Oct 11 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)
`India has hundreds of problems, but millions of solutions'
Avijit Ghosh, Surojit Gupta & Ambika Pandit
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New Delhi:
TNN
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Noisy OB vans and an unending caravan of cars: on Friday afternoon, Kalkaji, a middle-class locality in south Delhi, is abuzz with activity and animation. It's barely an hour since the news flashed on TV screens. But everybody knows that L-6, a slim, unremarkable two-storey building, has become a very famous address. For word has gone around that it is the workstation of Kailash Satyarthi, who has been jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.“I know Malala personally and will definitely call to congratulate her. I will tell her that besides our fight for child rights, especially for girls, we must also work for peace in the sub-continent. It is very important that our children are born and live in peace,“ says the 60year-old activist, whose surname literally means seeker of truth. Dressed in a sand-coloured kurta, he stands barefoot and unfazed even as reporters jostle for his attention.
Satyarthi's association with child rights goes back to his first day in school in Vidisha, a small town in Madhya Pradesh, when as a five-year-old, he witnessed a child sitting outside school, working with his cobbler father.
“I asked my teachers and my headmaster and they said they are poor children, but it was not very convincing. One day I went to the boy's father and I asked, why didn't he send his son to school? He replied: `We are born to work.' I could not understand why some people were born to work and some others were born to enjoy life,“ he says. Seeing a child sitting out side a school working with his cobbler father became a permanent marker in the mind of Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi.
The activist says that even as a student, he wanted to work against child labour but didn't know how. “The notion of child rights came only in 1989 when the UN convention on the rights of the child was adopted,“ he says.
Later, Satyarthi quit his job as an engineer and started Bachpan Bachao Andolan.His first rescue happened in 1981 at a brick kiln in Sarhind, Punjab. “The father of a girl came to us. We were publishing a magazine, Sangharsh Jaari Rahega... He had come to publicize his plight but I realized it was not just a matter of writing something.I had to act because it was a matter involving a 13-14 year old girl who was about to be sold to a brothel. When I help a child and look into his or her eyes, I feel as if he or she is freeing me,“ he says.
It's been an eventful three decades since. Satyarthi was beaten up on several occasions and two of his colleagues killed. But he has kept his faith. Reacting to the award, he says, “Had the prize gone to Mahatma Gandhi before me, I would have been more honoured. I will continue my work. This is an honour for all my fellow Indians, as well as an honour for all those children in the world whose voices were never heard...“
He adds, “India has hundreds of problems, but millions of solutions. Watan ki ret mujhe aediyan ragadne de, mujhe yakeen hai ki paani yahin se niklega (Let me rub my feet on the sands of my motherland, I know the spring lies somewhere beneath).
How does he intend to celebrate? “Not with champagne,“ he quips. “I'm a teetotaller. I'm waiting for the children to arrive.“
Satyarthi's association with child rights goes back to his first day in school in Vidisha, a small town in Madhya Pradesh, when as a five-year-old, he witnessed a child sitting outside school, working with his cobbler father.
“I asked my teachers and my headmaster and they said they are poor children, but it was not very convincing. One day I went to the boy's father and I asked, why didn't he send his son to school? He replied: `We are born to work.' I could not understand why some people were born to work and some others were born to enjoy life,“ he says. Seeing a child sitting out side a school working with his cobbler father became a permanent marker in the mind of Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi.
The activist says that even as a student, he wanted to work against child labour but didn't know how. “The notion of child rights came only in 1989 when the UN convention on the rights of the child was adopted,“ he says.
Later, Satyarthi quit his job as an engineer and started Bachpan Bachao Andolan.His first rescue happened in 1981 at a brick kiln in Sarhind, Punjab. “The father of a girl came to us. We were publishing a magazine, Sangharsh Jaari Rahega... He had come to publicize his plight but I realized it was not just a matter of writing something.I had to act because it was a matter involving a 13-14 year old girl who was about to be sold to a brothel. When I help a child and look into his or her eyes, I feel as if he or she is freeing me,“ he says.
It's been an eventful three decades since. Satyarthi was beaten up on several occasions and two of his colleagues killed. But he has kept his faith. Reacting to the award, he says, “Had the prize gone to Mahatma Gandhi before me, I would have been more honoured. I will continue my work. This is an honour for all my fellow Indians, as well as an honour for all those children in the world whose voices were never heard...“
He adds, “India has hundreds of problems, but millions of solutions. Watan ki ret mujhe aediyan ragadne de, mujhe yakeen hai ki paani yahin se niklega (Let me rub my feet on the sands of my motherland, I know the spring lies somewhere beneath).
How does he intend to celebrate? “Not with champagne,“ he quips. “I'm a teetotaller. I'm waiting for the children to arrive.“
