THE HABITUS OF WORKING AMONG CHILD LABOURERS IN THE

DISTRICTS OF PURULIA AND KOLKATA IN WEST BENGAL, INDIA

Inaugural-Dissertation

zur

Erlangung der Doctorwürde

der Philosophischen Fakultät

der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität

Freiburg i. Br.

vorgelegt von

Dakhina Mitra

aus New Delhi, India

SS 2011

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Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Hermann Schwengel

Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Anand Kumar

Vorsitzende des Promotionsausschusses

der Gemeinsamen Kommission der

Philologischen, Philosophischen und Wirtschafts-

und Verhaltenswissenschaftlichen Fakultät: Prof. Dr. Ralf von den Hoff

Datum der Fachprüfung im Promotionsfach: 09.02.2012

Copyright © 2014 Dakhina Mitra

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Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the many people who helped me prepare this dissertation.

Firstly I wish to thank my supervisors, Prof. Dr. Hermann Schwengel and Prof. Dr.

Anand Kumar for accepting me as a doctoral candidate. From time to time their

valuable guidance helped me to maintain my focus.

I owe my sincere gratitude to the International Graduate Academy (IGA), University of

Freiburg for providing me the grant to execute this project and carry out the extensive

fieldwork.

For my fieldwork, I thank my relatives, their friends and the numerous government

officials in Delhi, Purulia and Kolkata who provided me with valuable interviews. I am

greatly indebted to all the child respondents, their families and the entire community in

Purulia and the nearby villages. Without their cooperation this research would not have

been possible.

I would also like to extend my deepest gratitude to my friends and colleagues here in

Freiburg who were not only my sounding board but were also an enormous source of

encouragement and assistance.

Last, but not the least, I wish to thank my family and all my friends for their immense

support at each and every step of my research journey, which helped me finish the

project.

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Abstract

There are about 215 million children in the world who are working as labourers. They

are engaged in various activities that range from light housework to hazardous and

exploitative work like mining or prostitution. Poverty, socio-cultural practices, natural

calamities and social unrest and availability of a large informal economy that facilitates

unregulated labour are said to be the main causes of child labour. As a result, most of

the time children suffer physically as well as mentally and remain illiterate. This affects

their well-being and their future capacities as adult workers. It also negatively impacts

the economy because there is a large pool of unskilled labour living below the poverty

line. Further, illiteracy, population growth, malnutrition and frequent deaths become

causes for child labour and also its effects because child labour perpetuates poverty.

Considering the efforts that are being made to address this issue, the current work aims

to provide a possibly different set of solutions by taking an actor-based approach where

children are considered most important. It is hypothesised that there is a habitus of

working among child labourers because of which they do not see their work as a

problem. Their habitus equips them with a certain type of dispositions that make them

feel that they are meant to work or labour and not study or relax. When same situations

and contexts continue over generations, then this habitus becomes a trans-generational

reality which cannot be broken unless there are internal or external changes.

Since the main idea was to understand how children talked about their lives, the society

of their origin became the point of analysis as well. Using a qualitative approach that

included participant observation and in-depth interviews with children, the work also

explored the discourses maintained by parents, teachers, employers, policy makers,

journalists and social workers to deconstruct the child labourers’ thought processes and

ideas about working. Purulia and Kolkata, two districts in the Indian state of West

Bengal, were chosen for this work.

Through narrative and discourse analysis it was discovered that a set of indirect

mechanisms, that is, the physical environment, the societal divisions, the attitudes of the

major actors in their lives and the age-old perceptions grounded in the grand discourses

of the Indian culture provide a child labourer the rationale to work.

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Zusammenfassung

Es gibt gegenwärtig ungefähr 215 Millionen Kinder, die Kinderarbeit verrichten. Sie

gehen dabei zahlreichen unterschiedlichen Aktivitäten nach, diese reichen von

einfacher Hausarbeit bis hin zu gefährlicher und ausbeuterischer Arbeit, bspw. in Minen

oder als Prostituierte. Zu den Hauptursachen von Kinderarbeit werden gezählt: Armut,

sozio-kulturelle Bedingungen, Naturkatastrophen, soziale Unruhen und das

Vorhandensein einer stark ausgeprägten sog. „informellen Wirtschaft“, die Kinderarbeit

ohne staatliche Kontrollen erleichtert. Konsequenz hiervon ist, dass die meisten Kinder

physisch und psychisch leiden und Analphabeten bleiben. Das beeinträchtigt ihr

Wohlbefinden und ihre zukünftige Fähigkeit, im Erwachsenenalter einer normalen

Tätigkeit nachzugehen. Dies hat auch negative Auswirkungen auf die Wirtschaft, da

eine große Zahl von Arbeitern ohne jede Ausbildung unterhalb der Armutsgrenze lebt.

Darüber hinaus stellen Analphabetentum, Bevölkerungswachstum, Unterernährung und

zahlreiche Todesfälle sowohl Ursachen als auch Folgen von Kinderarbeit dar, da

Kinderarbeit Armut aufrechterhält.

Unter Berücksichtigung der Anstrengungen, die gegenwärtige unternommen werden,

um diese Probleme zu lösen, zielt die vorliegende Arbeit darauf ab, ein möglicherweise

anderes Set von Lösungen zu entwickeln, indem ein akteursbasierter Ansatz verwendet

wird, in dem die Kinder als wichtigster Teil gesehen werden. Die Hypothese, die die

Arbeit aufstellt, ist, dass Kinder bei ihrer Arbeit einen bestimmtem „Arbeitshabitus“

besitzen, aufgrund dessen sie ihre Arbeit nicht als „Problem“ wahrnehmen. Ihr Habitus

stattet sie mit einem bestimmten Verständnis aus, welches ihnen das Gefühl vermittelt,

dass es ihre Aufgabe ist, zu arbeiten und nicht zu lernen oder zu spielen. Sobald die

gleichen Situationen und Zusammenhänge über Generationen hinweg existieren,

wandelt sich dieser Habitus in eine trans-generationelle Realität, die nicht mehr

durchbrochen werden kann, solange es keine internen oder externen Änderungen gibt.

Da die Hauptidee der Arbeit darin lag, zu verstehen, wie Kinder über ihr Leben

sprechen, wurde die Frage nach ihrer Ursprungsgesellschaft auch ein Analysefaktor. Die

Arbeit hat einen qualitativen Ansatz verwendet, der teilnehmende Beobachtung und

intensive Interviewarbeit mit Kindern umfasste, und die Arbeit hat ebenfalls den

Diskurs analysiert, der von Eltern, Lehren, Arbeitgebern, politischen

Entscheidungsträgern, Journalisten und Sozialarbeitern geführt wird und darauf abzielt,

die Denkprozesse von Kindern, die arbeiten müssen, und ihre Ideen hinsichtlich ihrer

Arbeit zu dekonstruieren. Purulia und Kolkata, zwei Bezirke im indischen Staat

Westbengalen, wurden für diese Arbeit ausgewählt.

Durch Narrativ und Diskursanalyse konnte herausgearbeitet werden, dass ein Set von

indirekten Mechanismen Kindern, die arbeiten müssen, die Ratio für ihre Arbeit

ermöglicht, und zwar ihre physische Umgebung, gesellschaftliche Trennlinien, die

Einstellungen der Hauptakteure in ihren Leben und die historischen Wahrnehmungen,

die in den großen Diskursen der indischen Kultur herrschen.

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List of Tables

No. Title Page

Table 1 Child labour as defined for the purpose of the 2000 and 2004 global estimates 41

Table 2 Development and growth indices in Purulia 141

Table 3 List of caste and tribal groups in Purulia 141

Table 4 Development indices – Kolkata 142

Table 5 Distribution of child respondents according to work 143

Table 6 Level of education among child respondents 144

Table 7 Codes and themes from the talks of the respondents 236

Table 8 Complete profile of child respondents and their families 241

Table 9 Profile of Adoslecent respondents 246

Table 10 Profile of Adult respondents 247

Table 11

Accessibility of Educational Infrastructure – Educational Institutions within Village/Ward, in Purulia (%) 248

Table 12 Facilities in Primary Schools in Purulia – 2008 (%) 248

Table 13 Availability of Teachers in Schools, Purulia - 2008 249

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List of Figures:

No. Title Page

Figure 1 Percentage of children aged 5–14 engaged in labour (1999–2006) 17

Figure 2 The child labour continuum 42

Figure 3 Increasing risk of falling in Poverty 46

Figure 4 Trends of Economic Growth and Global Food Price from 2007-2011 47

Figure 5 The social field 88

Figure 6 The four elements of research 92

Figure 7 Political map - West Bengal and its Districts 122

Figure 8 Number of Working Children from 1971-2001 125

Figure 9 Number of Main and Marginal child workers in 1991 and 2001 126

Figure 10 Map of Purulia with its Taluk (blocks) 129

Figure 11 Proportion of Backward villages in the subdivisions of Purulia 130

Figure 12 Number of working/non-working children in Purulia 131

Figure 13 Map of Kolkata 136

Figure 14 Distribution of working children in Kolkata 137

Figure 15 Array of factors contributing to the habitus of a working child 177

Figure 16 Inter-relation between the social, cultural and economic poverty 188

Figure 17 Chart of Respondents in Purulia 239

Figure 18 Chart of Respondents in Kolkata 240

Figure 19 India’s Low Health expenditure in comparison with other countries (% of GDP) 249

Figure 20 India’s High Out-of-pocket health expenditure in comparison with other countries 250

Figure 21 India’s poor condition in terms of providing sanitation in comparison with other countries 250

Figure 22 India has maximum share of underweight children below five years in the Developing World 251

Figure 23 India’s public spending on Education is one of the lowest in comparison with other countries (% of GDP) 251

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List of Pictures:

No. Title Page

Plate 1 Type of huts/dwellings in the Bauri Para of Purulia 178

Plate 2 The lanes of the Bauri Para, Purulia 178

Plate 3 A clay stove made in the ground, Barabazar, Purulia 181

Plate 4 Entrance of one house through another, at Bauri Para, Purulia 181

Plate 5 A house made of mud bricks and mud, with a small wooden door, Bauri Para, Purulia 182

Plate 6 A classroom where even sacks of rice are stored, Bauri Para, Purulia 182

Plate 7 The dirty ponds where utensils and clothes are washed, road to Bauri Para Purulia 183

Plate 8 Dirty water and filth surrounding the pond, Bauri Para, Purulia 183

Plate 9 The lanes in these localities 184

Plate 10 A roadside tea stall where Raghu works, at S.N.Banerjee Road, Kolkata 184

Plate 11 Amrit makes paper packets after he comes back from school, in Barabazar, Purulia 185

Plate 12 Zoya and her friends roll beedis, in Dongal, Purulia 185

Plate 13 Ranjit arranges his uncle’s roadside shop of slippers in New Market, Kolkata 186

Plate 14 Irfan with his roadside stall of jewellery in New Market, Kolkata 186

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Abbreviations Used:

BBC British Broadcasting Agency

DHDR District Human Development Report, Purulia

HDI Human Development Index

ILO International Labour Organisation

IMF International Monetary Fund

IPEC International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour

NCLP National Child Labour Project

NGO Non-Governmental Organisation

UNCRC United Nations Child Rights Convention

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund

USA United States of America

WB West Bengal

WBHDR West Bengal Human Development Report

WHO World Health Organisation

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Table of Contents Acknowledgment…………...…………………………...…………………………………………………………………..iii Abstract (English)……………………………………………………………………………………………………………iv Abstract (German)……………………………………………………………………………………………………………v List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...vi List of Figures………….……………………………………………………………………………………………………...vii List of Plates…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..viii Abbreviations used………………………………………………………………………………………………………….ix

Title: The Habitus of Working among Child Labourers in the districts

of Purulia and Kolkata in West Bengal, India

Introduction ............................................................................................................ 15

I: The purpose of studying the phenomenon of child labour ................. 16

I a: The scale of the phenomenon (Global) ....................................................................... 17

I b: The scale of the phenomenon (India) ......................................................................... 18

I c: Legal initiatives to combat child labour – Global and Indian ............................. 19

II: Rationale behind the research .................................................................... 20

III: Research Questions and Hypothesis ........................................................ 22

IV: Location of the study...................................................................................... 23

V: Assumptions and boundaries of the work ............................................... 25

VI: Overview of the chapters ............................................................................. 26

Chapter 1 .................................................................................................................. 28

Child Labour - A review of background literature at Global and the

Indian level .............................................................................................................. 28

I: Critical examination of approaches to study Child Labour ................. 29

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II a: Studies in the discipline of Economics (including development and health)

......................................................................................................................................................... 32

II b: Studies in the discipline of Sociology and Anthropology ................................... 34

II c: Gaps in the literature ....................................................................................................... 36

III: Defining and classifying child labour ...................................................... 39

III a: Classification of child labourers ................................................................................ 40

IV: The causes of child labour ........................................................................... 45

IV a: Poverty ................................................................................................................................ 45

IV c: Natural risks and social unrest ................................................................................... 48

IV d: Informal economy and mode of production .......................................................... 50

V: Impact of child labour ..................................................................................... 52

V a: Poverty due to impact on adult wages....................................................................... 53

V b: Impact on education which affects human capital ................................................ 54

V c: Impact on health which affects human capital ....................................................... 55

V d: Inequality and strengthening of the child labour trap ........................................ 56

Chapter 2 .................................................................................................................. 58

Definitional Clarifications and Theoretical Framework ......................... 58

I: The constructionist paradigm and efficacy of discourses ................... 59

I a: Definitions of child, childhood, work and labour ................................................... 61

Child: .......................................................................................................................................... 62

Childhood: ................................................................................................................................ 62

Work: ......................................................................................................................................... 65

Labour and Alienation: ........................................................................................................ 65

Socialization and Exploitation: ......................................................................................... 67

II. Pierre Bourdieu and his key concepts ...................................................... 69

II a: Field ....................................................................................................................................... 71

Factors influencing mechanisms in the field: .............................................................. 73

Doxa ........................................................................................................................................... 73

Forms of Capital ..................................................................................................................... 74

