Parents’ Dilemma By Nameera Saleem,
India
Veeraiah had never, in their 15 years of married life, argued
with his wife Laxmi as vehemently as he had today. The two together
had made it wonderfully through the thick and thin of life. He
worked at the factory: he got no wages but a tin-shack which was
their home. Laxmi did household work which fetched them their
twice-a-day meals of leftovers and old clothes too. Despite their
needs being very fundamental to human existence, they seldom had
enough. Yet they thought the sahib gracious. After all, he had not
shunned them to the outskirts of the village where their community
lived in make shift shelters baring the vagaries of both nature and
men.
They lived in contentment, until one day Veeraiah learnt
about the free education scheme for children, especially girls, of
school age. Their eldest daughter Chanda was now ten years old and
earning, babysitting the sahib's foreign returned grandchildren.
Veeraiah had learnt that education could wash away the stigma of low
birth. He felt change was knocking at their door too. But
even before he could fully appreciate the beauty of his dream, he
was knocked down by the harsh winds of reality.
The sahib wasn't pleased about sending Chanda to school.
“What would books give her?” He had asked. “They could give her a
better life”, Veeraiah had argued. The sahib was offended at his
adamancy and called him ungrateful. If he was foolish enough to lose
Chanda's job, he could find a new place to live. For the first time
in his life Veeraiah felt the sahib was just like the others: he
felt a swell of rage rise within him. But Laxmi thought differently.
Much to Veeraiah's annoyance she felt the sahib was right. “Books
couldn't pay for food or clothes or medicines. Then, where will you
find her an educated husband. Look at Ramayyah's daughter; she's
been to school for a year and now doesn't want to work like her
sisters…. What good are books if they keep you from work” she
scorned. “Besides, we cannot displease the sahib. If Chanda has her
books, we'll have no home. Why add to our problems?” she added,
mellowing down at the sight of Veeraiah obvious anguish.
The argument continued well into the night and by dawn, the
more practical of them had won.
The next morning Chanda was seen playing, not with books but
babies in the sahib's garden.
Yet again a child was denied her right to education as a
consequence of living in poverty. It's not just the right to
education that was denied to Chanda: many poor like her
cannot demand the very basic right to live a life of dignity, free
of torture, cruelty, inhuman or degrading treatment. In the face of
economic disparity exploitation of the weak becomes a norm and
denial of human rights a trend. Therefore, despite elementary
education being made free and compulsory, it remains inaccessible to
the poor. Those of us who understand the value of education as a
human right and the need to establish it in a humane society must
work toward this end at the grassroots level.
Excerpted from Nameera Saleem, Age 16,
India , Highly Commended , Writing Contest for International Human Rights Day
2006, Cyberschoolbus, United Nations
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