Amole Gupte’s 5 Suggestions on Child Labour Day
Filmmaker and activist Amole Gupte shares five suggestions that will help us handle the problem of child labour.
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Amole Gupte is a man on a mission. Director, scriptwriter, actor, lyricist and a proud father, Gupte has done extensive work with a single point agenda – ‘kids must be allowed to enjoy life.’
His work on celluloid perfectly mirror his thoughts. He wrote the popular film Taare Zameen Par which was directed by Aamir Khan. The movie depicted beautifully the struggles of a dyslexic child who managed to prove himself to all dissenters, once he’d been handled responsibly.
Gupte then went on to direct Stanley Ka Dabba and Hawa Hawaai – both of which threw light on the plight of poor kids. On World Child Labour Day, therefore, there are few candidates worthier than Amole Gupte to wax eloquent on the growing problem of child labour.
Here, he shares five suggestions to help deal with the issue better.
Dear Reader
It’s been just six months since India showed off Kailash Satyarthi’s shining Nobel Child Rights armour and sharp lance. Yet there continues to be a mountain of problems hidden under the carpet as if they never existed. Here are my suggestions on what constitutes child labour and how best to remedy them, on the occasion of World Child Labour Day.
1. The weight of school bags that burdens growing spines – adult administrators unmindful of the harm it causes. (Ask any Orthopedic doctor.)
2. The long hours of an adult 12-hour-shift in the entertainment audio-visual media in which are trapped Fagin’s child entertainers/labourers – the shift many a time extending to the entire 24 hours of that working day! (Is this not child labour? Well, it doesn’t happen in the well regulated first world!)
3. Poor cousins, nephews and nieces disguisedly breaking their backs in friendly uncles’/aunties’ homes, offices and restaurants. When will it end? When YOU report it!
4. Eradication of the caste system, a must if any headway is to be achieved against exploitation of man by man!
5. “My Way Or The Highway” – this boorish form of adult thinking, when looking at children, sets the rules for a life-long channel of one-sided communication (from adult to child). Shame! Stop thinking of children as mere ‘kids’ – give some respect, earn some respect. Saving on five letters by calling CHILDREN by the more patronising term – KIDS – costs the children their self-esteem and worth.
Stop ‘kidding’ children! - Lots of love to the underprivileged.
Amole Gupte