II b: Habitus ................................................................................................................................. 76

II c: Sense for the Game ........................................................................................................... 80

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III: Assessing Pierre Bourdieu’s work ............................................................ 81

IV: Bourdieu’s role in this research ................................................................ 84

Chapter 3 .................................................................................................................. 90

Methodological Framework .............................................................................. 90

I: The background and the four elements of research ............................. 92

I a: Epistemology ....................................................................................................................... 92

I b: Theoretical Perspective ................................................................................................... 93

I c: Methodological Approach ............................................................................................... 94

I d: Methods of data collection .............................................................................................. 96

II: Research Methods and the story of a researcher .................................. 97

II a: The methods and the process....................................................................................... 97

II b: Locations – Purulia and Kolkata .............................................................................. 100

Chapter 4 ............................................................................................................... 107

Setting the Scene: India and one of its Eastern states, West Bengal . 107

I: Understanding India ...................................................................................... 108

I a: Caste system ...................................................................................................................... 109

I b: Joint Family ....................................................................................................................... 114

I c: Marriage ............................................................................................................................. 115

I d: Village Governance System (the community) ....................................................... 117

II: The scene - West Bengal ............................................................................. 121

II a: Purulia ............................................................................................................................... 127

II b: Kolkata .............................................................................................................................. 134

Chapter 5 ............................................................................................................... 139

Child labourers and their perspectives on their own lives .................. 139

I: Analysis of the dataset .................................................................................. 140

I a: Socio-economic composition of Purulia .................................................................. 140

I b: Kolkata ................................................................................................................................ 142

I c: A stock-taking of the children interviewed ............................................................ 142

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II: Of surroundings - the physical space of a child labourer ................ 146

II a: Kriti’s house ..................................................................................................................... 147

II b: The locality - Bauri Para, Singhbajar and Dongal .............................................. 149

II c: The school building & its infrastructure ............................................................... 151

II d: The roadside shacks and shared dwellings in Kolkata .................................... 153

III: Dispositions or characteristics and matters of taste ....................... 155

IV: Children’s versions of their own lives .................................................. 159

Ashima – 13 years (Bauri Para-Purulia) ........................................................................ 159

Shalini – 12 years (Bauri Para-Purulia) ......................................................................... 160

Chaya – 12 years (Bauri Para-Purulia) ........................................................................... 161

Amit – 14 years (Bauri Para-Purulia) ............................................................................. 162

Zoya – 11 years (Dongal) ..................................................................................................... 163

Kurban – 12 years (Park Circus – Kolkata) ................................................................... 164

Irfan – 14 years (Kolkata – New Market) ....................................................................... 164

Ajit – 12 years (Kolkata – Esplanade) ............................................................................. 165

V: An understanding of the talks of children ............................................ 166

V a: The unexplained and misrecognised rules ........................................................... 167

V b: The latent hierarchies .................................................................................................. 169

V c: Their emotions and feelings about their lives ..................................................... 172

VI: Culture of poverty leading to a culture of child labour ................... 174

VII: The Habitus of Working among child labourers ............................. 176

Chapter 6 ............................................................................................................... 187

Analysing the habitus of a working child: Is it possible to change this

habitus? ................................................................................................................. 187

I: The discourses that form the basis of the thought processes of a

child labourer ...................................................................................................... 188

I a: The discourses of the family and neighbours ....................................................... 189

II: The broader society: Employers, teachers, policy makers and civil

society .................................................................................................................... 196

II a: The discourses of the employers ............................................................................. 196

II b: The discourses of teachers ......................................................................................... 198

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II c: The government of India and the discourse of its policy makers ................. 203

II d: The discourse of the social activists ....................................................................... 207

II e: The importance of these discourses ....................................................................... 209

III: Can children escape this habitus of working? ................................... 212

IV: Habitus of working: A trans-generational reality ............................. 217

V: The changes that can break the habitus of working ......................... 219

VI: Breaking the habitus of working for the benefit of future

generations ........................................................................................................... 221

VI a: Mechanisms at the society level .............................................................................. 223

VI b: Mechanisms at the policy level ................................................................................ 225

Chapter 7 ............................................................................................................... 231

Concluding notes, reflection on findings and future work .................. 231

I: Reflection on Findings .................................................................................. 232

II: Future works .................................................................................................. 234

Appendix 1 (Field Data)…..………………………………………………………………………………..236 Appendix 2 (Secondary Data)….………………………………………………………………………..248 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………………..255

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Title: The Habitus of Working among Child Labourers in the districts of Purulia

and Kolkata in West Bengal, India

Introduction

Sitting and rolling beedis1 at the courtyard of her house, 14 year old Abedun said

that this is the way of life for her. Rolling about 800 beedis a day is the only thing she

has learned since she can remember. From morning till late evening she rolls beedis

and thinks her labour is indispensible for her family’s survival. Abedun and millions of

children across the world accept this reality of working from childhood without any

qualms or contentions and consider it normal/natural to economically add value to the

family income. They were not born as labourers, but considering their family situation

and poor economic conditions, they learn to accept this reality of working. Accordingly

it could be said that these children have a habitus that encourages their naturalisation

into the role of a child labourer. The habitus is a cognitive set of principles that guides

action in a way that it appears to be instinctive and natural. It is not just there; it is

produced by discourses, societal structures and the material as well as immaterial

possessions that an actor owns in the world.

The current research endeavour attempts to draw a picture of the habitus of a

working child and then deconstruct it to understand what processes construct the

habitus of working and how it is naturalised & perpetuated by the children and for the

children. After learning about the real experiences of these children, this research aims

to find out ways of breaking or changing this habitus. Using a socio-ethnographic

approach to analyze the real-life discussions and narratives of children and the other

actors in their social universe in parts of Purulia and Kolkata, two districts in West

Bengal, India, I will highlight the contents of this naturalisation process. Accompanied

1 Beedi or Bidi/Biri is a thin, South Asian cigarette filled with tobacco flakes and wrapped in a ‘tendu’ leaf tied

with a string. It is known as the poor man’s cigarette in India where it constitutes almost 48% of tobacco consumption. Factory-based beedi production declined as a result of increased regulation in the 1960s and beedi-making became a cottage industry with a home-based women/children workforce rolling beedis. A public health study reveals that over 1.7 million children work as labourers in India's beedi-rolling industry (http://www.zeenews.com/news578951.html).

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with a detailed account of their living conditions, a mapping of their decision making

process that leads to working, would be done. In this introductory chapter, firstly the

importance of studying the phenomenon of child labour would be presented, which

would be followed by a rationale to pursue this research, its main ideas, questions,

assumptions and its boundaries. A short review of each chapter will be provided at the

end.

I: The purpose of studying the phenomenon of child labour

Today millions of children are found to be working in agriculture, fishing,

construction work, sweatshops, mines, cottage industries and many other labour-

intensive industries. Their work is part of our everyday life – in the chocolate we eat or

in the tea/coffee we drink; in the clothes, trinkets and shoes we wear or in the glass

which we use to taste a wine. Directly or indirectly countless children, often as young as

5 years old, toil for tireless hours for extremely low wages. A large number of these

children work under harsh, hazardous, exploitative and quite frequently life threatening

conditions. Add to this the children who are trapped in forced labour, debt bondage,

prostitution and pornography-occupations that cause long-lasting damage-and the

numbers become enormous and worrisome. The phenomenon is rampant in

developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

However one can even find pockets of child labour in the developed countries

where stark income disparities exist. At times the exploited children also come from

ethnic minorities or immigrant groups, as with the Gypsy and Albanian communities in

Greece and Europe. Similarly in United States of America (USA) the majority of child

labourers who work in agriculture come from the migrant or minority groups (Bellamy

1997, p. 20). But when we consider the sexual exploitation of children, almost every

country of the world is involved, either as a supplier or as a customer. According to ILO

estimates, there are believed to be about five international child trafficking networks

ranging from ‘Latin America to Europe and Middle East; from South and South-East Asia

to Northern Europe and Middle East; a European regional market; an associated Arab

regional market; and an export market in girls’ (ILO 1998, p. 13). At this juncture it is

therefore imperative to have a look at the prevalence of child labour in the world to be

able to understand the brevity of this issue.

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I a: The scale of the phenomenon (Global)

The report presented at the Global Child Labour Conference in June 2010 by the

International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that 215 million children across the

world are still trapped in child labour, and 115 million of them are engaged in the worst

forms of child labour like mining, pornography, slavery, forced recruitment in armed

conflicts, etc. (van de Glind 2010). “Globally, the Asia-Pacific region accounts for the

largest number of child workers – 122 million in total, followed by sub-Saharan Africa

(49.3 million) and Latin America and the Caribbean (5.7 million)” (Öjermark 2007, p. 5).

Figure 1: Percentage of children aged 5–14 engaged in labour (1999–2006) (UNICEF 2007, p. 45)

30 per cent or more

10–29 per cent

Less than 10 per cent

No data

Sixty percent of all child labourers are working in agriculture and twenty six

percent are in services such as domestic work, street vending, etc. What is more

disturbing is that only “one in every five working children is in any form of paid

employment, whereas the overwhelming majority are unpaid family workers” (van de

Glind 2010, p. 4).

Despite such numbers, not much has happened at the global level. The Executive

Director of ILO, Mr. Kari Tapilo, while presenting the Global report said, that although

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some improvement in the global estimates has been evident in the recent years, the

change has neither been fast nor comprehensive enough to meet the 2016 goal of

eliminating the worst forms of child labour set by the global committee (2010, p. 4).

Child labour has fallen by 10 percent among children aged 5-14 and the number doing

hazardous work is down by 31 percent. There has also been a significant 15 percent

decrease in the number of girls in child labour, in particular among young girls.

However, there has been an alarming 20 percent increase in child labour among

adolescents aged between 15-17 years, in particular among boys (Murray, Quinn 2009).

Such children are those who have reached a legal working age, but are working in

hazardous conditions where they are legally not allowed to work. Also, while child

labour has been declining in the Asia-Pacific region, in Latin America and the Caribbean,

it continues to increase in sub-Saharan Africa. The United Nations Children’s Fund

(UNICEF 2011) in its recent report further points out that in developing countries, every

one in six children between the age of 5 to 14 years, which is about 16 per cent of all

children in this age group, is involved in child labour. In the least developed countries,

29 per cent of all children are engaged in child labour.

I b: The scale of the phenomenon (India)

India here presents an interesting case to be looked at. While global percentages

of child labour in the age of 5-14 fell, the Census of India reported an increase in the

numbers from 11.28 million in 1991 to 12.6 million2 in 2001. Child workers constitute

around 3.6 per cent of the total labour force in India. Over 85 per cent of these child

workers are in the country's rural areas, working in agricultural activities such as

farming, livestock rearing, forestry, and fisheries. This labour is outside the formal

organised sector and industry. Moreover, nine out of ten children work within a family

setting (ILO 2006a). But a more disturbing picture of the Indian scenario emerges when

one looks at the figures put forth by child rights activists. Today, it is estimated that

there are about 60 million child labourers; and, when one analyses the issue legally, the

figures are bothersome. Only 670,000 violations of law were detected in eight years

2 National Census – India – Child Labour from 1971-2001. The 2011 Census reports on Child Labour haven’t

been realised yet.

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and just 22,588 convictions happened (Rahman 12/06/2008)3 – abysmally low when

compared with the overall figures.

I c: Legal initiatives to combat child labour – Global and Indian

Many steps have been taken at the policy level, both nationally and

internationally, to tackle the issue of child labour. At the international level, ILO,

through its Convention No. 138 on the Minimum Age for Admission to Employment

(1973), has recommended that only children with the legal minimum age of 14 or 15

(depending on the country) must be allowed to work, that too under certain conditions.

The United Nations passed the Convention of Child’s Rights (UNCRC) in 1990 which has

fifty-four articles and two protocols that state the civil, cultural, economic, political and

social rights for children. Then the International Programme on the Elimination of Child

Labour (IPEC) was launched in 1992, followed by the ILO Declaration on Fundamental

Principles and Rights at Work in 1998. In 1999, the ILO’s constituents adopted the

Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (No. 182). Most countries in the world have

ratified the ILO and UN conventions – No.138 was ratified by 158 countries and No. 182

by 173 countries. The UNCRC has been ratified by 193 countries. Over the years many

recommendations have been further adopted to refine these conventions. Recently, at

the Hague Global Child Labour Conference held in May 2010, the Global Action Plan

towards 2016 has been launched. It is being called a Roadmap which provides a

strategic agenda and action plan for the ILO, and in particular IPEC.

Apart from this, ILO (IPEC), UNICEF and many other international/national

agencies are conducting constant surveys and researches to gain deeper understanding

of the issue. The common task and intention of all these efforts is an integrated policy

response that focuses on four “pillars” necessary to address child labour: education,

social protection, youth employment and advocacy (van de Glind 2010, p. 5). India was

one of the first few countries to accept the preliminary standards of ILO and one of the

six countries to start International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour

(IPEC). In 1986, the Indian government passed the Child Labour Prohibition and

Regulation Act to address the issue directly and over the years some amendments have

3 The Child Labour Act, 1986, prohibits employing children below 14 years of age and defines 57 processes and

15 occupations as illegal and hazardous for children (Government of India 2006).

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been made to strengthen the steps being undertaken. However, it still hasn’t ratified

the two most important ILO conventions, namely, 138 (Minimum Age Convention) and

182 (The Worst Forms of Child Labour).

Therefore a great deal is being done at the policy level to bring down the

prevalence of child labour around the globe. But the rate of progress as compared to

the rate of initiatives taken is highly disproportionate and the former is lagging behind

drastically. 215 million children are still toiling as labourers with no or limited access to

education and a healthy life which affects their capabilities and earnings. Although the

rate of awareness has grown considerably, there seems to be a disconnect between laws

and policies on one hand and the ground realities on another, which leads to the

underperformance of initiatives to curb child labour. Why is this, the case? This is the

starting point for the current research as it aspires to contribute to the betterment of

the future of child labourers by trying to solve the reasons for such disconnect.

