenses. According to her, she made 1,200 rupees a month washing out recycled bottles and her son made the same stringing fancy ceremonial garlands at a stall at the market. The oldest daughter started making cone incense at home late in my study. Although the inflows and outflows provided by the woman did not equal each other, her son’s contribution was clearly vital to the household. Another family I visited lived in an even smaller house (approximately 67 sq. feet), but was in far worse condition economically. The household consisted of a

202 divorced woman, her 12-year-old working daughter, and an 8-year-old son. The woman did domestic work in two houses receiving a total of 800 rupees a month while her daughter worked part-time doing the same work in one home for 300 rupees a month. According to the woman who headed this household, they spent 200 rupees a month on rent, 330 rupees a month on fuel (this seemed high given the size of their family and the limited cooking it did), and 50 rupees a month for electricity. She estimated the modest amount of 50 rupees per day for food expenditure and 500 rupees per year for the education-related expenses of her young son. Additionally, the household paid 150 rupees a month interest on loans and spent the same amount 8 times a year for religious festivals (a total of 1,200 rupees). Interestingly, the woman said she went to the movies twice a month at 20 rupees a ticket. Given that the room in which the family lived was so small that all of their worldly possessions were visible in one glance, it is hard to believe the woman was grossly distorting the truth about their expenditures, although she appeared to be understating her income. A more prosperous household was headed by a carpenter and included his wife, a son who worked with him, his widowed daughter, and two grandsons. The carpenter and his wife estimated they spent 2,000 rupees a month (66 per day) for food and up until the time of my survey roughly 430 rupees a month for fuel. That very month they had switched to using a table top gas stove, paying 1,250 rupees (including a deposit) to obtain an LPG tank. Their electricity cost them an additional 150 rupees per month, and transportation 450 per month (plus 220 rupees for their working daughter’s monthly bus pass). As with many of the other households participating in my study (including some

203 quite poor ones), a significant amount of money was spent on religious ceremonies, donations, and pilgrimages – 4,400 rupees in a year’s time. It should be noted that in the case of this household that its relative prosperity in recent years followed extremely hard time following the premature death of the married daughter’s husband.42 By working alongside his father at no pay and helping in the completion of his sister’s house the son enabled his father to produce a larger volume of sellable goods, own a second house that would be sold in the future, and the household to prosper. Additional examples of household expenses, while demonstrating a broader range of household situations, would not serve to illustrate more of the economic fundamentals of low-income households in my study areas than already has been shown.

Children’s Income: Filling Both Household Needs and Children’s Desires This chapter has examined children’s work from a household economic perspective. Data from household study participants demonstrated that while in some cases the financial contribution of a working child was vital to helping meet basic household subsistence needs, in others it was not. In an extremely poor household or a household going through an unexpected economic crisis (often caused by an illness, injury, or death in the family) even a money inflow on a scale of the low amount a young boy or girl might make working (approximately 400 rupees per month) can help significantly by covering rent, electricity, or food. On the other hand, in the case of girls doing part-time work at home rolling agarbathi, the money earned was often used for
As noted earlier, the death of the daughter’s husband left the family with heavy debts that the man had incurred in the course of partially constructing a new home as well as with several more mouths to feed.
42

204 school supplies and mothers even removed their daughters from rolling for an extended period of time after reaching menarche due to health concerns. But the concept of household need was even further problematized by data that showed that in many instances a household was in poor economic condition due to a male head of household’s refusal to work or his use of earnings for alcohol and tobacco consumption or gambling. The issue of child agency was again relevant in the discussion of the relative importance of working children’s economic contribution to the household. Girls rolling agarbathi part-time were able to at times avoid doing such work with excuses of schoolwork or household chores without any negative consequences. Boys working fulltime were able to retain control of a portion of their earnings to use as they wished as part of a friendly sometimes unspoken understanding with their parents or through more aggressive or secretive means. Having considered how poor parents view many aspects of children’s work, the next chapter will turn its attention to the how those parents look at education. Education has been offered up by the Indian government, NGOs, and international agencies as the primary solution to the country’s child labor problem. But given that the cooperation of low-income parents is crucial to the success of any child labor eradication plan, their perceptions of the value of education demand close scrutiny.

205 CHAPTER 7: EDUCATION – PART OF THE SOLUTION OR PART OF THE PROBLEM?

Introduction Education has been portrayed by some as the “silver bullet” that can end child labor, eliminating the pool of available children and leading to a correction in the labor market that adjusts the adult wage to a level sufficient to support a family. Some experts have specifically focused on the negative human capital and economic outcomes of India’s failure to provide free and compulsory universal elementary education. Weiner’s (1981) influential book, The Child and the State in India, critiqued India’s failure to guarantee universal education as a tactic by the upper classes to keep lower caste and minority religious populations marginalized. It further asserted that compulsory elementary education was both the solution to the child labor problem as well as necessary for India’s economic success in the future. Sen has similarly faulted the Indian government for its failure to adequately invest in primary education, contrasting India’s limited degree of development success with that of countries such as China which have far outspent India in that area (Sen 1999: 42-43, 45). But while the central government, state governments, national and local NGOs, and international experts all look to education as the central tool for ending child labor, there remains a wide diversity in opinion about what form such education should take and

206 what the eventual goals of that education should be. 43 Some view non-formal education as an effective option, while others see it as a second-rate alternative to formal schooling being pawned off on disadvantaged populations (Chakrabarty 2002: 67). Many (including Weiner) hold that a compulsory system of universal elementary education (UEE) is the only acceptable solution to child labor. Critics question the quality of government education that is presently available to the poorer segments of society and the value of such an education within the present Indian socioeconomic environment (see Ramachandran 2003a). Over the last three decades India has instituted a number of major policy initiatives that addressed child labor by dramatically improving the quality of the education and retention rates of the poor. In 1978 the central government began providing states with grants to fund non-formal educational with the goal of reaching two groups underrepresented in formal settings – girls and working children. With the 1986 adoption of the National Policy on Education, additional large-scale programs were instituted to create the necessary conditions for universal education. Operation Blackboard in 1986 was designed to provide small schools with additional classrooms, teachers (particularly females), and teaching tools. To increase the number of well-trained teachers and foster research towards improving teaching material and teaching methodology the central government in 1988 funded the District Institutes of Education and Training program in
Education in India begins with kindergarten at age 5. Grade levels following that are referred to as standards. Following kindergarten a child attends lower-primary school from Standard I through Standard V. Upper-primary school follows for standards VI-VIII. Standards IX-X constitute high school, followed by two years in a pre-university college (PUC). Students take standardized national tests at the end of Standard VII and to graduate with a Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) at the end of Standard X. Achieving SSLC (also know as matriculation) is a minimal requirement for many government and private sector jobs.
43

207 rural areas across India. In 1989 the Department of Education began the Minimum Levels of Learning program, a massive nationwide effort to confront high dropout rates that had been perceived as being partially caused by inappropriate curricula and textbooks. After rewriting those curricula and textbooks the government planned to institute new state and regional language-appropriate minimum standards of competency in key subjects (World Bank 1997: 18-21). This growing national emphasis on localizing decision-making in combination with the other forces that focused continued attention on the failure of the Indian education system to achieve its goals served as the impetus for amending the 1986 Policy on Education. The most important programmatic outcome of these changes was the inauguration in 1994 of the District Primary Education Plan (DPEP), funded extensively by the European Union and the World Bank. DPEP has provided funding to an ever increasing number of districts (in 1999, 214 spread over 15 states) for a wide range of programs including those designed to improve teaching quality, increase enrollment and retention of girls and other underrepresented groups, provide educational opportunities to working children, develop new more effective teaching tools, increase community involvement in and support for basic education, support early childhood education, and make improvements in school facilities. What is unique about the scheme is that since programs are developed locally they can be specially tailored to local needs while at the same time being subject to prove their effectiveness or be discontinued at set times of evaluation (World Bank 1997: 22-23; Jhingran 2003: 197-198). Beyond such

208 programmatic initiatives, a 2001 amendment to the Indian constitution finally clearly codified the right of free education through the age of 14 (Thakore 2002). Given that such an emphasis has been put on improving the quality of education available to the poor and the fact that schooling is proposed as the alternative to child labor, it becomes vital to understand how children and parents from lower socioeconomic segments of the population think about education. What value do they see formal schooling as having within the current cultural and economic contexts of India in comparison to learning an occupational skill? How do they view the quality of the educational experience available to their children and what obstacles do they see as standing in the way of children receiving a good education? What do they think are the reasons children lose interest in education?

Community Perceptions of Education The Value of Education Many of the parents participating in the household study as well as a considerable number of focus group members and key informants had made pragmatic calculations about the relative value of formal education for their children given the realities of their household situation. The elements of such considerations included a child’s gender and interests, the household’s economic resources and social capital, and a parent’s personal experiences in and observations of the local job market. Informants expressed both positive and negative views about the value of education. In regards to male children, more than anything else my respondents see spending the money on education as an

209 investment in a boy’s future. Nearly universally the main value of education was seen as enabling the boy to get a good job. As one mother said, “Those who are educated can get good jobs, they can even get government jobs. Whereas those who are not educated have to do manual labor. Therefore, boys must study.” Beyond the benefits accruing to the boy himself, a few informants saw investing in education as a form of social security for themselves, stating that such a boy could take good care of his elderly parents. For poor parents, educating a boy up to the level where he might qualify for a decent-paying job (minimally SSLC) requires some sacrifice in resource allocation. Thus one mother was criticized by her neighbors for continuing to send her children to school even though the family was barely scraping by financially. The neighbors saw her as not being realistic and, moreover, as trying to be better than her peers. The issue of economic sacrifice is also salient in my discussions below of the cost of education and children’s interest or lack of interest in education. While perceptions of education as enabling a boy to qualify for a good job in the future was of paramount importance, a few informants also acknowledged education’s intrinsic value that allowed a man to function in the world as a well-rounded and knowledgeable person. On the other hand, some saw education as not an intrinsic requirement for a boy to succeed in life. As one father remarked in reference to his own dropping out of school and later success in his chosen field: “There are people and children who are illiterate, who are uneducated, but they are intelligent…Out of 10 children, 2 of them may not be interested in education but they may come up well in other fields, also.”

210 The perceived positive benefits of educating girls were quite different from those of boys, but were equally pragmatic in nature. Much of the discourse surrounding such benefits involved envisioning a girl in context of her expected future role as a married woman keeping house and raising children. Opinions were mixed as to the effect a higher level of education would have on a girl’s marriage chances. Some informants reported that nowadays a family looking for a match for a boy wants a girl who has completed a reasonable level of education, commonly through Standard X. A few felt that a girl would attract a better husband or require a lower dowry if she were educated because a prospective groom’s family would think that she could work in the future or would bring prestige to her husband. Informants also reported that an education could even be used to directly deal with dowry needs. One said that an educated girl could work and save for her own dowry while another alleged that she knew of girls who had pledged their proof of passing Standard X as collateral for loans taken out to pay for their dowry. Others adamantly insisted that a girl’s having a higher level of education would push her dowry requirements beyond a level affordable to a poor family. According to one father:
We should educate girls according to our station in life. If our girl has studied BCom 44, then she can’t marry a boy who has done only SSLC. And we can’t afford to find and get her married to a boy who has done BCom. So, since girls anyhow have to go and join another family, it is better to educate them less, say till SSLC.

Earlier Indian studies have also presented conflicting viewpoints on this issue (Vlassof 1996: 232; Caldwell et al 1985: 39; United Nations 1993: 10; also see Chanana 1988: 25). PROBE reported that 73% of their respondents answered that educating a daughter would make it easier to get her married while 27% felt it would make the
44

BCom refers to a type of Bachelor’s Degree.

211 process more difficult. The report suggested that such opinions sometimes correlated to the level of education level of boys of particular castes, in that girls were expected to marry a boy whose education level was higher, and that respondents from disadvantaged castes most often believed that a girl being educated would problematically raise her dowry costs (PROBE team 1999: 23) Informants envisioned several ways a girl’s education could be beneficial in her role as a mother and wife. As a mother she would be able to do a superior job in helping to educate her children. Instead of having to send her children to paid tuition classes she could help them with their homework and tutor them at home. As to working outside the home, whether she would do so was considered to be a decision of her husband and mother-in-law. Given the assent of those parties, having had an education was seen as being useful in regards to future employment possibilities. A few parents mentioned that an educated girl working at a decently paying job good could, together with a working husband, maintain a good standard of living. Informants mentioned respectable jobs such as that of a teacher or nurse for such women. On the other hand, some informants were of the opinion that investing in the education of a girl was a waste of money because it would only benefit her future husband and his family Perhaps more importantly, having had an education was viewed by many as offering a young woman a set of life skills that in the best of times were extremely useful in day-to-day-life while in the event of hardship could insure continued survival for the woman and her children. A number of household study participants spoke of an educated girl being able to read letters, newspapers, and street and bus signs. An educated girl is

212 thus able to operate somewhat independently – travel around, communicate with others, and be informed of events in the world - using those skills to benefit her husband, children, and in-laws. Even more of my informants spoke of those same skills primarily in terms of survival, ones that could enable a woman to work and feed herself and her children, travel to relatives, and communicate vital information to her natal family in the event her future husband turns out to be a good-for-nothing (i.e. lazy, using his wages to drink and gamble), physically abusive, unhealthy, dies, or abandons the family. Other Indian studies have reported parents having similar perceptions (Chanana 1996: 120-121; PROBE team 1999: 22). Beyond reasons of a pragmatic nature, the wish to have both boys and girls receive a good education often has a very affective element. Many parents spoke of wanting their children to have a better life and, in a sense, to achieve skills and status that they could not. One mother described what education can do for a person:
They can stand on their own feet. We have encountered a lot of hardship in our lives. Our children should lead happier lives. They should be able to take care of their families.

Another put it this way: “We are illiterate. They must study and get some knowledge.” But although many poor parents have positive views of education as being the means by which poor children can qualify for good jobs, have a brighter future, and take care of their parents when they are old, their feelings are tempered by a kind of cognitive dissonance between what they hope for and devote scarce resources towards achieving and the disappointing reality they often experience or observe around them. Appreciating the compelling logic of these ambivalent feelings is crucial to understanding much of the household decision-making surrounding sending children to

213 school versus work and the persistence of and justification for child labor amongst lowincome segments of the population. From such a perspective the value of education is judged both on an individual basis – a child’s interest, a family’s ability to meet the costs – as well as according to structural variables – the quality of teaching in the community’s schools and the probability that the education that can be obtained will translate later in life into a good job in the local job market. Although all of these factors are to a degree interwoven, a particular “take” on that last variable arose again and again during household study and key informant interviews as well as in focus groups (even with middle and upper-middle class parents): the difficulty educated youths have in finding good jobs. One household study participant stated: “However educated the children are, we see that they don’t always get jobs befitting their education. So that’s another reason why people are losing interest in education.” Such concerns also influence decisions regarding how much education lower birth order children receive. A man who helped run a hostel for child laborers reported: “Many parents tell me that I have educated my elder son. ‘Why should I send the second one and spend money when still the elder son has not found a job?’” Replying to a suggestion that allowing her girls to complete Standard X would help them to get better jobs than otherwise and thus help ease the household’s severe financial situation, a mother retorted: “ My son has finished 10th. He has still not found a job. He has applied for many jobs.” The connection between perceptions of the inability of an education to guarantee securing a future job and child labor was even more explicitly expressed by another household study participant:

214
If you study, what will you do? Do you think you can get a good job? So they will stop giving good education to the children. So they put them to work at a construction site or train them as cobblers.

Parents, however, were not merely concerned about there being a dearth of good jobs available to educated graduates, but also with the corruption involved in obtaining them. Such discourse more broadly contained a resigned moral commentary on a wide swath of government and civic institutions in India, with the sentiment often expressed as if the speaker perceived the situation as a sort of bitter betrayal of the social contract. The belief that most good jobs require large bribes to obtain, thus putting them out of the reach of the poor, made them view having a son study to a higher level as not being a prudent decision. In a sense, the need for bribes for jobs was viewed as trumping the value of educational achievement. One mother explained, “Yes, nowadays parents somehow give an education to their children. But they can’t afford to bribe and get them jobs. So they don’t want to let them continue their education, because they are not sure of getting jobs.” A father described the whole process of obtaining a job for a child, from the investment in his education all the way to the required bribe, as a big risk for a poor household:
You see with great difficulty we can send them to school and give them an education. But to get a job we have to spend thousands of rupees. If he gets the job, fine; otherwise the money is gone. From where can we get it?

Even middle-class parents who have economized to put their children through higher levels of education feel frustrated by the need to pay bribes and the failure of even bribes to guarantee a good job for a highly educated boy. A lower-middle-class mother lamented: “I have educated him till MA. I have already paid 2 lakhs [of rupees], but he still hasn’t gotten a job.”

215 It is clear from the comments of the participants of my household study that such perceptions about the need for large sums of money to obtain good employment strongly influence a range of educational decisions. One of those decisions involves how much education is optimal for boys and girls. Parents’ responses varied widely as to the how far children should be educated. For boys, in addition to the individual factors such as interest and affordability that I have already mentioned, parents’ knowledge of the eventual need to pay a bribe to procure a job also influences the level to which they allow their boys to study. This is not to say that parents feel that children should not be educated at all, just that some believe a modest level is sufficient for their boy’s later needs. This is illustrated in a father’s qualification of his rejection of education: “No, education is important. Basic education is important. There is no use of studying more as it will be difficult to find jobs.” Data from studies in northern India support the view that education alone is insufficient for obtaining employment and that this awareness is influencing the education decisions of the poor. Researchers observed that Dalit and Muslim families of lacked the social capital (i.e. well-placed connections) and financial capital (i.e. bribe money) necessary to obtain desirable positions for their educated sons. Moreover, some had already come to the conclusion that investing in education was a waste while others were reevaluating their education investment strategies (Jeffery and Jeffery 1997: 179ff; Jeffrey, Jeffery et al 2004; Jeffery et al 2005). Given the fact that most young women will not be allowed to work outside the home after marriage, decisions regarding optimal duration of studies largely revolve

216 around boys. I have previously noted, however, that many of my respondents do feel that at least a basic education can be useful to girls in various ways after they marry. While the optimal age at which to have a girl married has gone up considerably since the early life of the adults in my household study (a notable number of the mothers had been married off by their parents at 13-15 years of age), in the vast majority of cases parents only intend to send their girls to school until maturity or at the most no further than SSLC. Concerns about the moral risk associated with sending girls to higher level schools outside the neighborhood also influenced such decisions. The PROBE study found a clear gender dichotomy in parents’ ideas of how far they wanted their children to study, with almost twice as many responding that they wanted their sons to study beyond grade 12 or “as far as possible” as did so for their daughters (PROBE team 1999: 22). This issue will be further examined in a section dealing with why children drop out or are taken out of school.

Perspectives on Quality and Experiences with the System Perceptions of the quality of the education available to children is another factor influencing parental decisions regarding sending children to school rather than work. Although as noted above the central and state governments have been working towards improving many aspects of public education and making it accessible to all Indian children, recent empirical studies and academic literature suggest that the problems are deep and endemic and that to solve them will require sustained efforts over a period of time. The data provided by such studies and the observations contained in the literature,

217 while not being Mysore-specific or even for the most part coming from Karnataka State, nonetheless paint an unambiguous and dramatic picture of the unsatisfactory state of education conditions in India as one that that cuts across geography. The similarities of such data with my informants’ perceptions of and experiences with the education system in Mysore is strong. Therefore, as background and support to my informants’ views on government-sponsored elementary education in some of Mysore’s poorer areas I will first offer some relevant data from studies of education in varied Indian settings. Data regarding Indian primary school facilities and infrastructure compiled in the India Education Report from earlier studies shows that well into the 1990s at least 40% of government primary schools lacked safe drinking water, with far greater proportions lacking either toilet facilities or separate toilet facilities for girls (Yadav et al 2002: 172173). Figures from the early 1990s found that even many urban lower-primary and upperprimary schools did not have libraries or playgrounds (Chakrabarty 2002: 62). Textbooks are critiqued as being incomprehensible, gender unfriendly, and biased in content and values in favor of urban settings, upper classes, and higher castes and against rural lifestyles, the poor, and SC/ST groups (Rampal 2002). The report extensively documents the major differences between public, privateaided (by government funds), and private unaided lower-primary and upper-primary schools. Absorbing a growing proportion of mostly middle and upper-class children in both urban and rural areas, private schools commonly offer lower student-to-teacher rations, spend more per student, and have superior facilities (De et al 2002).

218 The PROBE study similarly reported horrendous conditions of education infrastructure and equipment in its largely rural research areas, as well as a proliferation of private schools serving mostly (but not exclusively) economically better-off households. But of more interest to my study are its findings regarding teacher pedagogy, performance, and attitudes. PROBE’s “modus operandi” was to come unannounced to a school, record immediate observations of physical and teaching conditions at the school, and then interview teachers, headmasters, and students. PROBE interviews with teachers found that on the day of the PROBE visit a large majority over-utilized teaching methods of limited effectiveness – most commonly written exercises, reading verbatim from textbooks, and writing on the blackboard – supplemented by student oral repetition and having students read from the textbook. Outside of the ubiquity of poor pedagogy, the investigators often found when they arrived that a large percentage of teachers were not involved in teaching activities or absent. PROBE staff also observed or was informed of numerous instances of caste, class, and gender bias (PROBE team 1999: 47-51). This may mirror the fact that rural teachers continue to tend to be male and from higher castes and class than most government school students in those areas (PROBE team 1999: 5455). The findings of some micro-level studies conducted within Indian classrooms reinforce those of the Indian Education Report and PROBE. Although focusing on secondary schools, Clarke and Fuller’s comparison of pedagogical practices in a sample of government, private aided, and private unaided schools in Chennai has implications for understanding why education quality varies between the types and why it may often be

219 lowest in government institutions. According to the authors, “SES [socioeconomic status] interacting possibly with caste, systematically ordering variation [in practices], illustrates how classrooms can be embedded in the broader cultural context” (Clarke and Fuller 1997: 62). Besides finding that the three types of classrooms had positive physical features on a continuum beginning at the bottom with government schools and ending at the top with private unaided schools, they found significant differences in the pedagogical practices teachers in the three utilized when teaching social studies, English, and mathematics. For example, the mathematics classes that were observed and videotaped in private unaided school were found to involve less time in which the students copied material from the blackboard, more time in which the teacher explained the text lesson being studied and more thorough explanations, more time allowed for student questions, and more students asking questions than corresponding classes in either of the other two types of schools. In the majority of instances government classroom pedagogy was deemed most lacking. But perhaps even more importantly and not limited to mathematics pedagogy, teachers in the private unaided classrooms were observed being more prepared, respectful, and engaged in their students’ education (Clarke and Fuller 1997). Data from a small study conducted in Standard V classes in two government schools in Mysore support Clark and Fuller’s evaluation of ineffective mathematics pedagogy in government schools, finding that the students had great difficulties exercising basic mathematics skills that should have been mastered in Standards I-IV (Ramaa and Gowramma 2002).

220 Although most of the data cited above were not gathered in Karnataka State, some relevant state-specific educational statistics will further help contextualize the issues raised in this chapter. In regards to both class size and educational attainment, Karnataka has shown mixed results. Comparing 1999 and 1986 data showed that the pupil-teacher ratio had decreased in government lower-primary schools, but moved in the opposite direction in higher-primary schools (Seetharamu 2002: 194). More seriously, the results of a nationwide study by the National Council of Educational Research and Training that tested a sample of fourth grade students in mathematics exam and reading comprehension found that Karnataka had the lowest median scores – 25.8% and 28.5% respectively – with a horrifyingly high 86.7% scoring under the 50% mark (Sharma 1998: 1640-1641). These statistics may be an accurate mirror of Karnataka’s policy of automatic promotion through primary grades (World Bank 1997: 74). 45 Against this background of the characteristics of and conditions within the education system in India and more specifically in Karnataka, it becomes easier to understand and evaluate household study participants’ and key informants’ perceptions of and experiences within the education system in Mysore. Amongst the parents and students in my study there was no consensus on the quality of the schools that children in the household had in the past or were at the time attending. It must be realized that the schools in question were to some degree scattered across the city 46 were a mixture of

The World Bank literature does not specify whether it is referring to lower or upper-primary school in terms of automatic promotion, but Mysore informants reported that it was the case through Standard VII, at the end of which students take a standardized exam. 46 Although the schools were located in several different areas of Mysore, the high concentration of study participants in two locales caused specific schools in those areas to be more heavily commented upon. In

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221 government and private, and amongst the private schools most were operated by religious groups. In addition, many of the experiences parents and children related were very contemporary, but some were from ten or more years earlier. Moreover, they involved both working children and their siblings. Within the mix of opinions regarding the quality of available education were some parents’ negative impressions (often based on personal experiences) of government schools. They expressed a variety of complaints similar to those earlier enumerated in this chapter that were drawn from various reports and studies largely focusing on the abilities and attitudes of teachers: ineffective teaching, lack of interest in students, harsh verbal or physical treatment of students, and a lack of understanding of the economic problem of students’ households. Parents’ contact with teachers at government schools generally involved visits by mothers on set parent-teacher conference days or when summoned by the school due to a child’s academic or behavioral problems. Most parents describe the interaction as pro forma, being told a few words such as “your child is doing well”, and of not really having the desire or confidence needed to delve any deeper into the subject with a person commonly viewed as being much more intelligent and of a higher class. For the researcher, interpreting children’s difficulties at school is like trying to unravel a ball of twine to find its beginning or the proverbial chicken and egg problem – it’s hard to identify where they began and what or who is responsible for them. Both parents’ and teachers’ (as related by parents) discourse involves assigning blame for a child not performing well in school. One mother cited evidence that she believed proved the reason her son hadn’t done well
particular, a large private school located in my main study area that offered education from lower-primary school through PUC was the current or former school of a number of children from study households.

222 was not because of poor pedagogy: “We can’t blame the teachers. She [her daughter] was doing well, he didn’t. Both of them were in the same school.” Some informants contrasted the teaching style and characters of contemporary teachers with those from their youth, although there was some disagreement about which was better. One mother commented: “Those days the teachers were very strict, we would feel scared of them. Nowadays teachers are friendly with the children.” The sister of a working child felt that the local government school had improved dramatically since she had attended it, with all of the teachers now having much better educational qualifications. In general, it appears that teachers are not willing to accept that a child’s difficulties may be a result of their ineffective teaching or systemic problems. When confronted by parents about a child’s academic problems teachers were not averse to putting the blame on the child or his parents and while doing so to use insensitive language. A mother recounted her son being sent home with the admonition, “Why are you sending your son to school? Your son is not doing well in school. Get him a job in a provision store.” Her husband recalled his response to the teacher upon being told something similar: “I asked the teacher, ‘Are you not getting any salary from the government? Why has the government appointed you?’” The standard prescription recommended by teachers for a child having academic difficulty is tuition classes. Tuition classes are regularly scheduled tutoring classes conducted for a fee 47 outside of school hours by currently working teachers, retired teachers, or sometimes even better educated youths or married women in their homes or
Informants had paid a wide range of fees for tuition classes, starting at 10-15 rupees per month for tutoring when a child was in Standard I. For later grades I heard from 30-50 rupees per month to as high as 175 rupees per month. Some informants, however, told of a teacher who helped a child for free out of sympathy for a child’s household’s poor economic situation and/or affection for the child.
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223 other acceptable locations. Perhaps the most interesting thing about such classes is that the belief in their need has become normalized across the economic strata of Indian society, even amongst the poor residing in slums. Thus I found that my household study participants who were already sacrificing to see their children get a good education were willing to commit further resources to tuition classes, seeing them as a vital ingredient of a child’s academic success, sometimes even for students who were doing well in school. Such a perception may place too much responsibility for academic success on the individual student and not enough on classroom pedagogy, curriculum, and the system’s ability to meet the needs of a diverse body of students. In addition, some parents seem to view student success and teaching ability in a tautological manner (perhaps not so differently from parents in a variety of cultural settings) – if the student gets good grades on their report card and exams, then the teacher is teaching well. In contrast to parents, the manager of a child labor hostel was more than willing to frame the problem of academic floundering as a major systemic failure that oppresses many children:
In our regular schools they have a system with which the child gets tortured...There are many levels in intelligence...But the teachers focus only on above-average and higher level. So in the process the below-average child will be tortured. Even though he has many other qualities, they will see only the marks the child has scored. A child will be a below-average student, but he will be a very good artist. He can draw very good pictures, but he is not encouraged. A good singing child is not encouraged...They are punished at school and at home, also.

Although some of the conditions and problems mentioned above in reference to government schools don’t appear to be as common in the private schools (resulting in most parents and key informants viewing a private school education to be superior), some parents’ critical comments never the less echoed those heard about the former. Indeed, due to the fact that they had to work harder to pay for such an education some parents

224 seemed to express an even greater anger and, in a sense, a feeling of betrayal that their dreams to see their child get a good education had run into obstacles or failed altogether. A mother’s story of her frustration with such a situation is extremely telling in that it sums up both the expectations and realm of difficulties poor parents face in attempting to have their children get a good education:
The teachers would tell me that my children were dull and talkative. They asked me to send them to sell peanuts. What can be done? If God has not blessed my children with intelligence, I being only a human being can do nothing about it…[But] teachers are responsible for teaching the children. We are illiterate and ignorant. How can we be expected to teach? Sir, we send our children to school, paying fees, hoping that our children will learn something. The teachers should scold them, beat them and make them learn.

Interestingly, the issue of the choice of government versus private schools by lower-SES households also came up in separate focus groups with middle to uppermiddle-class women and men. A woman who was a teacher in a private primary school asserted that because of many government programs in operation the quality of education in government schools was now close to that of private schools. But in a males-only group a distinguished elderly man, the father of the hostess, mocked the contention of another participant that government schools now offer an excellent education to everyone: “Parents from well-placed families, why don’t they send their children to government schools? Because there are no facilities there.” The data I have presented above demonstrates that the value and quality of education are issues of great concern to many poor parents, and ones that are considered to have numerous contributing factors. Informants’ discourse demonstrates how beliefs concerning the value of education, perceptions of education quality, and interactions with

225 teachers can influence the decision-making of poor parents regarding how long and where children study and, indirectly, whether children become child laborers.

The Road to Educational Attrition: Losing Interest, Dropping Out, Removal The aspects of education of most direct relevance to the child labor issue are the reasons why children drop out of school on their own or are removed from it by their parents. In anti-child labor discourse there is a depiction of the existence of a natural linear progression from the premature termination of education to the workplace and, moreover, of the causes of ending schooling as being obvious and readily reversible. This study’s findings, in contrast, suggest that while children and parents make the ultimate decision in such matters, they do so within a context of particular community norms, sociocultural features, and economic realities that act as strong push factors for ending education at an early level. Moreover, the effects of such influences are frequently indirect and temporally distal and their interplay is complex. Some of these influences have already been extensively discussed in this chapter – perceptions of the ultimate value of education, education costs, limited job opportunities, corrupt job-dispensing practices, and questions about the quality of government education. This section will touch on such themes again as all are to some degree interwoven with its focus. But this section will also include discussion of other dynamics within the home, classroom, and community that are often not considered as having an important bearing on child labor. Children having or lacking interest in education is a logical precursor to the act of dropping out of school. But it is included in the subheading of this section primarily

226 because it came up so often in varied thematic interviews with parents that eventually I began asking specific questions to get at the root of what might be taken as a throwaway answer as to why a child’s schooling had ended early. I found that within poor communities having or not having interest in education was almost naturalized as being an inherent characteristic of a child, rather than one shaped by environment and experience. Thus after a while when I would receive such a response as the reason for why a child had left school or why children in general do so I would probe the subject further by half-jokingly rhetorically asking, “Well babies aren’t born with an interest or without an interest in education, are they?” The more I delved in the subject of children not having, losing, or having lost interest in education the more a picture began to emerge of the characteristics of and experiences within the classroom, home, and community that cause a child in a low-income setting to lose interest in education and sometimes eventually drop out. I have presented above a common refrain heard from parents concerning the benefits of education, that there are not enough jobs for educated youth and to secure one requires a large bribe, which makes the investment of time and energy in education a speculative venture for parents with limited means. But the words of a girl who was a PUC student and part-time agarbathi roller suggest that young people’s interest in education is also dampened by similar perceptions: “So many people feel even after getting educated we have to do the same job, so why should we spend time and money on education? So let us do the same job without getting an education.” A household study father shared his observations of how boys think about their options:

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Another thing is the boys think that to get a good job the parents should be able to give a large bribe or support us financially. ‘But can they really do that? They can’t. So after all the hard work that we put in during our student days we will not be reaping any benefits at all. We will be left in the lurch. No job, all our education wasted. So it is better to find a job now.’

Parents also suggested that interest in education is powerfully affected by the home and school environments. In regards to the home environment, some informants felt that whether or not children have an interest in education directly correlates to their parents’ interest, one reflection of which is the parents’ degree of discipline of their children. According to such a way of thinking, a child’s lack of interest in education on one level may be seen as a natural outcome of lack of discipline – parents giving too much freedom in general and specifically allowing children to skip school whenever they so wish. But several parents saw it more as a matter of parents showing interest and responsibility through their monitoring on a day-to-day basis of what and how their children were doing in school. I interviewed a mother during the course of a subset of key informant interviews of parents of students living in poor areas that had done well in school and continued on to higher levels of education. She responded this way to a question about why her child had done well in school while others in a similar economic situation had not:
The parents don’t take interest. If our children tell us that they cannot understand something or are not able to follow certain things in school, we should guide them and tell them to go and clarify their doubts with the teachers or their friends and encourage them to keep up the interest. Instead of that, if we say, ‘Okay if you don’t understand, you can please stop studying and go to work and bring in some money,’ is it right?

While this mother’s assertion regarding the degree of parents’ day-to-day involvement with their children’s education is cogent, it is important to realize that for many poor parents significant challenges stand in the way of such involvement. In some

228 households both parents work outside the home and therefore are not be available to monitor their children’s activities for a large portion of the day. Even when mothers are at home throughout the day they may be occupied with a heavy burden of cooking, housework, and home-based income-producing activities (e.g. beedi or agarbathi rolling). And moreover, in the case of many of the households I visited parents were illiterate, making it impossible for them to help their children with homework (one common way of monitoring educational progress) or even to evaluate what their children had studied that day in school. The ability to help with homework and monitor comprehension of what has been taught in school is crucial for a child’s educational success because it both allows learning difficulties to be dealt with before they become exacerbated to the point where the child has fallen far behind. As well, such ability enables a parent to realistically evaluate the effectiveness of the child’s teacher. The degree to which a parent both monitors their child’s progress and is able to accurately evaluate their classroom learning experience is especially salient given the fact that a child’s interest in education and intelligence are sometimes conceptualized as innate qualities rather than as characteristics open to influence, both positive and negative, from the outside – e.g. style of pedagogy, quality of classroom facilities. From such a perspective, some children just naturally are interested in and succeed in education while others don’t. At the same time, children who do not obtain such qualities often receive no pejorative judgment. Thus, if a child is interested in education and can do well at it, it is natural that they should be allowed to study to a higher level. But it is equally natural that some children are not “equipped” to study or have an inherent preference to work from

229 an earlier age. Children’s interest in their studies is demonstrated by the completion of homework, getting good grades on exams and marks cards, and being promoted. A young man spoke of his younger brother who worked with him at a small knife-making workshop: “He is not interested in education. Then what to do? If they learn the job it is good for them.” A household study father looked at the long-term ramifications of a boy’s interests: “We should let them continue in the line they are interested, and then they may succeed. If we force him to do something which he is not interested in, then he may be a failure.” The direct and indirect effects of household poverty and other aspects of the home environment were also seen as impacting children’s interest in education. I have in the previous section extensively discussed the anxieties poor parents experience from the struggle to pay for their children’s education. But my data shows that those struggles can either directly or indirectly also have a debilitating effect on children’s interest in continuing their schooling. School expense difficulties do not occur in isolation but are most often associated with a constellation of underlying household problems that together create an environment of poverty unconducive to children having interest and success in education. Such problems included alcohol abuse by a male breadwinner, having excessive loans obligations to moneylenders, wife abuse, serious health problems, longterm inadequate food supply resulting in consistent low-level hunger, and a poor physical living situation. Thus an explanation of why children lose interest in school might include mention of a number of such home environment-related contributing factors. A mother’s comments on the phenomenon typified those of many informants: “What can the poor

230 wife do? She is hit and abused so badly that the children who see all this feel, ‘Let us go and earn and give my mother something rather than putting up with these scenes every day.’” An alcohol addiction counselor associated with a multi-purpose social service NGO told of a child that she had met in the course of her work:
He was saying, ‘My father drinks and my mother is a housemaid. She’s always scolding me and I can’t concentrate on my studies. So why do I need that? I want to work at least and I want to go [out].’ He gets 20 rupees. He gives 10 rupees to his home and spends 10 rupees on computer games.

