What leads to child labour?

Though Kailash Satyarthi made the nation proud with his Nobel Peace Prize, many in rural India, like Ramesh Bhuiyan*, don't see child labour as a crime. In fact, they find succour in it.

dna had, on Saturday, published a report about a 13-year-old boy, Manoj, who was rescued by Satyarthi's Bachpan Bachao Andolan from the clutches of a contractor, who made him work 15 hours a day, seven days a week.

Later, when dna spoke to Ramesh Bhuiyan, Manoj's father, we found that Bhuiyan himself had sent his son to the contractor. Bhuiyan has been in Delhi for the last month and a half. He came in late August from his village, Khutti Kewal, in Jharkhand's Chatra district, summoned by a phone call from the man he had sent off his son Manoj* with two years ago. "Your son has been taken away by the police," was the message Bhuiyan received.

The truth was somewhat more complicated. Manoj was not really taken away by the police for any wrongdoing. The 13-year-old was rescued from the clutches of his 'owner' by a team of policemen, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) activists and labour department officials. Manoj was taken to Mukti Ashram, the short-stay home BBA runs on the outskirts of Delhi, where he would remain until his parents came to claim him. "It took two days to explain everything to him," says the programme officer at the ashram.

With no knowledge of the city and legal formalities, with few acquaintances and little money, except what he had borrowed in his village, Bhuiyan stayed with his son's 'owner', Satveer Singh, who runs a roadside dhaba in Jahangirpuri. "I know him. His wife is from my village. He only wanted to help me, and look where it had landed him. He has had to pay Rs 45,000 as penalty," says Bhuiyan, showing no trace of indignation at his son being made to work in such inhuman fashion.

"There are no jobs in the village; no good schools. Also, my daughter has come of marriageable age and I thought Manoj would help us put together some money for the dowry. So it was I who went and told Satveer to take my son with him to the city. Satveer told me that he would feed him, send him to school and look after him," says Bhuiyan, who supports his family of four children by doing odd jobs.

Satveer, he says, paid him Rs5,000 when he took Manoj, and another Rs10,000 and Rs12,000 over the last two years.

Bhuiyan has now decided to stay back in the capital. "Satveer has helped me get a cycle rickshaw. I have to pay Rs 40 a day to the owner and the rest is mine. I will send the money home so that Manoj and my children can go to school and eat properly," he says.