II: Rationale behind the research

Seven years back I did my post-graduate thesis on the ‘Discursive Constructions

of Causes of Child Labour in India with special reference to the Carpet Industry’. The

work was based on secondary data analysis which was a limitation as there was a lack

of engagement with ground realities. Very little has changed since then, although the

efforts pitched in by various research think tanks, organisations and policy makers has

been tremendous. Therefore I came back to this field of research to devise other

strategies for tackling the issue using a different approach than the one I had used in my

former research. Venturing into the field seemed a logical step then. The thesis also left

me puzzled with numerous unanswered questions about the Indian context like why the

policies are not effective enough or what sort of socio-cultural beliefs do various actors

(the child, the parents, the employer, the policy makers, etc.) hold about this particular

issue? Whether it is seen as a problem or not amongst these actors was another

question that bothered me. These questions motivated me to deploy a different

approach of study where actors and proximity to the field were a priority. Hence I

turned to the field to do a bottom-up analysis and collect the actual views of the children

and the other actors in this regard.

21 | P a g e

After having preliminary discussions with people around me, the civil society so

to speak, I realised that although there was a feeling of sympathy for child labourers, the

amount of awareness about the dynamics of the issue was severely lacking. Secondly it

strongly became evident that it doesn’t bother people that a small child from a poor

background is working or begging or selling goods at traffic signals. When a child

domestic worker is employed by a household, neither does it bother the family

extracting optimum services at a low cost nor does it bother the neighbours. In fact

when they see that such a child is working 24X7 without any qualms, these neighbours

are also interested in hiring the same child or finding a similar one for their own

household. The third thing that struck me while talking to child labourers was that they

accepted their reality of working without any resistance. On discovering these

perceptions, my entire perception of the world discourse on this issue which sees child

labour as a problem, came crashing down. Children themselves seemed happy in their

jobs and some even had elaborate plans about their future. The society around them

treats it normal for them to work and personal interests play an important role. It also

seemed that all these actors provided ways of normalising the phenomenon of child

labour in India. Therefore, I concluded that maybe the problem lay somewhere else

which was somehow underground and latent in nature. An urge to discover this helped

me delve deeper into the daily realities of child labourers.

My previous attempts in understanding the issue of child labour lacked this

closeness to the field, to the actual people about whom we are working for, and who are

an integral part of society. Thus a socio-ethnographic approach was undertaken to

focus on the actors, aiming at a bottom-up method of investigation with an intention to

start from the child (who is at the core of the system). I think, in this way a deeper

insight into how things can be changed and at what points they can be changed can be

arrived at. For long, perspectives of international standards have guided the top-down

research in this field, but when one tries to find these standards in the day to day life of

children, one is left disappointed. This is because children, their parents and the society

in general have no idea about these standards. Therefore I decided to employ a

different method by deconstructing the life of a child labourer from a child’s perspective

and then interpreting the content of this perspective on the basis of the actors present

in his or her social world. Towards the end of this work, I aspire to demonstrate that

22 | P a g e

such an approach of understanding the functioning of society and the thought processes

of a child would help in devising sound policies to tackle child labour.

III: Research Questions and Hypothesis

To start with, I had the following questions in my mind – What does a child

labourer think about his/her situation and his/her life? These children consider

working as a way of life, but how is the reality of working constructed? How is the idea

of working naturalized or normalized by these children? My research aims to

understand this aspect of the child labour problem with a child-centric approach. I

therefore hypothesise, that a child labourer is born into a habitus of working, which is

constructed for him or her by the family in particular and the society in general.

Explaining the whole process of construction is a vital element of this research work.

Taking a social constructionist approach, it can be argued that the world is a

construction that also has the power of constructing. These constructions of reality are

made real through discourses which are generated by talks and writings. And

discourses are themselves constructive and constructing.

The reality for a child is constructed by the process of socialisation which is

guided by the socio-cultural background of family members, family discourses,

community discourses; the mass of economic, social and cultural capital; and his or her

position in the society. Together they become the body of life-experiences of a child

which shapes his or her character. But children don’t question who made this discourse

or why must they follow it. They simply learn what they see, and are socialised into

roles assigned to them by the family and the society. The set of dispositions that

develop as a result forms the habitus of an individual. It makes the person believe that

such is life and this is how it has been given to them. Pierre Bourdieu defines habitus as

a socially constituted sense of game – it is the definite manner of constructing and

understanding practice in its specific logic. The habitus gives people the meaning of life,

orchestrates their actions, steers their decisions and assigns their position in the family

and the community on the micro level and society at the macro level (1992).

Further, this child works from a tender age, receives little or no education, is

deprived of a healthy childhood and grows up to be an adult with very limited human

23 | P a g e

capital4 and in most cases, limited economic assets. So when he or she starts his or her

own family as an adult, this same habitus is transferred to the next generation.

Moreover, unless there are internal or external factors bringing about changes in this

scenario, a culture of child labour emerges and children acquire a habitus of working.

The approach I take is significant as it aims to give the child’s point of view its due

importance. These children take on the role of an adult at a very tender age by

contributing in economic or non-economic ways to the social security net of the family.

They are only young in age, but they have had life-experiences similar to adults. Thus,

their perspectives, opinions and thoughts should also be heard. I believe a deeper

description of the problem from within the system can be achieved by analysing how

children talk about their own lives and decisions. This can lead to well-rounded policy

interventions in the future.

IV: Location of the study

The area of study chosen was West Bengal which is the 13th largest and the 4th

most populous state in India5. It is located in the eastern part of the country and shares

its boundaries with the states of Jharkhand, Orissa, Sikkim and Assam. The state also

has international boundaries with Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. The second unique

character of West Bengal is that since the past 34 years it was ruled by the Left Front6,

making it the longest democratically elected communist government in the world. This

has given a special character to the state which would be discussed later. Thirdly, based

on expert interviews done in Delhi with child labour activists, an interesting fact came

to surface. In the entire country, a sizeable number of domestic workers are from West

Bengal as they are extremely poor, physically vulnerable and a docile lot. Also, they

pointed out that this state wasn’t a popular destination for research and as a result, very

little is known about its social patterns. Fourthly, West Bengal saw a 20.43% increase in

4 The human capital theory suggests that education and training imparts useful knowledge and skills which

hence raises a person’s future capacities to increase his or her earnings. It also professes to invest in ensuring health benefits for a holistic development of human capital (Schultz 1961). 5 http://www.pppinindia.com/introduction-west-bengal.php

6 The Left Front government took office June 21, 1977, with Jyoti Basu as chief minister. It was then an alliance

of parties – CPI-M, Forward Block, Revolutionary Socialist Party, Revolutionary Communist Party of India, Marxist Forward Block and the Biplobi Bangla Congress. Ninety percent of the Left Front consists of the CPI-M. In 1981, the Communist Party of India, West Bengal Socialist Party and Democratic Socialist Party joined the alliance (http://www.rediff.com/election/2004/may/14espec1.htm).

24 | P a g e

the number of child labourers from 1991 to 2001. The official census reports 857,087

whereas a UNICEF report estimates that currently 1,200,000 children are out of school

in West Bengal and are potentially child labourers, yet limited scholarly works have

been undertaken in this state. Thus the state and its dynamics make it an intriguing

and unique area for study. The district of Purulia was chosen as the primary field of

study where four blocks in the district, namely Purulia town, Singhbajar, Jhalda and

Barabazar were visited for field observations and interviews. Kolkata, the capital city of

West Bengal was taken as the second field to understand the different impacts of rural

and urban settings on the habitus of a working child.

Purulia is a district located at the south-west corner of the state of Bengal.

Midnapore, Bankura and Burdwan district of West Bengal and Dhanbad, Bokaro,

Hazaribagh, Ranchi, West Singbhum, East Singbhum districts of Jharkhand State encircle

this district. Out of the 19 districts in West Bengal, Purulia is ranked 16th in HDR (2004)

report.7 Agriculture is the primary occupation here although there are some cottage

industries producing beedi, bricks, tasar silk8, augur9 and lac10. Work at brick kilns and

agricultural activities are primary occupations in Purulia town and Barabazar whereas

the Jhalda block is involved in beedi-rolling and Singhbajar in tasar weaving. Poverty is

rampant in the district leaving numerous children labouring, yet the district has rarely

turned up in child labour studies. The Indian census reports that out of the total

population of 630,803 children, 41,056 were working in Purulia in 2001. Although this

is not the complete picture, as the children who are engaged in domestic work at their

own household are not accounted for in official statistics, the picture still looks very

worrisome. Little was known about this district till the 90s after which it suddenly

came in the limelight for an arms dropping case in 199511. More recently, in 2009-10,

three young girls stood up against child marriage and the district has attracted national

as well as international attention.

7 District Human Development Report – Purulia (Sept .2009)

8 Tasar is a copperish colour, coarse silk mainly used for furnishings and interiors. It is less lustrous than

mulberry silk and is also used for dress material in South Asia. 9 Auger is a drilling device, or drill bit, that usually includes a rotating helical screw blade called a "flighting" to

act as a screw conveyor to remove the drilled out material. The rotation of the blade causes the material to move out of the hole being drilled. 10

Lac is the scarlet coloured resinous secretion of a number of species of insects. It is used to make varnish, dye and even as a skin cosmetic. 11

Hundreds of rifles and large amounts of ammunitions were dropped by a Latvian aircraft, and till date the motive of the dropping is shrouded by mystery.

25 | P a g e

Kolkata on the other hand is ranked 1st in the WBHDR 2004 report. It is an

urban economic region with small rural pockets here and there. Additionally, being a

metropolitan of the eastern part of the country, it serves as the primary hinterland for

migrating populations from Purulia and the neighbouring states of Bihar, Jharkhand and

Orissa. Child labour, especially domestic, is rampant here due to dearth of viable

economic opportunities. Further, due to a lack of vigilant pressure groups it is largely

an unreported phenomenon here. In India, Kolkata is one of the cities with the highest

concentrations of child domestic workers with over 60, 000 such children12. Another

research suggests that there are an estimated 100,000 child labourers who are engaged

in activities ranging from domestic work to bonded labour in Kolkata (Chang et al. 2007,

p. 14). Further, it is also a popular destination for international migrants from

Bangladesh and Nepal. Kolkata also has 4 to 5 red-light districts out of which Sonagachi

is the largest and most well-known These areas house thousands of prostitutes

including underage children, not only from within India, but also from Bangladesh,

Nepal and Bhutan.

V: Assumptions and boundaries of the work

The research began with three key assumptions. Firstly, that education is

essential for any strategy to curtail the phenomenon of child labour. The content and

type of education may vary, but literacy for masses is the key. Secondly, that child

labour is a phenomenon and not a problem. This is because the moment we slot an

issue as a problem, we tend to ignore a whole range of perspectives. I would touch the

current debates on causes, disadvantages of child labour, child rights and international

conventions to place my work in the broader context, but I would not call it a problem.

Thirdly, I assume that by virtue of being born in a country, children are citizens of that

country with equal rights and a voice of their own. Therefore their ideas and

perspectives should be considered.

To make the research manageable and comprehensive, I created certain

boundaries for it. Right from the beginning I wanted to be solely responsible for this

research work. Hence I did not associate with any NGO or any other research group lest

my own opinions get coloured by them. I could have chosen states like Uttar Pradesh 12

Indian Express (13/11/2009)

26 | P a g e

or Madhya Pradesh where child labour is a much bigger problem, but I chose to work in

West Bengal and its districts of Purulia which are not popular destinations for research

in this field as suggested by experts. Also, child labour is becoming a sensitive issue in

India today due to the recent bans that the government has introduced. But these two

locations were an advantage for me as I am familiar with the geographical terrains of

Kolkata and Purulia. Almost every year I have made regular visits to these places as

they are my parents’ hometowns. As a result I have an immense network of family

relatives and other contacts here, which allowed me to conduct my fieldwork without

facing any major trouble. Being the sole researcher, I did not wish to tread into

unknown territories and unfamiliar terrains without support. The second boundary

was to work with and around the available data. For instance, I had to rely on Census

2001 and 1991 reports because the complete reports of 2011 Census haven’t been

published yet. 2011 data has been used wherever it has been available.

Similarly, in Kolkata, I couldn’t get official data from the government

administrative departments. Even with contacts, these offices seemed impregnable

bastions due to bureaucratic procedures for which I could not devote much time. So I

relied on articles and information available on the internet. The third boundary that I

imposed on this work was of using convenience sampling where only those respondents

were chosen who were willing to talk. My sample therefore is small and specific as the

aim is to interpret and evaluate the self-understandings of the respondents. Also, I have

relied entirely on the constructive paradigm and the theoretical framework of Pierre

Bourdieu which I believe would allow me to present a “thick description13” of the

realities faced by child labourers. As a result, I understand that I cannot make general

claims with this study for all child labourers in the world. But I do not discount the

possibility of replicating my framework of research, analysis and findings in similar

conditions and contexts.

VI: Overview of the chapters

The rest of the work is divided into seven chapters where the first one is a

background chapter with literature review. In this chapter, I critically examine the

13

Clifford Geertz described thick description to be a practice in ethnography by which the reasons behind a particular human action would be studied in as much detail as possible (1973).

27 | P a g e

literature and present its shortcomings which provide a backdrop to my own research

interests. Then I go on to highlight the positive features of the literature by delving into

the current debates on phenomenon of child labour. The second chapter states the

theoretical framework and critically analyses the constructionist paradigm. It provides

a path to understand the concepts of child, childhood, work and labour as social

constructs. Then the key concepts of Pierre Bourdieu and the importance of discourse,

are elaborated. After critically reviewing these, I would then draw a relation between

these concepts and my research questions. The next chapter is on methodology which

explains my journey as a researcher right from the start when I chose the constructive

paradigm till I chose my methods of investigation and analysis. A detailed step by step

procedure has been laid out for the purpose of clarity and transparency.