Both of the previous quotations illuminate the variety of obstacles faced at home by poor children attempting to get an education and illustrate that “losing interest” is a more complex phenomenon than it might seem at first glance. The latter quote also suggests that characteristics of the very structure in which those children live may act as a further handicap to educational attainment and may therefore be a factor in losing interest and dropping out. As noted in Chapter 3, living conditions in the low-income areas of Mysore are generally cramped, with 25.71% of the 35 households remaining in my study at its completion occupying a space of less than 100 square feet, 25.71% having one of 100-200 square feet, and 37.14% living within 200-300 square feet. Not only are such houses small, but many front right on the street and are built in a row style, sharing walls on both sides with neighbors. Moreover, due to the ventilation needs caused by the subtropical climate as well as prohibitive building material costs most houses are built only with wooden shutters and no glass windows or screens, windows being largely open spaces in walls. This description of the physical structures that many residing in lowincome areas occupy only becomes relevant in this discussion of children’s education when one considers that such living conditions are the very ones under which children

231 must do homework, study for exams, and ultimately keep or lose interest in their studies. Even if they so desired, few live in a house where it is possible to find a quiet let alone private space for studying, a problem exacerbated by family size, marital discord within the home, and noise from the street and next-door neighbors. The problem of poor children lacking quiet study space has been noted in other Indian settings as well (Desai 1989: 508-509). On at least two occasions during the taping of interviews for my study I myself got a very small taste of what children attempting to study at home in such areas must experience with noisy neighbors, politely requesting them to turn down their loud music and being flatly ignored. While the home environment may have a number of characteristics capable of influencing either negatively or positively a child’s interest in education, those of the school a child attends and more specifically the particular classroom setting in which they learn obviously have others with potentially even more impact. Some informants spoke of children being able to transcend problems at home to succeed in school. But the classroom is the crucible of education and a child’s experiences there, especially during their younger years, conditions their later attitudes and to some degree their level of success. I have already presented above some data concerning the quality of the education offered in government and private schools, but some specific aspects of students’ classroom experience that dampen children’s interest in education that emerged in the narratives of informants warrant additional discussion. Teachers’ disciplinary actions in general and corporal punishment in specific were the aspects of the classroom experience most often mentioned as causing children in my research areas to lose interest

232 in education. Both parents and children spoke of how teachers’ disciplinary acts, including corporal punishment, made children feel badly and lose interest in education as well as about the offenses teachers perceived students had committed that warranted such punishment. I have mentioned above the problems some parents have in providing their children that attend government schools with needed school supplies and in some instance textbooks and uniforms. In the case of private schools, the problem may also involve providing one or more of those items, but more often involves a failure to pay monthly fees. In general, the failure to come to school with required items or with fees paid up instigated lesser but still psychologically impacting forms of discipline. A number of informants mentioned the humiliation children feel in such situations. A member of a low-SES women’s focus group described a typical progression of causes and effects leading to children losing interest in school:
Poverty is the main reason. They will be sent back [home] if they don’t bring a book, uniform, pencils, etc. The children feel hurt when the other children make fun of them and they tell the parents that. But the parents are helpless and say this is all they can do and say if he doesn’t like to study then he can join them in working, which the child feels is better than going to school and being ridiculed.

Informants spoke of children being scolded by teachers for their parents’ failure to pay school fees. Other children lacking some required item were made to stand outside the classroom and it appears that often children are chastised in front of their classmates. Although a previous quotation in which a teacher told parents that they were wasting their money sending their child to school and would be better off getting him a job may seem like an extreme example, I received several similar reports from other families concerning both government and private school teachers.

233 While public chastisement and banishment from the classroom may themselves be sufficient negative impetus for a child’s losing interest in attending school, corporal punishment is identified more prominently in my informants’ narratives as being what conditions children to have negative attitudes towards school. During one of my visits to the headquarters of the school district covering Mysore City, when I mentioned these reports of corporal punishment it appeared to stun the high official I was speaking with, who went on to assure me that it was not allowed in the government school system. Although in all fairness it is true that some of the reports I received about corporal punishment were specifically in reference to private schools, many also referred to government schools. In the previous section of this chapter, I offered a brief quote of a girl describing being beat for not wearing the proper clothes and shoes to school (a private one). A mother recalled her son’s experience in a government school: “In (son’s name)’s school there was a teacher who used to beat him daily. Sometimes he was getting this size of welts. So that’s half the reason he stopped going to school.” The aunt of two working boys answered my question about why they had lost interest in school with another graphic story of corporal punishment, one that helps us better understand the stigmatization involved in it and the feelings of children upon whom it is inflicted:
Nobody could help them at home, so they would not do their homework. The next day, the teacher used to punish them in the school my making them stand on the bench and by hitting them. The other kids who would have done their homework used to laugh at these boys. The boys felt ashamed and stopped going to school. The boys used to feel ashamed that they would not have done their homework, while the other kids would have. Also, they felt humiliated when the teacher used to beat them in front of the other kids.

234 The ubiquity of the use of corporal punishment even by “good” teachers is further revealed in a darkly humorous story about an interaction years earlier between a couple participating in the household study and my research assistant who had earlier been their son’s teacher. The boy’s mother recounted that my assistant had hit her son’s hand with a ruler as punishment, that she had then accompanied the boy to school to complain, and that my assistant had then done the same thing again in front of her! Yet both she and her husband were not against corporal punishment when a child “deserves” it. Her husband commented: “Yes, it is not wrong. You did the correct thing.” His wife added, “After us, you are like his parents, teaching him about good things and bad things.” The previous story also exposes the conflicting attitudes towards corporal punishment found amongst parents in my study areas. The fact is that at least some parents want teachers to beat their children if they are not paying attention, doing their work, or behaving badly and that they may view teachers that do not do so as being ineffective. In that way parents are inadvertently supporting one of the significant factors driving children from school. The issue becomes further convoluted when one considers that children are sometimes beaten because they haven’t done their homework, even though the reasons why they haven’t done it may include that they don’t understand the material (as was described in the aunt’s story above). That in turn may be so because of being poorly taught in the classroom, being a below-average student in need of (but not receiving) more attention from the teacher, lacking necessary books, having parents who are illiterate and unable to help them with homework, or having no quiet place at home to

235 concentrate on studies. Looked at from this perspective corporal punishment becomes just another thread difficult to unravel from a larger ball of problems contributing to children losing interest in education. Some may question whether the stories reported by my informants were actually true or whether they would better be considered aberrations, uncommon events. But Indian education experts have observed that despite court rulings in some states, corporal punishment continues to be commonly used in locations across India. PROBE reported that beatings and humiliation by teachers were a relatively common occurrence in its broad geographical areas of study (PROBE team 1999: 27-28). Jain et al. include “beating, scolding, or having been treated shabbily in school” as one of the reasons children do not attend school (Jain et al 2002: 48). Pandey finds that some Indian states continue to have provisions for corporal punishment in their education codes and, moreover, that it is frequently used for minor offenses such as those I have previously described. The most common methods he reports are similar to those I heard of in Mysore - caning on back of the hand and being made to stand in front of the class or on a bench. He also describes teachers throwing books, chalk, or blackboard erasers at students (Pandey 2001). A study of Standard VI-XII students’ opinions regarding the values and qualities that should be present in a good teacher found that 27% felt a teacher should be economical in their use of discipline and when doing so should be careful to administer it in proportion to the offense. Twenty-four percent of the sample felt that a good teacher was one who would only sparingly use harsh disciplinary methods such as corporal punishment. Moreover, large proportions of the students saw a good teacher as

236 being one who treated students with respect, friendliness, courtesy, understanding, and impartiality (Gupta 2001: 104-105). Although corporal punishment has significant impact on children’s interest in education, disciplinary practice is only a secondary aspect of what teachers “do” in the classroom and how they interact with and affect their students. I have presented above both educational experts’ and parents’ critiques of teacher effectiveness as it impacts children’s engagement with their studies. My data point to some additional ways teachers’ practices and attitudes as well as the overall school environment cause children to lose interest in education. Parents and children complained that some teachers “highgrade” the student population of each class, separating in their minds those who are the “good” students from those who are not and accordingly doling out attention. Although not foreign concepts to those who study and teach at universities in the United States, the “front-row student” and “back-row student” are well recognized cultural icons even at the elementary education level in India. In answer to a question about how parents can help below-average students in a large class with many students keep their interest in education, a poor father whose daughter had succeeded in studying to the PUC level replied: “That’s what has happened. They have made A, B, C sections. Only C and B sections are taught well, the rest are ignored.” A working boy commented on the same subject:
Good teachers try to help the below average students learn in a nice way. Whereas some bad teachers beat and humiliate such students. This can also be a reason for kids losing interest in studies…They feel, ‘What is the use of going through so much?’ If good teachers try to make such students learn in nice way, they can improve.

237 Thus below-average students get caught in cycle of inadequate educational resources both within the home and within the classroom. A worker at a child labor hostel in Mysore identified the reason children lose interest in education as being the fact that they have trouble learning over an extended period of time. The brother of a girl still studying in PUC placed his having lost interest in education (and dropped out) at the point he failed in his Standard VII exams. 48 A working boy eloquently echoed this thought, honing in on the negative feelings such children have:
What can they do if they can’t grasp what they read? Many kids can’t understand even if they read the material over and over again. This puts them in a bad mood, and they decide that they can never learn. They begin to condemn themselves.

Thus in the school realm there are a panoply of conditions that negatively impact children’s interest in education including rote learning, poor quality textbooks, unattractive or inadequate facilities, ineffective pedagogy, harsh disciplinary practices, and favoritism in the classroom. I have similarly enumerated a set of factors associated with the home environment of slum dwellers that has the same effect. Parents suggested as well other interesting and sometimes amusing factors contributing to children losing interest in education, such as children being glued to the TV watching cricket matches (that can run a number of hours) rather than studying and doing their homework. At a certain point it becomes difficult to separate perceptions of why children lose interest in education from those regarding children dropping out. Informants’ comments concerning children losing interest in education would often indicate that dropping out of school is the decision some poor students take when their waning interest (brought on by one or
48

As noted above, this is the point at which the policy of automatic promotion in primary education is said to end and is therefore a common time for dropping out.

238 more of the factors mentioned above) is brought to fruition by an additional negative factor or in some cases merely a work opportunity that may arise. It is not always easy, however, to identify a distinct tipping point for the decision. India’s high drop-out rate has long been a cause of alarm to the Indian government and to international agencies and NGOs dealing with education issues. Interestingly, a 31-year-old UNESCO-sponsored overview of the drop-out problem in India identified the causes of children dropping out of school as being many of the same systemic deficiencies mentioned to me by informants as being the reasons why children lose interest in school. The approaches the report notes as having been implemented at the time to deal with the drop-out problem – improving the economic situation of poor households and direct educational material assistance and incentives such as free uniforms, textbooks, uniforms, and lunches – appear to not have brought the problem under control in the succeeding years (Hiriyanniah and Ramachandran 1984). Data from this study offer additional clues as to why children quit school. Actual dropping out narratives as well as theories about why children drop out of school offered by both parents and children frequently place blame for the act on the influence of other boys referred to as “bad friends”. While “bad friends” might at first glance appear to be less a solid reason and, in the case of parents, a shallow excuse for failure to take responsibility for one’s children’s educational failure, on closer examination it can be found to have factual supporting weight. Ramachandran observes that poor neighborhoods commonly have groups of unoccupied boys loitering about, both primary school graduates and drop-outs, who sometimes get involved in anti-social activities and

239 act as negative examples to others in the community regarding the value of primary education (Ramachandran 2003b: 5). A participant in my household study, herself the mother of two boys who had dropped out, said: “In school they keep good company. But in our neighborhood they keep the company of a bunch of dropouts. Tell me - if this is the case, can one succeed?” A father saw the problem as a case of the proverbial “one bad apple”: “If there is a bad boy among 4 or 5 good boys, that single boy can destroy the fate of all the good boys.” Parent narratives regarding children dropping out commonly mention an activity described earlier, “roaming around.” To reiterate, this term refers to what children who are still attending school do when they cut classes, often leaving the neighborhood during school hours so as not to be spotted by a familiar adult. It also refers to what boys who have dropped out but who are not working do. This is a type of habitual and aimless moving about the city, with the connotation of associated anti-social or criminal activities such as gambling, smoking, drinking, going to week-day movie matinees, and stealing. In many parents’ minds there is ample opportunity for the former group (children cutting classes) to fall into the ways of the latter group (drop-out “juvenile delinquents”). Therefore, some parents go to great extremes to make their children stay in school. A mother responding to a question about whether her son had dropped out or been taken out of school related the circumstances surrounding her son leaving school:
No, he was the one who dropped out. Actually my husband had beaten him very severely asking him to go back to school. He would keep all the books at home and take only the bag. We found that out. I complained to his father. He would start playing marbles with his friends, somehow dodging us. His elder brother, who realized that if he continues like this he will go wayward, took him on and started teaching him the job.

240 In one extreme example, a father graphically described two methods he claimed to have used to coerce his son not to be a truant - first hanging his son upside down over a small smoky fire into which he sprinkled chili powder (to create a pepper gas effect) and on another occasion tying him up on the floor and putting sweetened water on him to attract biting ants. Related to the problem of children cutting classes and roaming around is that of the inadequacies of the system used by schools to monitor and control students’ absences. The Karnataka State Compulsory Primary Education Act and Rules mandates school attendance up to 14 years of age, that is roughly through Standard V. However, it has been noted that even though most states have such laws, they are rarely enforced (World Bank 1997: 72). My data confirms that in low-income areas of Mysore as well the enforcement of truancy regulations varies and is not uncommonly lax, providing insight into the gradualistic nature of the processes of “losing interest” and “dropping out”. Some teachers and school principals are diligent in seeking information about why a child has been absent, and parents reported personal visits by teachers or having a messages sent home with a child from a nearby house when their child had been absent for several days. Educators mentioned similar policies, although the time delay varied from a couple of days to a week or more. But a number of parents reported only learning that their child had been cutting school continuously for an extended period of time weeks or even months after the fact. Children use subterfuge such as that mentioned in a story above – leaving for school with an empty book bag and returning at the time school ends as if they had gone to school – to extend the length of their deception. A mother said

241 she had only found out about her boys’ two month-absence when they did not receive the free rice allotment at school that was given contingent on a minimum of 80% attendance. A child welfare officer of the state government acknowledged the difficulty of achieving the state’s goal of eradicating child labor by 2007 without first insuring that all children attend school up to the required age and offered the legal of enforcement education attendance regulations as part of the solution. His suggestion, although directed more towards parents who do not send their children to school, has implications as well for parents culpability in their children’s cutting of classes:
In the constitution there is a law for compulsory education. Tell the people that if you don’t send the children to school you will be penalized…Then they will get scared and send them. But we don’t have that kind of willpower to bring in this kind of law. If they make compulsory education and make the parents responsible for it, they will definitely send the children, whether they have poverty or any other problem.

An array of other reasons was also mentioned by my informants as to why children drop out. A father conjectured that children coming from poor households may compare the worn school uniforms they must wear to those of a better condition worn by children from wealthier households and from that feel too embarrassed to attend school. As was the case in regards to losing interest in education, people spoke of poverty, inability to pay fees, failing to be promoted, lack of parental interest, and children’s desire for money as some of the reasons why children drop out. An additional important reason, moral identity, was discussed in the previous chapter in the context of boys feeling an obligation to go to find work to help their mother feed the family in situations where the father, being a heavy drinker, does not do so. A variation on the same theme is when a child feels it better to leave school than to allow their school fees to continue to be a burden to their struggling parents. A father told of having had to scold his daughter

242 to get her to return to school after refusing to attend classes for a week: “We had some problems and I came home drunk one day and she asked me why I was like that. I said I had a lot of debts and she said if we were incurring debt by sending her to school, she would prefer not to go.” As mentioned earlier, another child eventually succumbed to dropping out due to academic and social problems he experienced associated with a speech defect caused by a cleft lip. Teachers, based on years of observation, had their own ideas about what leads to children to drop out and in general seemed sympathetic to the plight of poor children who do so. A primary school teacher gave the example of local boys who first work after school at night at a cart selling a type of local snack (pani puri), earning 10 rupees a day that is taken by their parents, and who eventually decide they’d like to make another 10 rupees working during the daytime. Another teacher told the story of a former student who came from a poor family in which the father had been an alcoholic and the mother had cancer. The girl had been a good student and with material aid from teachers at the school had managed to complete her elementary education and go on to the secondary level. She had recently completed PUC with good grades, but given that her family could not afford to send her to college had decided to end her education and gotten a job as a salesgirl in a gas agency, with the promise of future promotion to receptionist. She had recently visited her mentors to ask them if they thought she had made the right decision. Up until this point I have used the term dropping out as if its meaning is universally understood and therefore requires no further explanation. But if we more closely examine its usage it becomes clear that it is not as concise in meaning as one

243 might first think. The problem is that it groups all children who leave school under one heading and, moreover, at least in many developed countries may overly imply that agency is situated in the person of the child involved. In actuality children may or may not have a say in the matter, the degree of agency of children who do have it can vary, actions involving boys and girls are often determined by different criteria, and the decision may be driven by powerful and irresistible economic or cultural forces with few alternative options. In addition, it may involve departure from school mid-year, leaving at the end of a school year but without completing all the required years of a level of schooling (e.g. upper primary, high school), or merely upon finishing one level not continuing on to the next. Some children drop out of school on their own volition or at the urging of their parents, while others are removed from school, whether they agree or not. PROBE found in a random sub-sample of its large study population that while 35% of the boys and 16% of the girls had dropped out of their own accord, 47% of the boys and 66% of the girls had been removed from school by their parents. Of the children who were taken out of school by their parents, the most commonly reported reasons were needing children to do other activities such as income-producing work or child-care (in the case of 50% of the boys and 68% the girls) and the lack of affordability of education (in the case of 54% of the boys and 29% of the girls) (PROBE team 1999: 37). In my research areas in Mysore I similarly found that while many children had left school on their own accord, many (especially girls) were removed from school by their parents. In fact, withdrawing girls from school as soon as they reach menarche continues to be the community norm, although a growing number of even low-SES

244 parents are challenging it. Reasons for removing girls from school at this point vary, but two are dominant. The first, as mentioned in an earlier section, is that school attendance (and particular going to and from school) exposes a mature girl to moral risk. She may be followed and teased by boys, be sexually molested, become involved in a sexual relationship, or even run off with a boy. My informants often spoke of the moral risk involved with girls commuting to school in terms of present times being worse than the past. Asked up to what level he thought girls should be educated, a father replied: “Up to SSLC at least, that is if she hasn’t come of age yet. Otherwise we can’t send her. Nowadays the situation is not very good.” Parents not only worried about what might happen to the girl in question, but to the family’s reputation as well, if others in the community suspected an older school-going girl of morally laxity. A mother who later withdrew her daughter from school during the course of my research explained the problem: “Some folks send their daughters to school even after maturity. Some girls go to school and behave there in a decent manner, others…I trust my children, but my neighbors don’t.” A lower-SES male key informant, explaining why he allowed his daughter to attend PUC while others in the area would not, acknowledged the risk involved: “We decide on the age. When a girl comes of age, it is risky to send her out. We have to face the consequences.” In some households mothers said that the ultimate decision rested with the girl’s father, the household’s decision-maker, while in others the decision appeared to have been reached by both the father and mother. Parents’ fears of moral risk were at least in some cases trumped by some of the positive hopes for a daughter’s future mentioned above – that through education she will have better life than

245 they have, be able to support herself and her children in case of a failed marriage, and if necessary be capable of caring for them in their old age. Parents’ perceptions of degree of moral risk and in turn their decision as to whether to remove a girl from school may be further influenced by a girl’s physical appearance. In the case of one of the Muslim households participating in my household study, my inquiry as to why a younger daughter had been allowed to continue her education through the first year of PUC while an older now-married daughter had been removed after Standard VI elicited an interesting explanation from the girls’ mother and aunt. According to them the education decisions had been made based on the fact that the elder daughter had matured early and had been very attractive and well-built while the younger one was short and did not look her age. Although not explicitly expressed as being related to moral risk but perhaps having originated due to such a perception was another notable strain in my informants’ narratives of removing girls from school, one of following the traditions of their caste or religion. A Hindu mother’s words illuminate the conflicting forces pulling on the decision of whether or not a girl will be removed from school upon reaching menarche: “Her father wants her to study. She likes to study. But in our community they pull girls out of school once they mature.” The second major reason heard for removing girls from school involves how parents and the society-at-large view girls’ destined future roles. As noted in my section concerning perceptions of the value of education, these roles are still thought by the majority to be circumscribed within the realm of the home as a wife and mother.

246 Therefore when girls reach menarche it is seen as a natural time to have them begin staying at home to learn and master the skills – cooking, cleaning, etc. - they will be required to have to fulfill such roles. A woman whose husband had forced their daughter who wanted to continue studying to leave PUC told of the man’s justification for doing so: “But my husband says it is enough, ‘Learn household work’...He says even if she continues, after marriage she has to wash dishes.” The previous discussion illustrates how factors such as biological timing (i.e. age of maturity), perceptions of moral risk, caste norms, gender expectations, and physical appearance either separately or in combination influence parents’ decisions about whether or when to remove a girl from school.

The Cost of Education The cost of education seemingly should not be an issue determining school attendance in India. The government and NGOs point to free education as the ideal solution to child labor and as trumping any parent excuses of lack of affordability as a reason for not sending a child to school. Clearly, over the years and increasingly in recent times the central government with the cooperation of state governments has instituted any number of programs to provide gratis education-related resources to needy children. During my stay in Mysore such benefits included scholarships, rice allotments later replaced by a free mid-day meal, and free uniforms, textbooks, and book bags. Most of these programs were limited to SC/ST children or to girl students up to a particular level of schooling, but the mid-day meal program was open to all students in the state through

247 Standard VI and was touted to be expanded in the near future to a higher level. The question I wish to explore in this section is, however, how “free” is “free education”? Moreover, I wish to look at how parents view education costs and what they do to meet them. I have noted above that there are costs, sometimes substantial, associated with private school education. But before delving deeper into them, I will first evaluate whether government-provided elementary education is truly free. PROBE identified four central myths about elementary education in India, one of them being that it is free. Its researchers estimated that in 1996 the educational cost of sending a child to lowerprimary school was 318 rupees per year. An estimate contained in a 1994 human development report of the National Council of Applied Economic Research of the cost to a family for a year’s elementary education (Standards I-VIII) for one child was 478 rupees (PROBE team 1999: 16-17). 49 The PROBE estimate, which was based on data supplied by parents, broke down into 16 rupees for school fees, 99 rupees for textbooks and stationery, 159 rupees for uniforms and other school clothes, 25 rupees for tuition classes, and 19 rupees for travel and assorted expenses. PROBE notes that such a spending level does not mean that a child’s educational needs are being fully provided for and that a major aspect of the problematic nature of education costs is that they do not correspond to the ups and downs of household income (PROBE team 1999: 32). To put these amounts into context, in 1996 the currency conversion rate was 35-36 rupees to one U.S. dollar. Even at the time of my research 7 years later, an adult worker doing unskilled
PROBE’s figure of 478 rupees was a conversion of the actual figure to what the same costs would be at constant 1996-1997 prices.
49

248 or semi-skilled labor (not normally even available throughout the month) would commonly only make the rupee equivalent of $2-2.50 a day. Moreover, a household would commonly have two or more children in school at the same time. Many of the parents in my household study and members of low-SES focus groups felt that education costs were a major burden for them. They at least partially based their decisions about whether to continue struggling to meet them based on the local realities of the present-day job market – a dearth of suitable employment for educated young people – described above. Similarly, parents’ views concerning the optimal amount of education for a child, also discussed above, were frequently qualified in economic terms. Education is not unreasonably viewed as an expenditure that must be balanced against other necessary household expenses, with compromises having to be made just as they are within and between categories as to what is affordable versus what is most desired. A mother explained: “If we have money, we can educate them very well. If we don’t have money, we have to stop their education early.” Another described a common education strategy used by parents in one of my study areas: “Many people do that. Till 5th standard they let their children go to the government school. Later on they put them in the convent school. 50” While some spoke of going so far as to take out loans to pay for their children’s education expenses, others explicitly felt that parents making a great effort to pay for a child’s education was contingent upon the child equally demonstrating a strong interest in their own education.

As previously noted, many of the most respected private schools in Mysore are operated by religious (often Christian) groups.

50

249 A second dominant theme of discourse was one of mothers in particular working hard and tightly managing expenditures, transcending obstacles such as a drinking and economically non-contributing husband, to obtain the money needed to educate their children (usually sons). Such a theme is consistent with earlier social science depictions of Indian mothers’ willingness to sacrifice for their children, especially sons (see, for example, Awasty 1982). A household study mother explained: “I will roll [agarbathi] and somehow manage to send them.” Another told me: “If parents are good they will send their children to the school…I am rolling beedis to send my children to school.” An old woman in failing health recounted how hard she had worked to put her boys through school, one even through college: “Many people were happy that even by selling on the footpath you’re sending your son to college. We have sold our lands to send our children, but they are not interested.” Hinting at the bitter disappointment some parents in her area must feel in such instances, a mother observed: “Now at 18 to 19 years old they drop out of school and roam around. Parents have spent lot of money on education.” The cost associated with education, whether they are the nominal ones associated with government schools or the more substantial fees and donations of private schools, can prove to be challenging for economically unresilient poor households. A woman whose husband had migrated to find work and not been heard from since told me: “My husband has been away for 3 months. What can I do with 4 children?...They say it is a government school, but they keep asking money for one thing or the other.” Another related the problems she had before her oldest son left school: “Then we would say that

250 his father was a heavy drunkard, wouldn’t provide for his family…I was not working then. I couldn’t even pay fees of 14 rupees for him.” Some teachers and school administrators both at government and private schools, sympathetic to the economic problems of their low-income students, have gone out of their way to help them. The members of a teacher focus group at one school told of their having collected donations amongst themselves to buy notebooks for needy students. A community member of a school management committee told me that his group had helped several parents obtain employment so that they would have the money and home atmosphere necessary for their children to attend school. Several private schools were noted by informants as having provided fee concessions or scholarships to needy students who were interested in their studies. But just as common were accounts of insensitive treatment of children whose families lacked the economic resources to buy them necessary school supplies. A mother told of her meeting with the headmaster at the government upper-primary school attended by her daughter: “‘Put her in some other school if you can’t get her books.’ Last year she had no book and pen.” My informants spoke of humiliation, fines, and children being sent home from school until their mother came to school to resolve the problem. A girl told of her teachers’ reaction when in the past she came to school not wearing the required uniform and shoes because her parents could not afford to buy them: “ ‘If you can’t afford to have it then we have no other choice but to hit you,’ was what they used to say.” Another spoke of the punishment she received when due to her household economic difficulties she could not purchase in a

251 timely manner all of the required notebooks: “If we don’t get the books they will not let us inside, we will be made to stand outside.” To understand the challenges poor parents face in keeping their children in school it is useful to enumerate the range of costs associated with education in Mysore, both in government and private schools. There is no doubt that most aspects of lower and upper-primary education at government schools are now free and indeed such institutions even offer some benefits not provided by private schools. But despite such an extensive range of aid to poor students, in the case of one basic student need – uniforms – “free” does not actually mean totally without cost. The government does provide gratis an appropriately colored and sized piece of cloth, but it is up a child’s parents to pay a tailor to have it cut and sewn into a finished uniform. I inquired about school uniform stitching charges with three tailors in areas where my household study participants resided. Tailoring charges for a boy’s school uniform (shirt and short pants) in two of the lowSES areas ranged from 30-50 rupees for up to Standard II, 40-60 rupees for Standard IIIV, and 80-90 rupees for Standard VI-VII. For a uniform of a shirt and long pants for older boys in Standard VIII-X the stitching charge was 120 rupees. In another more mixed SES area where one household lived, the charge was 70 rupees for Standard I-VII and 120 rupees for Standards VIII-X. For girls’ uniforms the charges in lower SES areas were 30-50 rupees for girls through Standard III, 40-60 rupees for Standard III-V, 80-90 rupees for Standard VI-VII, and 100-120 rupees for Standard VIII and beyond. Differences in costs largely reflect differences in the work involve in stitching different sized garments and in the socioeconomic standing of the areas in which the shops are

252 located. It is also important to keep in mind that a child in all grades requires more than one school uniform. Beyond the cost of having uniforms stitched, for poor parents sending their children to government schools another major expense is stationery supplies. I inquired at several primary schools in my study areas regarding how many notebooks a child needed per school year. At one I was told a child would need six for in-class notes and four for homework. Standard V-VII students are also required to have a standard box of tools for studying geometry (a “geometry box”). A second school reported similar requirements. But it appears that such an amount of required notebooks is accurate for lower grades only. I was told by a Standard IX girl in my household study that she needed five notebooks for each subject she would study, each one for a different use – homework, class notes, class assignment, etc. Another mother echoed that her daughter needed to buy about thirty notebooks for her first year of high school, each costing10 rupees. In addition, children require new pens and pencils each school year, with a pen commonly costing 7-10 rupees and a pencil 2-3 rupees. If we add together the costs of uniform stitching, notebooks, pens, pencils, erasers, and a geometry box we can see that a reasonable minimum estimate of the cost of sending a child to a government upper primary school in Mysore in 2003-2004 would range from 170 rupees to more than 400 rupees. As we consider such a figure we must recall that as mentioned earlier many families have two or more children in school at the same time and, moreover, as children move into high school regardless of whether it is government or private expenses continue to rise. Parents with children at varied levels of elementary education also

253 mentioned having to pay fees for exams and other unspecified purposes. In regards to the free provision of textbooks, a schoolgirl and her mother related a story that illustrates that even that can be problematic. They reported that the free textbooks arrived very late at the school the previous year, only after the family had already purchased them out of fear of the girl falling behind. Since it has been demonstrated that many households, despite being of limited means, opt to or must (because of availability or commuting distance considerations) send their children to private schools, the costs associated with providing such an education must be considered as well. Private school education costs are so much higher than those of government education as to have serious implications for lower income households’ financial solvency in general and, as suggested above, for whether children are able to continue to a higher level of studies or are put to work. In the case of most private schools, even before the standard expenses associated with classroom learning come into play parents must make a “donation” to secure a seat for their child. As is the case in locations around the world, educational institutions in Mysore have reputations based on their characteristics (location, teaching quality, teacher/pupil ratios, facilities, etc.) that allow them to charge differential amounts for tuition. A woman related the story of her well-to-do married sister and her husband who wanted their daughter to become a doctor and had made the first investment in such a plan by paying a 3,000-rupee donation to enroll her in the kindergarten of a high-quality private school. The father of a girl who had finished Standard VII at a private school was considering enrolling her in a government high school if he decided to continue her education at all, because to go on to

254 the high school division of the same private school would have involved an enrollment donation and yearly fees of 1,000 rupees. For poor households with more than one child, paying even modest private school fees can be a challenge: “Earlier with our other three children it was very difficult for us. 25 rupees in fees every month. And for books and clothes.” A young woman told of having had to stop after the first year of PUC because her parents had not been able to pay the required 500 rupees in fees. A mother said she had been forced to pull her children from a convent school when her husband became an alcoholic, as she could not pay the monthly fees of 120 rupees. It is also important to realize that students at private schools must pay for uniforms and textbooks that are provided for free to many at government schools. A list of textbooks necessary for Standard IX that I was given put their total cost at 86 rupees while those for Standard X came to 69 rupees. An eventual inability to keep up with such private school expenses is a not uncommon occurrence amongst low-income households and is one that at the least leads to children not attending school and at the most indirectly to children beginning to work. I call this dilemma “the TC trap.” A transfer certificate (TC) is the document issued by a school a child is leaving that is legally required for them to be admitted to a new school. But for various reasons some poor parents have not been able to procure one. It appears that in some cases private schools will hold the TC as collateral until all past-due tuition is paid. In other cases, however, schools may withhold the TC as a way of maintaining a school’s level of enrollment, refusing it also to parents who have no debts. Thus even a parent who finds they can no longer keep up with the expense of a private school and

255 wishes to move their child to a free government-run one may find they are unable to do so, with their child forced into a kind of education limbo. An elected representative of one of the wards in which some household study participants live added further evidence to the existence of such strategies on the part of private school owners, reporting that a well-connected owner of a private school in his ward had for years used his influence to prevent new competing government schools from being built in his area. This discussion of education expenses raises a number of points salient to the child labor issue. First, it shows that even the elementary and secondary levels of education provided at government schools are not completely free if we consider the cost of uniform stitching, notebooks and other stationary items, exam fees, and in the upper grades, higher quality shoes. What may be considered minor expenses to a middle-class Indian household may impact the budget of poor household in a more major way, especially if it has several children attending school at the same time. Moreover, many poor parents, desiring to see their children get a good quality education and believing government schools to be sub-standard, put themselves out on an economic limb by enrolling their children in private schools. Beyond the ongoing financial strain of paying for private education, such a choice risks ending a child’s education prematurely due to the TC trap at a future time when a household experiences an economic crisis. And despite the fact that poor households struggle to meet the costs of both private and government education, children are disciplined and humiliated if they are unable to come to school with the required books and wearing the sanctioned attire. The high costs associated with the private PUCs and colleges that the majority of students unable to

256 obtain one of the limited government college seats must attend act as a de facto final straw for the educational aspirations of many poor parents and children. From the elementary level all the way to college, education costs demand that poor households make difficult choices based on the composition and financial situation of each as well as the realities of local job opportunities. A member of a lower SES female focus group framed the choice this way: “With people like us who earn 50-60 rupees per day, what can we spend on? Children’s education or for two meals a day?”

Formal Schooling versus Occupational Skill Training Given parents’ dominant concern that education should (especially in the case of boys) result in future tangible employment benefits, their thoughts on the value of formal education versus the learning of an occupational skill are particularly cogent. Many Indian observers have noted the important and valid role to be played by vocational education within the present socioeconomic realities of the India. Gandhi himself saw the teaching of a useful occupational skill as a core component of education, both to provide children with a way to support themselves in later life and to cover the costs of their schooling (Krishna 1996: 24-26). In the mid-1970s in pre-Karnataka Mysore State, Aiya criticized the vocational programs then operating. He asserted that they failed to provide students training suitable for finding employment and suggested that such training be structured to suit the capacities of the student and relevant to local employment opportunities. He proposed that the education system offer entry into vocational training of varying complexity at different points during a student’s formal education – at the

257 completion of lower primary school (4 years of schooling), after upper primary school (7 years of schooling), upon finishing 10 years of secondary school (regardless of whether the SSLC was passed or not), and as an alternative 2-year course to PUC (Aiya 1975). More recently, writing in an Indian education journal Gupta similarly suggested that the country’s education system needed to put greater emphasis on vocational education over general education beginning even at the upper-primary level. Gupta argued that appropriate skills training would allow educated youths to find employment in rural areas rather than continuing the trend of migration to large metropolitan areas (Gupta 2003: 74-75). Crawford (2001) cautions that vocational education in its present form cannot serve as a silver bullet to make up for the inadequacies of formal education in many developing Asian countries. Echoing the previously mentioned concerns, he laments that rather than “securing livelihoods for individuals and families, the programs often as not seem to turn out badly trained young people with skills that do not meet market needs…[and] are repetitive and gender-biased.” Additionally, he finds that most vocational education efforts incorrectly only cater to youths who have completed eight years of schooling, exhibit a lack of coordination in efforts between the government and NGOs, and fail to provide trainees with adequate work experience or job placement help (Crawford 2001: 26). Many household study participants as well as other community members I spoke with shared the feeling that occupational training is important to children’s future. Such views become salient to the child labor debate in the context of parents believing that given their knowledge that jobs for educated young men are few and far between and

258 require bribes to obtain, skill training is more practical than and a valid substitute for formal education. Thus some parents who have chosen to put a son into a job-learning situation rather than allowing him to continue on in school see themselves as attempting to insure that he will be able to support himself and have a bright future rather than as doing him irreparable harm. The parents in my household study also had positive views of vocational training provided as the final segment of basic elementary education. When I presented them with a scenario of children being able to receive vocational training after Standard VIII or X in lieu of continuing on with more formal education at those times, most of my respondents felt that would be a good option for their children. The concerns enumerated above about job scarcity and bribery were sometimes interwoven into study participants’ discourse regarding vocational training: “Getting trained is better, because they will learn all these jobs well, which will be helpful for their future. If he studies even up to SSLC or B.Com., he can’t get a job. Even if we pay money as a bribe, no job.” Vocational education was also viewed as a beneficial choice in the context of the lack of affordability of higher education. As one father said: “The thing is, if we want to educate our children further we need money. Since, we don’t have much money, it is wise to give them basic education and then admit them to such vocational courses. By doing so, we will be ensuring that our children will have a good future.” Other parents saw the choice more in terms of being practical about children’s interests. One observed: “If the children have no interest in education, they can take up a course like this and later start working. Then, they can earn money and take care of their parents and run the family.”

259 Working children were also generally positive about vocational education. One self-employed older boy said: “I think is very good. Instead of studying, learning a trade, a craft will be very helpful to them in the future. It is a very good idea.” Another boy who had been working as a masonry assistant for two years and felt he was working his way up in the field challenged my assertion that the children pictured in some of my child labor photos would not have a good future unless they got a formal education: “If children work hard and save money, later they can do supervisory work and can lead comfortable lives even without good education.” Even some middle class mothers participating in a focus group expressed reservations about a university degree being more of a guarantee of a good job and insured future over on-the-job training in a “blue collar” trade. One of them remarked:
For a 7th standard boy, money is important. A degree holder, if he earns, [it might be] 4000 rupees. Suppose this boy also can earn 4,000 rupees. What is wrong? Let him work, he is flourishing. He is settling in life early.

Conclusion: Educational Obstacles as a Cause of Child Labor - Reality or Excuses? This chapter examines many aspects of the education system in India in general and more specifically the system as it functions in some of Mysore’s low-income areas. Such a high degree of attention has been given to the subject based on the fact that universal compulsory elementary education dominates the discourse and policy initiatives of NGOs and international agencies dealing with the child labor issue, with it being offered as the chief remedy for eradicating the problem. The narratives of my household study participants, key informants, and focus groups members supported by the observations of Indian education experts and data from studies conducted in India,

260 however, raise questions as to whether education can be the “magic bullet” for child labor. These data problematize the assertion that high-quality free education capable of equipping a child for good employment is readily obtainable by every Indian child regardless of their household’s socioeconomic status. Moreover, they demonstrate that there exist numerous factors associated with the home and school environments that work alone or in combination as obstacles to children successfully pursuing an education or even worse to push children out of school. Consideration of such factors is vital towards understanding the decision-making processes of poor parents who sustain the child labor pool. On the other hand, a dose of healthy skepticism is warranted when evaluating the claims parents make when the facts at first glance may put them in bad light. It is reasonable to think that resident of the low-income areas of Mysore, like most of those of any social class in India or societies across the world, prefer to be regarded by others as being “good parents”. Thus some at least may lie when the truth would increase their culpability for the fact that their children had dropped out or been removed from school. And indeed in some households this appeared to be the case. Visiting the same households over more than a year’s time and conducting interviews on a variety of themes allowed the chance for stories about a child’s former education career or initiation into work to come up in a variety of contexts and forms. For example, in one telling the reason a child dropped out might be that they had no interest. At another telling the story would be that the household at the time had been having severe economic problems, so the child was taken out of school. Sometimes I noticed the contradictions in stories and

261 tried to reconcile them, but often the circumstances surrounding a child’s leaving school remained hazy. In some cases that haziness remained even at the end of the study. But as I have illustrated, factors at home and in school can combine in a synergistic manner that ends in a child leaving school, with it difficult to pinpoint any one particular reason for it happening. So although a boy’s parents may have pulled him out of school (contrary to their recounting that he had dropped out), it may very well have been true that he already was not keeping up in school and frequently cutting classes. Even stories of a time in a household’s past when hard times had led to an inability to meet education expenses sometimes contained vague mentions of a husband going through some (possibly alcohol-related) problems at the time. Therefore, while some informants may not have told me the complete truth in an attempt to save face and avoid moral blame for their child’s situation (i.e. being prematurely out of school and working), the sheer weight of the common experiences and problems associated with children’s education related to me by my informants calls into question the view that free compulsory education is the solution to the child labor problem. The veracity what they reported to me is supported by the observations of education researchers across India. The data show that many while many poor parents value educating their children, they question the quality of government schools, have difficulty and less than adequate cooperation from the school system in controlling children’s truancy, and believe that the prime purpose of education (at least for boys) should be to enable a child to get a good job. That purpose, they believe, is not confirmed by the reality of their observations, with corruption being a major culprit. The belief of

262 anti-child labor NGOs, the state and central government, and international agencies that education is inherently good for children and should be mandatory for them appears to minimize or even delegitimize such concerns. The data presented above, moreover, demonstrates that there are many “roads” to a child leaving school and becoming a child laborer. Therefore, to effectively deal with the child labor dilemma requires going beyond the mantra of compulsory education to begin thinking of the problem as one requiring attention upstream within the web of interrelated socioeconomic, environmental, and cultural factors whose interaction provides the context within which the negative end results occur.

263 CHAPTER 8: ALCOHOL ABUSE AND CHILD LABOR

In the four previous chapters I have documented many factors influencing whether a child is sent to school or work. A theme that frequently arose in my discourse with parents was the impact of alcohol consumption in low-income households as a prime reason children end up working. Habitual drinkers negatively impact on their households’ well-being. First, they inadequately (if at all) contribute to household economics, diverting their own earnings as well as sometimes those of other household members to the purchase of alcohol. Alcohol abuse is also a contributing factor to male illness and injury, which results in a further diversion of household economic resources to medical and funerary expenses. Moreover, men that drink daily commonly create a disruptive social atmosphere in the home and are abusive towards their children and wives. Children living in such a home environment find it difficult to study. Studies of the causes of child labor and the impact of efforts to eliminate the problem have to this time not adequately examined the connection between alcohol abuse, government alcohol sales and enforcement policies, and the prevalence of child labor in low-income areas. Recognition of a syndemic linkage between community habitual alcohol use, negative youth behaviors (such as tobacco use), and a high prevalence of child labor requires a careful examination of government policies. Have such policies contributed indirectly but noticeably to the child labor problem? This chapter explores the relationship of alcohol sales and consumption norms to child labor in study households.

264

Public Discourse on Alcohol Policy in Karnataka: Temperance Promotion vs. Increasing Availability Much of the information I reference about the politics of alcohol consumption and regulation in Karnataka comes from newspaper articles I collected over the course of my research. I also collected data on alcohol use during my household study and made observations during the course of my research. That all aspects of alcohol use and sales remain contentious issues is evidenced by the content of news stories and political cartoons I collected. 51 Articles in my collection concerning alcohol can be roughly categorized by three sub-themes: temperance promotion, community protests, and regulatory decisions. Temperance promotion efforts in the state are coordinated by the State Temperance Board with active participation of various religious institutions, social organizations, and women’s self-help groups. An October, 2003 article announced a statewide anti-smoking and drinking campaign to be conducted by a newly formed voluntary organization (The Hindu 2003a: 12). But the bulk of news coverage of the temperance issue involved repeat pronouncements of success by the temperance board’s president at various locations around Karnataka. According to one such statement, the board had been active in over 1,000 villages in the state and had helped approximately 5,000 people quit drinking, presumably in the previous year. At the same event the board’s president also announced 20,000 rupee (approximately US $430) grants to each of the state’s districts for use in anti-drinking programs (The Hindu 2004a: 3). A second

51

For examples of the latter see Figures 43-44 in Appendix B.

265 article reported the president proclaiming at another event additional board achievements, including the distribution of 5,000 booklets containing messages from respected religions figures against drinking written and the posting of cautionary messages on billboards situated on main highways (The Hindu 2003b: 3). At an appearance in a third city the president announced that the board had also sponsored street theater performances with an anti-drinking message amongst Dalits and other marginalized communities as well as large de-addiction camps. In addition, the temperance board had cooperated with community groups in having liquor outlets moved away from locations close to schools and places of worship. The most interesting section of the article, however, is one in which the president responds to a reporter’s question regarding the seeming contradiction between the board’s mission and state alcohol policy. The newspaper notes: “He said the activities of the Board were in no way contradictory to the Government promoting the sale of liquor through the Excise Department. The Board was closely coordinating with the Excise Department to ensure strict checks on the sale of spurious liquor, especially in tribal hamlets where such instances were high” (The Hindu 2003c: 4). Data collected during fieldwork stand in contradiction to the broad claims of success made by the president of the State Temperance Board. The board’s activities in Mysore City appeared to be extremely limited. During my daily travels around Mysore’s poorer areas I came across just one billboard having an anti-drinking message. It was small in size, not in a prominent location, and not within one of the areas of the city in

266 which alcohol abuse is a serious problem. 52 The board, however, did have a booth at the large fair held around the time of Mysore’s internationally famous Dasara festival. 53 I visited the booth to get information about the board’s activities in Mysore. But when I inquired about the location of the board’s office in Mysore I was told that everything was run out of Bangalore and there were no contact persons or ongoing programs in Mysore because of budget constraints. This information as well my observations around Mysore would seem to support a journalist’s assertion that temperance boards around India “do little more than release advertisements in newspapers showing a bottle marked with the familiar skull and crossbones” (Chengappa 1986: 43). Articles dealing with the theme of community protests against alcohol mirror the pattern of activism reported for other areas of the country. Protests occurred in poor marginalized communities ravaged by alcohol dependency, although some also occurred in higher socioeconomic settings. Of the former type is an article reporting a demonstration in a rural area of Mysore district by members of women’s self-help groups in coordination with a larger state Dalit organization. The protesters charged that officials in the Excise Department had conspired with producers and sellers of illegal alcohol to import and sell tainted neera (toddy) at unauthorized shops throughout the taluk 54 and that the sale of such alcohol had negatively impacted the health of numerous residents as

See Figure 45 in Appendix B. The exhibition covers a large fairgrounds not far from the city center and consists largely of stalls with goods for sale from around the country, food concessions, religious organizations spreading their messages, and NGOs promoting their agendas. Figures 46-48 in Appendix B show the front and inside of the State Temperance Board’s booth at the Dasara Exhibition. Figure 49 shows a piece of anti-alcohol literature distributed by the board. Note the depiction of domestic violence. 54 Taluk is the designation used in Karnataka for an administrative district comparable in status to a county in the United States. There are 175 taluks in the state.
53

52

267 well the peaceful environment of the community (The Hindu 2003d: 3). Another of the articles in my collection chronicles a similar event, but this time in a relatively prosperous section of Mysore City. The protest, led by several prominent citizens, was organized against the opening of a combination bar and restaurant in a residential area (Star of Mysore 2003a: 10). The third sub-theme of the alcohol-related articles in my clipping file concerns regulatory decisions. The year 2003 was one of substantial activity in the area of alcohol regulation. Two years after a major report from the Karnataka Tax Reforms Commission identified the need to rectify severe problems in the state’s excise tax system, action was taken on a number of fronts. An April 2003 article reported that the Karnataka State Slum Clearance Board had decided to make use of provisions of a 1978 law to rid slum areas of arrack and toddy shops as well as moneylending and pawnbroking establishments (Vittal 2003: 5). If this were accomplished it would be a major move towards controlling alcohol abuse in such areas. While I do not have data on the implementation of this policy announcement I do have an observation that calls its utility into question. As I pointed out earlier, based on data I obtained at the Mysore office of the Karnataka State Slum Clearance Board “official” slum areas under the aegis of the board make up only a portion of the areas in Mysore that might reasonably be classified as impoverished. Therefore, moving a liquor outlet 20 meters beyond the boundary of an official slum will do little to control alcohol sales in the locality as a whole. Also important to note, during the same year plans were announced in the press for new liquor licenses to be granted in the state. The state’s excise minister justified the

268 decision as constituting a response to increased demand for liquor due to population growth. He asserted that failing to increase the number of licenses issued would lead to greater consumption of illegal alcohol. To distance the government from charges of corruption via bid-rigging for arrack vending licenses, the minister announced that from the next auction onward the process of license allocation would be conducted online (The Hindu 2003e: 4). However, a few months later, in response to the plan to issue additional liquor licenses a leader of the main opposition party in the state accused then Chief Minister S. M. Krishna of being in the pocket of special interests, asserting: “He has lost the spandana (response) of the people. He has only spandana for liquor and online lottery lobby” (The Hindu 2003f: 4). Despite opposition criticism, the state’s excise minister announced in early 2004 that 582 new liquor licenses would be issued later in the year for wine shops and bar/restaurant establishments (The Hindu 2004b: 4). Information gathered illustrates over and over again that policy decisions surrounding the licensing of alcoholic 55 beverage establishments in Karnataka are contradictory and contentious. An additional aspect of alcohol control affected poor areas of Mysore. This is the distribution of illegal factory-made alcoholic beverages. In 2001 the Karnataka Tax Reforms Commission found there was massive tax evasion by alcohol producers in the state. Producers of Indian Made Foreign Liquor 56 were distributing huge amounts of lower-taxed export-certified liquor to local markets in addition to quantities of the same

Such tax evasion was also rampant during the 1980s, but was eventually curtailed by a major government crackdown (Manor 1985: 65-75). 56 Indian Made Foreign Liquor refers to domestically produced brands of scotch, vodka, etc.

55

269 beverages licensed for local consumption. At the same time the state’s two legal arrack distilleries were similarly supplying large quantities of untaxed alcohol to the black market. The commission estimated that the state had lost an average of 10 billion rupees (approximately US$235) million in combined excise and sales tax revenues per year in two recent years due to the illegal practices of liquor manufacturers. Responding to the commission’s report of such gross violations of the law, the state went on to create a new corporation whose sole duty was to oversee wholesale alcohol distribution. In addition, it increased excise tax rates for alcohol exports in order to deter manufacturers from falsely classifying their output. Finally, the state planned to take control of the warehousing of rectified and denatured spirits to prevent their diversion into illegal alcohol production and increase inspection of all alcohol production and sales facilities. The words of the head of the commission whose proposals spurred such changes again illustrate how inappropriate or ineffective government alcohol control policies may negatively impact poor communities. Former Chief Minister Veerappa Molly noted: “[F]or the policymaker, therefore, the objective would be to combine a moderately high tax rate with effective enforcement practices that could rapidly detect and plug revenue leakages to ensure that availability of non-duty paid liquor is controlled in the interest of the health and well-being of low-income families” (Jayaram 2003: 14). During community interviews informant comments about lack of enforcement, official corruption, and illegal sales of alcohol mirrored the content of newspaper articles. There was a notable contradiction between the government’s public discourse and its utter failure to implement temperance efforts in Mysore’s poor communities.

270 Alcohol in the Community: Consumption Practices, Health and Social Impacts, State (Lack of) Regulation My informants’ discourse surrounding the subject of alcohol paints a picture of a community in which alcohol use by adult males has become a quotidian practice that has ravaged the social stability, health, and economy of many households. Much of the discourse I collected about alcohol use was generated in the course of a visual association exercise in which informants were shown cards depicting street or household scenes and asked to make up a story explaining what might be occurring in the picture. Several of theses scenes depicted overt or implied alcohol consumption or sales. Once an informant made up a story it was used as a jumping-off point to discuss alcohol issues within their neighborhood. 57 Additional alcohol-related data, particularly regarding the health or social impact of alcohol abuse, also came up randomly in the course of the various other themed interviews I described in an earlier chapter.

A Strain on the Household Budget, an Added Burden to Women The card that elicited the most discussion and richest information was one that depicted a man sitting in his poorly furnished house drinking alcohol and eating prepared food brought in from the outside while his wife and young children sit nearby helplessly watching. I asked my informants, “Can we see something like this in your neighborhood?” The most common response to my question was that such a scene was common and more generally that most men residing in the area were regular consumers

57

See Figures 33-35 in Appendix B.

271 of alcohol. There is no official neighborhood-level statistical data available for alcohol consumption in Mysore. However, given the ubiquity of informants’ responses it is reasonable to suspect that alcohol abuse is a very serious community problem. Both female and male informants were blasé when disclosing that high alcohol consumption was commonplace in the community (almost as if with an attitude of, “Everybody knows that. Why are you asking?”). Women and non-drinking males, however, often provided more emotive revelations about the various ways children and households were impacted by male adult bread-winners’ habitual drinking and alcohol availability. Comments most frequently referred to household economics. A common observation by informants was that a drinker’s wife had to work hard to make up for her husband’s failure to provide for her and their children and more explicitly to keep the family from going hungry. They exhibited extensive personal knowledge of such situations. A mother spoke of men in the area: “It will be common here. When he gets money at the end of the week, he may say I want to drink and eat.” Her sister added the example of a neighbor: “There was a lady stitching here…Her husband drinks daily and doesn’t give any money. She stitches flowers and sells them.” Another woman whose main income came from rolling agarbathi (sometimes aided by her school-going daughter) told me:
There are many, sir…Most of the men come home, spending all the money on drinks. What does the family do for food?...If it is someone like me who works, we can at least feed our children.

During the course of an interview with the mother of a working girl the woman’s grown daughter explained why she was again living in her parents’ home: “My husband used to drink a lot. The whole week he would earn and on the day of weekly payment he would blow it all on alcohol and come home and fight with me. He gave money to run

272 the house whenever he felt like it or never bothered to give anything at all.” A middleaged woman who heads her own household told a similar story of the challenges faced by her oldest daughter, a rock-breaker by profession, who had recently spent time in the hospital due to chest pains: “Her husband is not good, a drunkard…He doesn’t give enough money to the house. The doctor had told her not to break rocks.” During an earlier interview the same woman had described problems in her own house having to do with a non-contributing grown son who abused alcohol: “He would ask for money from him [her younger son, a working boy]…He has gone now, I am at peace...He will earn some money, then he will drink and eat till it is gone.”

Mothers Can’t Do it Alone: Filling the Economic Void of Drinking Fathers The wives of drinkers are not the only household members who end up having to help fill the economic shortfall. My questions regarding the alcohol-themed pictures and more generally about alcohol use within the community included one that asked if there was any relationship between such drinking and children having to go to work. This question elicited strong responses from female informants. A mother explained: “They don’t give money for food, they drink it off…If the father is a drinker, who will take care of the mother, younger sisters, older sisters? So the children have to earn money to run the family.” Another mother reported having personal knowledge of many households in which the relationship exists: “Yes, there are many boys. Some of them leave school. The mother may say, ‘Your father is a drunkard, I can’t pay the fees, so you stop school and go to work.’” A father also felt there was a connection between men drinking and

273 their children going to work, asking rhetorically, “How much can the mother do alone?” His wife answered my question even more emphatically in the affirmative and went on to include a real-life example: “Just yesterday, a man left behind his wife and 5 children and walked out…If the father does not earn or doesn’t give anything to the family, the mother becomes desperate and cannot feed the children. So the children work somewhere.” A father who formerly drank also emotionally answered the same question: “I am telling you. See, if I spend 100 rupees for drinking, what will the people at home do?” Another informant, in the course of an interview on girl’s work, saw a father’s drinking habit as being a prime factor in cases where a girl is sent to do what was considered by many informants to be one of the worst jobs, that of a bonded servant: “Only those who are very poor, who can’t send them to school and who can’t feed them, also. Such children can be [sent]…If the husband is a drunkard.”

Sympathetic Perceptions of Men that Drink A rather different explanation of the connection between child labor and alcohol abuse was offered by a counselor at a Mysore alcohol addiction treatment center. The counselor’s comments suggest another less obvious dynamic relationship between the two problems. She explained to me:
People cannot understand. One more reason for drinking is actually child labor. Some of them start working when they are 9 years old. They are easily tempted. They were deprived of childhood. They felt bad…When they grow up, they will be fed-up and frustrated.

Some community members also spoke of alcohol consumption by working men in sympathetic terms, describing their drinking as a form of self-medication necessitated by the extremely strenuous nature of their manual labor jobs. A female neighbor of an

274 informant told me: “Nowadays everybody drinks…After a hard day’s work they drink… They can’t sleep well at night.” In the course of discussions of the “moral risk” associated with some types of work done by boys that came up during another themed interview several of my informants spoke in the same empathetic manner of the drinking done by boys or men who do certain types of difficult work. Describing the moral risk associated with her husband’s occupation of cement plastering, a woman told me: “Because it is a very painful, the hardest job. So at the end of the day, he will want to drink with friends.” A working boy described such risk for a boy doing coolie work: “He has to carry sacks, he will be tired. Then he may have to drink.” A careful reading of discourse surrounding the phenomenon of children working as a result of a drinking father draws attention to children’s feelings of agency, moral responsibility, and altruism towards their mother and younger siblings. Conjecturing about a card scene depicting a boy watching his parents have an altercation, a mother explained: “Maybe he might feel that he must stop studying and go for some work…He thinks his father is a heavy drinker and his mother can’t do anything.” Another mother described her daughter’s motivation for beginning to roll agarbathi: “Those days my husband used to drink a lot. She felt, ‘My mother is working [too] hard.’” A child’s motivation to work out of concern for their mother may also be connected to the prevalence of alcohol use-related domestic violence in poor communities. This issue emerged in chapter 4 and will be looked at in greater detail below.

275 Who Drinks? A complete understanding of the impact of alcohol in poor communities requires a more thorough examination of both local drinking practices and the cumulative effect of drinking on the household production of health. In my research areas, drinking was largely but not entirely an adult male activity. A woman pondering a scenario for a card showing a man drinking at home offered an explanation based on her knowledge of the situation on her own street: “The mother also may drink. Look at the way she is sitting…Look at our neighbors, how they are.” The response of a working girl to my question of whether many people drink at home in her neighborhood echoed the perception that a growing number of women are consuming alcohol: “Yes, many people drink. Many people drink, and their wives also drink with them.” Women employed in certain occupations were singled out as being drinkers, although the characteristic that most links them to consuming alcohol may merely be the fact that they generate their own income. A father singled out the women in his neighborhood who roll agarbathi: “Most of the ladies who roll, eat and drink well. All the money they get will go to their food, not to their family.” A female informant pointed to women in her area who receive the steady pay of government (most likely, manual labor) jobs, criticizing such women as supplementing drinking fathers as a negative role model: “You see on this street, ladies drink…Women in government jobs…So their children think, ‘When my mother is drinking, why shouldn’t we?’”

276

Children’s Drinking How common is drinking among children in communities where they are exposed to alcohol? Some of the data from small Indian studies suggest that drinking prevalence amongst youth is generally low, although it can vary significantly by area (Mohan et al 1979; Chakravarthy 1990; Kishore et al 1999). In my research areas there was some disagreement about how common drinking was amongst the local youth population and at what age children started to drink. A father who is a regular drinker asserted that youth drinking was limited to a specific “bad element”: “But under 18 year old, boys generally don’t do it. At least 90 % of them don’t…Only boys who keep bad company.” His working teenage son, however, immediately contradicted his statement saying, “Boys at 12 also drink.” A female informant noted the ubiquity of the problem in her area and the young age at which drinking stated: “Yes, they drink. By 15-16 years old they start drinking and smoking beedis.” Responding to a question about the problems faced by 12 to 18-year-old boys in her neighborhood, a mother said: “Yes, boys smoke beedis, cigarettes. If they have money, they go to drink.” Another mother told me: “If the boy doesn’t go to school, his parents may not give him money. Then he has to work. Once he earns, he may start drinking.” The two previous comments remind us of data presented in chapter 5 in which parents identified the moral risk to boys at some work sites as their using their wages to drink. Given that access to money is a key enabling factor for drinking, it is doubtful that youth below 15 years old drink on a regular basis because young children receive only a meager salary. Nevertheless, the fact that many of my

277 informants mentioned that some drinking occurs amongst children under 15 years old and is common after age 17-18 indicates that underage drinking may be a problem in some of Mysore’s poor neighborhoods. I do not believe that alcohol usage among children is as significant a factor in causing child labor as that of adults. Youth drinking may in some cases, however, be one of a number of negative habits that contribute to a boy’s academic failure and early entry into the workforce. Unemployed idle youth with bad habits such as smoking and drinking also serve as negative role models for younger children still in school.

The Geography of Alcohol Consumption The number of shops selling alcohol in my seven research areas ranged from 0 in two cases to 4 in one neighborhood. Bars and arrack or neera shops are locations where men commonly congregate in the evening for drinking and socializing.58 Another prime location for drinking is a man’s own home. Drinking in each of these locations has its own risks to wives and children. Drinking at a public establishment offers a man the benefit of comradery with friends and acquaintances. Such locations are often visited on the way home from work with one’s pay in pocket. A risk of drinking in a public place is that a man may end up spending more than he would have liked to. Many informants spoke of men engaging in excessive and irresponsible drinking in such establishments as the result of their interacting with others. The manager of a child labor hostel offered a modest estimate of

58

See Figures 50-52.

278 expenditures on alcohol, but put that amount within the context of other outflows from the minimal daily wages of a manual laborer (often 70-100 rupees per day): “They spend 10 rupees on beedies, minimum 20 rupees on arrack…Another 10 rupees for bus fare. What will he bring home?” 59 A young woman participating in my household study spoke about the same class of workers living in her neighborhood: “When I say poor people, they are the ones who spend all they earn on drinking…Even if they go for gaare kelasa [cement plastering], they get 75-80 rupees. But they don’t spend it wisely; they spend it all on drinking.” Responding to questions about one of the alcohol-themed cards, three married sisters shared their knowledge about men’s expenditures on drinking. One told me: “They will drink, no limit…Sometimes he may borrow money and drink.” A second sister agreed: “If they earn 150 rupees, it goes there only.” But the third sister, the central participant in the interview, gave a lower and more contextualized estimation of her husband’s alcohol expenditures: “My husband drinks daily. 50 rupees for drinks, 50 rupees for loans, and 50 for the family…He gives 50 rupees plus groceries.” A working boy offered a similar estimation of a higher paid cement plasterer’s drinking expenses: “He gets 150 rupees and drinks with 40-50 rupees…If they have more money they will drink more.” Such figures may be compared to those of a 1991 study conducted at a rural health center near Bangalore where researchers found that a large proportion (60%) of habitual drinkers spent more than 500 rupees a month on alcohol, with another 30%

59

At the time of my research arrack was selling in Mysore for 10 rupees per 100 ml. sachet, a sachet being a small rectangular-shaped plastic bag. It has been reported that it costs only 1 rupee to produce a liter of the same beverage (Prasad 1992: 53).

279 spending the still significant amount of 250-500 rupees for such consumption (Philips and Sumana 1991 as cited in Isaac 1998: 164). At least some of the high expense of drinking may be due to a man fulfilling his social obligations. A male informant who drinks regularly explained: “It is the same cost, whether you drink at home or at the bar. But in the bar what happens is, when you are drinking and a friend walks in, can you drink without buying for him?” His father, also a drinker, elaborated: “I would have drunk at your expense, so I too will have to treat you some day.” A number of other factors cause some men to prefer drinking at home. Men that stop off at an alcohol shop on the way home from work face the unpleasant possibility of being aggressively confronted in public by a moneylender to whom they owe money. As I was told by a part-time working girl: “Some people who want to avoid facing the man who has given him a loan get the liquor through their children and drink it at home.” Her older married sister added: “Even our father does that.” Risks to family reputation and physical safety also influence some men to do their drinking at home. The former refers to the ways in which others in the community may judge a man’s family negatively due to his heavy drinking. In the course of creating a story for the card scene depicting a father drinking at home a male informant who himself had been a drinker in the not-too-distant past provided insight into the stigma a man casts on his family: “The wife, girls may think, ‘What about our family prestige?’…There may be problems with the daughters' marriage.” Drinking at bars and arrack shops is also

280 associated with the physical risk of brawling. One former heavy drinker explained: “When they are drunk, they tend to argue more. This may lead to fighting.” The potential for falling down dead drunk on the way home was another physical risk that motivated men to drink at home. To put the possibility of such occurrences into perspective one must consider the poor physical infrastructure in the areas in which I conducted my research. Most of the narrow side-lanes of these areas have little if any lighting. Moreover, their surface is generally unpaved and sometimes uneven. On the sides of some are narrow open 2-3 foot deep drainage ditches. During the monsoon season a heavy flow of water makes such streets even more difficult for pedestrians to travel on. When I asked a male informant why a man depicted on the card might choose to drink at home rather than in a bar, he replied: “If he drinks there [in a bar] he is scared that he may overdrink, fall down on the road. So it is better here.” Stories of such mishaps were common. A woman spoke of a relative’s experience:
Her brother had fallen into the drain [ditch]. His son went and got him…If he doesn’t come home on time she is sure he must be drunk and may be on the road or in the drain [ditch]. ‘Please go see about your father.’

Informants reported that some fathers go so far as to proactively take a son with them when they go drinking, anticipating needing his help getting home after drinking heavily. They spoke of the risk to boys of such a practice. One woman whose father had taken her with him to a wine shop when she was young said: “Yes, they go. Fathers buy some snacks for the children, the father may drink…If the father takes him regularly, he will be ruined.” A male informant had a similar opinion: “It is all habit. If a father takes a

281 son with him to the arrack shop, he may ask the son to drink. One may say ‘no,’ the other may just accept and gradually make it a habit.”

Drinking at Home An alternative to drinking publicly at an alcohol shop is to drink at home. Most of the benefits of drinking at home are merely the inverse of the problems mentioned above associated with drinking at a shop – saving money by not having to buy drinks for friends, steering clear of barroom brawls, maintaining a better reputation in the community, avoiding being confronted by moneylenders, and not having to deal with a difficult drunken navigation home. A female informant added another to the list – a man can have his wife prepare a fresh-cooked snack for him. Many wives stated that they preferred their husbands to drink at home. One mimicked the words of a typical wife from the area: “If you drink and fall outside, what can I do? So only drink at home.” However, drinking at home is not without its risks to other family members. Men who consume large amounts of alcohol frequently behave in ways that creates a volatile and toxic home environment with both proximate and distal outcomes for other family members. In some cases such drinking leads to violence against women in the house or shameful behavior when drunk husbands attempt to have sex with their wives oblivious to the presence of children. Women spoke of the negative influence on children when men routinely drank at home. Doing so introduces his children to the culture of drinking at an early age. In many cases men use their children as “gofers” to initially obtain or replenish their alcohol

282 supplies. Some of my informants spoke of this practice as being markedly improper. The older sister of a working girl said: “[If he does like this] the son may follow the father[‘s footsteps] in the future.” Her mother added: “If he has money he may slowly learn to drink.” Another woman noted: “[This practice] is bad. But a father [who does such things] is not a good father, so he doesn’t feel anything. If he is a good father, he will not send him.” Yet another woman commented on the shame and stress felt by a child whose father is a habitual drinker:
They feel bad for having gotten such a father… ‘We have gotten such a father. How can I move with my friends?’ Children will be tense.

A major impact of drinking on children was being subjected to the verbal, physical, and mental abuse inflicted on them by an inebriated father. Mothers tried to shield children from such abuse but were often the target of abuse themselves, making for a fear-ridden home environment. References to such abuse have already come up in various other parts of this dissertation and bear further comment. If I had to pick out the alcohol-related theme that arose most frequently in my interviews it would be that of wife abuse. The prevalence of such a problem in India has been extensively documented by researchers in recent years (Rao 1997; Miller 1999; Gerstein 2000; Verma and Collumbien 2003; Hassan et al 2004; Krishnan 2005). These accounts, however, did not prepare me for what I encountered in Mysore on a regular basis. I heard heartbreaking personal tales and observed the aftermath of family discord related to drinking. One woman spoke of a family living near her: “Our neighbor is a heavy drinker. He beats his children and wife…[and now the children] are not going to school.” An unmarried young female informant who heads her household told me that

283 among her neighbors the drinking-at-home-wife-abuse syndrome was very common: “I don’t know about in other areas, but here I have seen many men who carry their drinks home, beat the wife, and throw them out.” Such abuse constitutes not just physical abuse but emotional and economic abuse and social instability at home and between drinking men and neighbors. I wished to learn whether there was anything a woman who did not want her husband to drink at home could say or do to influence the situation. The general response to this was that at the best the man would ignore his wife and at the worst it could incite him to greater abuse. When I asked a male informant whether the woman pictured on a card could say anything to her husband shown drinking at home his reply was quick and concise: “If she says, ‘Don’t drink!’, she is sure of getting beaten.” His wife added, “Yes. Guaranteed.” Another woman offered a typical exchange between a married couple about the subject: “Sometimes the wife may say, ‘Don’t do like this. What will the neighbors think?’…Then he says, ‘Let them think anything. I work hard and earn, and I will drink.’” On an earlier occasion the same woman replied in a similarly fatalistic tone to a somewhat more general question about whether there was anything a woman could do to get her husband to quit drinking. Her response was: “Nothing. Husbands will say, ‘I may leave you, but not drinking.’” A 19-year-old youth offered his observations of the problem of drinking as it manifests in his neighborhood: “The wife will say something, but he [the husband] will

284 not listen. It is a common sight of them quarreling always.” Another informant 60 concurred and elaborated on that theme: “If she is scared of the husband, she keeps her mouth shut. But if she is not scared of him, then she will protest and ask him why he is not giving anything to the house and fight with him.” The man’s elderly mother immediately added that the most common response to a wife’s request for money to run the house would be “I cannot and will not give you anything.” Another female informant commented on the lot of women when fights over money occurred with a drunken husband:
She will say it [the money] is for the care of the children…She will not give it to him…She will bear it [her husband’s beating] for the sake of her children….I have faced lots of problems earlier. He would make us sit outside.

Alcohol Abuse Leads to Wife Abuse Women and children are double victims of a man’s drunken abusive behavior at home. They are immediate victims of physical and verbal violence and suffer on a longterm basis as a result of a man’s decimation of the household’s production of health. Women have few options in how to deal with such a situation:
What can she do? He may beat her and quarrel, shouting. And he may use bad words. The neighbors are disturbed…So the house owners may ask them to vacate the house. So the wife and children sit quietly.

Although I heard from many women about the prevalence of alcohol-associated spousal abuse in my research neighborhoods, the most shocking revelation on the subject came in the course of an interview with a male informant. I always spoke with this particular man, who was a busy tradesman, during his lunch break at home. Even though
This man, married and in his late twenties, rarely worked and was characterized by his elderly mother as being a lazy non-contributor. Both he and his elderly father regularly drank alcohol.
60

285 his wife was generally present at such times, she rarely volunteered any information and in general appeared to be rather sullen and disinterested in the study. I was completely taken aback by her behavior during a picture card exercise related to alcohol use-associated themes I was conducting with her husband. She burst out with a tragic personal story of abuse by her husband that illustrates the true depth of the impact drinking can have on households. I have included the complete exchange from that interview below because it realistically conveys the dilemmas faced by women and children living in homes in which the male head of the household is a heavy drinker. The exchange began with the man’s reply to the previously mentioned question of whether a woman can do anything about her husband drinking at home. Notably, her husband was answering the question in general rather than personal terms, as if commenting about others in the community. This may have been what triggered his wife to speak out so emotionally.
Husband: What can she do? If she talks they beat her--Wife: It’s the same problem with him. I am suffering like mad. I don’t get a wink of sleep. I feel like dying somewhere. Husband: It’s the same situation here. I am worried about [our mortgage] loan. Assistant: How can you do something like this? You are so knowledgeable. Husband: What to do, sir? I am worried about the loan. Wife: What loan, sir? Will it be repaid if we fight? They’ll throw us out. He can give us poison instead. Assistant: Seeing you[r] [face], I knew something [bad] had happened in th[is] house. Wife: This is a regular problem, every week or fortnight. He [husband] doesn’t [allow] us to work in [anyone’s] house, either. Husband: How can I send her, sir? Wife: At least if we work in somebody’s house, they will give us something. The children and I can eat that. When he [husband] comes home drunk, he hits me and doesn’t spare the kids either.