The fourth chapter provides the base for my research by historically analysing

the Indian social structure and describing the socio-political and economic terrain of my

field locations, namely, West Bengal, Purulia and Kolkata. This chapter would place the

reader in a position to understand the actual descriptions and discourses which form

the body of the fifth and sixth chapters. Then in the fifth chapter the empirical

quantitative and qualitative data is presented. After giving a statistical account of the

respondents, a descriptive ethnographic representation of the locations and the life

stories is undertaken. A detailed depiction of the physical environment around child

labourers and an analysis of their thought processes on the basis of the stories they

recounted, would help me to illustrate a picture of the habitus of working among these

children. But this habitus is not just given, it is constructed. Therefore the sixth chapter

aims to analyse the discourses of actors like parents, neighbours, employers, teachers,

social workers and policy makers, who surround these children and influence their

thought processes. By analysing the talks of these other actors, the apparatus by which

the idea of working becomes a natural reality for these children is revealed. Further the

chapter argues that this habitus becomes a trans-generational feature unless changes

are injected in the apparatus. Towards the end of the chapter I discuss measures and

action based policy to break this habitus of working. The last chapter is a place for

concluding and summarising the work and providing ideas for future work.

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Chapter 1:

Child Labour - A review of background literature at Global and the Indian level

There is a global consensus that child labour is a problem that thrives due to

reasons like poverty, illiteracy and ignorance which push millions of children to toil as

labourers at homes, streets, farms, mines, sweatshops, small-manufacturing units, etc.

It subjects the children to physical and mental exploitation, debars them from the basic

fundamental right to education and in most cases permanently destroys the likelihood

of a healthy and secure future as an adult. But it is also seen as a survival mechanism

for the family and the child. Therefore, as a researcher in this field, one is in a dilemma

when it comes to defining child labour or deciding whether it is a problem or not. This

is because, every country, every culture has its own rationale and explanation for this

phenomenon. Under-developed or developing countries have a flourishing informal

economy that employs children and therefore provide different definitions of child

labour, employ different approaches to tackle it and develop laws & policies differently.

Some of these definitions and laws even support the employment of children. On the

other hand, the formal economies of developed countries today have no space for child

workers, and therefore they see it as a problem. In other words, depending on where

one is standing in the world, the perception about the issue of child labour would be

affected by that. As a result varying perspectives are present in the world regarding this

issue. These definitions and approaches not only differ on the basis of countries, but

also on the basis of the academic disciplines that are studying the issue. Economists use

statistical models to explain and find solutions for the issue, whereas sociologists

explain the issue in a more qualitative way suggesting solutions specific to cultures and

attitudes. One could then say that all definitions and approaches to understand this

global reality are possibly subjective.

Whatever the case maybe, all talks and studies about child labour has together

given birth to a discourse on this issue which displays various approaches and stances.

Discourse according to Potter is a body of talks and texts that is produced to support or

counter, versions of reality. It is constructed and is constructive, thereby defining

actions and practices of people (1996). I divide the discourse on child labour into two

parts/aspects– one that is quantifiable in nature and explains causes and consequences

29 | P a g e

with the support of statistics. The other is a qualitative discourse, like that on

definitions of child labour, work, childhood, etc. that exists on the theoretical and

cognitive level. A review of all these discourses has made me discover some gaps in the

literature which provide the background of this work. In this chapter, I would therefore

review the literature and explain the process that lead to the development of the

essence of the current work. I would start with an analysis of research trends

pertaining to this area of study. Then I would critically examine the gaps in the

approaches which consequently lead me to my research questions about the habitus of

a working child. In the second half of the chapter I would highlight the use of the

literature in defining the term child labour, the discourse on the causes of child labour

and the impact of work on the child, the family, the society and the economy.

I: Critical examination of approaches to study Child Labour

The explosion of literature and a discourse pertaining to child labour is fairly

recent. Charles Dickens, who had worked in a factory himself as a child, was among the

first writers who passionately drew the picture of toiling children in the factories of

early 19th Century England after the Industrial Revolution. Some of his works can be

seen as social commentaries on the evils of child labour but they did not get much

attention because the public discourse was still supportive of employing children, who

were cheap, allowing factory owners and miners to reap huge profits14. At this time, as

Marjatta Rahikainen mentions in her comprehensive work “Centuries of Child Labour”

demand for children increased which reduced children's participation in education.

Further, the belief that idle poor children would become deviant and commit crimes in

future was widespread in Europe (Rahikainen 2004). Therefore child labour became a

norm, especially for the economically backward groups.

However once these economies were fully industrialised and a spate of

colonisation of the world started, their factories and agrarian productions were shifted

to the non-developed colonies. With increasing democratisation, awareness from

within the society and changes in modes of production that created demand for white-

collar workers instead of the prevalent blue-collar ones, these countries realised a need

to educate the children who were to become the future white-collar workers. So 14

History of Charles Dickens – Documentation (BBC)

30 | P a g e

children were taken out of factories and shifted to schools. With this shift in the

discourse, the beginning of 20th Century saw rising efforts to curb the incidence of child

labour in Europe and America. ILO was formed in 1919 which formulated the first

standards for elimination of child labour. But actual research and development in this

field began much later. It was only in the 1960s & 70s that emphasis on childhood

studies15 & child safety16 gained momentum. Thus began an era of a global discourse on

child labour which spread across various disciplines and methodologies.

II: The various topics and the disciplines

The first set of literature on child labour primarily came from the economic

historians, during 1980s and early 1990s aimed at learning from the industrial

revolution. By studying the reasons that facilitated child labour and the working

conditions, this sort of literature was seeking solutions to understand its dynamics and

to deal with it. There were two research trends followed at this time. The first was

more factual in nature where attempts were made to classify economic activities of

children with attention to the amount of difficulty endured and to evaluate the causes

and consequences of child labour. This genre of factual research included works of

Hugh Cunningham et al. (1996), Myron Weiner (1991), Alec Fyfe (1989) and Clark

Nardinelli (1980) who wrote extensively about the history of child labour since the start

of the industrial revolution. The book on Child Work, Poverty, and Underdevelopment

edited by Gerry Rodgers and Guy Standing (1981) for the ILO was considered to be an

immense contribution to child labour studies at this time because of its comprehensive

global approach (that is, not just Europe, but other countries were studied as well).

Also, its articles on Africa and India [Bekombo (1981) and Schildkrout (1981) on Africa

15

‘Centuries of Childhood’, the classic which traced the history of childhood was authored by Philippe Ariès in 1962. 16

Since ILO’s inception, the Minimum Age (Industry) Convention, 1919, the Minimum Age (Sea) Convention, 1920, the Minimum Age (Agriculture) Convention, 1921, the Minimum Age (Trimmers and Stokers) Convention, 1921, the Minimum Age (Non-Industrial Employment) Convention, 1932, the Minimum Age (Sea) Convention (Revised), 1936, the Minimum Age (Industry) Convention (Revised), 1937, the Minimum Age (Non-Industrial Employment) Convention (Revised), 1937, the Minimum Age (Fishermen) Convention, 1959, and the Minimum Age (Underground Work) Convention, 1965, were brought into existence. But a need was felt to establish one general instrument on the subject that would replace the existing ones and be applicable to all sectors with a view to achieving the total abolition of child labour. Thus, the Convention 138 on Minimum Age was adopted in 1973, and by 1976 it was enforced (Source: ILO).

31 | P a g e

and Dube (1981) on India], emphasized the necessity of studying child labour in its

socio-cultural context (Liebel 2004, p. 38).

Through an economic analysis of the historical developments, these authors

established that child labour was a matter of demand and supply. They examined and

traced the causes of its rise and decline with various economic theories like Gary

Becker’s household model (Nardinelli 1990). They further challenged the traditional

views of understanding child labour which held that it was a consequence of

industrialisation and legislations would contribute to its decline. These authors

professed that child labour was more prominent in labour-intensive industries like

textiles, clothing, hosiery, footwear, tobacco, pottery, and glassware and also mining.

Nardinelli argued that the changes in the market conditions contributed more to the

demise of child labour than actual legislations (1990). Weiner (1991) however argued

otherwise as he considered legislations, especially those related to education were the

most important. His study on the Indian state and its regulations, which is also seen as a

heavy criticism on the Indian social structure based on caste system, was one of earlier

works putting emphasis on culture to eliminate child labour. Then there was Fyfe who

argued that industrialisation did not invent child work; ‘it intensified and transformed

it’ (1989, p. 28). He attributed the decline of child labour in Europe to the various

industrial and agricultural acts that were formulated along with the Education Act of

1880, making schooling compulsory, which effectively ended widespread child labour in

Britain. This coincided with changes in the economy that greatly reduced the demand

of child workers (1989, pp. 28–33). Another observation that both Cunningham (1996)

and Nardinelli (1990) made about this period was that as incomes rose, child labour fell.

The second trend of literature during the 80s was more theoretical or cognitive

in nature as they displayed discourses like the one on education and its relation to

society and social development; or the one about newly discovered concept of

childhood. Schultz (1961), (1970) and other theorists popularised the importance of

education in developing the human capital which was essential for the development of a

society; whereas Philippe Ariès (1973) through his extensive historical analysis argued

that the notion of childhood that was being used by the new studies concerning children

was a fairly new concept. Weiner (1991) in Chapter 6 of his book cites works of Egil

Johansson, Harvey J. Graff, Kenneth Charlton, Lawrence Stone and many others in his

discussion on the historical development of child labour. However with the declaration

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of the UN Charter of Child Rights in 1989, the efforts to protect the vulnerable child

increased in leaps and bounds. The IPEC (International Programme for Elimination of

Child Labour) was launched in 1992 and this formed one the most important research

tanks along with World Bank, IMF, UNDP and UNICEF working/researching on child

labour.

Historical analysis by economists continued under the aegis of these research

tanks, but instead on concentrating on Europe and the industrial revolution, the

conditions around the globe provided new fields of interest. The dominant feature of

the early studies was to examine the widespread causes of child labour and

comprehensively analyse the effects of such labour to earn money at an early age on the

development of a country’s potential. Bourdillon (2009), Burra (2005), Emerson and

Souza (2002), Lieten (2002a), Anker (2000), Chaudhuri et al. (1999), Boyden et al.

(1998), Basu (1998), Grootaert and Kanbur (1995), and many others have worked

either independently or as part of the global agencies like ILO and UNICEF on these

topics. Research17 was conducted in developing nations like Asian countries like

Indonesia, Philippines, China, Thailand and Vietnam; African countries of Tanzania,

Uganda, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Senegal, Ghana, etc.; South-Asian countries

like Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal; Eastern European countries of Turkey,

Albania, Romania, Moldova and the Latin American countries like Chile, Brazil, Ecuador,

Peru, Nicaragua and Uruguay. Some studies were undertaken in developed countries

like Germany, United States of America, Italy and Canada to depict the presence of child

labour as a result of income disparities. Views that rise of income would bring down

child labour were replaced by discourses on providing equal rights and education for

the masses and focussed policy interventions.

II a: Studies in the discipline of Economics (including development and health)

Most of these studies have taken an economic perspective where child labour,

decisions of work, its links to literacy, fertility and poverty have been quantified. For

example Basu and Van (1998) demonstrated the possibility of multiple equilibria model

in the labour market where children work at one of the equilibriums; and on the other

17

It hasn’t been possible to gain access to all articles on present on child labour, so the ILO Annotated Bibliography (2003) was used as a resource item.

33 | P a g e

children don’t have to work when the adult wage is high enough and. They argued that

value of adult wages was the most important determinant of child labour. Other studies

demonstrated the close relation between human capital levels and GDP growth rates

wherein a decrease in the former would affect the latter negatively [(Chakrabarty, Grote

U. 2007), (Cigno, Rosati 2005), (Cigno 2004), (Brown et al. 2002), (Baland, Robinson

2000)]. Then the UNDP, ILO, WHO and UNICEF began extensive research on

particularly worse forms of child labour taking into account the whole spectrum of child

labour in every form in order to develop solutions to tackle the phenomenon. In the

recent years, the international agencies also concentrated heavily on assembling the

statistical data on children’s work in various countries and regions as well as in the

world, and with the passing of every year, the instruments for measurements have

become more and more refined. Apart from these, various non-governmental

international organisations like Save the Children, Care International, Child Rights

Information Network (CRIN), ECPAT International (End child prostitution, child

pornography and the trafficking of children for sexual purposes), etc. have developed a

comprehensive statistical base for the understanding child labour.

Post-liberalisation India has witnessed a boom in literature on child labour. The

United States of America imposed bans on indigenous items like carpets and locks

which gave birth to a defensive stand that sought to seek cultural differences and

poverty as reasons to justify the use of child labour (Weiner 1991). But soon a new path

was discovered, at least amongst the intelligentsia, which combined the global

perspectives with the Indian cultural context. Works of Swaminathan (1998), Mitra

(1994), Juyal (1993) and others collected empirical evidences to understand the causes

and implications of child labour in India. Neera Burra (2001) and D.P. Chaudhri et al.

(1999) highlighted the influence of community on the individual and household

decisions that generate social outcomes like child labour, illiteracy and fertility

decisions. In terms of organisations, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, Child Rights and You

(CRY), Mamidipudi Venkatarangaiya Foundation (MVF), Childline, V.V. Giri Institute of

Labour Studies, National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development

(NIPCCD), Save the Children and others have comprehensively contributed the body of

knowledge on child labour. Thus, the economics of child labour remained the most

popular kind of research. Through economic analyses, the implications of child labour

on welfare and the interrelationship between child labour and development have made

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a very important contribution by paving the way for all the current debates surrounding

it.

Child labour has then been explored by researchers measuring its health impacts

as well. For example works of S.R. Banerjee et al. (2008), Roggero et al. (2007), and of

research tanks like ILO and WHO not only did wide-ranging reviews of the health

impacts of child labour on the child, but also on the family by analysing the nutritional

levels of the household and then proposing programmes to combat it. Then, a thorough

policy analysis has also been undertaken in the field to suggest new possibilities and

provide platforms for change. Considering that legislation is one of the most important

ways of reducing the incidence of child labour, most authors have critically reviewed

policies. For example, Basu argues that the biggest problem that policy makers face

while drafting policies in the domain of child labour, ‘fallacy of single-mindedness’. For a

child it’s definitely terrible to work but it is still better than suffering from hunger,

serious illnesses, malnutrition, abandonment by family and prostitution and given an

option the child would prefer to do regular labour. Thus, to eliminate child labour,

policy-makers and even academics must first plan for healthy and safe alternatives in

order to really make an impact on the incidence of child labour (Basu 2003, p. 4).