286 Alternative Views on Men’s Drinking Thus far I have largely presented women’s perspectives on the negative impact a husband’s drinking has on his family and the household production of health. Women asserted that putting children into contact with alcohol in any context serves as a harmful example, whether it be as a young observer eating snacks while a father drinks at a shop, as a guide and physical support sent to help a drunken father home, as a gofer to replenish a father’s alcohol supplies, or as a witness to drinking at home. Not all of my informants, however, felt that children were put at risk through such contact. Indeed, a notable proportion felt such behavior might have the opposite effect. A male informant challenged the idea that being sent to take a drunk father home is harmful to a boy: “I don’t think there will be a bad effect. But the boy will be scared that his father might get into a drunken brawl and feels it is better if he comes home and lies down.” Others felt a boy would even be repulsed by a father’s drunkenness and perhaps even try to get the father to mend his ways. During a card exercise a working boy imagined the thoughts of a boy pictured on a card observing his mother and father quarrelling about the man’s drinking having caused household economic problems. According to him the boy was thinking: “My father is a drunkard. I should not learn to drink like him.” A young woman made up the story behind a picture showing a boy guiding his drunken father home: “The child is crying, it is calling the father home. It is asking him not to drink. ‘Are you not ashamed?’” The young woman’s mother, while curtly agreeing such a man might indeed come home, added: “Some fathers may slap him for talking like that”. Constructing a scenario for a different card, a woman suggested the

287 boy pictured would have a similar reaction, and then went on to relate the scene to reality:
The boy may say, ‘Don’t drink. Earn some money and give it to run the family.’…Nowadays they all ask. But if he asks he might get beaten...He may ask his father after seeing it again and again.

A young female informant also felt that boy would be repulsed by his drinking father’s behavior. Like a woman quoted above she rejected the proposition that a boy sent to retrieve his drunken father will be negatively impacted:
No. In fact it will serve as a lesson for him. [H]e feels so disgusted and ashamed of his father’s behavior that he will decide never to become like that. Isn’t it so shameful for him, also, to see his father in such a state?...He’ll feel really bad when he sees people drunk, fallen on the streets…His health is also spoilt and the boy will realize that, too.

Some spoke from first-hand experience. A working boy who ran a night canteen with his drunken father did not himself drink and spoke disparagingly of his father’s harmful habit. A woman gave her view of her two sons’ attitude towards alcohol use: “Looking at their father, they have not gone into the drinking habit.” Another woman began speaking generally about whether boys are influenced by a father’s drinking, gradually weaving her own household’s story into her explanation. The woman’s husband’s early death and more specifically the huge medical bills that resulted from the man’s medical treatment just preceding it had necessitated her renting out her house as well as removing her two boys from school and sending them to work. She told me:
The boys may want to be responsible and good. They will not drink. Sons of drinkers will never become drinkers.... ‘He is drinking and suffering.’ His friends may tease the son about the father. So he must not drink, he feels…You are asking whether they learn. ‘Our father died because of drinking. At least let us be good,’ they may think. …[T]hey are good sons. I guarantee. My husband was bad, but my sons are good, sir.

288 How Families Cope with Drinking Many informants spoke of the desperation such women feel, noting they had to bear such hardship in silence. There remain however, some extreme choices that may be made. A male informant commenting on a card depicting a man drinking and eating at home in front of his sad-looking family explained one possible outcome: “Sometimes if this continues daily the wife and children may attempt suicide.” A woman whose husband died from alcohol abuse offered some other scenarios that may occur when women and children reach a breaking point: “That’s why it happens…[T]he son will marry someone, the daughter will elope, and the mother may marry again…They are fed up with this situation, so they may go away…‘When my father drinks always, why should I stay at home?’” Neighbors aware of a man’s heavy drinking and abusive behavior may on occasion intervene to prevent serious outcomes. One woman spoke to me about her husband modifying his drinking and beating pattern. She said: “[T]he neighbors talked to him, counseled him, and so he has cut down.” 61 My own sense is that this case was rare and that intervention does not take place unless the person is a relative. For the most part informants told me they did not meddle in the affairs of other households. A young woman responding to a question about whether neighbors can say anything when they become aware that a man is eating and drinking at home without providing for his family answered: “They can. But if they try and interfere, the family members will say it is our family matter and why should you poke your nose into it.”
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There are a small number of out-patient and in-patient alcohol de-addiction facilities in Mysore, but they are not as yet commonly sought out by low-income drinkers.

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The Negative Effect of Drinking on Men’s Health I have thus far described a number of ways a man’s habitual drinking can negatively impact the women and children in his household and foster child labor. There remains one additional way a man’s alcohol and tobacco abuse may be associated with a child leaving school for work that deserves discussion: the father’s ill health. My interviews are full of references to male breadwinners who not only failed to provide for family members while drinking but whose family members had to support them during ill health when they could not work yet required health care. Many men in my study communities were physically incapacitated. While it was impossible to pin down the exact medical causes of their illness, my informants frequently put the blame on a man’s heavy alcohol and tobacco use. A woman whose husband was no longer able to fully work due to a stroke that left him unable to use one hand told me: “My husband used to drink and smoke a lot. That is why he suffered a stroke. We have a very difficult time and even now he quarrels with me if I don’t give him money for beedies.” Another woman whose husband’s heart problem had caused him to cut back on his work spoke of the man long-term drinking history: “He used to drink a lot…He started drinking less after he fell ill.” During the course of a general interview about health, a woman said: “So many people die [here] because of drinking.” A woman and her sister spoke of the woman’s husband’s serious health problems. The man had been admitted to a hospital not that long before for chest pains that according to them the doctors had attributed to alcohol and tobacco consumption. The woman told me: “The doctor told him to stop. He

290 has stopped drinking, but still smokes.” The man himself also attributed his health problems, including severe headaches and shortness of breath, to his earlier alcoholabusing lifestyle as well as an attempt at suicide using poison that he had made on one drunken occasion. He told me: “I used to drink at any hour and at all times, so I never realized [the pain]…I can’t work anymore. I have been reduced to nothing by my constant drinking.” A female household study participant related the alcohol-caused health problems of her brother who lived next door:
My brother, too, drinks a lot…He has a bottle at home…He drinks like how they drink coffee…Now he is in the hospital…A kind of liver problem...because of drinking. He has had more than three operations.

In the course of telling me about the marriage her daughter was trying to arrange for her granddaughter (a PUC student), a woman related the difficult situation of that household: “She does not have a father. My son-in-law passed away. He used to drink a lot and died when the children were very young.” Although death might appear to be the worst possible outcome of a man’s alcohol dependency, as one of the previously quoted women noted: “If the husband is dead, it is better. Because whatever she earns goes to his drinking, quarrelling.”

Government Alcohol Regulation in Low-Income Areas: Lax Enforcement, Youth Drinking, Selling from Homes, Community Self-Regulation I have described in some detail how alcohol consumption practices and related behaviors undermine the household production of health in Mysore and lead to child labor. While the attempt to understand how such an alcohol-steeped culture took root in

291 these areas becomes something of a “chicken and egg” exercise, there is no doubt that the corruption in the enforcement of liquor laws has played a major role. I have already documented how underage boys are able to purchase alcohol on their own at the behest of their fathers and how some fathers have a son accompany them to a drinking establishment. But lax alcohol enforcement in my study areas goes much farther than that. I always made it a point when discussing alcohol uses and sales in the community to inquire as to whether underage boys not only are able to purchase alcohol in bars or shops, but also are allowed to drink it there. This was to find out whether alcohol sales to children went beyond those instances in which fathers send their sons to buy it for them. The replies to my question were almost always an unambiguous “yes”, with only the age of such boys varying. A female informant told me: “Yes, they will. All they want is money.” Another woman’s reply to my question is indicative of the laissez-faire attitude towards alcohol in some poor communities: “Yes! What can they do?” A working boy told me that even 15 to16-year-old boys drink at shops, and his father who had been a drinker confirmed the practice: “Yes, they can drink, they drink. Children around 12 years old drink, you see.” A boy whose workplace was very near a neera shop also replied in the affirmative, using a young teenage friend sitting in his shop as an example: “Yes, they serve them…Even younger boys than him will be served…They need business, that’s all.” The young friend added: “I have seen small boys drinking there…Maybe 8 years old.” A drinking man from another neighborhood spoke similarly of children patronizing wine shops in his vicinity: “Oh, yes, they can sit and drink. They just need money...Small children, ladies, and gents all sit inside the shop and they drink.”

292 A woman responded to my assertion that selling to minors violates the law: “But they get money, sir. They are not their children.” It appears that if you are old enough to acquire money, you are old enough to drink. As for the police enforcing liquor laws at such establishments, my informants felt it was unlikely. As one man told me: “If they have a license, why will the police come?...He has paid thousands of rupees and has got a license.” An elderly drinker confirmed the fact from his own experience: “Nobody [no police] comes to the wine shop.” A female informant cogently situated the problem in larger contexts: “The police are not always there. If that was followed there would be no poor people in this area…The government has printed that drinking is harmful to the health, but it is being sold.” An even greater indication of both a lack of alcohol-related law enforcement and the pervasiveness of alcohol use in my research areas was the common mention by my informants of illegal alcohol sales from unregulated locations, most often homes in the community. Although the discourse of my informants included a recounting of occasional raids, the ubiquity of illegal sales implies some complicity on the part of relevant authorities. A woman described such sales in her neighborhood: “Near my house they sell packets [of arrack], on another side they sell liquor…At night people are standing there… They drink and go home quietly; they don’t quarrel on the road.” A woman from another area told a similar tale: “Some of them sell at home, too. On this street three of them are selling.” The woman’s daughter added: “Some of them [men] take it home and drink…Those who are afraid of their wives, they drink it there.”

293 Reference to raids and alcohol law enforcement in general, however, more often included mentions of ineffectiveness, official corruption, the inability or unwillingness of neighbors to complain, and the highly politicized nature of alcohol sales. A young woman told me about the situation in her area: “The police had a raid and they destroyed all the arrack. Now they have started again.” When I asked her why the neighbors of illegal sellers didn’t complain, she replied: “They need to drink, they also drink…Most all of the people here drink. It is very hard to find people who don’t drink.” Another woman identified police complicity in the continued operation of an illegal home-based alcohol-selling business near her home: “The police come every day…He may get free drinks.” The woman’s sister added: “If they bribe them, they go away.” Awareness of the politics of alcohol policy was limited to a group of savvy, middle-aged men. A tailor whose work put him into contact with a cross-section of his community told me: “Now they will not issue a license to open a bar/wine shop in residential areas.” When I gave him the example of one of my research areas he replied: “Maybe the license was issued a long time back. Not a new one. If the residents oppose a wine shop in that area, he will be asked to leave that place.” The most knowledgeable of my informants regarding the politics of alcohol sales and control was a man who had never been to school, but had in earlier years been involved in helping to open an arrack shop. During an early interview with him I asked him to respond to a report mentioned above that the state planned to close arrack shops in slum areas. He told me:
There was some talk about this. The Congress government said they would do it once they came to power. But nothing happened. The government gets all its major revenues from these shops. 500 crore [5 billion] rupees they get from this sector.

294 While a substantial amount of the data presented points to government inability or unwillingness to enforce alcohol sales regulations in low socio-economic areas of Mysore, some communities have embraced alcohol control as their responsibility. A female informant described a ban on alcohol sales in her largely Muslim neighborhood: “There are none [alcohol shops] here, you have to go out of this area…Here they are not permitted to set one up. There is a [Muslim] association here.” In another neighborhood in which a local community development NGO is active residents associated with the NGO enforce a ban on alcohol sales through group actions, going so far as to levy fines (that are donated to a local temple) against those who fail to comply. An informant who served as one of the main enforcers in the area explained:
People will not let them open any shops in this area…Three or fours days ago somebody was selling in the black [market]. We openly caught him and stopped it. So he stopped selling…They were bringing it as if it were a bag of vegetables. They were bringing it from (VL Nagar)…A few people went and drank in that person’s house. I was just passing by and caught them.

But men may resist efforts by community organizations to limit access to alcohol. I was told by a group of women’s self-help group heads that men in other areas had threatened to prevent their wives from participating in groups after anti-arrack and antismoking messages were discussed at meetings. One of the women explained: “In some areas they have forcefully closed some [arrack] shops. It is between husband and wife. We only talk about women’s problems.” Additionally, none of my informants believed that a neighborhood’s lacking a liquor shop prevented men from drinking. As one woman noted: “All of them drink, sir. Some go on a bicycle, on a scooter. Some of them get supplied to their houses.” When I

295 offered the example of a neighborhood that on its own had banned alcohol sales to a male informant from a neighborhood having several alcohol shops, he scoffed:
Yes, in some areas there are no shops. But won’t they drink in other areas?...Oh, drinking is everywhere…They say, ‘We won’t let them sell in [neighborhood’s name],’ but there are more drinkers in [same neighborhood’s name]…Where there is restriction, there will be more loopholes, actually…The government is getting a lot of money as taxes from liquor shops.

Alcohol Abuse and Child Labor: Recognizing the Degree of Linkage This chapter has examined alcohol consumption and sales in low-income areas of Mysore in order to demonstrate the ways that alcohol use directly as well as indirectly leads to child labor. In the short-term, the routine diversion of male income to the purchase of alcohol leaves many poor households unable to meet their basic needs, severely constraining the household production of health. In the long-term men’s habitual use of alcohol and tobacco leads to serious health problems requiring a large allocation by the household of money and care-giving time. Men that drink at home commonly abuse their wives and children and create a toxic home environment unsuitable for children’s studying. Cultural norms generally preclude interference in the domestic affairs of others, even in cases of abuse. Boys that chronically experience domestic violence and hunger feel it is both a moral obligation and a practical choice to leave school for work that will feed them, their mother, and siblings. Domestic violence as a direct result of alcoholism is an often unrecognized cause of child labor. Community interpretations of personal rights are a factor in the proliferation of alcohol use and illegal sales. The residents of low-income areas believe it is the right of businesses to sell alcohol to whomever has the money for it and for individuals who so

296 desire to sell alcohol from their homes. Corruption and ineffectiveness in the regulation of alcohol sales and usage further encourages illegal sales and easy access to alcohol by not only adults but also children. Unemployed youth that drink serve as a negative role model for neighborhood children. The data presented in this chapter demonstrate that controlling alcohol abuse in low-income communities is vital to both eradicating child labor and improving the household production of health in low-income areas of Mysore.

297 CHAPTER 9: BEYOND THE HOUSEHOLD: OTHER COMMUNITY STAKEHOLDERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF EDUCATION, CHILD LABOR, AND ERADICATION EFFORTS Thus far, this dissertation has focused on the views of the parents, relatives, and neighbors of working children regarding various aspects of child labor and the value of education. The perspectives of other stakeholders in the community need to be considered as well, given that they influence the education children receive in local primary and secondary schools as well as the formulation and implementation of child labor policy and programs. These other stakeholders include teachers, NGO members, community leaders, elected officials, alcohol addiction counselors, and religious leaders. The views of such individuals have been briefly referenced earlier in regard to specific subject areas. In the present chapter I will offer a more comprehensive look at the views of a selective group of key informants hailing from these groups with the intention of contrasting their perceptions of child labor with those of poor parents and working children. Interview data from NGO informants is supplemented by secondary data obtained from NGO public discourse concerning child labor expressed in group publications, public events, and reported in newspaper articles.

Teachers Teachers are situated in a unique position within the child labor debate. On the one hand they are on the frontlines of what is seen as the solution to child labor, called upon to provide quality education to low-income children that will help them succeed in

298 life while also dispensing necessary discipline and guarding against truancy. On the other hand, as already noted they are sometimes viewed as being part of the problem. Teaching style and other aspects of classroom culture are held responsible for creating the negative educational experience that drives children from school. I spoke with a variety of teachers about child labor, including those working in primary and secondary schools, continuing education centers, a summer bridge course, and a child labor hostel/residential school. Beyond recording their general views of the educational system and how it served youths I asked them to reflect on their experiences dealing with both low-income students who attend their schools and the students’ parents. I also interviewed government school principles and headmistresses and administrators at child labor hostels about the system of education, its merits and shortcomings. Taken together, the discourse of these educators provides some revealing insights into the functioning of educational programs and their need for reform if they are to serve as an antidote to child labor. Primary school teachers and headmistresses participating in a focus group spoke to me about their interactions with parents at the time of each community’s yearly census to identify school-age children and in their intervention with the families of students whose attendance was not good. Their accounts of parents’ reactions to them at the time of census are reminiscent of the discourse of my household study participants and their neighbors highlighted in the previous two chapters. Some parents complained that they needed a child’s help at home or the income they contribute from outside work, of education as being a waste of time in terms of enabling a child to secure a job later, and

299 of requests for monetary aid or help in obtaining a rations card. Others expressed the sentiment that although they were illiterate, they desired their children to get a good education for a better future. Many teachers expressed the opinion that fathers’ drinking was responsible for a child being removed from school. Another common cause of poor attendance they identified was children being taken by their parents for extended stays to their native village for reasons such as attending festivals or weddings. The teachers spoke of the actions they took to try to counter the forces working against children attending school. They visited the homes of students irregularly attending school and emphasized to parents that children could attend school and still work part-time before or after school. They also informed them about government programs offering educational aid to poor parents. By and large, poor parents were not aware of such programs. Most teachers and their headmistress expressed a sympathetic understanding of the severe financial situations facing poor families and understood their need to be pragmatic when talking to them about the importance of education in future plans for their children. They related stories of children that they had personally provided financial or material aid (notebooks, pens, etc.) to so that the students could stay in school. In the end, most such efforts failed given the pressing realities of students’ lives at the margin. A group of three teachers together recounted a story to me about their efforts to keep children in school.
Many people have come to take the T.C. [transfer certificate] from Madam. Then we told them that they should have studied further. Anyway, that is the past. We tell the students who are presently in school that their education should not suffer because of their financial problems. We tell them that we teachers will pool money and pay their fees. For instance, we had a student Ravi, who came from a very poor family. We, along with another teacher, Lalitha, pooled money and bought him books. He ultimately passed seventh …That boy dropped out at the eight or ninth standard because they had no money to eat food or pay the rent…He is now in Bangalore…Now tell me, what do we do about such children?

300 The headmistress of the same school told a similar story involving a student:
I offered to pay Mohan’s fees, no Suresh’s. The boy’s father is a drunkard and the mother has to fend for the family. They have a petty shop. The mother’s earnings are not enough to run the family. The boy’s younger sister is studying here. I offered to pay the boy’s fees, give him free notebooks. But still he refused to come back. The boy has a defect in one ear. I offered to pay for the operation to set right the defect. He said that he would work and get the operation done with his own money…His mother was very interested in getting her son educated.

Beyond recounting stories of noncontributing drinking fathers and abject poverty, the members of that same group of primary school teachers also noted other factors that placed a boy on a trajectory to work. Poorly educated parents did not push boys to do homework, allowing them to fall behind in their classes. The appeal of pocket money was also strong. Boys got a taste for having money to spend on themselves from working part-time jobs. Interestingly, neither the teachers nor the headmistress overtly identified the school’s large class size (35-50 students), when it came up in conversation, as being a factor undermining children’s interest in attending school or retention. When directly asked whether they thought education could solve the child labor problem, most of the teachers and headmistress I interviewed responded that it was not possible. A member of one of the teachers’ focus groups mentioned that for many families a child working at least part-time work, often at night, was a necessity for survival. Others felt that skill training might serve boys and girls better in the future than an in-school formal education given the jobs they were likely to get and their ability to gain “street smarts” enabling them to take advantage of local business opportunities. As one observed regarding the masses of India’s unemployed quasi-educated youth: “If they are educated, they are rigid about the kind of work they are willing to do. On the other

301 hand, if they are uneducated they are more flexible and are ready to do any kind of work.” The members of a high school teachers’ focus group had experience with children much further along in the formal educational cycle, those in Standard VIII-X. Although those children would not have fallen under current child labor law enforcement due to their older age (14-16 years old), any who went on to drop out before reaching 18 years in age would nevertheless be considered to be “child laborers” by NGOs and international agencies attempting to eradicate the problem. Beyond dropping out of school to take on full-time work, the impact of “hyper-part-time” 62 work on educational achievement was salient. The teachers estimated that more than half of their students worked at part-time jobs before school, after school, or at both times. Work before school caused students to arrive late or without their books. Although some children worked part-time till a late hour at night, lack of sleep was thought to be less of a problem causing children to be inattentive or drowsy in class than lack of food. The teachers urged parents to remove their children from part-time work during Standard X prior to taking exams needed to graduate, but met with a mixed response:
All of us tell them…But only a few parents listen to us…the others don’t bother…When we tell them they say they have a lot of problems at home…the father is not alright…They have the same tale to tell…If we force them too much, they will take the children out of school…Here the majority of cases are fathers with two wives and things like that…so both the families suffer a lot.

Having commonly heard that children in lower grades had trouble doing their homework if their parents were illiterate, I asked the high school teachers whether this was an issue at their level as well. Their responses were revealing and speak to the
By “hyper-part-time” I mean a large number of hours per week – working before or after school (or both) and on weekends. This can amount to 20-30 hours of work per week.
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302 expectations parents and children had of low-income students attending government high schools. All of the teachers affirmed that they intentionally gave such students very simple homework. Yet when correcting that homework they found that even it was beyond the abilities of the students. According to the teachers, passing versus failing Standard X was not a great concern for a large proportion of both their students and the children’s parents, only that the children completed the year. One outspoken teacher placed the blame for students’ lack of educational achievement on the education system itself due to its failure to make education relevant to students’ lives:
Till 4th standard the children leave their home environs behind and everything is new and novel for them…But after 4 to 5 years the reason why they do no have sustained interest is mainly because their learning has no meaning…They are not finding any meaning in their learning…It becomes monotonous…[T]hey fail to understand what meaning is there in what we teach them…[So] they are not enjoying what they are learning.. We are not providing…[a] situation for them to learn with a lot of enthusiasm at all (emphasis added).

The same teacher went on to assert that even for the higher grades teaching methods are boring, and many students already lack the academic foundation necessary to learn at those levels. She also noted that some teachers do not understand the complicated subjects they are now required to teach. She suggested that the education system should be drastically overhauled to allow children who are interested in pursuing an academic stream of education to do so, but to offer an option of viable vocational education for the many who are presently unable to keep up or who are more inclined to learn a professional skill. While formal education constitutes a major component of what has been proposed as the solution to child labor, informal types of schooling are also viewed as playing an important albeit temporary role, that of helping prepare children to return to the

303 mainstream. The opinion of teachers working with drop-out children and child laborers at bridge courses, continuing education courses, and child labor hostels provide valuable insights into the potential ways education could serve as the remedy for child labor. Informants in this group included several present and former teachers at one of Mysore’s child labor residential schools. 63 One of them had recently been involved in recruiting children for the residential school, guiding a team sent by the government to addresses of children who had been identified as child laborers. She recounted how she attempted to convince parents to send their children to the child labor residential school. Many parents were reluctant to do so, claiming that the family would suffer without the child’s income. They were also loath to have their child live separately from them. The government team spoke of the benefits of the school for the child, but it was usually their mention of a twenty thousand rupee fine they were told they faced that led them to comply. Such fines, however, in actuality existed only for children’s employers, not parents. The child labor school in question had been open a year and had a student population of approximately fifty. The school’s pedagogy was in accordance with central government policy with regard to rehabilitating child laborers. This included having them mainstreamed back into the formal education system as soon as possible. One of the teachers described the functioning of the school:
No matter how old the kids are, we begin with teaching them the Kannada and English alphabets. We see if they know their alphabets well then…Irrespective of which level they have studied up to, we start them off with the basics. If they know the basics well, we make them read books that are given to us…[We will teach them] only six months. Because we have to give them an exam and assess who is capable of studying well before the regular schools start. This is to make sure they can join regular schools as soon as possible…They’ll leave in October…It is a one year course…Even after joining regular school [in June], the children can come here, not only to eat
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For the sake of anonymity I refer to all of the teachers as females.

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food in the hostel… We teach them from morning to evening. When we go at four o’clock to continuing education, we take the children along with us…Ten students could not learn anything at all, even if we taught them from morning to evening…It is hard. Hence, they have told us to give them an exam separately in May. We will prepare the question paper.

Another of the teachers I spoke with confirmed much of what the first had told me, including that many of the children admitted to the child labor residential school came in with extremely low math, reading, or writing skills and therefore needed to be taught in a rudimentary way. A substantial portion of these under-14 years of age children had been out of school for at least two years, some as many as five years. To her knowledge only a small percentage of the children who passed through the school during the time she had taught there had been able to reenter formal education at the level they would have been at had they stayed in school. When I asked her whether she thought the government’s written plans for all children to be in attendance in school and child labor ended in Karnataka by 2007 would succeed, she replied: “Looking at our surroundings, I think it is impossible because both children and parents are used to child labor. [Under 14 years old] it is possible, I feel. Over and above, it is very difficult.” The last teacher I interviewed at the child labor residential school had the most knowledge concerning the operation of the school, the education system as a whole, and child labor. She echoed the statements of the other teachers that the former child laborers had extremely low academic skills when they first entered the hostel. But she felt the children had made great strides during their stays, with 15 from the first batch having been mainstreamed after 6-7 months. Moreover, she saw the benefit as transcending mere academic achievement. She related:
Some of them are very happy. They think that they can do something in life after becoming literate and being educated. They will develop a sense of discretion and they will be able to differentiate

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between the good and the bad. Since there is an informal school also here, from the sports activities to the system of coming in uniforms instills a sense of discipline in them and this will help them in the long run.

Speaking about the broader system of education, she confirmed that a policy of automatic promotion remains in force in the education system as a whole, and provided some interesting rationale for it:
The Education Department has laid down rules that no child studying between 1st and 7th Standard can be failed. If they are failed, they will feel frustrated. They run away, they might get into a job, or the people of their house might decide that he is unfit for studying and push him to work…If they at least go to 10th Standard, irrespective of whether he passes or fails, it will be an advantage for him from the job point of view. With this in mind the department has taken such a decision.

The issues of automatic promotion raised by this teacher and other informants and the goal of having children finish Standard X without passing exams enabling them to graduate provide a sad commentary on educational standards in Mysore. Low-literate parents appear to think that children progressing to Standard X, even if they are not learning much, will help them get some kind of job that stipulates that level of class as a requirement, not marks on a standard exam. In one sense, automatic promotion partly solves the problem of child labor by keeping children warehoused in schools until they are near 14 years of age. Regarding child labor, this teacher’s views echoed those mentioned by others who see it as a structural problem related to poverty, more pervasive in certain communities. She had observed that most of the child laborers at the school were Muslims, and that some mothers had been forced to put their sons to work to compensate for a husband with two or three wives or who had abandoned the family altogether. She also identified a number of other factors that lead to children leaving school and going to work. According to her, some parents did not monitor the daily activities and school attendance of their children beyond whether they left for and

306 returned from school at the correct times. Moreover, she felt a combination of academic difficulties and pragmatism leads to some children leaving school. She observed:
Some go study up to 5th and later lose interest. Nothing will go into his head. His friends go to work, and seeing them he will also go to work…If the father is working in a shop and the boy is not doing well in school, the first thing that comes to his head is to tag along to work so that they get some extra money. They think paying fees is a waste…Also some families are disillusioned by the fact that no matter how much you study, you will not get a good job. So why study at all? They take him out of school and put him in a job. They believe that this practical experience will help him much better in life and he can earn in the thousands if he gathers experience.

Besides having a well-developed perspective regarding the causes of child labor, the same child labor residential school teacher had the most serious critique of the government’s eradication efforts to that point as well as a skeptical evaluation of more ambitious NGO goals. She was emphatic that the government needed to address poverty issues as a prerequisite for solving the child labor problem, telling me: “Poor families should be given some income generation and they will voluntarily come forward to get their children enrolled in schools…So many people are dependent upon the earnings of their children. They have asked the teachers if they will look after them if their kids don’t work!” When I noted that the government’s child labor action plan included a provision to provide economic aid out of fines collected from employers to households severely impacted by a child being removed from the labor force and put in school, she recounted a recent experience of the school in which she worked. Representatives of the school had met with the District Collector (the top official of the central government in the district) and officials of the Department of Labour to request aid for a woman who had been totally dependent on her son’s earnings. They were told that there were no programs then in place to provide such help. In the mind of the teacher, the government efforts were not

307 being properly targeted. They were more smoke than substance, and officially lacked the political will to implement policy. She explained:
The government has charted out many schemes. But unfortunately nothing is happening in a systematic manner. It is because of the government officials. For example, we have surveyed (name of nearby area) and there are a number of child laborers still there. They have not been identified. Some people give false statements. For example, you go to a shop. There will be a boy working there, but maybe that day he will be absent. The owner will furnish a false address and the officials will not find him at the address. The officials must give a fortnightly or monthly report to the government. So they write that we have given a visit to this area and there is no child labor here and based on this report the government will declare that there is no child labor in these areas and we have met with a success rate of so much and all that. These reports will be flashed in the papers or on the TV channels…The government should direct the officials that when they come across any child laborer, they should be immediately admitted to the hostels… At least then to a large extent we will be able to eradicate child labor… Will the government give us the responsibility of identifying [child laborers]? No power! They entrust only the department with this job. If they give us the responsibility, we can immediately bring them in.

The teacher’s emotionally-charged words illustrate the limitations of government eradication efforts and the frustrations faced by some of those involved in them. A final observation of hers is noteworthy. She scoffed at NGO efforts to have children attend school until the age of 18, noting that from the age of 14-15 a boy will have matured enough both mentally and physically to be aware of his household’s economic needs. If such a boy is a responsible person he will leave school to get a job to help out. Regarding guaranteeing the range of rights enumerated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with the eradication of child labor being an example, she had this to say: “It cannot be implemented for every child…Maybe it is a political stunt.” An administrator at the same child labor residential school provided additional information about its operations as well as expressed his opinion about education as a cure for child labor. He contended that child labor was only a limited phenomenon in Mysore, stating: “Where the poor people are living, they can’t afford to send their children to school or they can’t give education. So they put them to earn, in some small

308 business. This is not a common thing, only in some areas you find it.” Those areas, according to him, constituted the peripheral areas of the city and interestingly, did not include the neighborhoods around his school where I was conducting my research. He saw the causes of the problem as poverty, especially poverty resulting from large family size. His comments are noteworthy because like many Hindus he viewed the problem in communal terms.
Especially Hindus and Christians have implemented [family planning]. Muslims, educated Muslims have implemented. The uneducated Muslims, they are not. Even now, they have big families, 7-8 children. The earning members are only two, father and mother. Children will be around 6 to 8. So those types of families will start the child labor family.

While he acknowledged the anger some parents expressed when compelled to send their children to live at the child labor residential school, he believed that the large majority of poor parents wished to see their children get a decent education. His narrative to me about the educational strategy of the school mirrored the description provided by teachers. The goal was to tutor the children for approximately half a year and then mainstream them back into the formal education system while they continued to eat and sleep at, although no longer attend, the child labor bridge school. When I questioned whether he thought such a strategy would work, and moreover whether it was practical given parents’ concerns regarding a dearth of employment, he acknowledged its difficulties. He lamented that the program was underfunded. The school was receiving only 385 rupees 64 per pupil per month for teaching, housing, and feeding each student. The center struggled to operate and he had had to purchase essential equipment such as beds and desks with his own money. He echoed the sentiment that the government’s

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This equals roughly US$8.

309 ambitious goals were overreaching and unrealistic. He explained what he told to parents: “Our intention is, even if you don’t want them to be a graduate, at least make them to read and write…make them to learn calculations. Make them to get the money [they earn]…the employer should not cheat him…[W]hen I put this point to the parents, then they will agree.” He similarly felt that given that it was very difficult for the government even to insure compulsory education through the age of 14, and to satisfy NGO demands calling for that the upper limit be extended to 18 years old would be impossible. Instead, he believed that the government could accomplish its goal of eradicating child labor if it provided all poor families, regardless of religion or caste, with the economic resources necessary to educate their children through SSLC.

Community Leaders I sought out the impressions of a number of individuals who fill leadership roles in my research sites in order to broaden my understanding of how child labor and education are viewed in those communities. One such individual was a maulvi, a Muslim religious leader and teacher, who lived on the periphery of a neighborhood containing a large number of my informants. Several of his comments are particularly relevant to a discussion of education and child labor. I have, in a previous chapter, already included his retort to those in Mysore who view child labor as a problem only involving Muslims: working children can be found amongst all religious communities wherever there is poverty. Speaking of the non-educated parents who send their children to work, he observed: “For them, what is important is that their immediate problems should be

310 solved. They are not bothered about the consequences of taking children out of school.” The maulvi made it a point to comment on the education limitations placed on girls, challenging the existence of any scriptural basis in Islam for taking girls out of school at maturity:
There is nothing in the Koran which says that you should keep a girl home after she matures and you should stop educating her. If we follow the rules set by the holy book, we can educate a girl to any level. She can become an engineer, a doctor, anything. But our Mazab ka Kanoon, rules of the religion, has to be followed.

Another respected person in the community that I spoke with was a lawyer who served on the school management committee of a primary school, the same school whose teachers I quoted earlier in this chapter. He had his own interpretation of the relationship between education and child labor. As a school committee member he had on many occasions visited 65 neighborhood homes to encourage parents to allow children who had dropped out to continue their education. He spoke in somewhat disparaging terms about the educational attitudes of the poor. He believed many poor parents and children did not value education, thinking that in the present employment climate education made little difference in securing a good future:
They are daily wagers. They think, after 6 or 7 years old, if there are 3 or 4 children, they can also earn. We are earning and living. They feel what is the use of education? After getting educated, also, we are doing labor work. They feel after education they have to face the problem of unemployment…They don’t have awareness of the value of education. Twenty percent of the parents are well-established uneducated people. For example, a mason. He is earning 200 or 300 rupees per day…‘Why, what is the necessity, why should they study for 15–16 years? My father, my grandfather was doing the same business. We are well-established, no problem…You can earn independently. Why should we work under others?’

A school management committee consists of civic-minded residents of the area that serve in an oversight position at a school, helping it solve problems and function well. When I questioned whether all the members of the committee on which the lawyer served were middle-class (and therefore, not reflective of the school population as a whole), the lawyer would only say that they were all literate and included some individuals from below the middle-class.

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311 Beyond looking down on such education-denigrating attitudes, he challenged the legitimacy of the commonly given excuse that financial limitations are the primary reason why parents don’t send their children to school. He explained that in addition to the aid extended by the government to scheduled caste and scheduled tribe children, a child coming from any household that could prove it made less than 14,000 rupees a year could also obtain such benefits. Moreover, he recounted multiple instances (similar to those described above by several teachers) in which he and other members of the school management committee had personally intervened in households that had stopped sending children to school. The committee members had cajoled one father into stopping drinking and returning to work, had bought milk cows for a widow, had hired another widow as a cook for the mid-day meal program, and had found a job for a third in an agarbathi factory. In all four cases they assisted parents to earn enough to support themselves and send their children to school. Local politicians also provided their views to me on the subjects of child labor and education, often speaking quite candidly to me about these thorny issues. Two I spoke with held the position of corporator 66 within districts of the city that I conducted some of my research. Speaking privately in his home, one acknowledged the existence of child labor within the district he represented, relating several intertwined causes of the phenomenon:
There are plenty in my ward. The main reason why they are becoming so is because their parents have no work and there is absolute poverty in the house. There are employers too who want to employ children because they can pay them less. So these children go to work to support their parents and keep the [home] fire burning. In fact all parents are interested in sending their children Mysore’s city government consists of corporators representing 65 different wards of the city, one whom is elected by the body to serve as mayor.
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to school. A mother wants to send her child to school. But they are helpless and are forced to send them to work, much against their wishes.

The corporator pointed out that there was a lack of government schools in his district, complaining that the area’s one large multi-level private school’s monopoly on education (described in an earlier chapter) was a serious problem for the mostly lowincome population. He bitterly related how children from his district had been prevented from attending that school when their parents were unable to pay the 50-rupee monthly fees. Answering my question as to why children lose interest in education, he explained:
All children are interested. They get put off by the humiliation they face when they don’t pay the fees. But there are also instances where they get put off when they see graduates doing very menial jobs. They feel they can as well drop out and do the same work instead of studying hard. So many come to me asking for recommendation to get a job. But everywhere they have to pay a bribe… The situation is rather dismal… [A]s a corporator I haven’t been able to get a job for even a single educated youth who came to me.

Finally, echoing the views of many other key informants the corporator saw parents as having a pragmatic logic regarding the value of education: “There are children who study for a degree or even MBBS [an advanced degree], but who is giving them jobs? Also, you need to pay so much donation to get a seat to continue higher studies. Even if parents spend, what is the guarantee that they can get back the money after the children get a job, if they get one at all?” Notably, this indictment of the value of education as guaranteeing a good job in the future is one that anti-child labor NGOs reject. For activists in NGOs the intrinsic value of education is to be championed. Education creates a knowledgeable well-rounded individual and is a basic human right. It is an investment towards a different end.

313 The views of the second corporator will be discussed shortly in the course of the more comprehensive examination of government eradication efforts and community reaction in the next chapter.

NGO Informants Individuals working in NGOs active in community development in Mysore make up the last important group of stakeholders whose perspectives on education and child labor I will focus on in this chapter. Because they play an active role in anti-child labor efforts I will consider them in some detail. Working at the most grass-roots level are NGOs that work with women’s self-help groups (women’s sanghas) in low-income neighborhoods. Organized by a large NGO based in Mysore, these groups are at the frontlines of dealing with social, economic, and health problems in poor households. Child labor is an issue that had recently emerged in their group meeting where members were encouraged to send their children to school. Women were also informed about the severe penalties of the child labor law. One sangha head described the reactions she had gotten to such admonitions: “They say, ‘We have plenty of difficulties. Our husbands are not good, they are drunkards, they don’t work, so we send our children to work. Suppose if we sent children to school – how can we manage?’” Another sangha head during a focus group offered her own view, one that was also noted in the earlier chapter dealing with education: “Some children are not interested or don’t want to study at all. Such children have to go and work… Some children, however hard we try, they don’t show interest.” A third reported that urgings to send children to school elicited another iconic

314 retort from parents: “If we go and tell them, they say, “We know many who are working in hotels even after studying.’ So they say, ‘Why should we spend money?’” The women’s sangha heads, although sympathetic to such concerns, were firmly behind the concept of educating children. According to them, the children in their areas attended either government (Urdu or Kannada medium) schools or private schools (the large one much discussed in this dissertation). One of the women described her sangha’s efforts: “For the last three years we are working in this sangha and have helped many children go back to school. Earlier we could see many roaming around here and there. Now most of them go to school and only one or two roam around.” The sangha heads felt that the responsibility of seeing that children attend school was most on the heads of mothers and that they should do whatever was necessary, whether it be working harder to earn more money or cutting down on food consumption, to pay for children’s educational expenses. Notably what the groups did not address were men’s behaviors that helped create the conditions necessitating women to take such extreme measures. As the words of a sangha head included in the earlier chapter on alcohol abuse and child labor noted, this was out of fear of male backlash. The issue of education and child labor was more central to the professional staff and heads of NGOs, men and women who design and carry out community-level development projects. I had the opportunity to discuss the issue with several such NGO organizers centered in Mysore. Each was involved in programs active in at least one of my research areas. Most were well-educated, articulate, fluent in English, and highly committed to their NGO’s goals.

315 One context in which NGO leaders dealt with the issues of education and child labor was in organizing the kind of neighborhood self-help groups noted above. According to a female staff member of a small NGO sent to low-income areas, a central message that was disseminated was that all children, especially girls, should be sent to school. The women nevertheless claimed that although in the past many households had not sent girls to school, at the present time it had become the norm. The community organizer’s boss, the head of the NGO, explained their strategies in dealing with such problems: “Nowadays in government schools everything is free. We tell them the rights of children to study till 14 years. We convince them by saying, ‘Even if you undergo difficulties, at least your children will get a basic education, which is good for their future.’” In addition, she said they inform the women that can receive small loans if they join the sangha. The NGO was planning in the near future to more directly address education needs in the community by starting informal education classes at night for working children, bridge classes to help dropouts return to the formal system, and a free tutoring program for children having academic difficulties. Despite sounding somewhat idealistic when speaking about empowering the poor women who comprise self-help groups, the NGO head was very realistic towards the child labor issue. She offered a frank and empathetic appraisal of child labor in the poor communities in which her NGO worked and explained why she was disinclined to initiate anti-child labor projects in low-income communities:
We are not dealing directly with child labor. Indirectly we give this type of awareness to the parents. Most of the husbands have illegal relationship with other women, so they are not looking after the family…So this child has to earn and look after the family. We have a lot of cases of this type. We can’t compel the child to go to school, as the mother mostly will be an unhealthy person and she may not be able to work and maintain the family…A matured girl may be at home. She

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has to be married. So they are all dependent on the boy who is working in a garage or elsewhere…We can’t do anything here. The first thing is the family’s maintenance. We are in a dilemma. If the boy goes to school, he will benefit. But if he doesn’t go to school and works, his family will benefit…Like (large NGO’s name), [w]e also tell them to join the group and do small savings, so they can come up. But all of a sudden it is not possible, because the family is maintained by the child’s income.

In contrast to the empathetic position expressed by this NGO administrator, a second NGO head had a far more critical view of the causes of poor educational outcomes and child labor in Mysore. He firmly placed the blame for such problems on the heads of the children’s parents, mocking the legitimacy of the kind of excuses offered by informants that have been peppered throughout this dissertation:
The real problem is with the parents.… Mahatma Gandhi didn’t go to a private school…I don’t believe in all these rubbish reasons that the schools are not good and the education system is not good. Those fellows are dirt fellows. They don’t want to send their children to school, they want to earn their bread through the kids.

He went on to contend that although some government schools might be overcrowded, the government nevertheless provided high-quality teachers as well scholarships and other forms of help. Ultimately, he asserted, “It is the combination of the student, parents and the teacher. The teacher, he can’t write on behalf of the students, he can’t earn on behalf of the parents. The teacher, he does his job.” As far as the problem of child labor in Mysore is concerned, the same NGO head felt that the largest proportion of it was unseen, in the form of children serving as domestic servants. He was equally scathing in his criticism of wealthy people who hire children for such work: “What happens with the rich class, to serve to their kids they employ child laborers…It is a symbol of wealth and they think, ‘We are doing justice to the kids because we are looking after them, giving them meals and helping them.’ That is their excuse.”

317 A third NGO head I interviewed explicitly addressed the eradication of child labor. He posited an intimate connection between the failings of the government primary education system and child labor. He noted that his NGO had been a catalyst for organizing slum parents to demand the construction of lower and upper-primary schools in their areas and later to insure that the attendance of both all children and teachers was accounted for. But he acknowledged that the quality of government education in the slum areas of Mysore was an ongoing problem:
The situation is bad. Usually teachers don’t care much, mostly classes will be overcrowded, and children are in need of discipline. Quality of the education is not there in government schools. Now up to 7th standard they cannot fail anyone, they have to be promoted…Sometimes 4th or 5th standard children’s parents say, ‘Since 5 years we are sending our children to the schools. He can’t even write his name. So what is the use of sending them to school?’

The same activist echoed the sentiments of several middle to upper-class informants. Poor parents, in his opinions, were too focused on education as a means only to the end of employment: “First of all, the parents’ mindset has to be changed. Education is not for jobs, education is for life…A person with education, his life will be 100% better than an illiterate person; he can think, decide and reflect with education.” He further challenged the assertion the assertion that youth with education could not find work. The problem, he stated, was that they refused to work at jobs they considered beneath them. Although he saw the issues of education and child labor as being intimately tied together, this NGO head was willing to acknowledge other factors as being important as well. He initially pointed to a lack of schools in slum areas, working parents’ general neglect of their children, and alcohol abuse as primary factors leading children to leave school. His discourse became even more pointed when he articulated the ideological positions adopted by his NGO in the child labor debate. He explained why his

318 organization rejected central government and ILO approaches of distinguishing between hazardous and non-hazardous child labor, the former being the major focus of the Indian government (and then generally only up till the age of 14):
Any child doing any kind of work, if the work is preventing physical and mental growth of the child, we can consider it hazardous. Even grazing cattle…If the child is looking after the siblings, that also is hazardous…No child can wait. Any child out of school or doing any kind of work, that child should be rescued immediately…We agree on ILO 182. ILO 132, which says, worst form of child labor, we don’t agree. We cannot segregate…What we say is children cannot wait for tomorrow. If childhood is lost he/she loses everything in life up to 18 years, there is no question of hazardous or non- hazardous. Anything. If the child is not in school, that is hazardous.

I was intrigued by the hard line the third NGO head was making in regard to all child-related work, even the unacceptability of part-time work. Upon probing, however, I found he was willing to condone “voluntary work” that did not interfere with schooling or play time:
We are totally against child labor…even part-time…We won’t encourage children to work when they are going to school. But in some of the families, the children voluntarily do it. Children should also get some free time to play…A family sending the child to school and child willingly roll agarbathi after school, we are not opposing that. That is not child labor.

NGO Views: The Official Line Beyond the personal views expressed to me in the course of interviews and focus groups, it is useful to also examine the more public discourse of NGOs surrounding education and child labor. This discourse may be found in NGO publications, on antichild labor posters, at large anti-child labor public events organized by the organizations, and in local print media coverage of the issue. Some of the NGO publications I utilize were prepared by local branches of national organizations, while others were distributed by the national office. These NGOs receive both domestic and international funding for their programs.

319 Pratham Mysore is a local branch of a large education improvement-oriented NGO begun by UNICEF in 1994 that operates in over 20 cities in India. Its professional quality brochure (Pratham Mysore n.d.) states its vision as: “‘Every Child in School and Learning Well.’ Every Child in Mysore in school by 2005. No new generation of illiterates by 2010” (Pratham Mysore n.d.) The NGO’s programs target poor populations, seeking to supplement what the state provides with educational resources to help insure academic success. The group addresses the problem of child labor by offering free tutoring classes to children having difficulty in school and through bridge courses aimed at getting dropouts and children who have never attended school into the formal education system. It takes the position that most of India’s major social problems, including child labor, grow out of a failure to educate its citizens. According to the group’s brochure, “Illiteracy causes child labor, poverty, exploitation, child marriage, population explosion, and other socio-economic problems.” Education is thus proposed as the solution not only to child labor, but many of India’s other major problems. The Child Labour Help Line is a small Mysore NGO working to eliminate child labor. It maintains a phone line to be called for reporting cases of child labor and does outreach in schools and other locations in an attempt to convince the public not to employ child laborers. Like most other local groups dealing with child labor it posits education as the appropriate alternative. Its brochure states, “Child Labour is a menace in our modern society. Instead of educating and giving them a bright future we engage them in domestic, and industrial and other hazardous places, to work” (Child Labour Help Line n.d.).

320 The largest NGO in Mysore dealing with the issue of child labor is the Rural Literacy and Health Programme (RLHP). The organization operates in approximately 30 slums in Mysore City, in rural areas of Mysore District, and in two other districts in the state, with child labor eradication being only one component of a comprehensive program of community development and empowerment. The text of a professionally printed brochure of the group frames the issue of child labor in terms of children’s rights. Under the heading “Say ‘No’ to Child Labour,” the group asserts that despite the fact that the Government of India had years earlier ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child “more than 110 million children are employed in various sectors, their childhood lost forever” (RLHP n.d.). It proceeds to state:
Every child has the right to childhood. A child needs care, love and understanding for a healthy, physical and mental growth. For millions of children in out country, life is a daily struggle for survival. They have to toil hard to meet their basic needs of food and clothing. They neither have the protection of a home to grow up nor the love and care of a family. Poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, etc. are the causative factors.

According to the same brochure, the group had been responsible for rehabilitating (i.e. removing from work and returning to school) 2,500 child laborers over a ten-year period and in cleansing nine of Mysore’s slums of child labor. Discourse of the Campaign Against Child Labor (CACL), the largest nationallevel organization (6,000 members from social organizations in 17 states) working to eradicate child labor in India, is worthy of examination for several reasons. First, the Mysore NGO RLHP is a member of the coalition, its public pronouncements often mirroring those of the national organization. Second, for part of the duration of my research Mysore was the national headquarters of the CACL and one of the coordinators of RLHP served as the national convener and spokesperson of the larger umbrella group.

321 Finally, CACL’s holding of the large Nai Subah (New Dawn) anti-girl child labor event in Mysore during the course of my research generated a large amount of local press coverage and organizational public discourse worthy of analysis. Reading through the four issues of CACL’s newsletter that I was able to obtain (printed between January 2002 and the end of my research in March 2004) provided some interesting insights into the ideologies, strategies, and public posture of the coalition. A January 2002 issue includes an article documenting CACL’s efforts to amend and strengthen the then pending 93d Amendment to the constitution to guarantee free education up to the age of 14. It notes that the group wished to amend the proposed amendment to make 18 years old the age up to which the government provide education and interestingly to remove the penalties proposed in the draft for parents who did not send their children to school (CACL 2002). That first suggested amendment was consistent with the statements I heard in 2003-2004 from RLHP staff and at public events that the government should offer and children should participate in education up to the age of 18. The January and August 2003 issues focused on girl child labor, with the former issue including a front-page story titled Sonia’s Tormentors Jailed about a girl domestic child laborer who had been abused by her employer (CACL 2003a, CACL 2003b). Stories in other issues as well emphasized cases of the extreme abuse of child workers by their employers into which the CACL had intervened. The August issue featured a front-page letter of support from (and photo of) then president of India, APJ Abdul Kalam. The president’s message significantly noted that just freeing child laborers was not enough, that it must be “followed up by education, vocational training, health

322 care and positive measures of social security not only for the children concerned but their families as so as to remove the compulsions that push children into child labour” (CACL 2003b). The last issue of the CACL newsletter I came across during my time in Mysore was one published in January 2004 which, coming out at the time of the World Social Forum held in Mumbai, emphasized globalization as a major factor contributing to child labor. The same issue included an announcement that the CACL Karnataka chapter had launched its Balya Ulisi Andolana (Save the Childhood Campaign) across the state to raise public awareness about the many forms of exploitation of children and with a goal of being able to cleanse 60 additional villages of girl child labor. A last feature of the January 2004 issue of the CACL’s newsletter salient to this discussion was a short reiteration of the organization’s positions. It is worth repeating in full because it succinctly state the principles guiding the group’s activities and interactions with slum residents and the government. At the same time it highlights areas of dissonance between CACL ideology, slum residents’ perceptions, and government goals. The newsletter states:
1) ‘The Child’ is any person below the age of 18 years; 2) Child labour includes children prematurely leading adult lives, working with or without wages, under conditions damaging to their physical, mental, social emotional and spiritual development denying them their basic rights to education, health and development; 3) Any child out of school is a potential child labourer. CACL is against all manifestations of child labour in any occupation or process, in all sections of work including the formal and non-formal, organized and unorganized, within or outside the family; 4) CACL believes that the enforcement of free, compulsory, equitable and quality education for all children up to 18 years is a prerequisite for the eradication of child labour. (CACL January 2004).

CACL’s focus on children’s rights, insuring a protected “high-quality” childhood for all Indian children, and universal compulsory education is accompanied by a highly critical public discourse of state and central government’s lack of will in enforcing

323 existing laws, court decisions, and the provisions of ratified international treaties (i.e. the CRC) pertaining to such matters. The group even posits government complicity in the continuation of child labor:
Despite the fact that there are 120 schemes and programmes attached to 12 ministries and departments for the welfare of children in our country, it is impossible to point out at least one successful venture. Though there are a variety of laws at the national and international levels, abuse and economic exploitation of children continue to be a constant phenomenon. The nexus of bureaucrats and employers conniving with the local politicians does enough harm to the proper implementation of existing laws in child protection. Our constitutional guarantees remain in the dusty shelves of judiciary, never reach to the toiling children (CACL January Update: 2003).

The words and images used on posters addressing the child labor issue that NGOs and NGO coalitions post in public places can serve as another rich source of information concerning those organizations’ ideologies. A CACL poster mostly in the Kannada language implores people to “come, participate, [and] support” its cause at a public hearing on child labor. 67 On one side of the poster is a drawing of two judges in robes with a group of citizens behind them. On the other side a group of working boys and girls making imploring gestures is depicted. Between them is Lady Justice holding her scales. In large letters printed above these pictures is the question, “Do we need children for our development?” Another CACL poster also in Kannada shows a large fist holding a pencil. Above the fist in large letters is the slogan, “Education is my right. I will have it.” 68 A third poster again uses a drawing of Lady Justice as a key image. 69 She is depicted holding a large version of her balance scale. On one side of the scale are drawings and photos of a pile of heads of children having serious or anguished expressions on their faces. On the other side is a composite drawing showing children
67 68

See Figure 53. See Figure 54. 69 See Figure 55 in Appendix B.

324 doing various kinds strenuous of work, some also with an unhappy look on their faces. In the four corners of the poster are pictures of children going to and at school, watching TV and playing with toys, and spending time with loving parents. Above Lady Justice in large red letters in the Kannada language is the exhortation “Stop Child Labour”. Below the picture in somewhat smaller black letters are the words “Give childhood and education to all children”. An RLHP Kannada-language poster printed in cooperation with a local governing body and an NGO association in a town near Mysore has a large photo of a teacher writing at a blackboard in front of a group of students. 70 Underneath this large photo are three smaller ones: the first showing a girl tossing a soccer ball to a boy standing a few feet away, the second with a large red “x” drawn on it of a girl sitting on the ground washing cookware and dishes, and the third of a smiling man holding a girl. At the top of the poster in red letters is the phrase “Send all children to school. That is their fundamental right”. Those lines are followed by, “What a child needs is childhood, love, affection, protection, and education. Those are their fundamental rights.” Under the photos is the slogan “No child should be deprived of an education”. Although some posters feature other themes, a central one emerges from the majority: giving children an education and in that way both guaranteeing their rights and giving them a proper childhood. Holding large public events at prominent locations in Mysore has been another frequently used strategy of anti-child labor NGOs and coalitions, with the specific activities of those events as well as printed accounts of them by the organizers and press

70

See Figure 56 in Appendix B.

325 providing further examples of the public discourse surrounding child labor in Mysore. A professionally produced 48-page booklet published by CACL’s Karnataka chapter titled To Liberate Child Labourers – The Mysore Pledge documents in text and photographs a state-wide convention held on November 30, 1998. The convention drew together from across the state approximately 900 child workers, 71 NGO workers, government bureaucrats and elected officials, and business people in a display of commitment to end child labor. A highlight of the event was the public testimony of child workers about their lives and working conditions. The pledge referred to in the title is one that all participants made and again reminds us of the ideology driving NGO efforts to eradicate child labor in Karnataka State:
I pledge to actively prevent the incidence of child labour within my family, within my community, within my neighborhood, within my workplace. I pledge that I will attempt to inculcate in my fellow citizens a sense of respect for the rights of the child and assume the responsibility towards motivating every child out of school, and their parents, to go back to school so children can have a proper childhood (emphasis added) (CACL-K 1999: 4).

During the course of my research I had the opportunity to attend several large anti-child labor events similar to the 1998 statewide gathering described above. The largest such event and the one that garnered the most print media coverage was called Nai Subah (New Dawn) – National Event on Girl Child Labor. The gathering was cosponsored and funded by a number of foreign NGOs and the Indian branches of some international organizations including Terres des Hommes (Germany), Plan International India, AEI Luxembourg, Christian Aid India, SKN (Netherlands), Save the Children

The booklet includes figures for the number of child laborers in each state’s districts gathered by CACLKarnataka in a 1997 study for use in a filing with the High Court of Karnataka. Based on its broad definition of child labor, the organization found there to be 3,571,411 child laborers in Karnataka at that time, with Mysore District alone having 253,201 (CACL-K: 1999).

71

326 Fund (UK), Karuna Trust (U. S. A.), Action Aid India, and Caritas India. More than 750 girl child laborers were brought to Mysore from across India, where they participated in games, singing, dancing, and other recreational activities in addition to attending speeches by prominent speakers. 72 Numerous NGO activists, politicians, and prominent citizens attended as well. But the key tool of getting out the message of the event sponsors was, as had been so with the 1998 state-wide event, the testimony of a select sample of the girl child laborers regarding the terrible conditions under which they lived and worked. The girls gave their testimony on a stage to a group of prominent citizens who served as a jury deliberating on the culpability of the Indian society and government. 73 The event culminated in a parade of the girl child workers and their adult supporters through the center of Mysore and with a guilty verdict from the citizen jury. 74 Nai Subah generated a plethora of NGO public discourse, from high-quality printed literature to billboards to newspaper coverage. The event’s 56-page souvenir booklet (Campaign Against Child Labour 2003c) contained a number of pieces focusing on the ways in which girls are discriminated against in Indian society and highlighting the inadequacies of the current child labor laws in dealing with types of employment such as domestic work in which girls are most highly concentrated. A section of the program titled CACL’s Viewpoint on Poverty and Child Labour offers additional insight into the organization’s perspective on the causes of and solutions to child labor. It states:
Is poverty really a reason for child labour? When poverty has several causative factors how can it be a prominent reason for child labour? …If one says poverty is the reason for child labour or any other such issue, the solution to the problem is abstract. The common mindset is conditioned that
72 73

See Figures 57-58 in Appendix B. See Figures 59-60 in Appendix B. 74 See Figure 61 in Appendix B.

327
poverty is God’s wish or punitive action. Therefore, showcasing such a reason will never deliver the results…The prominent reason for child labour is the State’s failure to enroll the children in schools and retain them there until they get the elementary education. Millions of our children are in the labour force for the major reason that the existing schools could not retain them. Lack of infrastructure including separate toilets for girl children, insufficient teachers, lack of mid-day meals and drinking water, irrelevant education curriculum, distance of school from home, etc. contribute to children dropping out of school (CACL 2003c: 23).

In addition to identifying the failings of the education system as being causes of child labor, the same article seemingly contradicts its position of there being no link between poverty and child labor when it extensively critiques government economic policies as harming the livelihoods of the poor, with “the children of such people getting stuck in the web of economic and sexual exploitation of a greedy market economy” (CACL 2003c: 23). The press coverage of Nai Subah was mostly positive and generally mirrored the messages generated by the NGOs at the event. The coverage focused on three aspects of the gathering. Most prominent attention was given to the mock trial of the government in regards to its responsibility for child labor, with the newspaper articles emphasizing the testimony given by girl child laborers about the harsh exploitative conditions under which they worked, their innocent nature as children, and the jury’s verdict. One such article bears the headline Under duress, they gave up their precious childhood, with an accompanying photograph showing five of the girl witnesses on the stage holding a long paper banner in front of them on which human figures were painted in a child-like manner. While the article largely follows the official NGO line of that the children were innocent victims, a careful reading suggests that the writer felt the children’s words conveyed a deeper moral message about why they worked, one having to do with moral

328 identity and the lived reality of poverty. The article perhaps unintendedly yet strikingly contrasts such a reading of the children’s words with that of CACL:
Woeful tales of torture, sexual abuse, unhealthy working conditions, and cruelty by employers were only part of the narratives of these child workers. The children’s main contention appeared to be that they had all been forced to work at a tender age owing to compulsions such as their parents’ indebtedness to moneylenders or landlords, supplementing the family’s meager income, or lack of opportunity to go to school. All of them said they would like to go to school and become doctors, teachers, or nurses. ‘What they regret most is their lost childhood and their major cry is to give it back to them,’ the CACL said. (The Hindu 2003g).

A second prominent feature of press coverage of Nai Subah involved attention to celebrity attendees. The most notable of such attendees was the well-known actress and activist Nandita Das. 75 A Times of India article from the first day of the event has the headline Unified effort must to end child labour, says Nandita and a photo of the actress in attendance (The Times of India 2003a: 1). Another kind of celebrity was also featured in some of the articles in the days around the event. A 17-year-old local girl named Nagarathna was prominently included in press conferences and in the gathering’s inauguration ceremony, her inspirational success story serving as an iconic of the potential for liberating all girl child laborers. 76 The girl had formerly been a beggar at the very place where the event was held, eventually being rehabilitated by CACL and going on to pass SSLC with high grades. An article recounting her speech on the gathering’s opening day was titled Nagarathna holds audience spellbound at meet (The Times of India 2003b: 3). Although I did not monitor the Kannada-language newspapers as closely as the English-language press regarding their coverage of the Nai Subah, the articles I found

75 76

See Figure 62 in Appendix B. See Figure 62 in Appendix B.

329 largely followed the themes enumerated above. Such coverage appeared to be less extensive than that of the English-language press.

Conclusion: Consonance and Dissonance between the Perceptions of Community Stakeholders and Low-Income Parents This chapter has examined the perceptions of education, child labor, and child labor eradication of a broad range of stakeholders that live and work in some of Mysore’s low-income neighborhoods. These key informants have included educators, a religious leader, a school committee member, elected representatives, grassroots NGO workers, and high-level NGO staff. In addition, I have used the public and printed pronouncements of NGOs working in the education and child labor arenas as windows into the ideologies behind their policies and activities. The goal of this chapter has been to clearly delineate the beliefs of a group of stakeholders involved either directly or indirectly with the child labor issue. Moreover, as a result of their work all the interviewed informants come into contact with and attempt to influence those who ultimately make decisions about whether children attend school or work – the children themselves and their parents. Their perceptions, strategies, and goals are therefore of some import at the grassroots level of the child labor debate. While the data above reveals some agreement between the views of the parents of working children (and the children themselves) who participated in my study and other community stakeholders, those areas are overshadowed by a significant disconnect in others.

330 Although I have said there is some agreement between the two groups, it is a qualified or unacknowledged agreement, particularly on the part of NGO workers and NGO public discourse. The words of my household study participants and other lowincome informants repeatedly document innumerable economic and psychosocial challenges faced by low-income households. These challenges, which include low wages, underemployment, alcoholism, and chronic illness, lead to impoverished conditions not conducive to children attending (let alone succeeding in) school and not infrequently to their beginning to work for remuneration. From the perspective of my household study participants, they have done their best to overcome such obstacles, but the difficulties are of such a magnitude that this was not possible. Moreover, due to the nature of gender power relations in their communities the low-income women in my study felt constrained in what they could do to confront husbands who fail to adequately contribute to the household or abuse alcohol, often both. Poverty and serious domestic problems are thus viewed as unfortunate but legitimate reasons for children leaving school and going to work. A thread that runs through the discourse of the community stakeholders quoted above, however, is that such negative factors can be and must be transcended – children must be sent to school and not to work no matter what. While many of them acknowledge that poverty is a driving force of child labor, they refuse to accept it as an overdetermining factor. Such acknowledgement comes across as half-hearted or conflicted at best, as in the example given above from an article in an NGO public event program. The article first debunks poverty as being merely an excuse used to avoid dealing with child labor but then proceeds to enumerate a myriad of ways in which poor

331 households are put in untenable economic positions that result in the exploitation of children’s work. The discourse of both educators and NGO informants frames overcoming alcohol abuse as a test of moral strength, whether it is be for an individual man to quit drinking and return to work to support his family or for a community to restrict alcohol sales within its borders. There is sometimes a sense of blaming and looking down on such communities in which problems such as alcohol abuse, second wives, and family abandonment are highly prevalent. Other community stakeholders such as women’s sangha heads, however, are even closer to such problems (perhaps even experiencing them themselves) and less willing to condemn them, pejoratively judge those who experience or cause them, or actively intervene in helping solve them. Education is another area in which the perceptions of low-income parents and the other community stakeholders I spoke with are in accord on one level but ultimately dissonant. Many of the community stakeholders I spoke with from a variety of sectors of the community acknowledged serious problems with the quality of education in government schools. Such acknowledgement, however, does not lead them to question the principle they hold true of the intrinsic value of such an education. Parents who observe their children and those of their neighbors finding similar kinds of work regardless of how well they read and write, on the other hand, come to question the ultimate value of children attending government schools. Education is also the area in which NGOs and the poor have perhaps the greatest disconnect in their perceptions. Most basically NGOs and poor parents disagree about the value and goal of education. NGOs discourse portrays education not only as every child’s

332 right, but as something essential and valuable. Poor parents, conversely, see it as a ticket for their child to a good job and ultimately to a better life than they have had. Poverty leads them to think concretely. Many are willing to economically sacrifice to see that their children receive a good quality education, but feel they must also be pragmatic. The child must exhibit an interest in school and the ability to academically advance. Otherwise, education becomes a bad investment and not necessarily the best way to secure a good future. Beyond the previous considerations, low-income parents also view the relative worth of education through the lens of current Indian economic and cultural realities. Observing a dearth of good jobs for educated youth and knowing of the need to pay large bribes to secure many of them, some do not see formal education as the best route for a boy to take. Instead, vocational training through apprenticeship is seen as a viable option. But many NGOs and their staff as well as other educated informants see such arguments as straw men, denying the limitations of prevailing conditions in India. They further contend that even if such highly desirable jobs are not available, there are other jobs to be had but that educated youth feel they are “above” them. A final way in which the views of anti-child labor NGOs and low-income parents are dissonant in regards to education is in what they believe should be the upper age limit to which children should be required to attend school. As has been illustrated above in the discourse of NGO literature and the words of at least one NGO head, the official position of the dominant voice in the anti-child labor movement is that there should be free and compulsory education up until the age of 18 in India. Indeed, the CACL views this as key to eliminating child labor. Low-income parents have mixed views on the subject. The

333 majority feel that such a requirement is unrealistic and untenable. But some of my household study participants were amenable to such a policy contingent upon the government covering all expenses associated with sending a child to school to that level, meaning required fees, textbooks, notebooks, etc. Beyond education there is one other area worthy of note in which the perceptions of the community stakeholders cited in this chapter and those of the participants in my household study widely diverge. That area is a broad one encompassing conceptions regarding appropriate childhood, child autonomy, and the qualities of children. Again, the largest divide is between the discourse and ideologies of NGOs and those of low-income parents. For NGOs, the ideal childhood is one in which children attend school and have time to play and develop as individuals, with the phase of life explicitly defined as continuing until the age of 18. Children are seen as vulnerable individuals and accordingly guaranteed a wide range of protection and rights through the Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as other international conventions, Indian laws, and the Indian constitution. Low-income parents of working children and the working children themselves, however, see childhood and to some degree children’s rights in other terms. First, many view the age at which childhood ends and an individual is old enough to work full-time as being roughly 15-16 years old. They see the idea of children being accorded a range of protection and rights as a good idea, but are skeptical of the government’s ability to deliver in such a regard. Moreover, they either implicitly or sometimes even explicitly invest much more agency within the child in regards to whether he continues on in formal

334 education or takes another route in life. While I certainly heard from many parents about trying to force a son to attend school, some also accepted that there are boys who prefer learning a job skill. Boys in their mid-teens who find employment and help a struggling household survive are frequently considered as being responsible and aware and although not yet full adults, at least to be in a limnal phase between childhood and adulthood. These differences in the way anti-child labor NGOs and the poor relate to the concept of agency in children were driven home to me as I reviewed the Nai Subah program and press accounts, including an article critical of the release to the press of the moving testimony of child workers to the citizen jury prior to the fact. Although the NGOs are indisputably committed to improving the lives of children, the highly orchestrated nature of anti-child labor public events in which children often follow a script written by adults is a reminder of the NGOs particular vision of children’s agency and appropriate childhood. Having first focused on child labor at the household level, on the perceptions of the parents of working children and working children themselves, this chapter has moved my examination concentrically outward to include the views of NGOs and other stakeholders within the Mysore community. The next chapter looks further outward from the household for salient threads in the child labor debate, bringing into my discussion the ideologies, discourse, and actions of government actors at the state and national level. While at first glance the views and actions of elected bodies and government bureaucrats for the most part situated far from the low-income areas of Mysore in which I conducted my research might seem irrelevant to what occurs “on the ground” in those areas, even a

335 cursory examination of child labor eradication efforts in India shows this to be not so. National government discourse, ideologies, and policies shape the programs that are interpreted, elaborated on, and ultimately carried out by the state at the local level. Thus both the conducting of child labor raids by agents of the Karnataka Department of Labour and the establishment of child labor hostel schools in Mysore were local manifestations of state and federal policies and programs. The next chapter will therefore first look at how the issue of child labor has been dealt with at the national level, including international forces influencing the national debate and government public discourse and policies. Following that discussion I will scrutinize similar data at the state level. My examination of the state’s responses to child labor will include primary data collected in Mysore in the course of interviews with state employees and participant observation during eradication raids and public events.

336 CHAPTER 10: STATE AND NATIONAL GOVERNMENT CHILD LABOR ERADICATION EFFORTS – RHETORIC, REALITIES, AND REACTION

Background to India’s Child Labor Eradication Efforts In previous chapters I have examined what parents, children, and community members think about child labor, the relative utility of education, and child labor eradication efforts. In this chapter I proceed to look at government discourse and policy regarding these same issues. The central government of India has been the chief force behind recent efforts to eradicate child labor throughout India. To understand anti-child labor policies and programs active in Mysore, it becomes necessary for me to examine those forces driving child education and work ideology at the national level and to consider the extent to which national policy was a response to international groups such as the United Nations’ International Labour Organization. Mounting interest in addressing the problem of child labor in the 1970s led to the drafting of a convention that guaranteed a set of rights for the world’s children, protecting them from multiple forms of abuse and exploitation. A number of provisions of ILO Convention No. 186, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, either directly or indirectly address child labor. Most explicitly, Article 32 of the convention directs all signatory countries to “recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, moral or social development.” Moreover, the same article requires that the signer promulgate and enforce appropriate laws in accordance with previously adopted international conventions to set the legal

337 minimum age for various types of employment, define required working conditions for children, and impose sanctions on employers that fail to comply. Article 28 indirectly addresses child labor, stating that all children must be provided free and compulsory primary education, followed by vocational and tertiary education. Action should also be taken to maximize school attendance and minimize dropout problems. According to the convention, a child is defined as any person under the age of eighteen, the sole exception being if a country has adopted a law conferring majority at a younger age (United Nations 1989). Of importance in understanding India’s attitude towards the CRC is knowing that at the time it legally accepted the convention on December 11, 1992 it did so with an attached proviso known as a declaration. Examining the list of signers of the CRC one can readily see that many countries, both industrialized and developing ones, attached a stipulation labeled as either a declaration or a reservation. The definitional line between the two was often blurred. In general, a declaration was used to state how a country would interpret a particular article. A reservation was used to explicitly state that although a country was signing on to the CRC, its sovereign laws superceded the convention. That is, sections of its own constitution, portions of its legal code, or the doctrines of a state religion superceded specific convention provisions. The declaration that India submitted with its acceptance of the CRC addresses major concerns largely involving Article 32. A close reading offers insights into views held within the highest circles of Indian government regarding the country’s child labor problem and what officials feel can be done about it over time. Some observers consider the declaration

338 pragmatic and protective of India, while others see it as rationalizing the country’s unwillingness to fully embrace the CRC. Although not presented as a reservation, it nevertheless conveys the impression that the convention must be applied flexibly and incrementally due to India’s unique demographic, cultural, and economic realities. It states:
While fully subscribing to the objectives and purposes of the Convention, realizing that certain of the rights of child, namely those pertaining to the economic, social and cultural rights can only be progressively implemented in the developing countries, subject to the extent of available resources and within the framework of international co-operation; recognising (sic) that the child has to be protected from exploitation of all forms including economic exploitation; noting that for several reasons children of different ages do work in India; having prescribed minimum ages for employment in hazardous occupations and in certain other areas; having made regulatory provisions regarding hours and conditions of employment; and being aware that it is not practical immediately to prescribe minimum ages for admission to each and every area of employment in India - the Government of India undertakes to take measures to progressively implement the provisions of article 32, particularly paragraph 2 (a), in accordance with its national legislation and relevant international instruments to which it is a State Party (Government of India 1992).