Others like van de Glind (2010), (2004) and Brown et al. (2002) have argued on similar

lines.

II b: Studies in the discipline of Sociology and Anthropology

Sociologists and to a limited extent, anthropologists have also researched and

written about the sociology of childhood and its use to understand child labour using

qualitative approaches. Early approaches glorified the newly discovered concept of

childhood which meant that the child was the most vulnerable of all human beings and

that childhood must be preserved at any cost. So child labour must be eradicated

(Liebel 2004). In recent years there have also been case-studies on the working

conditions in various small-scale/cottage industries, sweatshops and plantations [for

example, Kulsoom’s case study in Rawalpindi, Pakistan (2009); Sekar’s study on

brassware industry (2007); Bourdillon’s work on education in villages of Zimbabwe

(2000); policy briefs produced by Young Lives (An International Study on Childhood

Poverty), etc.]. These and other such studies have used a mix of quantitative and

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qualitative methods to highlight the plight of working children and the impact of work

on their development.

But it seems that there was a change in this approach with the coming of the UN

Charter of Child Rights and the capability approach of the welfare economists. The

promoters of the capability approach18 took the definitions of Amartya Sen and of

Martha Nussbaum and applied it to the solutions for combating child labour. This right-

based thinking possibly guided the sociologists to a new way of seeing child labour. The

view that began to gain impetus wanted to pay respect to the thoughts of children as

well and not treat him/her as a mere vulnerable entity. Liebel calls this “the ‘de-

constructivist’ approach in sociological childhood research, according to which

childhood is an interest-governed ‘social construct’ of society, which is dominated by

adults, and may prevent children from shaping their lives independently as ‘social

actors’. The systematic exclusion of children from economic processes is thought to be

a component of this social construction (Liebel 2004, pp. 41–42). He along with writers

like Elizabeth Larson (2004), Enid Schildkrout (2002), Virginia Morrow (2001) and Olga

Nieuwenhueys (1996) promote the importance of child-centric approach which asks

the children about their wants, desires and thoughts pertaining to work. These writers

also route for promoting their rights as workers. They argue that by making child

labour illegal we make it even more harmful for the working children as they are faced

with work without regulations. This wing of researchers is now creating a world-wide

movement to support the rights of working children and is critical of the international

stance that work and education are irreconcilable.

Thus a child centric or subject-oriented perspective is developing where the

child is seen as a social actor completely capable of speaking for himself/herself. The

child’s work, be it paid or unpaid, must be recognised as an essential activity not only

for them but also for their families. Such a subject-oriented perspective treats them as

social actors capable of making contribution to the preservation and development of the

society where they live. Liebel argues that this view is however different from the other

18

A crucial reason for applying this approach to the domain of child labour was to question the cultural specificities that are often used to defend certain practices, in this case, putting a child to work. Upholding human rights, it seeks to explain that everyone must have the opportunities by which they can exert their freedom of choice and be actually able to choose. In other words, if preferences comply with someone’s expectations, the freedom of choice requires that the person be involved in the choice and that he/she can reveal his/her preferences in a context of freedom of choice (Ballet et al., pp. 7–8).

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child-centric view that majority of NGOs and international organisations hold, which

treats children as an object without the capacity to think or act on their own and who

must be protected as per the Child Rights Convention. They are not seen as a social

group which has its own interests and desires (2004, p. 9). Giving labour rights to

children would help them legally to assert for fair treatment as well. This in turn would

also mean that while doing research on children, they need to be consulted as well.

But in terms of methodology, the literature has been criticised by these authors.

Colombian Sociologist María Cristina Salazar’s argues in her work that “very few studies

on children’s work have used participatory techniques, in which the voices of the

children themselves are heard, despite the fact that this is a minimum requirement for

understanding the reality of these children (Salazar 1995: 76)” [cited in Liebel 2004, p.

34]. Therefore, with the coming of a subject-oriented approach, the participatory

technique to understand children’s points of view has also started to gain momentum.

Spending time with child labourers and experiencing their day-to-day life is a new

method that is being explored by some researchers. Studies on children working as

street vendors in Nigeria (Okoli, Cree 2011), as domestic helps in Egypt (Ahmed,

Jureidini 2010), in cocoa plantations of Ghana (Berlan 2009) and in the sugarcane fields

of Bolivia (Baas 2008) are some of the studies that have used participant observation to

understand the conditions of work and view points of the actors involved like the

children, the parents and the employers. In simple words, these studies by doing a

subject oriented research employ a bottom-up approach. However, barring these and

some other studies working children’s movements that have been cited in Liebel’s work

(2004), most of the research that I have reviewed for this study has approached the

situation from a top-down point of view.

II c: Gaps in the literature

Researchers and policy makers, as the literature demonstrates, have done a

brilliant job at the external surface of the child labour phenomenon, that is, they have

explored every possible macro issue in this domain. But I think this precisely is one of

the primary drawbacks of entire gamut of literature on child labour. There is an urgent

need to understand the micro-issues too as experts of childhood studies argue

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(Schildkrout 2002, Nieuwenhueys 1996) because what a child thinks about his or her

own situation is crucial for any decision taken for them. Through an insight into their

thought processes one can also understand how a society thinks because a child is

based in it. Understanding the society is further important because it is the base from

where people who are the consumers, buying products made by children or who are

employing them in our homes & factories have emerged. Hence, unless we know how

the society thinks, we cannot look for solutions to bring about changes in societal

attitudes which are essential to make the other changes like poverty reduction,

education for all, etc., useful.

By analysing how children talk about their own lives and their decisions, deeper

description of the problem from within the system could be achieved which would

further lead to all-rounded policy interventions in the future. Policy makers need to

understand that all their efforts to eradicate child labour would be futile if they just

scratch at the surface of the problem. They need to go inside the system, understand it

from the core, which in this case is the child, and attack the system from inside too.

When one wants to make an age-old system collapse, one has to drill holes in it not only

from all the outer sides, but also from the insides. Apart from the children, the other

actors who are present around them like the parents, employers, teachers and the civil

society have also been seldom researched. Children just don’t decide themselves to

work; they depend of their family and the society around them to make such decisions.

Therefore I believe that all the actors who are related to this issue must be researched

as well.

The second drawback that I see is the extensive use of economic theory and

quantitative methods as they produce immediate visible results whereas sociological

interpretations are more in the realm of abstract speculation. In fact the trend is such

that when sociologists want to research this issue, they tend to combine qualitative and

quantitative methods; an approach which even I was inclined to take at the beginning of

this research. But child labour is a social reality where everything is not black and

white as stated in the equilibria diagrams or formulae that state, if ‘a’ is this then ‘b’ is

that. After conducting preliminary fieldwork, I realised that there were shades of grey;

that is, a large set of variables were present which needed to be understood as well. In

other words, I think till now a substantialist approach has been popularly taken to study

the phenomenon of child labour which according to Bourdieu (1998/1994:4-Practical

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Reasons) is “inclined to treat the activities and preferences specific to certain

individuals or groups in a society as a certain moment as if they were substantial

properties, inscribed once and for all in a sort of biological cultural essence. But one has

to see a phenomenon (in this case child labour) in relational terms, that is, to see them

as understandable in terms of social spaces, positions and relationships” (Grenfell 2007,

pp. 35–36). But what is actually required is an interpretive approach that takes on

participatory techniques.

Thirdly there seems to be a gap between the world of academics and the more

field-oriented, practice based research. Currently organisations like Save the Children

and ECPAT are producing some ground-breaking reports on the informal economy,

street society and prostitution, and child soldiers that come in handy for larger aid

organisations, governments and research tanks. Although these studies are the closest

to the real life-situations of child labourers, one notices theoretical and methodological

weakness in most of them (Liebel 2004). People from this sector on the other hand

have an utter disregard for theorists and researchers as they think that they are far

from the reality. During my first phase of expert interviews in Delhi, India, when I

interviewed a social worker who was working with child labourers every day,

commented, "Usually researchers don't have any idea what is in the field, what these

children go through in their day to day life, so their research is somewhere up in the air

and has no relation whatsoever with the real life of these children." Thus one hardly

finds the Kailash Satyarthis19 or the Craig Kielburgers20 doing a research paper on child

labour, although they know much more about these children than many researchers.

For this work I have devised my plan to fill these gaps. I first chose locations that

have been grossly under-researched (or virgin territories like Purulia) and chose the

not so popular method of participant observation to gather data. The next step that I

decided to take was to aim for a subject-oriented approach that would investigate the

entire gamut of varying perceptions leading to the decision of working for a child.

Finally I wished to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Liebel argues that

19

Kailash Satyarthi: He is a grassroots human rights activist from India who has been internationally acclaimed for his work against child slavery and bondage. Apart from being a leader in numerous campaigns and trans-national committees, he founded one of the leading NGOs working on child rights in India, the ‘Bachpan Bachao Andolan’. 20

Craig Kielburgers: He is a Canadian who is one the youngest child rights activist in the world and is credited for establishing organisations like ‘Free the Children’, ‘We Day’ and ‘Me to We’. Apart from fighting against child labour, these organisations run extensive education and rehabilitation programmes for rescued children.

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there is a need for sound theoretical analysis that would study the children’s (possible)

judgements and actions (2004, pp. 10–11). He cited in his work that various

researchers have expressed surprise when they realised that most children were very

positive about their work. For example he quotes from a study by Pineda and Guerra

(1998) in Nicaragua where the researchers stated that 55 per cent of the children

interviewed expressed that they liked to work while 27 per cent said that their work

made them feel useful and important (Liebel 2004, p. 68). I experienced the same

element of surprise while initially talking to child labourers, who found working as

normal. I found my answers in Bourdieu’s theoretical framework of field, capital, doxa

and the concept of habitus which guides an individual’s actions. Professing participant

observation and ethnography, his works (1990b, 1979) also helped me refine my

methodology (as would be demonstrated in Chapter 3). Consequently, the current work

is aiming for a combination of theory and practice. To the best of my knowledge this

actor based approach that incorporates Bourdieu’s theory to study child labour

practices in Purulia and Kolkata is being attempted for the first time.

Therefore the gaps in the current literature helped me decide that this work

would not be state what the world or what a researcher thinks about child labour.

Instead this work would aim to explore what a child labourer thinks about his or her

own life and what the other actors around them, namely, the parents, the neighbours,

the employers, the teachers, the policy makers and the society at large which consists of

the general public, journalists and social activists, etc. think about this phenomenon.

This however does not mean that the current literature is of no use to my work. Its

presence helped me understand the dynamics of the discourse on child labour. Without

the discourses on its causes and consequences I wouldn’t have had a sound

understanding of the phenomenon as I have now. Therefore in the rest of the chapter I

would talk about these discourses which provide the initial background to my research.

III: Defining and classifying child labour

The issue of child labour has attracted tremendous global attention. Numerous

studies have been commissioned by international organisations like ILO, UNICEF and

UNDP. Till recently, most of these studies termed an economically active child between

5-18 years of age as a child labour. Economic activity is understood as a broad concept

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that encompasses most productive activities undertaken by children, whether for the

market or not, paid or unpaid, for a few hours or full time, on a casual or regular basis,

legal or illegal (ILO 2006b, p. 6). What lacks in this definition however is the work that

a child does in his or her own household. In many societies household chores are more

often categorized under the process of socialization. However this is also a form of

labour, as the presence of a child at home to take care of chores allows the parent –

especially the mother – to seek fulltime employment. This in turn is seen as

economically beneficial. Secondly, these seemingly harmless jobs could also cause life-

long damages. For example, a 6-7 year old child carrying his or her baby sibling or

bringing 5-10 litre cans filled with drinking water from a near-by well or tap could

cause shoulder and back problems. Lighting a wood or coal fire is equally dangerous as

the child is subjected to the toxic fumes of the fire.

Lastly, when long hours of house work don’t allow the child to study or to have

free time to play, then it is labour as well. “By narrowing the definition of child labour

to either wage employment or ‘hazardous’ work, one is indeed not taking into account

the entire universe of marginalized children who cannot exercise choices”(Burra 2009,

p. 1). Therefore I define a child labourer as a child, who works directly or indirectly

(which includes household chores) to secure monetary gains for the survival of a

household at the cost of his or her own development21 and wellbeing. I do not wish to

ignore the cultural differences in defining child, childhood, work and labour, but for the

purpose of this chapter I will not discuss these concepts further here. I will take up

these definitions, in detail, in Chapter 2 of the study.

III a: Classification of child labourers

Once the definition of child labour is clear (at least to some extent), the next step

in understanding this issue is to get a comprehensive typology. Various authors and

research initiatives have tried to classify the different types of child labour. Universally,

on the basis of the ILO conventions 138 and 182, the following table shows the

21

“physical development — including overall health, coordination, strength, vision and hearing; cognitive development — including literacy, numeracy and the acquisition of knowledge necessary to normal life; emotional development — including adequate self-esteem, family attachment, feelings of love and acceptance; social and moral development — including a sense of group identity, the ability to cooperate with others and the capacity to distinguish right from wrong” (Bellamy 1997, p. 24)

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classification of child labour. It broadly classifies that children between 5-11 years must

not be allowed any work while those between the ages of 12-14 may work for less than

14 hours per week. Children between the ages of 15-18 must not work more than 43

hours per week.

Table 1: Child labour as defined for the purpose of the 2000 and 2004 global estimates

Age Groups Forms of Work

Non-hazardous work (in non-hazardous industries & occupations and <43 hrs./week)

Worst forms of child labour

Light work (<14 hrs/week)

Regular work (>14 hrs/week and <43 hrs/week)

Hazardous work (in specified hazardous industries & occupations plus >43 hrs/week in other industries and occupations)

Unconditional worst forms (trafficked children; children in forced & bonded labour, armed conflict, prostitution & pornography, and illicit activities)

5-11

12-14

15-17

Note: The grey areas are considered to be the forms of child labour which must be eliminated as per ILO Conventions Nos. 138 and 182. Source: Global Child Labour Trends 2000-2004 (Hagemann et al. 2006, p. 23)

The problem with this classification is that the hours of work mentioned under

the non-hazardous category is an unrealistic dream for most developing and under-

developed countries. A girl doing household work at her own home works for at least 8-

9 hours22 per day, but neither does this fall in the light work category, nor under regular

work. Other classifications are also available which try a deeper understanding of the

matter. Neera Burra (2009) classifies children into those working in factories or small

manufacturing units, street children, bonded labour, children working at their own

homes, those used for sexual exploitation, migrant children and domestic workers as

well as children involved in the hospitality industry. Alec Fyfe (1989) on the other hand

22

The number is based on the interviews with children. Some of them combined it with schooling as well.

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classifies them into three broad categories of work. First is within family which

includes household work, agricultural tasks and cottage industries. The second is with

family but outside the home which includes agricultural work at others’ farms, domestic

service, constructions work and informal work like rag-picking. The third category he

mentions is of those children who are outside the family which includes working for

someone else as an apprentice, helper or slave and those who are self-employed like

small-time sellers, shoe-polishers, etc. Fyfe’s classification is based on UNICEF’s

typology which also forms the base for the work of Eric Edmonds (2007).

Bellamy argues that there exists a child labour continuum (1997, p. 24) where at

one end is the light house work to help parents which doesn’t exert negative pressure

on the child’s development and on the other end is the exploitative harmful labour

which totally destroys a child’s development. All labour happens along this continuum

and hence there are many grey areas in it (Bellamy 1997). Based on this, and the other

above mentioned classifications, I propose to categorise child labourers into six groups

as shown below in Figure 1. Depending on where the work is done and whether it is

paid for or not, this classification has been devised. Here, A to B is the continuum or the

range of harm caused where A indicates the possibility of least and B indicates the

possibility of most. In other words, as one goes from A to B on the continuum, the

amount of exploitation and harm caused to the child increases.

Figure 2: The child labour continuum

A to B is the range for the harm caused

working for family

(unpaid)

A

working for wages in

home/cottage

industries

working in hospitality industry &

other services

bonded labour

street worker

working in most-

hazardous jobs

B

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Working for family (unpaid labour): In most families around the world, children perform

great many tasks at their own household. They prepare food; look after their siblings

and the old/invalid members of the family; herd animals and also fetch water. Their

work on fields ranges from simple tasks like sowing seeds to onerous tasks like tilling

the soil, harvesting, etc. Children also assist in family businesses like looking after a

small shop or making small handicraft items, rolling matches and incense sticks, etc. As

mentioned earlier this is unpaid/unaccounted work which is considered beneficial for

the child as it develops responsibility towards their own family and teaches them

important life-skills. Such work is labour when “it prevents children from exercising

their rights and developing their full potential” (Bellamy 1997, p. 43). These kids work

long hours which levies extra load on their developing bodies and keeps them away

from school as well. New researchers in this field have begun to address this group

statistically as “nowhere children”, a term introduced by D.P Chaudhri to measure all

the children who are not registered as ‘workers’ and who are not attending school

either (Lieten 2002a, p. 5193). The girl child in almost all patriarchal societies whose

realm is mostly restricted to the household constitutes the largest section of this

category (Burra 2009, Anker 2000, Bellamy 1997).

Working for wages in home/cottage industries: In many developing countries, there are

children who earn wages by working at small factories making locks, bricks,

copperwares, leather goods; at sweatshops & weaving looms producing exquisitely

hand-embroidered dress materials and carpets; at plantations of cotton, silk, lac, tea and

cocoa; in muro-ami fishing; doing wood-carving and making glass and ceramic wares.

In these activities, there is a high possibility that a child can be taken as an apprentice

(like in cotton industries of 18th century Britain) in the early years when only food and

lodging is provided instead of an actual wage. In most cases even the working

conditions don’t conform or comply with the formal standards and thus instances of

bodily harm and exploitation could be very high.

Working in hospitality industry and other services: In many Asian countries, particularly

those in South Asia, there is a popular trend of employing children as domestic helps.

They are also much sought after workers for waiting tables at small food-joints. A

domestic help or a waiter is at a high risk of exploitation as he/she is alone in the setting

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with the employer, unlike in factories where groups of children are employed. Apart

from sub-standard working conditions, children are even prone to sexual and physical

abuse.

Bonded labour: When children work in order to repay debts taken by their families, it is

called bonded labour. They can be employed at the moneylender’s farm, home, shop or

production unit. Neera Burra argues that these are children “who have either been

pledged by their parents for paltry sums of money or those working to pay off the

inherited debts of their fathers” (Burra 2009, p. 2). This kind of labour can be also

passed to the latter generations thus continuing the cycle of servitude and bondage.

Street worker: This gamut of labourers includes mostly the self-employed children

working their way in big metropolitan cities of the world. They earn their living by

selling small items like newspapers, magazines, flowers etc. at traffic lights or polishing

shoes, sweeping stations and train compartments or even begging. Majority of these

children live away from their families and hence are also prone to the dangers of the

road. Accidents, sexual and drug abuse are a few of the perils that these children face

every day.

Working in most-hazardous jobs: Most of the above mentioned work can turn into an

extremely dangerous and exploitative occupation depending on the working conditions

and the employer. But mining, prostitution and conscription are globally acknowledged

as the worst forms of child labour. Virtually 1 million children from 5-17 years of age

work in small-scale mines and quarries that fall under informal sector of Africa, Asia-

Pacific, South and Central America, and Europe (ILO 2005, p. 4). In terms of sexual

exploitation of children, every country in the world is involved due to the growing

industry of sex-tourism. Even within countries, like in India, there is a high incidence of

child prostitutes. Reports of the Ministry of Women and Child Development show that

“there are 3 million commercial sex workers in India, of which an estimated 40% are

children” (UNODC 2010, p. 7). These children are at the mercy of their pimps and

clients and are physically as well as mentally scarred for a lifetime. Similarly, UNICEF

estimates that about “300,000 children – boys and girls under the age of 18 – are today

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involved in more than 30 conflicts worldwide.” They serve as soldiers, porters,

messengers, cooks and are also forced to provide sexual services (UNICEF 2003, p. 1).

All the above mentioned categories thus constitute the entire spectrum of child

labour which directs us to the next question that in spite of all the exploitation and

harmful conditions of work, why do children still labour. For this a thorough

examination of the discourse on causes of child labour is required which has been done

in the next section.

IV: The Causes of Child Labour

Children have worked for their families since time immemorial, but it was only

during the 18th century, i.e. at the start of the Industrial Revolution, that children were

commercially employed to run machines in the new factories. There was hence a

demand for child labourers and parental poverty was the primary determinant at that

time to ensure their supply. Although at each point of time the range of labour, the

extent of exploitations and the statistics have seen changes, the common factors

ensuring the supply of child labour have been more or less constant. Researchers like

Roberta Gatti et.al (2007), G.K. Lieten (2003), Richard Anker (2000), Hugh Cunningham

(2000), D.P Chaudhari et.al (1999), Kaushik Basu (1998) and many others point out that

poverty is the cause of child labour around the world, but they also acknowledge that

other disadvantages like illiteracy and lack of opportunities also create the supply of

children to the labour market. Grootaert and Kanbur provide a more organized view by

arguing that internal and external factors to the household determine the supply of

child labour. By internal factors they mean, family size, literacy level of parents, family

culture and household risk whereas by external ones they mean educational system,

socio-economic infrastructure, nature of the labour market and modes of production

(Grootaert, Kanbur 1995). For this work, I have categorised the whole array of internal

and external factors into four broad groups.

IV a: Poverty

Burra explains poverty as “the denial of opportunities and choices most basic to

human development - to lead a long, healthy, creative life to enjoy a decent standard of

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living, freedom, dignity, self esteem and respect of others” (Burra 2001, pp. p. 481). It

restricts a person’s capacity to attain well-being which in itself is a restriction. Well-

being here means food, shelter and health-care which ensure avenues of survival. But

when one is below the poverty line, i.e. one is not able to achieve well-being, there is no

other option, but to work and earn a living. Arguing on a similar line of thought, Lieten

considers poverty as human deprivation which “relates to exclusion, to vulnerability

and to ignorance as much as to physical weakness and lack of property assets. Children

living under such conditions, especially when a shock event23 has torn normal family life

apart, will work in order to survive. Child labour is a “rational behaviour as part of a

diversification strategy of their portfolio of income sources” (Grootaert, Kanbur 1994, p.

14). Analyzing the poverty trends from 1981 till 2005, the World Bank reported that

world poverty rates had considerably decreased from 70% to about 50% under the

$1.25 (Euro 0.86 cents) a day (World Bank 2010). However as the figure shows below,

the risk of falling in poverty has risen drastically.

Figure 3: Increasing risk of falling in Poverty (Source – World Bank 2010)

During the global economic recession of 2008, the conditions worsened further as

employment rates went down, economic growth slowed and global food prices hit an

all-time high. Post-recession food prices began to go down but again by January 2011 it

reached to 29% above its level from last year, and only 3% below its June 2008 peak (as

shown in the figures below). As a result it is estimated that “an additional 44 million

23 Lieten describes that “deprivation often comes as a shock effect: the death or severe illness of the adult

breadwinner has often been documented to be a direct cause underlying child labour” (Lieten 2002b, p. 7).

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people may have fallen into poverty in low- and middle-income countries due to the rise

in food prices since June 2010” (World Bank 2011).

Figure 4: Trends of Economic Growth and Global Food Price from 2007-2011 (Source – World Bank 2010)

These occurrences together stalled the poverty reduction rates and currently 26% of

the world population is living below the international poverty line of US$1.25 (Euro

0.86 cents) per day (UNICEF 2011, p. 115). Child labour is one neglected aspect of the

world poverty trap. It is “part of the “Faustian bargain” poor people are forced to make

in order to achieve a degree of immediate security. It is both result of poverty and way

of perpetuating it” (ILO 2006b, p. 1).

India presents here a very interesting situation in this case as it is considered as

one of the fastest growing economies in today’s world. It was one of the few countries

which remained stable even during the recession period of 2008-2009. In 2005 it saw a

growth of more than 9% and then the percentage came down to about 6% during the

recession. In 2010 it again reached beyond 9% (IMF 2011). Yet the report, “Conditions

of Work and Promotion of Livelihood in the Unorganised Sector” by Dr. Arjun Sengupta,

which is based on government data for the period between 1993-94 and 2004-05,

highlights that 836 million people or 77% of the population in the country was living on

a per capita consumption of less than Rs 20 a day which is Euro 0.30 cents (Sengupta

2007, p. 1). In such situations, child labour, as discussed earlier, could be a survival

strategy for such families as there are very few other options to pick from. Along with

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these economic considerations, social attitudes and patterns entrenched in every

society further shape the decision of sending a child to work.

IV b: Social mores, attitudes and illiteracy

Socialisation processes for children are similar all over the world. Except in

extremely affluent households, everywhere children help their parents in the daily

activities like getting groceries, helping in cleaning the house, etc. apart from pursuing

other activities like studying and playing. However in economically unstable

households this “light help” of a child turns into labour as it becomes the only activity in

which he or she is engaged throughout the day. This makes it difficult to define child

labour and can easily relegate some children, especially girls, into the realms of labour

(as mentioned earlier). The socio-cultural attitudes of a society directly influence the

way it thinks about education and birth-control practices as well. Lack of awareness

about health and birth-control gets accentuated by parental illiteracy and together they

push such families to further backwardness (Bellamy 1997, Basu 1998, Cigno 2004,

Burra 2005, Bhukuth 2005). There are webs of traffickers who thrive on this

backwardness and the naivety of such families and lure them to send their children for

working at different locations (Rogers, Swinnerton 2002). Furthermore,

discriminations on the basis of caste, class or race push children and their families into

deeper realms of backwardness. For example a research study about the children of sex

workers or other families living in red light areas of Kolkata seek work outside their

community to escape sexual exploitation. But many fall back to prostitution because the

larger society stigmatises them for being born in such areas which are considered

“different” than the other areas (Sanlaap 2010). Such attitudes perpetuate child labour

and are its result as well.

IV c: Natural risks and social unrest

The shock effect, as mentioned earlier by Lieten (2002b), arises not just due to

internal crises (like critical illness or death of a family member), but also as a result of

natural disasters, calamities and social unrest. Vakis mentions that child labour could

be one of the coping strategies to shocks like natural disasters (Vakis 2006, p. 9). Baez

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cites the research work of numerous authors writing on India, Thailand, China, Mexico,

etc. to argue that “disasters, economic downturns, idiosyncratic shocks and risky

environments are strongly correlated with a larger workforce (including children) and

more hours devoted to steady off-farm activities at the expense of lower wages” (Baez

et al. 2009, p. 16). In another article on consequences of disaster in Nicaragua, Baez and

others conclude that child labour significantly increased there after the Hurricane Mitch

in 1998 (Baez, Santos I. 2007). Similarly, Beegle, Dehejia and Gatti (2008) reported an

increase in the number of boys working in the fields in Tanzania due to shortage of

rains. Baez further cites the work of Sadoulet, Finan, de Janvry and Vakis (2004) which

stated that the number of children who are withdrawn from school during shocks is

about “30 percent less likely to continue studying compared to children who stay in

school” (Baez et al. 2009, p. 17).

Inadequate rainfall in an agricultural economy like India yields similar results as

shown by Jacoby and Skoufias who highlighted in their research that a 10 percent

decline in agricultural income kept children out from the school for about 5 days

(Jacoby, Skoufias 1997). In recent times, the Tsumani that hit the coasts of India and

other Asian and African countries in 2004 was reported to be a promising situation for

child-traffickers who found orphaned children as easy targets24. This raised

international concern and numerous child protection agencies from all over the world

assembled to deploy child-centred risk reduction models which focused on child

protection and education25.