Official Discourse Washington Embassy Website Several years prior to its ratification of the CRC, India enacted major child labor legislation and established programs to deal with this problem. Signing on to the convention provided additional impetus to take strong action. One provision that every signatory state agreed to follow was to provide a report within two years of adoption and every five years thereafter that details progress towards fulfilling the convention’s primary goals. Reports are made public and intended to compel signers to honor their commitments or risk international criticism and embarrassment. Official discourse of the Government of India is well-represented on the website of its embassy in Washington, D.C. The site acknowledges the seriousness of the child labor problem in India and points

339 out that the protection of children from economic exploitation and specifically child labor is both enshrined in the Indian constitution (in Articles 24 and 39) and addressed by a number of labor laws dating back prior to independence. It also acknowledges that the problem is a difficult one to solve given high rates of poverty and that the vast portion of the population under 14 years of age. In addition, it emphasizes that a large majority of children who work in India do so in rural agricultural settings, with only 9% involved in other areas such as manufacturing and service industries. Such a framing of child labor in India conveys the sense that most do not fit the mold of being exploitative or hazardous as are the types of work targeted by the ILO and vilified by NGOs and the mass media. The website suggests that most work children do in India, be it rural agricultural work or small-scale home-based production, occurs within the safety of the family setting and is a form of vocational training. Moreover, the government’s discourse conveys the sense that India is taking seriously a problem of vast scale driven by even larger structural problems. As such, the rest of the world, including international agencies should neither criticize nor attempt to force it to take more stringent measures. The website even explicitly states: “International policies and actions, therefore, must support and not hamper India’s efforts to get rid of child labor” (Embassy of India, Washington, D.C. 2006).

Ministry of Labour and Employment Website The website of India’s Ministry of Labour and Employment has an extremely detailed and sophisticated section addressing the country’s multiple approaches to dealing

340 with child labor. It provides even greater insight into how the issue has been framed at the national level. When I accessed the section in January of 2006 there was a flashing yellow message saying “updated” next to the its button on the homepage’s menu. Like the content of the webpage dealing with child labor posted by India’s embassy in Washington, D.C. it showcases the seriousness with which India has addressed the problem from the time the issue gained prominence in the late 1970s, the multisectorial nature of the country’s child labor policies, and the ever-expanding nature of its legal and programmatic commitment to eradicating child labor. Some highlights of the government’s child labor eradication efforts are worth recounting, as they set in motion the cascading series of activities at the state and local levels I noted earlier. This account excludes the education policies and projects already mentioned in a previous chapter which may be also thought of as being part of the country’s anti-child labor endeavor. One of India’s early moves to deal with child labor was a program known as the Grant-in-Aid Scheme. Begun in 1981 and still active today, this program provides funding to NGOs and voluntary organizations for the establishment of special schools for children withdrawn from child labor (i.e. bridge schools). Over time the scheme became limited to geographical areas not covered under a more extensive ongoing government program that offers similar schooling to the same population. Several years later the country’s central legislative action against child labor, the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986, was passed. The provisions of this act, requiring the active participation of both the central and state government governments, were those under which anti-child labor enforcement activities were being

341 carried out by agents of Karnataka state during the time of my research in Mysore. The law prohibits children under the age of 14 from doing work in a specified list of occupations and manufacturing processes 77 while setting a six-hour per day work limit and two-hour per day education requirement for children of the same age range doing all other kinds of work. Another major point of the legislation was the setting of tough penalties, substantial fines and incarceration, for those caught employing under-age children (Ministry of Labour and Employment 2006). The drafting and adoption of the law was, however, not without controversy (which still existed at the time of my research), as strong disagreement existed between those who favored the targeted coverage contained in the law and others who sought a more comprehensive ban on all forms of child labor. The low age (14) set as the limit for enforcement of the law’s provisions, in essence what would be considered a “child,” was another major bone of contention. These areas of disagreement were noted in the public discourse of anti-child labor NGOs highlighted in the previous chapter. The year after the passage of that major child labor eradication legislation saw the announcement of a comprehensive national plan for addressing the same problem. The National Child Labour Policy, as it was called, included elements of legislative action as well as specific projects to aid child workers. More importantly it acknowledged the complex web of structural forces that create the conditions under which child labor occurs in India by emphasizing a synergism with programs in other realms of social policy such as education, poverty reduction, and economic aid to families.

77

See Figure 1 in Appendix C.

342 Although as noted above by the early 1980s India had already established a program (albeit a modest one) designed to help child laborers who had been withdrawn from work reenter education, it was in 1988 that the country began its central (and ongoing) programmatic effort addressing the issue. It was in that year that the National Child Labour Projects (NCLP) was launched. This was a program that established special schools in child labor endemic districts to provide non-formal and vocational education to ex-child laborers as a means to mainstream them into formal education or provide them with skills for an occupation. It also provided funding for nutritional supplementation as well as a modest stipend to the child’s family. The central government’s investment in NCLP has dramatically expanded since its inception, increasing from 150 million rupees (US$5.8 million) 78 included in the country’s Eighth Plan (1992-1997) to just over 6 billion rupees (US$124 million) 79 allotted in its Tenth Plan (2002-2007). Beyond a monetary increase in funding, NCLP-funded projects expanded geographically as well, moving into 150 new areas during the Tenth Plan with 100 more identified for later inclusion. International help for India’s campaign to eradicate child labor was significantly augmented in 1992 when it became the first country to sign on to a new global program of the International Labour Organization. The International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) was created to help countries better design, carry out, and evaluate effective anti-child labor programs. Based on the program’s success,
This figure was computed using the exchange rate of US$1 = 25.79 rupees, the rate in effect on Jan. 2, 1992. 79 This figure was computed using the exchange rate of US$1 = 48.27 rupees, the rate in effect on Jan. 2, 2002.
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343 India signed an agreement with the ILO for an extension through the end of 2006. In 2002 the United States Department of Labor, in cooperation with the Indian government, inaugurated a program to both remove children from hazardous forms of work and provide them with education and skill training in a manner similar to IPEC. The program, known as the Indus Project, notably included a provision for helping families generate additional income to compensate for that lost through the withdrawal of child from work as well as others to raise community awareness and support for ending child labor. While the Ministry of Labour’s website documents historical constitutional and more recent programmatic and legislative steps as proof of India’s commitment to addressing its child labor problem, it also includes mention of action taken by the judicial branch of the government to reduce the problem. In a far-reaching 1996 decision, India’s Supreme Court laid out a systematic set of anti-child labor actions the government was to take, some of them far surpassing the provisions of the 1986 law that had up to that point guided its efforts. It mandated that the government conduct surveys to identify child laborers, remove the children from employment, and return them to school. But it also placed far greater attention on aiding the families of child laborers than had previously been the case. While the 1986 law had required those caught employing children pay a 10-20,000 rupee fine, the court ordered that 20,000 rupee fines be collected and placed in a special fund to directly benefit the children who had been exploited. Moreover, it mandated that the government compensate the impacted families by either providing employment to another member or, if that was not feasible, paying a lump sum of 5,000

344 rupees. 80 The court also addressed the controversy over the 1986 law being too narrow in terms of the range of occupations being covered. It set a six-hour workday limit for children employed in types of work other than those enumerated in the act, and placed the onus on employers of those children to insure that they received two hours of education per day (Ministry of Labour and Employment 2006).

Ministry of Labour Press Releases Beyond the website information cited above, the Government of India’s framing of the child labor issue may also be understood through an examination of official press releases of its Ministry of Labour through the Government of India’s Press Information Bureau (PIB). Many of these press releases are excerpts or synopses of speeches made by government ministers. Several years worth of such press releases are posted on the ministry’s website. While most of the releases coalesce around a set of themes, a careful reading reveals some less often articulated views as well. A number of press releases are presented as replies to questions posed by members of the Indian parliament. Typically, a government minister’s statement to the legislature contain a recounting of the government’s ongoing programs to end child labor, its accomplishments in that regard, or an updating concerning new or expanded efforts. Thus an April 7, 2003 press release reports on Minister of State for Labour Shri Vijay Goel as he addressed the Lok Sabha concerning changes to made to child labor
I was told by labor inspectors in Mysore that few of the parents of child laborers they had dealt with were interested in such jobs because they paid only the minimum wage, which was lower than what they could receive from other work. Moreover, the work offered by the government was not steady, amounting to only 3-4 months a year.
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345 eradication strategies in effect in the Tenth Plan (Press Information Bureau 2003a). A month later the minister also announced that the government was considering amending the 1948 law that codified different wages for adults, children, and adolescents, a law which some felt promoted child labor (Press Information Bureau 2003b). A release dated April 16, 2003 again trumpeted anti-child labor provisions of the Tenth Plan, stating that spending was being greatly increased to finally reach all of the areas of the country where the problem was most prevalent (Press Information Bureau 2003c). A notable proportion of the Ministry of Labour and Employment’s press releases dealing with the issue of child labor documented a minister speaking about the topic at a special meeting dealing with the issue or on the occasion of a national holiday. Some prominent themes of such speeches are: the need for a synergistic coordination in a range of programs (education, poverty alleviation, job creation, etc.) administered by different ministries in order for government efforts to succeed in eradicating child labor; the complex nature of the problem and its being rooted in poverty; the need to achieve the goal of ending child labor in all hazardous occupations by the end of the Tenth Plan (2007); and, a concern regarding India’s international image in regards to child labor. For example, on April 22, 2003 a press release reported on speeches by Labour Minister Dr. Sahib Singh and the deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Dr. Najma Heptulla, at the inaugural session of the National Conference on Elimination of Child Labour. At that event Dr. Singh pointed to poverty as the main cause of child labor and proposed that a vital tool for ending child labor was the targeting of aid to needy children and their families. India’s desire to be recognized for its efforts were obvious as the release notes

346 he “exhorted ILO that this international organization should also give the recognition to agencies working in India and who have done commendably well for the cause of elimination of child [labor].” Dr. Heptulla, besides commenting that school curriculums should include vocational training and especially training in traditional arts and crafts also addressed India’s international image in regards to child labor. The release reports: “She also said that it is generally argued in the international fora that the involvement of children at work, when they are supposed to study, should be banned but she said such an approach would be counter productive in case of India, where the parents are forced to send their children to work because of extreme poverty (sic)” (Press Information Bureau 2003d). The early part of 2004 saw a flurry of press releases reporting on government ministers’ making speeches concerning child labor at special events. A January 14, 2004 posting covers a day of major events held to launch a large expansion of India’s National Child Labour Projects into 50 new districts, included the one in which the capital is located. Labour Minister Dr. Sahib Singh’s speech promised that child labor would be eliminated from New Delhi by the end of that year and reiterated the government’s commitment to eradicate it across India by the end of its Tenth Plan in 2007. The importance of the announcement is further supported by the fact that on the same day 10,000 children were assembled at a prominent site in the capital for a media event where they took a pledge against child labor. The Director General of the ILO, also in attendance, gave a speech in which he credited India for the great strides it had made in addressing its child labor problem (Press Information Bureau 2004a).

347 Two of the most interesting postings on the ministry’s website are from 2005. One of the postings was quite different in format, being not a webpage but rather a wordprocessed document giving a detailed account of a speech given by the Secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Employment (identified only as Shri Sahni) to a conference of District Collectors in charge of areas in which the National Child Labour Project had active programs. The secretary exhorted the attendees to take the program more seriously, observing that “collectors are not finding enough time to discharge their duties under the (NCLP) scheme as they have implementing various (other) schemes in the district.” Even more interesting was the secretary’s framing of how the international community was exploiting India’s child labor problem. According to the account of the speech, the secretary told the audience “that under the WTO Regulations, the developed countries were using existence of child labour in our country as an opportunity to refuse the entry of our products into the international market. It was, therefore, important that we make all efforts to achieve the deadline of elimination of child labour in hazardous occupations by the end of the 10th Plan” (Press Information Bureau 2005a) The second interesting posting from 2005 was in the more typical format of a webpage and was the first detailed cumulative accounting I had come across of the enforcement of the country’s 1986 anti-child labor law. It shows that between fiscal year 1997-98 and 2002-03 state government agents across India had conducted 1,741,000 raids, of which 93,493 identified violations. The government went on to prosecute 33,000 of the employers found to be employing underage children, obtaining a conviction in 14,564 of the cases. The 13 million rupees collected in judgments against the offenders

348 was a portion of the 73 million rupees making up the Child Labour Rehabilitation-cumWelfare Fund established to aid former child laborers and their families (Press Information Bureau 2005b). It is not clear whether pressure from higher levels of governments had the effect of inflating enforcement and eradication success claims. Even if one accepts the figures as accurate, putting them into context means that for the whole country the central government over a six-year period successfully prosecuted only 14,564 employers for violations of the main child labor law.

India’s Testimony before the U.N.’s Committee on the Rights of the Child The testimony of Indian officials at an international forum provides another revealing source of national discourse concerning child labor. As of the writing of this dissertation and in accordance with the provisions of the CRC, India had filed two reports (1997 and 2002) reviewing its progress towards fulfilling the convention’s requirements. The Committee on the Rights of the Child, a body situated within the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, reviews reports and then holds public meetings to which countries must send a representative to address questions and concerns. Indian delegations appeared before the committee on Jan. 11-12, 2000 to discuss the country’s first progress report and on April 21, 2004 to explain its second submission. United Nations press releases about the meetings provide a detailed account of the questions and concerns raised by committee members and the responses of the Indian delegation.

349 Delegation responses provide useful evidence of the ways in which the Government of India has attempted to frame the problem of child labor. It is insightful to consider the membership of India’s delegation to the first review meeting. The six-person delegation consisted of two high level officials of the Department of Women and Child Development, a high official in the Department of Education, two of India’s top representatives at the UN offices in Geneva, and a political counselor from the country’s Geneva mission. What is striking is that the delegation included no representative from the Ministry of Labour. It is true that only one article of the CRC explicitly addresses children’s involvement with work. 81 Yet given the history of international concern about India’s child labor problem it seems unfathomable that there would be no individual present from the government department having the most legal authority in that matter. The first press release I reviewed provides a synopsis of key points of India’s first progress report. The report observed that despite the fact that India had a cultural tradition of valuing a child as a gift of the gods and protection of the child was a keystone of the Indian constitution and numerous laws, the country’s enormous youth population (36% under15 years old) and high poverty rate meant that many children were living in sub-optimal if not marginal conditions. The report went on to enumerate the policies and programs the government had put in place to rectify the problems preventing children from enjoying the rights guaranteed them by the CRC. The introductory presentation to the hearing in Geneva by the head of India’s delegation, Kirin Aggarwal (Secretary of the Department of Women and Child Development), reiterated the themes of the report while
In addition to that article, two others deal narrowly with protecting children from commercial sex work and being forced to serve as soldiers.
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350 admitting that India still had a serious problem in terms of insuring that all children are provided adequate nutrition. Despite such written and oral testimony, it appears that members of the Committee on the Rights of the Child felt that the report did not demonstrate that India had fully addressed important issues negatively impacting on children such as the caste system, communal violence, and gender discrimination. Although the large majority of the committee’s questions and criticism did not involve India’s efforts towards eradicating child labor, the issue was not totally ignored. In response to committee inquiries, the delegation again noted that India had already put into place laws and programs to remove children from hazardous forms of employment. It also pointed out that many more children were involved in agricultural work than industrial work, although a large number of children continued to be employed in carpet manufacture. Lastly, the delegation asserted it was attempting to return all working children to school, pledged that India would expand its eradication efforts to all forms of child labor in the future, and drew attention to the fact that several states that were actively conducting inspections designed to root out child labor. (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights 2000a, 2000b, 2000c). India’s second periodic report on the country’s operationalization of the CRC was reviewed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child on March 21, 2004. The delegation sent by India to this second review meeting had a quite different composition from that of the delegation attending the first meeting. Although it was still led by a top official from India’s Women and Child Department and included top officials from the country’s U. N. mission in Geneva, it also had upper echelon members of the Department

351 of Elementary Education and Literacy, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, and most notably the Ministry of Labour. The introductory statement by Veena S. Rao, then Joint Secretary of the Women and Child Development Department, once again emphasized India’s historic commitment to child development and children’s rights and highlighted the recent passage of a constitutional amendment that explicitly mandated free and compulsory education for all children up to the age of 14. Rao also announced that India was in the process of establishing a National Commission of Children to serve as a guarantor of children’s rights. While these efforts were acknowledged, India was criticized for the declaration it had attached to its acceptance of the CRC. Most notably it was critiqued for not having ratified two ILO conventions (138 and 182) dealing with child labor (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights 2004). The Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No.138) requires signers to restrict children from working, with the appropriate base age being set at 15. Developing countries for which such a minimum age would be a problem are allowed to apply for an exemption, but they are required to take action to move the age higher over time. The Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) targets bonded labor, human trafficking, prostitution, pornography, and the drug trade as areas of extreme exploitation of children (International Labour Organization 2006a, 2006b). The fact that India gave a somewhat evasive response to the committee’s criticism suggests that the government had some doubt about the country’s ability to address a more broadly defined conception of child labor. The press release issued on the day of India’s review meeting reports:

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Asked why India had not ratified International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions 138 and 182, the delegation said that the State had ratified a number of ILO conventions and would continue to do so. Due to the size of the country, the authorities did not want to ratify international conventions without amending the necessary legislation that would allow their ratification. In three years time, children would no more work in hazardous jobs…With regard to the reservation on article 32 of the Convention, the delegation said its withdrawal would be considered once legislation was adopted facilitating its withdrawal (Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights 2004).

The extent to which the central government feels stretched in its attempts to meet the provisions of the CRC is something to bear in mind when considering NGO criticisms that: 1) government efforts have not gone far enough – that all children up to the age of 18 should be removed from work; and 2) that the major hidden problem of girls employed as domestic servants be addressed.

Central Government Discourse As Reported in the Mass Media Other sources of central government discourse concerning child labor as well of national level criticism of the government’s policies may be found in the Englishlanguage print mass media. In terms of official discourse concerning child labor, the themes of such press accounts often mirrors those captured in the Ministry of Labor press releases reviewed above. For example, an article from February 10, 2004 highlighted the decisions of the first meeting the newly constituted National Authority on Elimination of Child Labour (NAECL). The body announced a revised strategy for reintegrating working children into the education system, stressing the greatly expanded use of bridge schools and vocational courses to be run by NGOs. The same article also announced a new focus on ridding New Delhi of child labor on a prioritized basis. The most

353 interesting aspect of the article in terms of national government discourse concerning child labor was the mention that “the NAECL, represented by several ministries, took this decision at its first meeting held here today with a view to fulfill the Government’s commitment to eliminate child labour by March 2007" (The Hindu 2004c). The theme of India eradicating child labor by the end of its Tenth Plan is thus the most repeated aspect of government discourse, whether it was in press releases, on websites, before international fora, or in the national press. Besides articles about important meetings dealing with national-level child labor policy, The Hindu also contributed to a national discourse concerning child labor through coverage of child labor-related events in states other than Karnataka and pointed editorial commentary. For example, an editorial from the Nov. 8, 2002 edition entitled Dark Childhood calls to task the national government, businessmen that employ child workers, and Indian society as whole for the exploitation of child laborers. Inspired by a recent tragedy at a fireworks factory in Tamil Nadu in which eight teenaged workers died, the editorial proceeds to highlight the disparity between the things of beauty child workers produce (such as fireworks and silk saris) and the terrible conditions under which children labor to produce them. Responsibility is meted out to greedy businessmen who reap the profits from the sale of such goods, the consumers who purchase them, and the government which has failed to either properly punish child labor law violators or put into effect policies that help families keep children out of work (The Hindu 2002a). Another editorial expresses concern that a proposed National Commission on Children

354 with be stacked with political appointees and lack the real authority necessary to take strong action to help impoverished working children (The Hindu 2003h). While editorials expressed the newspaper’s view that the government had not taken the required steps to effectively tackle the country’s child labor problem, articles covering similar opinions expressed by major national bodies or prominent public figures add further proof of that sentiment existing in other prestigious sectors of society. A June 11, 2003 article reports on strong criticism by the National Human Rights Commission of the government’s child labor eradication efforts, calling for a major re-writing of the existing legislation from the perspective of children’s rights. The commission asserted that the 1986 law was inappropriately written because it limited its coverage of children’s work to types having obvious hazardous aspects rather than taking a broader view of what might be harmful to children in particular. Moreover, the group called upon the central government, as a necessary precursor to ending child labor, to see that all children are provided free and compulsory education (The Hindu 2003i). The data presented above provides a thumbnail sketch of the public discourse of the Indian central government regarding its attempts to eradicate child labor and some of the national level critique of those efforts. Additional criticism of government policies in this area has been included in an earlier discussion of the public discourse of NGOs. The central theme identified in the government discourse surrounding child labor is that India will have eliminated its child labor problem by a set date in 2007, when all children under 14 years of age will have been removed from work and sent back to school. But the data perhaps more importantly also illustrates the varied and sometimes conflicting

355 motivations driving the country to accomplish its goal. These motivations include validating an important aspect of cultural moral identity (i.e. the religio-cultural tradition of caring, valuing children as gifts of the gods), maintaining prestige in international circles, avoiding economic sanctions, and creating a symbol of progress in terms of both national economic and human capital development. It is at the state and community levels, however, at which national will is tested, policies are operationalized, and success or failure is ultimately realized.

Child Labor Discourse at the State Level

Department of Labour Website To what extent has the central government’s policies and rhetoric concerning child labor been replicated or modified in Karnataka State? Let me consider the state agency charged with child labor law enforcement in Mysore – the Department of Labour. Examples of state government discourse surrounding child labor may be found on the Department of Labour’s website, in state-sponsored publications and newspaper advertisements, and in newspaper accounts of speeches by state officials. The Department of Labour’s website provides a clear description of how the primary law under which India’s central government is waging its battle against child labor, the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986, is applied within the framework of Karnataka State laws already governing the same area. Examination of the description provides some insights into the state’s framing of its commitment to ending child labor

356 within its borders. As was observed above in regards to national government discourse about child labor, Karnataka emphasizes its long history of dealing with the problem and, moreover, portrays the state as having surpassed the central government in such efforts. According to the website the state has had a child labor law on the books that both predates and exceeds in strictness the 1986 federal act. The Karnataka Shops & Commercial Establishments Act, 1961, contains provisions that ban children under the age of 14 from working at any job, not just the limited list of hazardous types of work contained in the national law. The site notes, moreover, that Karnataka has empowered a wide variety of government employees, beyond merely labor inspectors, to enforce child labor statutes. The state also requires all employers to provide the state information regarding the names, age, and health status of all employed children. The discourse of the Department of Labour is similar to that of the Indian central government in other ways as well. Just as the central government extolled on websites, in official press releases, and through the speeches of high officials the array of policies and programs it has put in place to eliminate child labor, so Karnataka highlights many elements of an Action Plan for Eliminating Child Labour initiated on May 31, 2001. Consistent with the central government’s stated goal, the state plan sets 2007 as the target year by which time its child labor must be eliminated. It positions the scope of the problem in Karnataka as being somewhere between the extremes of select neighboring states, offering a figure of 48-50,000 as being the total number of child laborers that need to be rehabilitated. The website makes note of the many schools opened under the National Child Labour Project, the very large number of students moved back into school

357 in previous years, and the budget committed by the state to deal with the child labor problem. A vague reference is also made to state programs initiated to aid families that lose income when children are removed from work and returned to school. State commitment to child labor is further emphasized by the fact that the chief minister is named as directly overseeing the whole campaign. NGOs are also given a key role, being charged with setting up child labor rehabilitation schools (Department of Labour 2006). This picture of child labor eradication efforts in Karnataka presented by the Department of Labour is of interest for several reasons. First, it commits the state to a more stringent goal in terms of child labor eradication than the central government. Second, it provides baseline data on how many children the state projects are involved in all types of work. These numbers are of significance because they provide benchmarks against which progress on the march to complete eradication will be evaluated through reports on the number of children sent to bridge schools or returned to educational institutions. Compared to the figures of the CACL the state’s numbers are very low. If one accepts the vastly higher figures of the NGO then eradicating child labor in the state becomes a far more daunting task, requiring a greater expenditure of time, money, and political will. Third, the prime role given to NGOs in the effort to eradicate child labor takes on additional salience given the data presented earlier on the limited reimbursement per student provided to bridge schools in Mysore.

358 State-sponsored Publications Other literature produced by the Department of Labour provides additional insight into what the state government thinks is necessary to eradicate child labor. In 1999 the Department of Labour collaborated with UNICEF to publish a high-quality report complied by development journalist Kathyayini Chamaraj (Chamaraj 2000). This report is an intriguing hybrid of investigative and advocacy journalism, political economic analysis, and public policy recommendations. Chamaraj’s work is especially interesting because despite the state government being one of its co-sponsors the report takes on a critical tone and supports some of the more vociferous views of anti-child labor NGOs in the state. In the report’s forward, the state’s Minister of Labour (Lukose Vallatharai) offered his views on the report’s potential usefulness:
This document will certainly help in sensitizing government functionaries to this important issue and aid them in framing phased and time-bounded plans of action for eradicating child labour. It will also help other social actors, such as elected representatives, NGOs, trade unions, employers, parents teachers and the media, to perceive their own roles in the total plan with greater clarity and provide impetus for their meaningful participation along fruitful and desired lines.

Although the minister identifies parents as a major social actor in the effort to end child labor, the booklet I have is printed in English and therefore unlikely to be perused by the low-income parents sending their children to work. I do not know whether or not this obviously costly production was also printed in Kannada, but even if it was a large proportion of the parents in question are illiterate in their native tongue as well. Chamaraj pulls no punches in her appraisal of the causes and depth of or solutions to Karnataka’s child labor problem. A substantial proportion of the 66-page report consists of case studies documenting the appalling poverty and exploitation of children (and their parents) working in a cross-section of the state’s economic sectors and the

359 lambasting of rationalizations and myths surrounding the child labor issue. Her comprehensive plan for dealing with the problem calls for a triple-pronged attack involving legislative action, enforcement, and social mobilization against child labor and its contributing factors. Like most of the NGOs working on the issue, she calls for immediate institution of compulsory education and that any child up to the age of 18 who is out of school be counted as a child laborer. It is worth noting that although that the state’s comprehensive Action Plan for Eliminating Child Labour was not launched until 1½ years later, it did not include most of Chamaraj’s recommendation.

Newspaper Advertisements Advertisements run in large circulation newspapers by the state government are another example of official discourse worthy of examination. The ads were usually inserted on dates of special significance or close to election cycles and used to highlight the state’s accomplishments in the realms of education and child labor, the two either explicitly or implicitly linked at most levels of public discourse. One such ad has a central photo of a group of smiling young boys wearing school uniforms running towards the camera flanked by smaller photos of chief minister S. M. Krishna and his minister for primary and secondary education, Prof. B. K. Chandrashekar. 82 Underneath the children’s photo is the ad’s thematic slogan: “Akshara Dasoha [name used for the midday meal program], in Karnataka, Yearning for Learning – The real motivation behind the regular attendance of Boys and Girls. It nourishes the young minds for more
See Figure 63-64 in Appendix B for this ad and a second one trumpeting the same program. See Figures 65-68 for photos of the first day of the program’s operation at a lower primary school in a low-income area.
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360 learning.” The ad goes on to recount that “the government of visionary leader Shri S. M. Krishna” had instituted the hugely successful mid-day meal program in primary schools to attack the problems of both malnutrition and lack of school attendance. According to the ad, “Besides addressing the burning social problems of illiteracy and child labour, Akshara Dasoha helps build self-esteem and self-confidence among the underprivileged children.” (Karnataka Information 2003). 83 An ad sponsored by Karnataka’s Department of Labour on May Day in 2003 addresses a variety of laborrelated issues. 84 But the state’s commitment to eradicating child labor within its borders is given prominent exposure. The ad’s central graphic consists of a drawing of a forearm ending in a raised fist. Inside the wrist of the arm is the slogan: “Towards a state where there is no child labour and every worker is socially secure.” Small photos and drawings surround the raised fist. To one side is a photo of a girl working with an “x” across it, complemented on the opposite side by one showing a girl being helped in her studies by a teacher. Karnataka further publicly trumpets its policies and goals vis-à-vis child labor within the smaller descriptive text of the ad: “Another major endeavor is the time-bound action plan for the eradication of child labour, the first of its kind in this country, that aims to eliminate this evil completely by the year 2007” (Department of Labour 2003).

Newspaper articles commonly reported on the Chief Minister and other high officials proclaiming the success of a variety of state programs, enacted before and during my stay in Mysore, that moved working children and more generally our-of-school children back to school. Such programs included Kooliyinda Shalege [From Work to School], Ba Marali Shalege [Come Back to School], and Chinnara Agala [Bridge Course]. 84 See Figure 69 in Appendix B.

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361 Newspaper Coverage of the Mid-day Meal Program During the period of my research no government effort to address the child labor problem generated more government and public discourse than the previously mentioned mid-day meal program. I have more than 50 articles in my clipping file, both pro and con, dealing with this program alone. The plan to provide a free hot meal to all students through Standard V was announced with fanfare just months before the school year was to begin in July, 2003. But it had barely begun before many difficulties in putting the plan into practice were exposed and criticisms began arriving from a variety of quarters. Newspaper reports document a similarity in the problems schools around the state faced conducting the program. Such problems included: insufficient funds (1 rupee per meal per student was allocated) to purchase all that was needed to produce a basic meal; inadequate water supply and kitchen space; shortages of cooking fuel, cooks, and insufficient cooking utensils; and children falling sick after eating the meals due to low quality grains being supplied or unsanitary cooking conditions (Ahiraj 2003, The Hindu 2003j, The Hindu 2003k). Other criticism was leveled against the hiring of Dalit 85 women to prepare mid-day meals (Aravind 2003), the additional responsibilities for teachers and reduced cleanliness of schools (Nagaraja 2003), the nutritional inadequacy of the prepared meals (The Hindu 2003l), and the ruling government’s taking credit for implementing a program mandated by the Supreme Court (The Hindu 2003m). The government acknowledged some initial problems, but as my descriptions above of

According to caste prescriptions in India, those who are now known as Dalits (in the past as untouchables) are considered ritually impure. Caste Hindus, therefore, are not prepared to eat food prepared by them.

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362 government advertisements promoting the plan’s benefits demonstrate the state saw the establishment of the program as a potent symbol of its commitment to end child labor and one for which it deserved the credit. Because supplying free meals was the basis of the program, the state government was able to deal with two serious problems – school attendance and child labor – at the same time while scoring political points with the electorate (especially the poor) and in national opinion circles. Providing statistics of the plan’s success in Karnataka, the government was moreover able to challenge the central government to provide additional funding to expand the program to higher grades (Ramoo 2003, The Hindu 2003n, The Hindu 2003o, The Times of India 2004).

Other News Media Coverage and Photo-Journalistic Exposés In addition to the extensive coverage of the mid-day meal program, my clipping file also includes a number of other published pieces offering examples of public discourse concerning child labor involving the Karnatakan youth. Those items may be divided thematically into two primary categories – stories about actions and programs targeting child labor and photo-journalistic critiques of the way in which the state and society at large have dealt with (or ignored) the problem. An article of the first type published on November 30, 2003, deals with the less-discussed darkest side of child labor – child prostitution. It reported that police at a popular foreign tourist beach resort in Kerala had warned and were closely watching a group of Karnataka shopkeepers who it had been alleged were employing underage girls from Karnataka as sexual lures for visiting foreigners (The Hindu 2003p).

363 The photo-journalistic critiques of child labor that I came across all involved a photo of one or more children doing paid work, sometimes in Bangalore, accompanied by a scathing caption or short article. Such critiques frame the child laborer pictured as an exploited innocent. One such photo appeared in The Hindu on November 14, 2002 as a commentary on the date being the observation of Children’s Day. The photo shows a young girl walking towards the camera holding a basket containing unidentifiable objects on her head, while next to her passes a boy in the opposite direction with a schoolbag on his back. The critical and sarcastic caption reads:
It is easy to call this little girl, a ‘child of a lesser god’, a term we employ to explain away things that defy explanation. But she is in no way inferior to the boy with the satchel. She toils for hours every day, while he goes to school. And one day he may even help frame laws to ‘protect the girl child’. For now, he, like the rest of us, does not care about her plight. Happy Children’s Day! (The Hindu 2002b).

Another photo-centric critique of child labor found in a Karnataka newspaper that is worthy of mention is one documenting the plight of thousands of girl child laborers brought in from the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh to work on chili farms in the Raichur area of Karnataka. The color photo shows a group of girls squatting while they work amidst heaped rows of bright red chilies while the accompanying short article documents their poor wages and working conditions and criticizes the failure of government laws and programs to help them (The Deccan Herald 2003).

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Policy vs. Practice: Child Labor Eradication in Mysore

The Perceptions of Labor Inspectors The ultimate success of the Government of India’s child labor eradication plans depends on cooperation at the state-level, which in turn depends on community-level efforts in thousands of locales. The labor inspectors of Karnataka’s Department of Labour constitute one of most important categories of actors in the child labor eradication struggle in Mysore. As a group they are at the frontlines of the state’s efforts, responsible for patrolling the city and searching for establishments where children are employed in contravention of the provisions of federal and state labor laws. I was able to interview several of the inspectors and accompany them on three separate occasions as they drove around the city seeking out child labor law violations. The perspectives of the labor inspectors I spoke with regarding child labor eradication efforts in Mysore contain an interesting combination of idealism, pragmatism, and toeing the official government line. A common theme of their discourse was the many obstacles they faced while attempting to enforce the law. One such obstacle was the evasive tactics of many of the employers of child workers. These tactics included employers having underage employees quickly run away when labor inspectors are

365 sighted and refusing to supply information needed for filling out a citation forms 86 A labor inspector described the problem:
When we visited an establishment, we found this child laborer working. The fellow who employed the child will never come forward to give the information of the child employed by him, he always evades things…Then, when we insist to give information about the child, he will always escape from the scene, or he will make that child to escape from the site.

A second inspector added:
During the course of our inspection by sitting down the child and obtaining information from the mouth of the child only we get all sorts of information. The employer will never give any information with regards to that. With the help of our colleagues and with the help of police in some occasions we get information of that particular employer in order to take further steps under the child labor act.

On the occasions I went out on raids with the inspectors I more than once witnessed employers’ evasive tactics. During one raid, the operator of a small garage first told the inspectors that the boy caught working there was his younger brother. 87 In the midst of being questioned by the inspectors, the boy suddenly fled. Another identification of a child labor violation started off as the inspectors stopping to purchase gas for the jeep they were using at a large gas station. Amongst the group of youths selling the gasoline was one boy who looked rather young. When the inspectors took him into the office of the station and confronted the establishment’s owner, the man denied the boy was working for him. 88 At a metal fabricating shop where children were spotted working, the person the inspectors believed to be in charge denied he was the owner or that he knew who the owner was. The inspectors explained another subterfuge used by employers, the excuse of a child being only a part-time worker, as being the reason why they commonly
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See Figures 2-4 in Appendix C for examples of the show cause notices and court complaint forms used for enforcing the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986 and appropriate sections of the Karnataka Shops & Commercial Establishments Act, 1961. 87 See Figure 18 in Appendix B. 88 See Figure 20 in Appendix B.