Further, due to social unrest and political volatility some 300,000 children work

as soldiers in Latin Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe involve. Most of these children

have been either abducted or forcibly recruited while many others were driven to join

by poverty, abuse and discrimination. Still others willingly chose to join these conflicts

in order to seek revenge for violence enacted against them or their families (UNICEF

2003, p. 1). In India, armed insurgents too have realised the potential of using children.

The Maosist (Naxalite)26 movement which operates against the state in almost 10

24

Although there were many reports at that point of time about children being trafficked from Tsunami hit areas, as of now there are no official statistics to demonstrate the extent. 25

Rebuilding Lives after the Tsunami: The Children's Road to Recovery Save the Children 2008. 26

Naxalites are the various militant communist groups operating in different parts of India, in the states of Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and others. The Naxal movement comprising of the far-left radical communists supportive of Maoist ideologies, originated in West Bengal in 1967. Their main aim is to advocate among the Indian peasants and lower class tribal to overthrow

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states; the rebel groups in the north-east27 like the ULFA (United Liberation Front of

Assam) and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN); the militants in Jammu

and Kashmir and even the Salwa Judum28 in Chhattisgarh are known to recruit children

on a large scale. Children between the ages of 6-12 are used as spies, decoys, scouts to

spot movement of security forces, cooks and messengers initially; are trained in basic

drills and armed with .303 rifles. Those above 12 are fighters are trained to make and

plant bombs/landmines. Poverty and the continuous vortex of an unending armed

conflict bring children to fight along-side adult comrades. Reports also claim that the

brutalities rendered by the police and the Indian Army have played a major role in

convincing thousands of children to become child soldiers (India Today 8/05/2011).

IV d: Informal economy and mode of production

A sector that thrives on small-scale settings which don’t come under official state

regulations that are applied on large registered firms; employs unorganised workers

who have acquired skills mostly outside formal education; and has a high proportion of

labour-intensive jobs is called an informal economy. It usually harbours subsistence

activities and due to the absence of legal frameworks has numerous negative aspects

like undeclared labour, unregulated enterprises, absent annual audits, and

illegal/criminal activities (Becker 2004, p. 13). The informal economy is closely linked

with the formal economy and cannot be ignored due to its ever-increasing size (Burra

2005, Becker 2004). The ILO reported that in “all regions of the developing world

informal employment (outside of agriculture) represents nearly half or more of total

non-agricultural employment. It ranged from 48 percent in North Africa, to 51 per cent

in Latin America, 65 percent in Asia and 72 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa” (ILO 2002, p.

17). In India, the report on unorganised sector emphasized that it comprised of 92 per

the government and upper classes by force. Today they are engaged in armed guerilla struggles against the Indian state. 27

In the 7 north-eastern states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura alone, there are some 14 separatist organizations out of which 10 have been listed as terrorist organizations by the Government of India. 28

In 2005 Salwa Judum, a people’s resistance movement, was formed against Naxalism in Chhattisgarh. State government took over its reins soon-after and is reported to recruit Special Police Officers (SPO) from the tribal regions who were trained with .303 rifles to counter Naxal attacks. Forum for Fact-finding and Documentation (FFDA) and Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) reported in 2008 that Salwa Judum recruited more than 4000 minors between the ages of 14-18 as SPOs.

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cent of the total workforce of about 457 million (as of 2004-05). From these, almost 79

per cent workers are without any legal protection of their jobs or working conditions or

social security, living in abject poverty earning Rs 20 a day or Euro 0.30 cents (Sengupta

2007).

The informality of the sector thus opens up a whole spectrum of activities in

which children can get involved (See section on types of labour to review the spectrum

of activities). Some, like the street children, enter it by will and in fact benefit from it

once they know how to evade law-enforcers. Others, like those who are part of the

family labour working on agricultural farms or household units or small-scale

production units, enter this sector as a result of family decisions. However in both cases

they are still vulnerable and open to exploitative conditions due to absence of formal

laws and safety regulations. If children are not involved directly in production of

resources, they are engaged in supporting the ‘care economy’ that frees the adults,

especially the women, for wage-employment (Burra 2005).

The modes of production further determine the demand for child workers. This

theory can be traced back to Marx who wrote at a time when child labour in factories

was at a peak. He first noted that with rise of machinery there was a scope for

employing labour of women and children whose bodily development was incomplete

(Basu 1998). “The availability of machinery can, in an ideal world, create more time for

leisure. But Marx noted that since the machinery was owned by one agent and labour

by another, a diminished need for labour would tend to depress wages. So much so that

(1) it may be worthwhile for the capitalist to use labour liberally and (2) it may be

necessary for workers to have their entire family work in order to make ends meet.

Marx (1867, p. 373) writes: "[Machinery] thus depreciates [the man's] labour power.

For a family to survive, not only labour should all members work, but they must expend

surplus-labour for the capitalist"” (Basu 1998, p. 23).

Anker et al. (1998) claimed that although the margin of savings from employing

cheaper child labour wasn’t much (mere 5% saving in production costs), it was still

important and large in the highly competitive informal sector (Galli 2001, p. 14).

However, even the time factor plays an important role along with the profit margins.

For example domestic work is more time consuming and requires less effort than hard

physical labour at a brick kiln or a quarry or even construction sites. So children,

primarily girls do house work and relieve parents of household duties and in turn are

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involved in the informal economy. This is valid for even the unorganised enterprises.

Swaminathan (1998) reported after a case study of four informal industries (diamond

cutting, ship-breaking, cleaning plastic cement bags, and plaiting plastic ropes) that

children were working there at simple repetitive manual tasks which did not call for

long-term formal skill trainings. Thus the informal economy creates demand for child

labour and the absence of regulations ensures the supply of children.

Therefore it is evident that a combination of factors, ranging from economic to

social determines the incidence of child labour in a country. But this labour is

detrimental to the development of a child as well as society and economy. Each of the

afore-mentioned causes has a cyclic relation with child labour as each is a cause and

impact of this phenomenon. The next section of this chapter discusses these impacts of

continuing child labour in the given conditions.

V: Impact of child labour

Although working from a tender age equips a child with survival skills, it

restricts physical and mental development of the child and is detrimental to the child’s

personal development. This throws them into a child labour trap and generation after

generation continues to languish in it. Among the early theories, Basu notes that Marx

also wrote about the long-term debilitating consequences of child labour, but it was

Marshall (1920) who observed that although children had laboured even before the

industrial revolution, "the moral and physical misery and disease caused by excessive

work under ghastly conditions reached their highest point in the first quarter of the 19th

century" (Basu 1998, pp. 24–25).

As demonstrated in the previous section, child labour is caused due to various

interconnected reasons; hence its impact is also multi-dimensional and mostly long-

term. It influences literacy rates, health, demography, inequality patterns, and adult-

wages and ultimately leads to what Emerson and Souza (2002) call the child labour trap

which could be trans-generational. Each cause (which is dependent on the other) has

an impact on child labour and is in turn affected by child labour trap.

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V a: Poverty due to impact on adult wages

Children are employed in the labour market due to their docility and incapability

to organise and demand for appropriate wages. A number of researchers like Cigno

(2004), Emerson and Souza (2002), Basu (1998), Weiner (1991) and others confirm the

fact that for poor households any amount of additional income is important when

parents’ earnings are insufficient to guarantee the survival of the family. In such a

situation the nature of work a child does ceases to matter and could mean that a child is

sent for an extremely hazardous job. But they also point out to the fact that children are

paid lower wages than adults which does not make much of difference to the poverty

conditions of their parental households. A study of the Indian Carpet industry (Levison

et al. 1996) demonstrated that children received much lower wages than adults, if at all

they received any, because the practice of apprenticeship was very much prevalent in

the industry.

This presence of cheap surplus child labour can cause three problems that

further heighten poverty. Firstly adult unemployment as revealed by studies done by

Emerson and Souza (2007), Basu (2000) and others is negatively affected. It could

reduce the bargaining power of adults which might force them to work on low wages or

quit. Burra (2005) argues that the employment of children negatively impacts adult

employment, because when there is cheap and malleable child labour available, the

employers would prefer to hire them, rather than hiring adults who cannot be

controlled easily. Basu calls this involvement of children as the “added worker effect”

(Basu 2000, p. 59). Thus a cycle evolves where unemployment or the adult family

members’ fear of losing a job sends out all possible workers into the labour market,

which in turn displaces more adult labour and sends out even more children.

Secondly, researchers argue that the fact that children are profitable can be an

incentive for raising fertility rates of a family. “As long as children can contribute

directly or indirectly to family income (net of the cost of rearing and educating them),

birth rates will be higher” (Galli 2001, p. 6). In other words a cycle develops again

where the idea that there will be more hands to work, leads to more mouths to feed

which again creates shortage and puts pressure on all members of the family (including

children) to work. Lastly, in the long run, this could also depress economic growth as

technological progress will slow down. “The availability of cheap, unskilled child labour

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in fact allows employers to avoid investing in fixed capital and upgrading production

processes, thereby dampening technological progress, labour productivity and output

growth in the long run” (Galli 2001, p. 8). Such a situation would continue the

employment of children and deepen the incidence of poverty.

V b: Impact on education which affects human capital

On entering the labour market at a full-time basis, the only skill that a child

develops is that of working. This is not necessarily unpleasant, as most research studies

claim, because vocational skills are very important for survival. But it does have a

negative impact on school attendance and mental proficiency. Works of economists like

Edmonds (2007), Baland and Robinson (2000), Basu and Van (1998) and others argue

that education provides the scope to develop one’s human capital which enhances the

chances of a person’s positive productivity and future earning capacity. But the degree

in which work has affected the school attendance and progress can have a negative

impact on future productivity of child. Research has shown that full-time jobs have the

worst impact on school attendance (Galli 2001). Similarly Emerson and Souza argue

that “earnings as an adult are lower, ceteris paribus29, the earlier the individual enters

the labour market” (Emerson, Souza 2002, p. 20).

Full-time work also means no or limited schooling and less time for leisure

activities like play or pursuing some hobby to develop mental faculties or even spending

time to do school work. Taking on from Theodore W. Schultz’s (1961) human capital

theory, Edmonds argues in his research that “leisure and play is likely complementary

to schooling in the production of child welfare” (2007, p. 4). But in absence of these, it is

possible that children are not able to develop their capabilities which in the long run

would affect a country’s labour productivity and its growth pattern. “Moreover, low

education is associated with lack of awareness of rights and of democratization,

negatively affecting growth (democracy is a determinant of international

competitiveness) and social development (non-democratic governments obviously limit

people’s freedom)” (Galli 2001, p. 7). Therefore the future of human capital in a country

is at risk when child labour starts increasing.

29

“With other things the same”

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V c: Impact on health which affects human capital

The ILO Convention 182 aims to eradicate child labour in the most hazardous

forms of work, but millions of children today continue being engaged in slavery & debt

bondage, prostitution, conscription and drug peddling which have long-term impact on

their physical and mental health. There are no exact figures to prove this and neither

has there been much research to measure the actual rate of deterioration. However the

fact that children work in such hazardous occupations which are even harmful for

adults, can demonstrate the ill-effects of child labour. In terms of physical health, firstly

exposures to harmful substances like pesticides, carbon monoxide, mercury, silica and

asbestos cause infectious and life-threatening diseases. These diseases may range from

different types of tuberculosis to tetanus and parasitic diseases which take place due to

contact with dirt and human waste (Parker, Overby 2005). Then there is sexual

exploitation (not only among child prostitutes but also among other vulnerable children

on the streets or in small factories), HIV/AIDS and other STD occurs. Further,

abominable working conditions in mines, quarries, small industries and sweatshops

have long-term ill-effects on the health of a child. A study about Indian carpet industry

reported that children had health problems because of long hours of sitting in one

position that caused weakening of back muscles; poor ventilation which let the fibres

from cotton and wool remain in the air leading to respiratory illnesses and less than

adequate lighting which strained the eye when fine work was done (Levison et al.

1996). Such work leads to stunted growth and hampers productivity of the child as an

adult.

Yet these are the milder effects, as children can easily fall prey to even worse

conditions. They are subject to beatings, drug abuse and physical torture which can

even cause severe damage to some part of the body or even death. Accidents caused by

machineries are common apart from physical abuse due to lack of safety regulations30.

This leaves children at the mercy of the employer who can even beat a child to death

30

Several documents are available on the internet about the fire-cracker industry in Sivakasi, India where many children regularly get burned when the gunpowder explodes accidently. Severe burns and disfigurements leave life-long marks on these children.

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due to non-compliance31. Begging, which falls under organised crime, leads to child

trafficking. Many children are subjected to amputation of limbs or are maimed or

blinded forever as such children elicit more sympathy. Two reports from ECPAT and

Anti-Slavery International confirm this after conducting surveys in countries like

Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, India, Senegal and Bangladesh [(ECPAT

2010); (Delap 2009)].

Good healthy conditions contribute to psychological well being as well. But these

children, who go through such experiences, are in a constant state of trauma. Even if

there are no physical scars, their psyche is wounded for their entire lifetime. In the long

run this affects the country’s development as well. An analysis of health related data

sets from 83 countries reported that child labour has a significant and a positive effect

on adolescent mortality, on a population’s nutrition level, and also on the rate of

prevalence of infectious and life-threatening disease (Roggero et al. 2007). When all

these ill-effects of child labour, namely poverty, illiteracy, negative health; combine, it

causes a problem of inequality in the society which converts child labour into a trans-

generational trap.

V d: Inequality and strengthening of the child labour trap

The child labourers and their families suffer from a set of blows hitting them

from all sides. The low incomes reinforce low education and high fertility rates which

further pushes them to the lowest rungs of the society. This increases inequality in the

society between the haves and the have-nots. “This income inequality is likely to have a

negative effect on long run growth and therefore, to have a further indirect negative

effect on social development” (Galli 2001, p. 9). Income inequality also makes these

groups socially unequal with no scope of mobility as they are stuck in the cycle of

poverty. The end result however is that child labour is transmitted to the next

generation. The study conducted on child labour trap in Brazil, by Emerson and Souza

brings out the trans-generational repercussions of child labour.