366 cited employers under provisions of the Karnataka law that defines all work by children under 14 as being illegal rather than the narrower definitions of the national law. One inspector remarked: “They take shelter under that scheme. They say that the boy is employed on a part-time basis. How to believe?” One of his colleagues immediately added: “Even for a full-time worker they used to say this. They used to mislead the inspecting authority.” 89 Employers also use more aggressive tactics to fight back against child labor enforcement actions. The inspectors reported that both employers and members of the public had filed complaints against them, although it was unclear if this was done to their department, to elected officials, or in the courts. According to one inspector: “From the other side, they will do all those things. Just to create fear in the minds of the enforcing authority not to do this work in future.” Beyond interacting with children’s employers, the labor inspectors’ job of enforcing the child labor laws also brought them into contact with broad segments of the general public in many areas of the city. Such exchanges as well as the failure of other departmental efforts to garner community cooperation in ending child labor had left them with a strong sense that the Mysore’s citizens did not fully support their goals. An inspector lamented: “Last June we had published in the paper whoever finds a child labourer anywhere should contact either the Labour Department or the Education Department. We have given a statement in the paper. Everybody [government officials]
A child welfare officer that had participated in raids described another strategy used by employers to evade penalties: “Every time we conduct a raid we issue a notice then and there. But what they do is bring a medical certificate showing that the children are more than 14 years. We know they are not. But the certificate is there and they manage to get it somehow…That’s why we have not been able to collect the money properly.” See Figure 5 in Appendix C.
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367 has signed it and everybody has read it, but we haven’t received a single call.” Another example of a lack of public cooperation in such efforts is related to the judicial aspect of enforcement. A labor inspector explained the dilemma: Then even in spite of the request made by the inspecting agency as well as police, on no occasion
public has come forward to sign the paper being a witness…Under the act, any violation if found will entitle for prosecution in the criminal court of law. In the criminal court, when we proceed with our cases, our case will be strong if and only if any public or private witnesses come forward to give witness before the court of law. Otherwise our case will fail 90…In most of the cases, in evidences the opposite side will definitely ask whether the private witness has been signed or not.

The lack of cooperation the labor inspectors identified as being present in the actions and attitudes of employers and the general public was also felt to be typical of many of the parents of child laborers caught during raids. The inspectors spoke of their difficulties in persuading parents to send their children to a child labor residential bridge school. An inspector explained:
They are not willing to admit their children to the rehabilitation. They are not aware what facilities we have provided there… ‘We will not send. That school is for orphans. This fellow has parents. If we send him there what amount do we get from the government?’ Just like this they think, which is not at all acceptable by anybody.

The extent to which general suspicion of the government spills over into parents’ responses to the raids and rehabilitation programs is illustrated in another anecdote told to me be one of the labor inspectors: “Some people think we are putting that child into jail…So, like this they spread some rumors by themselves. Somebody spread a rumor that they will take their eyes and kidneys.”

In fact, the inspectors on one occasion told me they had been unable to collect any fines for deposit in the rehabilitation fund for children removed from work by government enforcement that had been mandated by the Supreme Court. They did mention on another occasion, however, having collected money for minimum wage law violations involving children, another tactic used in their fight against child labor. Their prosecution success rate for violations of the national child labor law, therefore, appears to be worse than that previously cited for the country as a whole.

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368 Labor inspectors do not have authority under the law to force parents to send a child for rehabilitation. An inspector clarified: “We don’t have any powers. We can’t take any child forcibly to our custody. We have to convince the parents, we have to take their consent and then we have to take the child to rehabilitation.” This is an important point that is not explicitly raised in discussions of child labor eradication efforts in India and exposes a flaw in attacking the problem from the standpoint of education that I have previously discussed in my chapter dealing with education – that of an inability to fully confront truancy. According to the labor inspectors, it is only the under rules and regulations of the Department of Education that direct pressure can be put on parents, but that teachers are loathe to exercise it. One explained: “Education Department has got the power, but they are not doing so because it will create lot of problems for them, also. Because if a teacher wants to complain against the parents, the people become very arrogant and it will become very difficult to work there.” The inspectors also noted a number of other limitations of the national child labor laws under which they acted. For example, they observed that in the case of a child doing rag picking as an occupation there was no employer to cite. Far more significantly, they acknowledged the fact that the many children working as domestics fall outside of the scope of the law and their enforcement activities. Community hostility to child labor efforts sometimes went beyond uncooperativeness and backtalk to the labor inspectors and teachers charged with actualizing the government’s child labor eradication policies. According to one inspector, community response not uncommonly reached a level of outright hostility. He recounted:

369 “[W]e never get public support at all. Maybe in one or two incidents there is good response, but in most occasions the public will not come to the rescue of the inspecting agency. They always oppose the inspection work stating that whether the inspecting agency or the government would give food and shelter to the children.” A second added: “[W]e have faced problems of opposing by the public even to the extent of fighting…Even though the employer who has employed the child labor will keep quiet, the other fellows who are present in the scene, they will fight against the inspecting agency. Our colleagues face those things, also.” On one of my excursions with the inspectors I personally witnessed such volatile incidents at several locations. In one case a crowd gathered around the inspectors as they cited the owner of a small garage and a gold jewelry shop situated across from each other on the same street. The atmosphere was tense, with argumentative words going back and forth between the inspectors and some crowd members. One of the individuals observing the citation process criticized the inspectors and advised the garage owner not to sign the citation. It later came out that some members of the crowd, believing I was a foreign reporter, talked about smashing the camera I was using to document the raids. At another location, a large group of people gathered around the inspectors as they issued citations at a popular Hindu temple where three underage boys were employed at a shoe-check room. In a third incident a member of a farmers’ political party who was part of a crowd witnessing the labor inspectors citing a tea stall owner harangued the inspectors, asking them whether they were now going to help the boy’s family survive.

370 Despite such accounts, the labor inspectors I interviewed believed that their efforts were beginning to change public attitudes towards child labor, and that community response had improved over the last few years. I observed several public relations events they sponsored to raise community consciousness about child labor in Mysore. 91 On the occasion of World Day Against Child Labour in 2003 the Department of Labour helped organize a march of former child laborers from one of the city’s child labor residential schools through the surrounding community. 92 Adult marchers included the founders of the two schools in the Mysore area as well as government agents active in the child labor issue. I attended a gathering at the school that followed the march at which short speeches were made by invited officials about child labor and former child laborers gave a dance presentation. Most of the speeches given were directed to the parents of the former child laborers then being “rehabilitated” at the school. A speech by Shri Malagi Shankar, chief of the Revenue Division of Mysore Taluk, contained messages typical of the day:
My earnest request to the parents who are sitting here is the government has sanctioned this program to give some basic education and training to your children at its own cost. So for any reason please don’t remove your children from this school. The main intention is for the betterment of your children’s future. So please let them stay and study till they reach a [higher] stage or till they finish SSLC. Your problems are always there. So in view of your children’s future, let your children study in these schools. After they complete SSLC, the government is ready to give financial assistance to them in their future endeavor. The government may also give priority to these children for some government jobs, also.

A second public relations event the Department of Labour sponsored (in coordination with CACL) to educate Mysorans about child labor was a booth at the large

91 92

See Figures 70-71 in Appendix B. See Figures 72-73 in Appendix B.

371 fair held each year at the time of Dasara. 93 The Department of Labour booth, staffed by a department employee, primarily utilized CACL photos showing children doing physically difficult types of work. Unfortunately, the booth was situated on an out-of-theway lane of the fair that few fairgoers would pass along

A Manual for Enforcing Child Labor Laws The data provided by the inspectors offers a revealing look into the perspectives of those charged with enforcing government child labor eradication policies as well as a view of how the implementation of such policies actually plays out in neighborhoods across Mysore. This section compares such data with the state’s conceptions of the enforcement process as contained in its Hand Book on Child Labour for Enforcement Officers in Karnataka. The handbook was produced by the Commissioner of Labour with the help of UNICEF. Among other things it contains a recounting of Indian court decisions mandating specific actions, copies of official forms to be used when citing violators and initiating prosecution, and most importantly a complete set of rules, procedures, and guidelines to be used when carrying out the state’s child labor eradication campaign. The handbook was designed as a guide for state employees and not as a document for public consumption.

Although the fair primarily consists of booths selling goods and food, there were also some having social welfare of religious messages. Earlier figures showed the State Temperance Board’s booth at the fair. Figures 74-75 in Appendix B show the Department of Labour and CACL’s anti-child labor booth.

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372 The handbook points out a major enforcement limitation of law in a section enumerating the types of work settings in which child laborers may be found. 94 It notes that although beedi rolling has been classified as one of the hazardous types of work for children that is subject to enforcement, “children working in dwelling houses, as family members, are not covered under the Act. Therefore, it is not possible to enforce law (sic) in such cases. Hence, the enforcement officers have to pursue the parents, either directly or through NGOs so that children in ‘beedi making’ can be taken out” (Department of Labour 2001: 15). The same section similarly cautions enforcement agents regarding the non-applicability of the law to agarbathi rolling done by children in their own homes. Such an exemption is of major salience in my research areas in Mysore, where the rolling of agarbathi is a major income-generating activity of women and girls. The manual also provides insight into government views regarding the causes of child labor. A section states that although there is no single cause, the phenomenon “is inherent in the vicious cycle of poverty and unemployment”. It adds as other reasons “illiteracy, ignorance, absence of universal compulsory education, social apathy and acceptance of child labour, the tradition of making children learn the family skills, lack of parental support, and the migration of families to urban areas” (Department of Labour 2001: 17). The manual thus clearly acknowledges (unlike some prominent NGOs) structural forces such as poverty and inadequate employment opportunities for adults as

State workers authorized to enforce child labor laws include a variety of levels of labor inspectors, factory and boiler inspectors, revenue inspectors, child development project officers, officers of the Education Department, Urban Development Department, the Rural Development Department, and the Panchayat Raj (village-level political system). Police officers and other public servants were also directed to assist in such efforts. Altogether, the number of authorized enforcement agents came to approximately 2,000 (Commisioner of Labour, Department of Labour, Government of Karnataka 2001: 39-41, 49.)

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373 major reasons for child labor, while also putting some of the blame on parents (it is presumably their illiteracy, ignorance, and lack of support the document refers to), tradition (i.e. the passing on of the family occupation), and the government (for failing to provide educational opportunities). Also of interest to this dissertation is a subsection of a handbook chapter dealing with effective enforcement of the child labor laws. The subsection addresses the role of the enforcement officer/inspector and begins by asking the reader to reflect: “Put a question to yourself as to why the enforcement is weak? Is it a lack of will or wherewithal or legal lacuna?” The candor of such discourse is astonishing in that it appears to validate the veracity of critiques and perspectives supplied in this chapter and earlier ones by labor inspectors, child labor hostel teachers, and NGO staff regarding a lack of comprehensive effective action by the government. Moreover, the manual proceeds to place much of the responsibility for the success of eradication efforts on the shoulders of the enforcement officers, emphasizing that each “has to play multiple roles of educator, reformer, facilitator, policeman and prosecutor.” The same section explains to enforcement officers the mechanics of conducting regular and surprise visits to business establishments and directs them to organize meetings with business associations, trade unions, parents, and NGOs to seek their cooperation in eliminating child labor. It cautions them: “It should be remembered that the law would only enable the enforcement officer to release the child from employment but he should plan for various strategies, which require action outside the purview of the law. He should not get stuck with the legislation for everything, assuming himself that he is concerned with the things, which

374 are prescribed only in the statute” (Department of Labour 2001: 25). Such prescriptions make it clear that the titles social worker and community organizer should be added to the preceding list of job roles. They also again highlight the law’s serious limitations. A final chapter of the manual that contains particularly revealing discourse is one titled “Problems in enforcement.” The chapter identifies lack of enforcement as one of the major reasons child labor continues to exist and expounding on that theme states:
It is mainly due to the indifference attitude of enforcement authorities to a socio-economic problem like child labour. The indifference in turn is attributable to misplaced sympathy, false notions, uncalled for compassion, and lack of understanding of the causes and consequences of child labour. Certain myths and false notions have virtually ruled the minds of the Inspectors. The traditional explanations like insufficient staff, lack of conveyance facilities, under payment, etc., are turned out to be irrelevant to a great extent. When child labour is found virtually in every place around us, does enforcement really requires more staff and vehicles to function” (sic) (Department of Labour, Government of Karnataka n.d.: 32).

The same chapter goes on to propose that the false sympathy that inspectors may have that hinders enforcement is “for needy parents who send their children to work” and that agents may also be unduly influenced while discharging their duties by employers who berate them for harming the families of the children they employ. The data presented in this section sheds light on the conflicted nature of both the enforcement of child labor laws in Karnataka and the feelings of those whose responsibility it is to do so. It also offers an inside look into the view at high levels of the state government regarding the state’s failure after years of trying to eliminate child labor within its borders. Finally, it shows the difficult nature (including emotionally so) of the work the labor inspectors and other enforcement agents do, the unwieldy range of roles they are expected to assume in the course of such work, and the tremendous amount of responsibility the state puts on them for the success of its child labor eradication policies.

375 The state, as do other actors in the debate, appears to exhibit a contradictory attitude towards the problem – on the one hand admitting that poverty and lack of employment are its major causes while on the other criticizing enforcement agents for making struggling families the object of “false sympathy.”

Child Labor Eradication Results: Government Statistics versus Community Reaction How effective were the efforts of the government to eradicate child labor in Mysore during the period of my research? In September of 2003, The District Child Labour Project Society of Mysore issued an evaluative report on the occasion of a visit by a special rapporteur of the National Human Rights Commission. 95 The report indicates that for fiscal year 2002-2003 plus April-July 2003 enforcement authorities had removed a total of 205 children from hazardous work and 419 from non-hazardous work in Mysore District. Of the former, 87 had been admitted to special schools and 290 to formal schools. Labor inspectors and other government agents had launched 291 prosecutions of employers and filed 161 cases to recover a 20,000 rupee fine from violators, with another 44 prosecutions going forward under Karnataka’s minimum wage law. Given that the report covers all of Mysore District, the figures for Mysore City in all categories would likely be lower (District Child Labour Project Society, Mysore 2003). The report documents a total of 100,000 rupees in fines (5 convictions) collected from the

Such societies, composed of representatives from government departments, NGOs, and the concerned public, have been constituted across India to oversee the implementation of government child labor eradication policies.

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376 employers of children involved in work categorized as hazardous by the national child labor law. 96 Such a small number of convictions speaks to the question of effectiveness of government eradication strategies and reminds us of the labor inspectors’ descriptions of the public’s lack of cooperation and unwillingness to testify against cited employers. Beyond enumerating statistics regarding freed child laborers, citations and prosecutions, and fines, the report describes the situations of the two residential schools established in Mysore to rehabilitate former child laborers. It notes that one of the institutions had mainstreamed back into government schools the former child laborers it had taken in and had officially stopped functioning as a child labor bridge school (District Child Labour Project Society, Mysore 2003). By the time I left Mysore in March 2004, the remaining child labor residential school in the city had ceased operation as well. A newspaper account of the issue reported the man in charge of the government’s child labor eradication efforts in Mysore as asserting that the first school had been closed because of its inconvenient location and low number of child laborers in residence, and that funds were available to other NGOs that wished to open such institutions. A local NGO spokesman, however, mocked the government’s excuse of a shortage of child laborers for residential schools, stating: “A casual visit to workplaces in the city, including garages, and beedi rolling and agarbathi enterprises, will show that the menace of child labor continues to be as rampant as ever” (The Hindu 2004d). The closing of 21 child labor residential schools for girls over across the state over the course of 2002 had

It is not clear by whom this money was collected, as the inspectors I spoke with (who were primarily responsible for conducting raids in Mysore City) at a later date told me that they had not been successful in recovering any such fines.

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377 garnered similar strong criticism from CACL and a push to have them reopened (The Hindu 2003q). The fact that a major thrust of government child labor policy was dependent on NGOs stepping forward to open bridge schools is a significant one as according to my data the amount allotted per student for such institutions was considered to be an inadequate incentive. The discourse of household study participants concerning the state’s child labor eradication efforts in Mysore serves a useful complement to the dry statistics of the previous report. Although those informants’ opinions regarding child labor and education are well represented in earlier chapters, the fact that government policies in this area ultimately depend on convincing low-income parents like them to send their children to school rather than work makes their views particularly salient. In the course of a thematic interview dealing with child labor eradication efforts in Mysore, I showed household study participants photos of child labor raids, the mid-day meal program, and the CACL’s Nai Subah event and asked their opinions about such activities. Were they aware that such enforcement was going on in Mysore? Did they agree with the goals and tactics of the government (and NGOs)? Did they think others in their low-income neighborhood would do so? And, finally, did they believe the government and NGOs would succeed in eliminating child labor and having all children in school? A significant number of study participants were aware of the child labor raids being conducted in the city as well as other aspects of the government’s efforts, although some were misinformed about the specifics of the laws being enforced (i.e. age limit of children covered, party required to pay the fine, amount of fine). Some told stories of a

378 relative (or even their own child) having been sent to hide or return home (sometimes for an extended period of time) by a fearful employer when a raid was conducted near their business establishment. Some had witnessed a raid and one person mentioned becoming aware of the government’s efforts from observing a parade going through his neighborhood. Many people residing in close proximity to the private school that housed one of Mysore’s child labor residential schools knew of its existence. Discussion of the subject of the government’s efforts to eliminate child labor, including its use of raids, elicited a large amount of moral discourse. Although many of informants felt that the government’s efforts were good, their approval was most often accompanied by an expression of concern for poor households like their own in which targeted working children reside and the caveat that something must at the same time be done to help them. The conflicted feelings they had about the issue sometimes even led to an expression of disapproval and approval within the same exchange. A mother, appearing to speak for her own and others poor families, said: “The government is doing all this to give the children a better future and that is good. But if we send the children to school, what about the problems at home? Who will take care of that?” Another had similar feelings: “Whatever they do, it is good. But our problem is they don’t understand. They should understand our problem, also.” The mother of two working boys offered a clearer view of the basis for such conflicted feelings about the government’s policies: “What they are doing is good on the one hand. So that let children get educated and get some knowledge. But on the other hand, when we don’t have anything to eat even 10 rupees earned by a child is enough for the daily survival of a family.” A father’s opinion also explicitly referred to

379 the issue of hunger: “Because of the stomach they go to work. It is the mistake of the owners to hire such young children. Parents may send them because they need money for food.” Two additional informants emotionally echoed the concerns of the previous parents. The first, a woman who headed her own household, said: “I agree with the authorities when they say that children that young an age should not go to work, they should study, fine. But, sir, what about the enormous problems the parents have at home? Who will solve them?” The second based her disapproval on a variety of hypothetical situations existing in households that send children to work:
I feel it is bad. Who knows the situation in their houses? Parents may be waiting for the money he brings. If he is caught, what should the parents do? He [the father] is a drinker and the mother is an old woman, what can they do then?...You clicked so many photos. Did you find out why that boy from Rajasthan came here? He might have come because he had problems at home.

Some alternatively framed their disagreement with the government’s child labor eradication policies in terms of the negative impact they would have on children’s future. A father told me: “Yes, [they may not agree]. [T]hey may say, ‘What is the use of education? Let him learn some skilled jobs which will be useful to him in his future.”’ Another father even more emphatically expressed the same view:
Young children should not be made to work so hard. After 12 years it is okay. If he does parttime work he can go to school, also. If not, what is the guarantee that he will get a job after completing his education?...Will the government take care of his wife and children?

Beyond opinions regarding the government’s efforts as a whole, parents also had differing views regarding the effectiveness of specific programs and whether the community would support them. In general, informants felt the mid-day meal program was good, but they weren’t sure if it would offer enough of an incentive to the poorest of families to send children to school rather than work. There was a greater degree of

380 disagreement over the usefulness of admitting child laborers to residential bridge schools for a year. Some felt such schools could rekindle a child’s (and parent’s) interest in education. Other’s felt it was not likely to permanently change a child’s life trajectory and cause too much hardship to their family. The mother of a part-time working girl told me: “If you train him for a year and if he learns and studies further, fine. If not, he goes back to his old job. So what is the use?” A working boy observed: “If the children are given all this, it is for the children. How will the families benefit?” A father noted: “If he is the breadwinner, how will his parents send him to the hostel? From where will they get food?...If the government helps a little, we can send them.” My informants were even less inclined to believe that their communities would universally support the government’s and NGOs’ anti-child labor and pro-education efforts. A father felt that some parents would support the efforts, but the majority would not. He gave their rationale: “[T]hey may say, “What is the use of education? Let him learn some skilled jobs which will be useful to him in his future.” A mother offered a similar response: “Some people feel, ‘Let us send our children to school, let them gain some knowledge.’ Some people say, ‘What will they earn after studying? Let them do work.’” A mother of two working boys even more strongly doubted that child labor eradication efforts would succeed in her community: “They can’t stop it. Some people may try and give some education to their children. Some people who are very poor can’t send them to school, so the children have to work.” A working boy’s aunt noted the preponderance of social problems working against community cooperation: “In this area a second wife is common. There are more children, more drinkers. So nobody will

381 support it.” But the father of two working boys, although believing that the people of his community would be against the government’s child labor policies, felt that their compliance was a fete de compli: “It has become inevitable for the parents to send their children to school. All the employers are scared. They say that if we are caught, we will have to cough up 20,000 rupees, so please go away.”

The Sum of Good Efforts: Counting Cases vs. What Counts This chapter has examined government child labor eradication discourse and programmatic action beginning with the Government of India’s ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (with attached stipulations), proceeding to the state’s operationalization of the central government’s 1986 child labor law, and finally filtering down to the activities of state employees putting policies into practice in lowincome neighborhoods of Mysore. A dominant aspect of both the central and state governments’ public discourse has been the target of “eradicating child labor” by a set date in 2007. Achieving such a goal, according to government definitions, involves moving all children that have identified by those governments as being child laborers out of work and back to school. On a certain level, then, eradicating child labor is very much a result tied to statistics. Year by year the government announces rehabilitating an additional number of child workers, that figure then being chipped away from the original one that the government stated as being the total for the state. The data presented in this chapter has problematized in several ways the likelihood of either the central or state government meeting such a goal. First, some

382 informants have called into question whether the government has actually identified all child laborers, is using effective raiding strategies, and has the political will and resources necessary to succeed. Previous data from NGOs and other sources have made similar points. The discourse of labor inspectors has emphasized a lack of cooperation from the public and the problems they have faced in prosecuting offenders illustrates some of the weaknesses of the country’s main law addressing the child labor issue. Discourse contained in a state manual for child labor enforcement agents showed that those working at the grassroots level to some degree share the conflicted feelings of low-income parents regarding eradication efforts. They strongly support the law but feel a high degree of sympathy for the economic and social problems faced by poor households and are loath to add to them by stringently enforcing the law. Such data raises the question of whether inspectors who feel such sympathy are duped by parents that are exploiting their children (a description that some have made of such parents) or whether as individuals who daily interact with working children and their families they come to see the complexity of the child labor problem and what it will take to truly solve it. This would mean fully confronting such issues as poverty, unemployment and underemployment, education quality, and alcohol abuse. The government, on the one hand, admits to many factors contributing to child labor, but on the other stands by its goal to immediately end child labor. The mixed feelings the low-income participants in my household study have towards the government’s child labor eradication efforts present an even greater obstacle to eradication success and demonstrate that the government has not adequately convinced

383 the poor of the legitimacy of its position. Low-income informants believe it to be vital that the government concurrently deal with child labor and its causes. They want to educate their children, but look pragmatically at both their need to survive and providing a viable future for their children. Their agreement with the government’s child labor eradication efforts is tempered by concern for their own survival as well as that of other poor families similarly impacted. They welcome programs such as the mid-day school meal, but in the end most are not interested in quick-fixes like the short-term child labor residential schools. Rather, they believe that for the cumulative effort of eliminating child labor to succeed and all children to be in school the government must help low-income families transcend their marginal economic existence in tangible ways. Child labor eradication, they feel, will naturally flow from that kind of development.

384 CHAPTER 11: CONCLUSIONS

Theoretical Approach and Methodology In this dissertation I have examined child labor from several different but intersecting vantage points. This chapter provides a summary of the research, touching on its goals and questions, methodology, and results. It proceeds to discuss major conclusions that may be drawn from the data. Finally, I offer six recommendations for future studies of child labor and some final reflections. I set out to examine child labor from the perspective of poor households having working children because I felt such voices had been largely neglected in the literature. Much of the published work on child labor in India has been more concerned with describing the characteristics (e.g. age, educational achievement, literacy, and income of parents) of households having child laborers than with eliciting broader perspectives on the subject. Their presentation of findings often made it appear that children worked as a result of parents’ ignorance, irresponsibility, laziness, greed, or at the best, helplessness in the face of poverty. My preliminary exploration of the subject, however, led me to question a reductionistic model of child labor that placed the responsibility for this social phenomenon on parents’ “failings”. The research questions that guided this dissertation were posed to gain a deeper understanding of the social and economic dynamics within low-income households and decision-making regarding children, work, and education. Did the fact that children worked indicate desperate household need or callous exploitation on the part of parents? Were children forced to work, or did they do so on

385 their own volition out of a sense of moral responsibility? Did children who obtained a basic education have better future opportunities than those who dropped out and trained for an occupation? Previous studies of the households of child laborers have almost exclusively relied on survey questionnaires for data gathering. Data collected in this manner lacks depth and, more importantly, does not allow informants to fully voice their opinions. The research on which this dissertation is based privileges the voices of parents and working children. Its centerpiece is a household study conducted in low-income neighborhoods of Mysore. Members of 35 households took part in a series of 10 open-ended thematic interviews conducted over a period of 15 months in 2003-2004. The interviews were taped, transcribed, and analyzed thematically using text management software, enabling the words of household study participants to form the backbone of the data I have presented. Although children’s long working hours and other factors prevented me from speaking with them as much as their parents, their words also make an important contribution to the dissertation. Card prompt (displaying cues) exercises were also an important method used to stimulate guided interviews. Four sets of picture-cards drawn by a local artist were used to elicit comparisons or stories. For example, a set of cards depicting children doing different types of work was used to distinguish between work that was suitable and unsuitable for boys and girls under 14 years old and children 14-18 years old. A second set showing physically risky situations around the community was used to stimulate conversation about risk and as a jumping-off point for discussions of the occupational

386 risk associated with the work depicted on the first set of cards. A third collection of pictures suggestive of various domestic and community problems such as marital discord and alcohol abuse was used to elicit scenarios that led to more general discussions of such problems. While a household study served as the core of the research, I also utilized other data-gathering methods. I conducted key informant interviews and focus groups with knowledgeable community members to obtain additional perspectives on child labor, education, and related topics. I visited a number of libraries maintained by educational institutions and NGOs to gather secondary data on child labor and education. Throughout my stay in Mysore I maintained a clipping file of newspaper and magazine articles covering a wide range of topics relevant to my research. Finally, I took numerous photos of working children I encountered as I traveled around Mysore conducting interviews.

Significant Findings

Causes of Child Labor This ethnography documented a wide range of perspectives concerning what factors foster child labor. The opinions of low-income parents and their children, members of NGOs, central and state government agencies, and academics differed widely. The data collected during this study supported the diversity of opinions expressed, but did not support the notion that any one over-riding factor was responsible

387 for most child labor. I will briefly highlight some of the major points of concurrence and disagreement between stakeholders in the debate about child labor. By and large, the parents of working children and other residents of low-income areas in Mysore identified poverty as the primary reason for child labor. A common observation was that a household’s impoverished condition could come about as a result of a male bread winner’s death or serious illness, but more commonly was due to their diversion of income to alcohol consumption, gambling, or keeping a second wife and family. Whatever the case, when a household was in a desperate economic situation most parents and working children interviewed felt that it was the moral obligation of a boy to find employment so he could make an economic contribution to help his mother and younger siblings. Most NGOs and many education academics do not accept the explanation that poverty is the main cause of children working instead of attending school. NGO discourse strongly rejects the legitimacy of the claim, and frequently tends to place culpability on parents. But some scholars and activists at the forefront of education-based solutions to child labor are less willing to place all the blame on parents and more open to acknowledging the existence of other structural impediments. As an example they point to the fact that when good quality education has been made available in low-income communities, many poor parents have increased their workloads and economized to enable their children to attend school. The government, on the other hand, takes an inconsistent position on whether poverty is the primary cause of child labor. Government publications and the public

388 discourse of government officials explicitly concede that poverty is a major causal factor. Provisions of the 1986 child labor law and government programs address the need to help improve the livelihoods of poor households whose children are removed from work. But although the Government of India recognizes the structural relationship of poverty to child labor it has not committed the resources necessary to solve the problem of the “need to work to survive” despite firm deadlines for eliminating child labor by early 2007. Government funding of programs addressing poverty, social security, and universal primary education remain inadequate. In addition to the major causes of child labor already discussed, this study identified other factors largely neglected in the literature. A number of parents spoke of wanting a son to get an education, but not being able to control his truancy. They feared that if he continued to cut classes and roam around with a group of other boys he could easily fall into bad habits such as gambling, smoking, drinking, and stealing that would ruin his life. For that reason sending such a boy to work was viewed as a strategy to set a boy back on the “straight and narrow.” Work provided structure and a work ethic necessary for a successful adult life.

Working Children’s Economic Contribution Scholars and NGOs have long debated the importance of working children’s contributions to the survival of their households. This is a difficult issue to survey, but case studies provide insights into how households with a range of memberships and economic situations may be affected. This study found wide variation in the importance

389 of working children’s contributions to household livelihood. In some poor households, a male bread winner was earning enough to feed his household. In those households children were not working full-time out of dire economic necessity, but sometimes to help meet other needs deemed socially important such as a sibling’s marriage or a religious ceremony. In other households working children’s contributions were important, but only because an adult male failed to work or diverted economic resources to the purchase of alcohol, etc. In some households where child labor was sporadic rather than constant, girls worked part-time while going to school. A girl’s home-based production work ceased when a she reached menarche or advanced to a level of schooling that required doing more homework. Her remunerative labor was, therefore, non-essential to household survival. In some households, however, I found that a working child’s earnings from parttime or full-time work were absolutely vital to their ability to meet even the most basic food needs. This was especially so in female-headed households, in households in which the male breadwinner could not productively work because of a health problem, and those in which the male head could not obtain consistent employment. Because rice can be purchased for as little as 8-10 rupees per kilo, even a small economic contribution from a child can prevent the need to skip a meal. In some households where girls rolled agarbathi part-time, the additional several rupees a day were used to purchase needed school supplies. Girls’ labor increased during the summer holidays, with the additional income they generated being used to repay accumulated debts. Without such an added contribution, the household would fall even more deeply into debt to moneylenders.

390 The desire for pocket money is also an important incentive for children in marginal families to work. Working children are often allowed to keep some of their income for lunch, clothing, movie-going, and body care products. Not only is consumption a common form of identity expression practiced by children across the world, but the nature of working children’s expenditures often compensate for parents’ inability to provide them with anything more than their basic necessities.

Occupational Risk At the outset of my research I thought that perceived occupational risk would be a major factor influencing the choice of work for a child. This did not prove to be the case. In many instances there is little choice in the type of work available to a child that leaves school. For boys, manual labor on construction sites or work in a shop was most common. A boy lucky enough to have a father with a skilled occupation (e.g. carpenter, tailor) was able to train under him. Girls were generally limited to working at home and therefore could learn an income-generating skill such as rolling agarbathi only if their mother did the same work. The most revealing finding concerning parents’ and working children’s attitudes towards occupational risk was the manner in which they regarded it as a ubiquitous, quotidian, and unavoidable characteristic of work. My informants associated physical risk with many types of work that boys do, but felt that it lessened with experience on the job. Moreover, they saw occupational risk as something a boy had no choice but to endure in order to learn a good occupation. It was an acceptable risk.

391 What was more worrisome for parents was moral risk associated with occupational lifestyle. Certain jobs were seen as having high moral risks for children. For example, cement plastering was associated with rough language, smoking beedis, and drinking. Any job that required a girl to work outside her home was viewed as presenting her with serious moral risks. The potential existed for her to be sexually harassed or to become romantically involved with a boy while en route to work or with a male coworker. Moral risk was the major factor in restricting girls’ work choices and keeping them at home to engage in cottage industries. Many girls in Mysore roll agarbathi, a hazardous and therefore illegal type of work according to India’s child labor law, because they are not allowed to work at potentially less physically risky jobs outside the home.

Childhood and Children’s Agency A major finding of this study is that children play an active role in choosing to work. Many NGOs and academics have described working children as innocent victims having little voice in the decision to leave school for work, or in the kind of work they do. Children are described as working long hours for pay that must be handed over in full to parents. My findings show that child labor is far more complex, and that children often exercise agency at a number of points in their work trajectory. First, boys often exercise agency with respect to how far they continue their schooling. Boys who are not interested in education drop out of school against their parents’ wishes, but then have to accede to parents’ demands that they work. A second point at which boys can express agency is in the choice of their work. Parents believed

392 that boys should engage in work in which they have interest. The problem is work options are limited for uneducated youth, so “freedom to choose” is often a mute point. Nevertheless, boys are able to choose among limited available work options and often choose to do the same work as their friends. Boys also leave jobs they do not like or at which they are not well-treated. A significant way in which working children express agency is through retention of a portion of their earnings. In some cases, a set amount was seen as reasonable pocket money. In other cases, boys used deception or threats to deflect parents’ requests for larger contributions to the household. Working girls, not just boys, retained a portion of their earnings for personal use. Girls used this money for sweets, school supplies, body care products, or inexpensive ornaments. The working girls in my study were given pocket money by their parents, but informants reported that some working girls in the community contributed nothing to their households. Another major finding was that low-income parents and children have very different understandings of childhood than those that are espoused by NGOs, the government, and international bodies. Many parents whom I interviewed believed that the kind of childhood concept enshrined in the CRC was not relevant for their children. A universalized concept of childhood provided to middle and upper-class children in developed countries such as the United States was seen as only possible for the well-off classes in India. Informants generally felt that parents in poor households should tell children in their early to mid-teens about household economic problems. Significantly, it was deemed appropriate for a boy to begin working around age 14-15 years old if there

393 were household problems, as a boy at that age was considered a responsible household member having duty to support his social unit. While this age range conforms to India’s current child labor law, it is contrary to the positions of many Indian education and child labor NGO activists, the ILO, and provisions of the CRC that demand children be allowed to attend school and remain out of the full-time labor market until age 18. Parents’ differing views regarding the age at which children should be permitted to work extends to their conceptions of the age-appropriateness of various types of work. Informants felt that children under 14 lacked the physical strength and mental maturity (a combination of intelligence, concentration, and discipline) to do a number of different jobs, but that by the time they reach their mid-adolescence (14-16 years old) they both were in place to do all but a few extremely strenuous types of work. Moreover, informants deemed it important to learn many jobs from a young age to gain proficiency. Starting work young was viewed as an apprenticeship, with a child gradually learning from observation to gradually do more aspects of the job. Beyond being an exercising of agency, a boy’s going to work was also found to be a culturally recognized expression of moral identity. As noted above, by working and helping to put food on the table, a boy demonstrated concern for his mother and siblings.

Education The findings of this study concerning poor parents’ attitudes towards education confirm some previously reported investigations such as PROBE while offering new insights into how low-income populations evaluate both public and private education.

394 Most parents in this study wanted their children to get an education, even making economic sacrifices to send them to what they considered better quality private schools. They were also open and willing to allow girls to complete SSLC and to allow those who showed academic promise to continue on to the PUC and sometimes university level. At the same time, although they were disappointed when a boy showed little interest in education they felt that beyond a certain degree of support or coercion there was little they could do to change his attitude. In fact, some informants believed interest in education was an innate quality that some children had and others didn’t. When a boy showed no interest in education parents tended to accept his dropping out and tried to steer him towards a viable future through work. Sending a boy to work was far from most parents’ first choice for a son’s future, but it was an acceptable choice. A significant finding of this study with regard to education is that the perspectives and lived experiences of low-income informants and the ideologies of NGOs, the government, and international agencies not only differ significantly but are based on different goals. Low-income parents and children view education primarily as a means for a child to secure a good job and thereby good future livelihood rather than as a human right or something with intrinsic value. Some parents also thought about their children’s future in terms of their own future welfare. A well-employed child with resources (even a daughter) would be more likely to take care of their elderly parents who helped them achieve success in life. At the same time, while low-income parents are highly supportive of education they are also pragmatic and know the realities of the labor market. If a boy shows no interest in or aptitude for education it makes no sense for them to throw good

395 money after bad. The next practical choice in such a situation is to place a boy in a position where he can train to learn a viable occupation. Parents try to place a boy early both to gain a vocation and so he is not idling about and indulging in bad habits. In both instances, a child’s present and future welfare generally guides decisions made in a local environment in which employment choices are limited. Poor parents make decisions about whether a child should continue attending school or be sent to work based on an understanding of local employment opportunities for educated youth. This study found that both poor and middle-class parents believe that it is extremely difficult for all youth, even educated youth, to find good employment without paying a large bribe. Bribes are a prerequisite for securing any good private or public sector job, and the need to pay a large sum of money to obtain a job for a child is often an insurmountable obstacle for low-income parents. It causes them to look critically at the professed benefits of education and to consider formal schooling as only one potential route for insuring a boy’s future livelihood. Some parents even expressed the concern that when educated youth are unable to secure gainful employment due to parents’ inability to pay, they suffer mentally and emotionally. Poor children’s experiences attending and parents’ experiences dealing with public and private schools also condition their perspectives towards education. My findings show that poor, middle, and upper-class people in Mysore strongly believe that public education is inferior to private education. Parents and children have concerns about the quality of teaching and facilities at government schools as well as their overuse of corporal punishment. The fact that poor parents struggle to meet the higher costs of

396 private schooling demonstrates that they strongly desire their children to be educated. Many spoke of wanting their children to have better lives than they had. Paradoxically, poor parents’ choice of private education over public education for their children can have extremely negative ramifications that unintentionally prematurely push children from school into work. Parents’ failure to consistently pay fees causes children to be humiliated in front of their peers and restricts their ability to attend class. In some cases, parents unable to clear past-due fees to a private school were unable to obtain a transfer certificate needed to admit a child to a public school. Such children were caught in limbo, with work sometimes being the only alternative to idling about. NGOs, the government, and international bodies (as reflected in the CRC) view education quite differently from parents. In their view, it is every child’s unequivocal right to be educated, regardless of whether or not education leads to employment. I found that anti-child labor activists were often unwilling to pay credence to poor parents’ emphasis on the instrumental value of education. Such pragmatic thinking was seen as an obstacle to their goals. Parents who prioritized employment over general education were depicted as ignorant and failing to understand the big picture. For NGOs the goal was human development, not merely security. Members of NGOs believe that low-income parents unnecessarily stretch their resources by choosing to send their children to private schools rather than free public schools. What the NGOs fail to acknowledge is the fact that attending English-medium schools is the most viable way children can obtain the cultural capital (i.e. English language ability) necessary to secure desirable employment

397 in the dynamic Indian labor market. These NGOs also failed to recognize the difference in quality between the education provided by public schools and private schools in low-income areas. Low expectations and automatic promotion (through Standard VII) of underachieving low-income students are two features of public education that eventually lead to failure, frustration, and dropping out. Only recently have NGOs begun to attempt to rectify the situation by offering free tutoring to low achievers attending government schools in poor areas. In sum, many low-income parents viewed education as a means of obtaining for their children the cultural capital necessary to escape poverty. They were even willing to use their limited economic resources to send children to private schools to obtain the cultural capital they saw as most vital for success in India today, English language proficiency. However, even if a poor child succeeded in obtaining an education, a dearth of jobs and the need to pay large bribes to acquire them precluded most educated lowincome youth from moving up.

Gender Differences It is still common in India for girls to attend school for fewer years than boys. I found that poor parents are increasingly of the opinion that successful completion of Standard X (SSLC) is optimal for girls. Many feel, however, that higher educational attainment (i.e. PUC or university) can increase the cost of securing a suitable match for a girl. Low-income mothers commonly see education as providing a girl better skills for raising children and a as a source of security for a young married woman. They pointed

398 out that a young married woman who can read and write can communicate with her parents, read the signs on public transportation and in hospitals, and has skills enabling her to seek employment if need be. All of these skills become vital if the woman is abandoned by her husband or if he dies. Patterns of work differ by gender. As a rule, girls work either part-time or full-time only in or very near the home. They engage in limited number of jobs deemed gender-appropriate such as rolling agarbathi or beedis, cleaning houses, and stringing flower garlands. Public perception of what types of work are suitable for a girl are driven by concerns about the moral risk a girl might be exposed to at work and fear of harming a household’s reputation as a result of events or gossip. Parents only risk less genderappropriate work in cases of dire need. If a household cannot meet its most basic food requirements, honor is a mute point in the face of starvation. Girls have fewer opportunities to work outside the home, and if they work at home they have less chance of retaining control over a significant portion of their earnings because their production is typically subsumed with that of their mother and other siblings. As such, working girls are less able to exercise agency in their households through work.

Eradication Efforts How are government strategies for achieving its goal of eliminating child labor received by the community? By and large, low-income parents were supportive of the government’s efforts in principle, but at the same time expressed strong concerns about the impact that removing children from work would have on those households struggling

399 at the margins to survive. Notably, their concerns extended beyond self-interest to poor households that might be similarly negatively affected by the government raids they had either seen or heard about. When viewing photos depicting children caught by labor inspectors during child labor raids, parents empathized with both families and children. They were supportive of sending children caught in raids to the community’s child labor residential school, but thought that the government should help support such children and their families. Many believed that the one-year free bridge course offered to children was too short. They felt that after one year most children would just slide back into their old ways (especially boys who had reached 14 years of age during that time). Programs needed to support children’s renewed interest in education all the way through SSLC. This study found there to be many problematic aspects to the government’s child labor eradication plan, which was based on surveillance and forcing former child workers back into formal education. The government’s strategy is essentially to locate all child laborers by means of yearly community surveys conducted by school teachers and raids conducted by enforcement agents. Once identified, children are placed in bridge courses, and at the end of one year 97 admitted to regular school. On close examination I found that many children put in the bridge course in Mysore had extremely rudimentary academic skills. Regardless of that fact, at the end of a six-month course all had to be admitted according to their age-grade level to a public or private school in the area. Although they continued for another half-year to live at the residential school and receive

I was told by bridge course teachers and enforcement agents conducting child labor raids that rehabilitated laborers were to spend a year at the school. Some newspaper accounts state that children were to spend two years in such courses.

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400 after-school tutoring there, short remedial support is inadequate to ensure success in a formal school setting. Catch-up requires more time and a different learning environment. For a combination of reasons, including an alleged shortage of a new cohort of child laborers, both of the child labor residential schools in Mysore closed after one year and no new ones had been opened by the time I left the city in March, 2004. The government’s action plan depends on NGOs stepping forward with proposals to operate such schools rather than the state taking the initiative to do so. At issue, unsurprisingly, are funds needed to run effective programs.

Summary The findings presented in this chapter lead to a number of conclusions concerning child labor and the intertwined subject of education. Beginning first with education, the failures of both the public and private systems that have been documented in this dissertation discourage children’s interest in learning and act as factors that lead to academic failure and child labor. Many low-income parents are illiterate and therefore unable to help with children’s homework or even monitor their academic progress. The children of such parents are from a young age unable to perform at grade level, fall progressively further behind over the years of their schooling, but are automatically promoted according to government policy. Parents are told by teachers to send children needing help to private fee-based tutoring. Children who are unable to complete their homework, purchase required school supplies or clothing, fall behind in fees (in the case of private schools), or misbehave are disciplined and often humiliated by teachers.

401 Corporal punishment remains a common practice in the classroom. Boys alienated from school cut classes, their chronic truancy often leading them to drop out and begin working. The public education system, however, fails to hold children and their parents accountable for truancy in a timely manner that might break the cycle before it reaches a point of no return. 98 Child labor, therefore, often results when one or more chronic problems of the public and private education systems negatively impacts academically at-risk children that reside in low-income households having scant educational background or resources. Findings of this study also lead to the conclusion that although low-income parents increasingly view education as the optimal path for children, their support of the government child labor eradication efforts remains conditional. They see the expectation that they send children to school as needing to be matched by appropriate government action to help poor households dependent on children’s earnings. Although a Supreme Court order on child labor directs the government to compensate affected households, my study shows that this rarely occurred in Mysore. Turning to child labor, while the rhetoric of the governments of India and Karnataka State demonstrate a sincere desire to end child labor, programs have not been supported to a level at which they can be effective. The amount of time and money necessary to remove all child laborers from work and prepare them for joining the formal education system are not available. The chief reason for the Government of India’s

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The Karnataka Education Act, 1983 and its amendments contain such provisions, but according to my informants they were not being enforced in my research areas.

402 self-imposed deadline of early 2007 for eliminating child labor appears to be its moral identity and international pressure. International pressures from the Northern countries and the boycotting of Indian products identified as being produced using child labor undermines India’s prestige and desire to be seen as an emerging economy on the global stage. Karnataka is required by the Indian constitution and specific laws to cooperate with the central government in programs to eliminate child labor. An assessment of the state’s public discourse reveals that it wishes to grandstand rapid progress in dealing with the problem of child labor as evidence of being more developed than other Indian states. One may recall that Mysore is only 140 kilometers from Bangalore. Notably, the central government and Karnataka State both relied on a limited definition of child labor and a contested original count of child laborers needing removal from work. Data on whether children who have been admitted to child labor bridge schools or who have been mainstreamed back into the formal education system continue on in their schooling is never mentioned in government reports. Do such children attain functional literacy or merely age out of the government’s upper age limit definition for child labor? Do they get better employment or merely enter into the same low-paying dead-end jobs they would have done without education? All that matters on paper is that children are kept out of work and attend school until they pass 14 years of age. The rushed nature of government efforts to eradicate child labor is clearly evidenced in a failure to create a sustainable bridge course system in Mysore. Success in eliminating child labor in any locale in part depends on the government insuring that child labor residential schools serving that area remain operational over time so that

403 future child laborers caught in raids can be rehabilitated. Yet depending on NGOs to volunteer to establish and run the schools, especially given the meager funding supplied, is unrealistic. Another important conclusion of this study is that both the government and NGOs have failed to adequately consider the perspectives of households with working children and the impact of child labor eradication programs on the household production of health. The government has failed to adequately conceptualize child labor as a symptom of a complex of household problems experienced by the poor which demand more extensive remediation. Such problems include the lack of a social safety net in the event of serious health problems or death of a breadwinner, a dearth of regular work for unskilled laborers, wife beating, and alcohol abuse. The government and NGOs continue to blame the victims of generations of structural violence and dysfunctional households as the primary causes of the problem. The poor openly talk about social problems such as alcoholism as being related to child labor, but they also more broadly see alcohol use and the like as symptomatic of chronic poverty, uncertainty in the employment sector, and the failure of economic development and social advancement in marginal communities. They believe that dealing with these core problems will inexorably enable parents to send their children to school rather than work.

Directions for Future Research The findings of this study suggest a number of productive directions for future research.

404 1. There is a need for additional ethnographic studies in varied geographic and demographic settings of India to provide policy makers and NGOs with a clearer understanding of household and community-level factors contributing to child labor. Such studies could explore many of the same topical areas examined in this study as well as some outside its scope. For example, a study in another region of India could compare the perspectives of different community stakeholders regarding child labor and education. An additional approach could be to focus on perceptions of childhood in low-income households. A third line of research might seek to identify empirically identify how habitus contributes to negative educational outcomes amongst the poor. Of particular utility to solving the problem of child labor would be research to investigate how specific preferences within low-income groups lead to practices harmful to educational achievement and dropping out. A fourth productive area of research would be the difficulties marginalized communities have in converting the cultural capital of education into employment. 2. The increasing emphasis in the social sciences on child-centered research suggests the importance of future studies allowing working children to speak for themselves. Future research should also pay more attention to the circumstances of youth 14-18 years old who fall outside the coverage of the present Indian child labor law. In particular, such research should longitudinally follow children who have passed through child labor residential schools and been mainstreamed back into the formal education system. Other needed longitudinal research would

405 follow and compare the lives of children that complete varied levels of schooling, that never attend school but train in an occupation, that start on-thejob training following dropping out part-way through upper-primary or highschool, and that take formal school-based vocational training. 3. The dynamic relationship between child labor and education that is demonstrated by the data of this study, both in terms of causation and cure, suggests the need for further research focusing on public and private education. Informant reports describing conditions and practices within public school classrooms as alienating children from education and pushing them towards dropping out, the end result of which is often child labor, need further exploration. Another aspect of education’s relationship to child labor that warrants study is the phenomenon of low-income parents sending their children to fee-based private schools. Research should be conducted to ascertain whether providing such an allegedly higher-quality education makes a difference in terms of reducing the drop-out rate, achieving SSLC, and improving future job opportunities and livelihood. 4. This dissertation has proposed a large expansion of vocational educational opportunities in government institutions as one means of reducing child labor while at the same time responding to needs of poor households. This expansion will require substantial formative research to insure that programs are appropriately designed and taught. 5. Some education scholars have proposed a school tuition voucher system for lowincome households as a means of enabling poor children to obtain a high quality

406 education. They argue that if parents are given the choice of which school their child will attend, government schools and private schools will be forced to compete in terms of educational quality. Pilot studies of tuition voucher system in varied Indian settings would help determine their utility as a means of education improvement for disadvantaged students in India. 6. The major influence on the child labor debate of the Convention on the Rights of the Child has been discussed throughout this dissertation. A final recommendation for future research, therefore, is that comparative longitudinal research be conducted in both Northern and Southern countries to describe how the convention has been interpreted and operationalized in different cultural settings. Of particular use to scholarship on child labor would be explorations of the reactions of poor parents in developing countries to the broad concept of “children’s rights” and mandates requiring education and prohibiting work.

Final Reflections I began my study of child labor more than five years ago, prompted by concern that my purchase of certain goods might be contributing to the problem. My initial interest was further piqued by what I perceived to be limitations in conceptualization of the problem by international NGOs and agencies. My years of research have only led me to even more strongly believe that to understand child labor requires situating it within a framework of household livelihood strategies, cultural beliefs about childhood and

407 education, and local political economy. Looked at from such perspectives, under certain conditions working can be considered a viable and even necessary option for a child. But child labor debate in India largely avoids such analysis. It remains caught between competing and not fully articulated agendas, the differing stakeholders unable or unwilling to fully comprehend each other’s perspectives. International agencies view India, with the world’s largest number of child laborers, as a key front in the campaign to eradicate child labor. They have insisted on the adoption of internationalist ideologies concerning childhood, education, and more broadly, children’s rights. Such ideologies have failed to frame the rights they seek to guarantee for children (e.g. to a healthy life, education, freedom from child labor) as being intimately connected to the economic and social conditions of the households in which children reside. The anti-child labor agenda of Indian NGOs is built within the same framework of rigid ideological definitions of children’s rights. The agenda of the Government of India, on the other hand, contains both major unspoken ideological and pragmatic elements. It seeks to promote a positive self-image and international reputation as a modern state as well as protect its export industries from foreign anti-child labor-related sanctions. Karnataka State’s agenda similarly exhibits a concern with image of modernity and social advancement. And the “agenda” of low income parents? In contrast to the ideologically imbued agendas of international agencies, the governments of India and Karnataka, and Indian NGOs it remains focused on day-to-day survival. All other decisions regarding children, work, and education must be viewed in that context. Low-income parents see the rapidly

408 expanding Indian economy as benefiting certain classes, but not them. Lacking the connections and bribe money necessary to secure educated children good jobs, investing in formal education as the route to a good future for children remains a gamble. The age borderline between a carefree childhood and responsible adulthood (i.e. work) is always contingent on household livelihood needs. Even as my understanding of these competing agendas was growing, the steady march to eradicate child labor in India by locating all working children and returning them to school was moving forward. During my field research in Mysore in 2003-2004, I repeatedly read government announcements to the effect that the problem would be eliminated by early 2007. As I put the final touches on this dissertation that deadline approaches, and I am curious to see whether India will announce that its goal has been achieved. Yet based on 15 months of research in Mysore I know that regardless of what is announced much more will remain to be done to fully address child labor in India. My community-level study convinced me that because child labor is a complex multi-layered problem it can only be effectively dealt with by concurrently addressing other deep-rooted social problems. It is only a temporary and partial fix to remove from work and admit to some form of schooling the children earlier identified and counted as being involved in hazardous industries. 99 My observations have led me to conclude that child labor must instead be cut off on the supply side by insuring the poor have a reasonable standard of living and social safety net. The battle against child labor would
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In July, 2006 India extended coverage of the child labor law beginning October 10th, 2006 to children that work in various types of eating establishments and as domestics. For the first time inspectors will be empowered to enter private residences to enforce the law. While this extension responds to what NGO and academic critics have asserted was a major lacuna in the law, it remains to be seen how effectively these new provisions will be enforced.

409 be more usefully viewed by the government and NGOs as one to for the hearts and minds of the residents of low-income communities rather than as a legal and policing campaign against callous parents and greedy employers. The data of this dissertation demonstrate that child labor is a problem deserving of solutions that derive more from the lived realities of poor households whose children work than from universalist ideologies of childhood and political expediency. Anything less has the potential to penalize the poor children and their families they deem to help while leaving the roots of the child labor problem intact.

410 APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY OF KANNADA AND HINDU TERMS, ACRONYMS agarbathi arrack beedi CRC CWC crore garae kelasa HHPH an incense stick a distilled hard liquor made from grain, fruit, or tree saps; the most commonly consumed alcoholic beverage in the low-income areas of Mysore a low-cost type of thin cigarette made from tobacco rolled in a tendu leaf United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child The Concerned for Working Children, an NGO headquartered in Bangalore, India that helps children advocate for educational and work-related rights a term used in the Indian system of numbers to represent 10,000,000 cement plastering and other types of masonry work Household Production of Health – a social science theoretical perspective that proposes that a household harnesses economic, social, and knowledge-based resources to “produce” good health in its members International Labour Organization, an agency of the United Nations that spearheads the global campaign to end child labor a term used in the Indian system of numbers to represent 10,000 the foreman of a crew of workers; commonly used to refer to a contractor or subcontractor in the construction trades an amount of currency equal to one hundredth of a rupee, now rarely used in pricing goods Pre-university college (11-12th grades of education) a civic group or association, as in “women’s sangha” Secondary School Leaving Certificate, received upon completion of high school

ILO lakh maistry paise PUC sangha SSLC

411 APPENDIX B: PHOTO DOCUMENTATION

Figure 1. K.R. Circle in Mysore's central business district

Figure 2. Unpaved lane in a research area, with incense sticks drying by the side drying by the side

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Figure 3. Residential lane in research area

Figure 4. Residential lane in research area

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Figure 5. Residential lane in research area

Figure 6. Retail shopping street in research area

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Figure 7. Card used in a card exercise with informants to stimulate conversation about community problems

Figure 8. Card used in a card exercise with informants to stimulate conversation about community problems

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Figure 9. Card used in a card exercise with informants to stimulate conversation about community problems

Figure 10. Card used in card exercise with informants to stimulate conversation about community problems

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Figure 11. Children's work card – mason’s helper

Figure 12. Children's work card – busser/dishwasher

Figure 13. Children’s work card – street seller

Figure 14. Children's work card – scooter/motorcycle mechanic

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Figure 15. Children's work card – housecleaner

Figure 16. Children's work card - rolling incense

Figure 17. Women doing card exercise in local rice mill with neighbor observing

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Figure 18. Labor inspectors conducting anti-child labor raid at a small garage

Figure 19. Anti-child labor raid at a small restaurant

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Figure 20. Owner of a gas station (wearing blue shirt) arguing with labor inspectors, denying that a boy found at his station is an employee

Figure 21. Labor inspectors conducting anti-child labor raid at a machine shop

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Figure 22. Labor inspectors conducting anti-child labor raid at an auto salvage yard

Figure 23. Boy working as oxcart driver delivering a load of bricks

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Figure 24. Boy selling kerosene from an oxcart

Figure 25. Boys working as construction laborers

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Figure 26. Boy working as sorter at recycling center

Figure 27. Boy working at small garage

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Figure 28. Boys selling plastic goods from pushcart

Figure 29. Boy working as helper at a sugar cane juice stand

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Figure 30. Boy working as mobile snack vendor

Figure 31. Girl working as tightrope walker in street performance in Mysore’s central commercial district

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Figure 32. Girl rolling incense with her mother and grandmother in grandmother's two-room house

Figure 33. Boys working as rag pickers

426

Figure 34. A discussion between boys working as peanut sellers at a bus stand

Figure 35. Boy using a bicycle to deliver window security grate for his employer

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Figure 36. Boy working as rock breaker. Note protective boot fashioned from inner tube and school children playing sports in background

Figure 37. Men doing business from mobile carts frequently employ boys as helpers. This boy is helping a door-to-door buyer of recyclables

428

Figure 38. Boys commonly work selling goods from stationary carts

Figure 39. Girl making cone incense in her home

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Figure 40. Girl rolling incense in front of her home after school

Figure 41. Man repairing kerosene stove of type commonly used in low-income households in Mysore

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Figure 42. Focus group being conducted at a small lower-primary school

Figure 43. Political cartoon from national newspaper, The Hindu, criticizing connections between politicians and the liquor industry

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Figure 44. Political cartoon from a Mysore newspaper, Star of Mysore, lampooning local politicians that supported increasing availability of liquor licenses in the city

Figure 45. Roadside billboard warning of the dangers of drinking alcohol

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Figure 46. Karnataka State Temperance Board booth at Dasara fair in Mysore

Figure 47. Inside of Karnataka State Temperance Board booth at Dasara fair in Mysore

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Figure 48. Poster depicting relationship between alcohol abuse and domestic violence on display at Karnataka State Temperance Board booth at Dasara fair

Figure 49. Anti-alcohol leaflet distributed by Karnataka State Temperance Board at Dasara fair booth. Note picture depicting domestic violence.

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Figure 50. A bar strategically situated at the head of a shopping street in a low-income area

Figure 51. Hut selling neera (an alcoholic beverage) situated in open field at edge of low-income area

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Figure 52. Inside of neera hut. Customers sit on mats on ground behind proprietor; neera in inside green bucket

Figure 53. Anti-child labor coalition's poster

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Figure 54. Anti-child labor coalition's poster

Figure 55. Anti-child labor coalition's poster

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Figure 56. Anti-child labor poster jointly produced by Mysore NGO and local governing body of nearby city

Figure 57. Current and former girl child laborers and NGO activists gather at Nai Subah event

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Figure 58. Current and former girl child laborers draw designs with chalk on the ground at the Nai Subah event

Figure 59. Child laborer giving testimony to citizen's jury at Nai Subah event

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Figure 60. Citizen's jury listens to testimony of child laborers at Nai Subah event

Figure 61. Nai Subah anti-child labor parade moves through downtown Mysore

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Figure 62. Actress and activist Nandita Das at the Nai Subah event. To her right is another prominent figure at the event, Nagarathna, a former beggar who had been aided by an NGO and had gone on to graduate high school

Figure 63. State government-sponsored newspaper ad extolling success of mid-day meal program

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Figure 64. State government-sponsored newspaper ad extolling success of mid-day meal program

Figure 65. Regular school stall and local women responsible for preparing mid-day meal at lower-primary school

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Figure 66. Teacher dishes out mid-day meal at lower-primary school in low-income community

Figure 67. Children eating mid-day meal at lower-primary school in low-income community

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Figure 68. Children line up to walk to nearby school where mid-day meal is being served

Figure 69. State government-sponsored 2003 May Day newspaper ad that includes anti-child labor message in wrist below clenched fist

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Figure 70. Children and parents gathered for NGO-sponsored anti-child labor event at Town Hall in downtown Mysore

Figure 71. Panel on stage at NGO-sponsored anti-child labor event at Town Hall in downtown Mysore

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Figure 72. March beginning from site of child laborer rehabilitation hostel located in Mysore on the occasion of 2003 World Day Against Child Labour

Figure 73. Anti-child labor march moving through low-income area of Mysore on the occasion of 2003 World Day Against Child Labour

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Figure 74. Anti-child labor booth jointly sponsored by state government and anti-child labor NGO coalition at 2003 Dasara fair in Mysore

Figure 75. Inside of anti-child labor booth jointly sponsored by state government and anti-child labor NGO coalition at 2003 Dasara fair in Mysore

447 APPENDIX C. LAWS AND LEGAL FORMS

Occupations Any occupation concerned with: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) * (6) # (7) $ (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) PART B Processes (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) Beedi-making. Carpet-weaving. Cement manufacture, including bagging of cement. Cloth printing, dyeing and weaving. Manufacture of matches, explosives and fire-works. Mica-cutting and splitting. Shellac manufacture. Soap manufacture. Tanning. Wool-cleaning. Building and construction industry. Transport of passengers, goods or mails by railways; Cinder picking, clearing of an ash pit or building operation in the railway premises; Work in a catering establishment at a railway station, involving the movement of a vendor or any other employee of the establishment from the one platform to another or in to or out of a moving train; Work relating to the construction of a railway station or with any other work where such work is done in close proximity to or between the railway lines; A port authority within the limits of any port; Work relating to selling of crackers and fireworks in shops with temporary licenses; Abattoirs/Slaughter House; Automobile workshops and garages; Foundries; Handling of toxic or inflammable substances or explosives; Handloom and power loom industry; Mines (underground and under water) and collieries; Plastic units and fiberglass workshops;

448 *(12) Manufacture of slate pencils (including packing). *(13) Manufacture of products from agate. *(14) Manufacturing processes using toxic metals and substances such as lead, mercury, manganese, chromium, cadmium, benzene, pesticides and asbestos. #(15) “Hazardous processes” as defined in Sec. 2 (cb) and ‘dangerous operation’ as notice in rules made under section 87 of the Factories Act, 1948 (63 of 1948) #(16) Printing as defined in Section 2(k) (iv) of the Factories Act, 1948 (63 of 1948) #(17) Cashew and cashewnut descaling and processing. #(18) Soldering processes in electronic industries. $(19) ‘Aggarbatti’ manufacturing. (20) Automobile repairs and maintenance including processes incidental thereto namely, welding, lathe work, dent beating and painting. (21) Brick kilns and Roof tiles units. (22) Cotton ginning and processing and production of hosiery goods. (23) Detergent manufacturing. (24) Fabrication workshops (ferrous and non ferrous) (25) Gem cutting and polishing. (26) Handling of chromite and manganese ores. (27) Jute textile manufacture and coir making. (28) Lime Kilns and Manufacture of Lime. (29) Lock Making. (30) Manufacturing processes having exposure to lead such as primary and secondary smelting, welding and cutting of lead-painted metal constructions, welding of galvanized orzinc silicate, polyvinyl chloride, mixing (by hand) of crystal glass mass, sanding or scraping of lead paint, burning of lead in enameling workshops, lead mining, plumbing, cable making, wiring patenting, lead casting, type founding in printing shops. Store type setting, assembling of cars, shot making and lead glass blowing. (31) Manufacture of cement pipes, cement products and other related work. (32) Manufacture of glass, glass ware including bangles, florescent tubes, bulbs and other similar glass products. (33) Manufacture of dyes and dye stuff. (34) Manufacturing or handling of pesticides and insecticides. (35) Manufacturing or processing and handling of corrosive and toxic substances, metal cleaning and photo engraving and soldering processes in electronic industry. (36) Manufacturing of burning coal and coal briquettes. (37) Manufacturing of sports goods involving exposure to synthetic materials, chemicals and leather. (38) Moulding and processing of fiberglass and plastic.

449 (39) (40) (41) (42) (43) (44) (45) (46) (47) (48) (49) (50) (51) @ (52) (53) (54) (55) (56) (57) Oil expelling and refinery. Paper making. Potteries and ceramic industry. Polishing, moulding, cutting, welding and manufacturing of brass goods in all forms. Processes in agriculture where tractors, threshing and harvesting machines are used and chaff cutting. Saw mill – all processes. Sericulture processing. Skinning, dyeing and processes for manufacturing of leather and leather products. Stone breaking and stone crushing. Tobacco processing including manufacturing of tobacco, tobacco paste and handling of tobacco in any form. Tyre making, repairing, re-treading and graphite benefication. Utensils making, polishing and metal buffing. ‘Zari’ making (all processes)’. Electroplating; Graphite powdering and incidental processing; Grinding or glazing of metals; Diamond cutting and polishing; Extraction of slate from mines; Rag picking and scavenging. a. for item (2), the following item shall be substituted, namely:‘(2) carpet weaving including preparatory and incidental process thereof”; b. for item(4), the following item shall be substituted, namely:“(4) cloth printing, dyeing and weaving including processes preparatory and incidental thereto: c. for item (11) the following shall be substituted, namely:“(11) Building and Construction Industry including processing and polishing of granite stones”. Figure 76. List of occupations and processes covered by Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986. The symbols *, #, $, and @ refer to sections modified after initial passage of the law. (from Government of India’s Ministry of Labour website)

450

Figure 77. Show Cause Notice used by labor inspectors to cite employers of child laborers under provisions of Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1961

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Figure 78. First page of Show Cause Notice used by labor inspectors to cite employers of child laborers under provisions of Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986

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Figure 79. Second page of Show Cause Notice used by labor inspectors to cite employers of child laborers under provisions of Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986

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Figure 80. Complaint form used by labor inspectors for court cases brought against employers of child laborers under state and national laws

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Figure 81. Form used by doctors to certify that employed children have reached the age of 14, making them legally employable

455

APPENDIX D. RECOMMENDATIONS

The findings of this study suggest a number of actions that may be considered by the Government of India, Karnataka State, and NGOs in their efforts to reduce child labor. • The most significant recommendation of this study concerns government alcohol policies. The data of this study singles out the alcohol abuse of male adults as having major negative impact on household social and economic environments and through a number of pathways creating conditions that lead to children working. These conditions include hunger and inability to meet educational expenses due to lack of economic support and diversion of income, the incapacitation due to serious illness or premature death of male breadwinners, and violent verbal and physical abuse of wives and children. Living under conditions of chronic hunger and domestic strife prevents children from properly studying, and when a physiological or psychological tipping point is reached a desperate mother as a matter of survival removes a son from school to send him to work. Alternatively, some boys leave school voluntarily to work out of a sense of moral responsibility to their mother and siblings. It is therefore essential that the government recognize that alcohol abuse in low-income areas is a major contributing factor to child labor and launch a comprehensive initiative to curb it. Such a campaign should include increased enforcement to reduce illegal sales to children and to close the operations of unlicensed sellers, the establishment of

456 culturally-sensitive community-based counseling and detox programs 100, and a savvy public relations campaign utilizing cricket and movie stars. Such a PR campaign has already been conducted to fight the problem of wife abuse. • A number of recommendations concern government education policy. Over recent years central and state government educational aid programs have grown in scope to cover more population groups and types of expenses. These programs should be expanded to all students from low-income households, regardless of caste status or religion, and fully cover all expenses associated with education through Standard X. These expenses should include the costs of textbooks, pens and notebooks, and having uniforms made. 101 One can not help wonder whether India could not levy higher tobacco and alcohol taxes and use the revenues towards that end. At present India has one of the lowest tobacco taxes. • Beyond easing the often-ignored costs associated with “free” public education, the government should make improvements in the quality of education provided in schools in low-income areas. It should institute innovations in textbooks, teacher training, and classroom teaching methodology to create a more meaningful and engaging classroom experience for students. Children with learning problems should receive free tutoring in their schools. The government could recruit the large number of educated middle-class women who are at home and not gainfully employed to create a special corps of teachers and tutors
For an informed argument in support of such a treatment approach to alcohol addiction in India see anthropologist Linda Hunt’s 1987 article in the British Journal of Medicine. 101 An earlier chapter explained that although the government provides cloth for school uniforms to certain needy populations, the cost of having the cloth tailored is borne by parents and can be considerable in households with more than one school-going child.
100

457 deployed to improve educational outcomes in underprivileged communities. Another possible approach might follow the model used by the non-profit organization Teach for America in the United States. The organization trains service-oriented university graduates as teachers and places them in schools in low-income communities in which student educational achievement is lagging. The practice of automatic promotion should be ended. In acknowledgement of the increasing importance of English proficiency for securing a good livelihood in the changing Indian economy the government should begin emphasizing acquisition of the language from early grades. Such an emphasis will be consistent with the desires of low-income parents and may convince more to have their children attend public schools, reducing the risk of later problems caused by the inability to pay fees at private institutions. As previously noted, those problems sometimes result in children being unable to attend school and, as a default activity, beginning put to work. • The government should develop innovative methods for dealing with school truancy. Teachers and school administrators must be scrupulous in keeping attendance records and swiftly informing parents in a verifiable way of children’s unexcused absences. • Vocational education is an additional area in which the government can take actions that will have positive effect towards eliminating child labor. It offers a chance for children to obtain training in fields that can provide a good livelihood and is a pragmatic alternative for low-income parents who have concerns about

458 the limited number of jobs presently available to high school and college graduates. The opportunity to receive such training within the formal education system may deter some parents from removing their children from school to put them into a training level position. Experts have suggested having a choice of entry points over a student’s educational career – upon the completion of Standard VII, upon graduating high school at the end of Standard X (SSLC), and at the PUC level (for higher level technical courses). It is essential that the vocational training be of a high quality, have all necessary tools and facilities, be free or low-cost, and be in occupations in which there is a demand for workers and through which one can earn a good living. • The government should also take strong steps to counteract corrupt hiring practices in the public sector that lead some poor parents to conclude that formal education cannot help their children secure a good future. Too many such parents have sacrificed to educate a child, only to find that the graduate could not secure employment due to their inability to pay a large bribe. • In regards to current child labor eradication policies, this study’s findings challenge whether quickly mainstreaming children into formal education accomplishes anything beyond removing children from the workforce until they pass the government’s statistical child labor age cutoff of 14. Although successful reentry into formal education is to some degree dependent on how long a child has been out of school or whether they ever went to school at all, it is dubious whether six months to a year of bridge course schooling is adequate in

459 preparing a child to study again at his age-grade level. A more fundamental question is whether formal schooling is the best choice for rehabilitated child laborers, especially those close to 14 years of age who can soon legally drop out again and work anyway. For such children a formal vocational course may be both more attractive and useful. Government financial incentives to families could help insure children’s completion of both bridge courses and vocational training. • This study has some more general recommendations for NGOs working to end child labor. The findings of this study demonstrate that child labor is tightly interwoven with a number of problems common to low-income households, and programs that help children by removing them from work may have a negative impact on other household members. It is both unfair and unproductive for NGOs to paint households having working children with the broad brush of negative moral judgment. NGOs can be more effective in convincing parents to send children to school instead of work if they help them deal with other problems they face. NGOs should be pragmatic and flexible in their approaches and strategically restrict their strident rhetoric to the public policy arena. That pragmatism should be applied to finding additional ways to help poor households generate income to compensate for the loss of children’s contributions. Some Mysore NGOs have proposed that the income from micro-businesses they helped poor women establish can serve as a substitute for that of working children. Data

460 from this study indicates, however, that many of these micro-business schemes can only generate a very limited amount of income. • The most significant area in which NGOs can adapt their approaches is that of substance abuse. Out of fear of alienating the husbands of the poor women they work with NGOs have avoided confronting the problems of alcohol and tobacco addiction. Yet as this study has clearly shown men’s habitual use of alcohol and tobacco is implicated as a major cause of other serious household problems including hunger, chronic illness and premature death, wife and child abuse, and child labor. NGOs’ success in a variety of community development efforts is ultimately contingent upon their ability to change local values (particularly men’s) regarding the use of alcohol and tobacco. NGO grassroots organizers are, as has been previously suggested, in the best position to know how to effectively confront such problems.

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