31

Moin, a child aged 10 years, who worked in a zardozi sweatshop in New Delhi, was beaten to death by his employer (NDTV 20/04/2011)

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“There is a significant relationship between a parent’s child labour incidence and years of schooling, and those of their children. We find that children are more likely to be child labourers if their parents were as well. In addition, we find that children are less likely to be a child labour the more educated their parents are. Moreover, the educational attainment of grandparents does not directly affect the child’s labour status, but there seems to be an indirect impact that is transmitted through the parents’ education. These results hold when we control for family income as well” (Emerson, Souza 2002, p. 20)

Thus it is clearly evident that child labourers are forced to work for long hours at

low or no wages under conditions damaging their physical and mental health and

development, sometimes separated from their families and are deprived of meaningful

educational and training opportunity that could open up a better future for them. Child

labour in some cases may provide short-term relief from poverty, but in the long run it

perpetuates the very same maladies it tries to get away from - poverty, unemployment

and illiteracy. But as I mentioned earlier, this work is about understanding the

perspectives of the actors integral to the phenomenon of child labour, namely, the child,

the parents and people from the larger society like employers, policy makers, teachers,

etc. In other words I aspire to do a subject-oriented analysis which is under-

represented in the existing literature in this field. When these actors would be tied

together and analysed in the light of Bourdieu’s relational theory, I see the possibility of

a new and unique perspective to study child labour that would aim to understand a

society’s own perspective about itself. Possibly then we can formulate a different set of

measures to deal with this issue. In the forthcoming chapters this idea would be

presented. After laying down the theoretical and methodological framework of the

study and drawing a picture of the locations chosen, the data would be presented,

analysed and discussed to devise strategies for breaking the habitus of working for a

child labourer.

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Chapter 2

Definitional Clarifications and Theoretical Framework

Children have lent a helping hand to their family or society members since time

immemorial but child labour wasn’t there since the beginning of this world. It was only

at a particular point of time in the history of mankind that the character of work

changed and it began to be seen as labour. As its history suggests (refer to Chapter 1) it

can be argued that the discourse to use children as labour was constructed to be a

response for a combination of events and developments. As cheap labour was required

to support the profit making mechanisms of the industrial revolution, the use of

children, especially those from the working classes and economically weaker sections

was encouraged to an extent that it became de rigeuer or normal. Such an idea finds its

roots in the constructionist research paradigm which holds that reality is constructed

both individually and socially. In recent times, this idea that child labour is a social

construct is gaining momentum and as a result a new way of understanding the

phenomenon is evolving wherein children who are at the core of the construct are being

focussed on. Authors like Haider (2008) and Liebel (2004) argue that the prevailing

opinion on child labour in the broader literature is incompatible with the lived

experiences of these children. To fill this gap is the main crux of the present research as

I wish to bring forth the real life situations of working children (a strategy that is still

more in talk than in practice) and analyse the nature of the forces that come into play

when it is decided that a child should work.

In this chapter I aim to shed light on my theoretical framework that would serve

as a lens for the reader by providing the ground for the current research. The central

idea of my work postulates that there is a habitus of working among these children,

which is constructed by the prevalent discourses in the society, making it normal for a

child to accept the reality of work; and this habitus turns into an intra-generational

trend if there are no internal or external changes ushered in. Thus an exploration of the

habitus-making process implies that I place the phenomenon of child labour in a

constructionist paradigm which acts at the level of discourses shaping not only terms

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like child, childhood, work and labour but also a child labourer’s perception of his or her

work. By doing so, I take the first step to provide a philosophical and theoretical

perspective into the process of my own engagement with the phenomenon of child

labour. Secondly, considering the main idea, my next step is to use Pierre Bourdieu’s

key concepts of social space, capital, field, symbolic violence and habitus to develop a

holistic picture of the child labour phenomenon. Lastly with the use of the above

mentioned theoretical concepts, I wish to develop some possible solutions, if not all,

which may aid children to come out of the child labour trap. The first part of the current

chapter would thus provide an insight into the overarching paradigm of

constructionism that would seek to untangle the concepts of child, childhood, work,

labour and discourses. This would be followed by a critical examination of the key

concepts of Pierre Bourdieu. The last section would then reflect on how I would use and

modify these theoretical view points for the purpose of this research.

I: The constructionist paradigm and efficacy of discourses

Universally child labour is condemned because of its established negative effects

on the child and the economy. At the same time it cannot be ignored that the

contribution which a child makes to his or her family, either monetarily or non-

monetarily, is crucial for the survival of numerous families in the world. Therefore one

can say that it holds different meanings for different actors who are based in different

contexts, which places the debate in the constructionist paradigm. According to Crotty,

constructionism claims that all knowledge and meaningful reality is constructed on the

basis of the interaction between human practices and the world which are guided and

transferred in a particular social context. It doesn’t create meaning from nothing; it

constructs meaning from what is already there in the world. If human beings don’t

undertake this construction, the world and its objects would be meaningless by

themselves (Crotty 1998). Constructionism mirrors the concept of intentionality which

maintains that when a mind is conscious of something, it reaches out to understand it,

leading to an interaction. This notion differentiates constructionism from objectivism

and subjectivism. The latter two are grounded on the lack of linkages and interaction

between object and subject. Objectivism holds that meanings resides independently in

objects and has no connection with the consciousness; whereas subjectivism proposes

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that meaning is created out of the consciousness of the subject and the object has no

contribution (Crotty 1998).

Constructionism on the other hand suggests that there is no true valid

interpretation of reality and each researcher presents just one specific version

[(Bryman 2004), (Crotty 1998)]. These interpretations are useful and liberating in

nature as they provide various ways of acknowledging reality. But these interpretations

(resulting from the interaction between object and subject) are based in a particular

context, a social setting in which they are already embedded. The way meaning is

interpreted depends on publicly available systems or discourses which have been

produced earlier. These discourses, as argued by Phillips and Hardy produce and

legitimize social reality and further give it meaning due to their relation with the

previous discourses (2002). Therefore one can say that discourse is a construction and

is self-constructing. This construction is however not just on the cognitive level, it also

occurs at the level of talk and texts (Potter 1996, pp. 97–98). Who constructs a meaning

and what is the process of this construction thus becomes crucial for us to have a

comprehensive picture of a reality.

A discourse can be defined as…

“…a group of statements which provide a language for talking about a topic and a way of producing a particular kind of knowledge about a topic. Thus the term refers both to the production of knowledge through language and representation and the way that knowledge is institutionalized, shaping social practices and setting new practices into play.”

[(du Gay 1996: 43) cited in Ainsworth 2001, p. 3]

Discourses are dynamic in nature as they are open systems which allow the breeding of

new topics and sub-topics.

“Through discourses we humans integrate language with non-language “stuff,” such as different ways of thinking, acting, interacting, valuing, feeling, believing, and using symbols, tools, and objects in the right places and at the right times so as to enact and recognize different identities and activities, give the material world certain meanings, distribute social goods in a certain way, make certain sorts of meaningful connections in our experience, and privilege certain symbol systems and ways of knowing over others. (Gee 1999, p. 13)

Discourse is also considered three-dimensional in nature because it looks

simultaneously on a language text, spoken or written; discourse practice (text

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production and text interpretation); and socio-cultural practices (Fairclough 2003).

Further, texts in our contemporary world are inextricably linked to social problems as

they are constructed by public and private discourses. These linkages are also

necessary to understand a discourse in relation to other discourses. For example in

order to understand from a discourse analytic perspective why a person is a refugee, we

need to explore how discourses such as asylum, immigration, humanitarianism and

sovereignty, among others, serve to make the concept of refugee.

Through such a constructionist lens, I make two arguments in this research

work. I already pointed out the first one in the beginning of this chapter that discourses

construct the habitus of a working child making it normal for him or her to work. When

one wants to study the phenomenon of child labour, one must take into consideration

the content of a child worker’s thought process and it must be interlinked with the

context in which he or she grows to become an adult. The second is that the literature

we have today on child labour is also a socially constructed discourse. It must be

understood in the light of discourses on child, childhood, work and labour, which make

the discourse on child labour. Here I must make a distinction between the discourses

on cause and consequence of child labour (factual) and the discourses on the above

mentioned terms (theoretical or cognitive) because the former exists not only on the

level of talk but they are also quantifiable facts. In other words, one can measure

poverty or health and economic consequences (as shown in Chapter 1). The latter, on

the other hand exists only at the level of talk and mental constructs that have been

influenced by dominant cultural discourses and therefore display heavy constructionist

undertones, as argued below.

I a: Definitions of child, childhood, work and labour

Till date there is no one standard definition to explain these terms; instead there

is a complex array of meanings attached to these terms. Raman argues that definitions

of children along with diverse childhoods that children across the world experience, are

social constructs which are the result of a complex interplay of historical, social and

cultural factors (2000, p. 4056). The literature exhibits that there are some definitions

that the international organisations set and there are others that national governments

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set. It also suggests that cultural differences are at play when it comes to defining these

terms. In some cultures the concept of childhood is either absent or faintly present; in

others the lines of childhood and adulthood are clearly demarcated. In some societies

children do light work as part of the socialisation process and in others they may even

be socialised to do hard manual work [(Edmonds 2008), (Brown et al. 2002), (Lieten

2002b), (Boyden et al. 1998), (Basu 1998), (Nieuwenhueys 1996) and others]. In the

paragraphs to come I will discuss the constructs of child, childhood, work and labour

and reflect on my stand for this research endeavour.

Child:

The term child could be understood on the basis of three criteria – biological

which coincides with puberty; customs that establish let’s say the status in a domestic

unit; and legal which is determined by legislations governing enrolment in schools and

the labour law. Although age is the underlying factor of this criteria, the definition is

still not clear-cut, which is a difficulty that almost every scholar engaging with this topic

faces. This is because even though the ILO Convention No. 138 specifies that children

above 15 years may in normal circumstances engage in economic activity, a universal

consensus on the convention is absent. For example, in Nigeria, the Child Rights Act

holds that every human being below the age of 18 years is a child, but minimum age

would differ under different circumstances. The matrimony law stipulates 21 as the

formal age of maturity whereas the Child and Young Person’s Act regards anyone above

14 years as a ‘young person’ (Jacomy, Stevens 2005). Similarly, various Indian

legislations have set different minimum age in relation to the protection of child rights.

Although it agrees to the 18 year criterion, as given by the Child Rights Convention32,

the Child Labour Policy (1986) and the Right to Education Policy (2009) set the age

limit at 14. Therefore for this research, I focussed on children between the ages of 6-14,

which is the age group for primary schooling in India.

Childhood:

The notion of child is closely related to the concept of childhood which is a fairly

new concept in itself. The literature keeps reminding us that child labour robs the basic

right of a healthy childhood, but here we must acknowledge that it is not a universal

32

Government of India Ministry of Women and Child Development (2002)

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concept. Childhood is a social construct and a short recap of the historical context that

lead to its development in the West can be quite helpful to understand how the various

perceptions of what is desirable and undesirable for children were discovered. It was

Philippe Ariès in his classic Centuries of Childhood, who first put forward the thesis that

childhood is a modern construct. According to Ariès there was practically no place of

childhood in European medieval period. Terminology on ‘ages of life’, however, found

mention in the Middle Ages, that divided a life period into childhood, puerility,

adolescence, youth, senility, and old age. Childhood as a stage, completely different

from adulthood had no mention. The infant who could not participate in the adult

world simply did not count, but as soon as he left his mother’s milk, he became part of

the adult world. Thus a child at this time was fully integrated from the earliest age into

all aspects of daily life including, education, work and play (1973).

The terms ‘baby’, ‘child’ and ‘youth’ were interchangeable prior to the modern

age. Moreover, the end of childhood did not coincide with the beginning of puberty

which was strictly a biological phenomenon. Rather, the idea of childhood was bound

with the idea of dependence; one could leave childhood only by leaving the state of

dependence, or at least the lower degrees of dependence (Ariès 1973). In pictorial

illustrations, characterization of children had no special expression; they were depicted

only as men on a reduced scale. There was religious iconography of childhood as well,

wherein a child was described as an angel or the infant Jesus. These depictions of the

Holy childhood also consisted of men on reduced scale. Until the end of sixteenth

century, the portrayal of child on its own did not take place (Ariès 1973, p. 28). “In the

realm of real life (not just in aesthetic transposition), childhood was a period which

passed quickly and was forgotten as quickly” (1973, p. 34). The awareness of the

particular nature of childhood was hence not there. In addition, nothing in the medieval

dress distinguished the child from the adult. As soon as the child left his swaddling-

band, the band of cloth that was wound around him tightly in babyhood, he was dressed

like other men and women of his class. Moreover even the pastime activities and the

games of children did not differ much from adults. When the children left their

swaddling-band and wore adult clothes, they copied or shared their pastimes and

games from or with the adults.

A change occurred in the course of the seventeenth century. Firstly portraits of

children became numerous and common. They were now depicted as figures with small

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height and rounded features, and a change in the dress was also highlighted. The child

or ‘at least the child of quality (whether noble or middleclass) then ceased to be dressed

like the grownups’ (Ariès 1973, p. 50). Henceforth, he had an outfit reserved for his age

group, which set him apart from the adults. “The adoption of a special childhood

costume, which generalized throughout the upper classes, marked an important date in

the formation of the idea of childhood” (Ariès 1973, p. 57). Also, some games that were

earlier shared by both adults and children, were given up by the upper class adults, but

they survived among the upper class children and the lower classes. Schooling too at

this period replaced some of the games for the children. Soon, the public discourse in

terms of literary and pictorial illustrations echoed the discovery of infancy, of the child’s

body, habits and chatter and “the new concept of childhood, where a child due to his

sweetness, simplicity and drollery, became the source of amusement and relaxation for

the adult” (Ariès 1973, p. 129). Thus a view emerged that children were fragile

creatures of God, who needed to be guarded and it was the duty of the adults to ensure

their safety. Viviana Zelizer wrote in her book ‘Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing

Social Value of Children’ that childhood became priceless at this time [cited in Weiner

1991, p. 110]. The Reformation, with its encouragement of individualism, also helped to

establish the individuality of the child (Fyfe 1989, p. 13). Towards the end of the

seventeenth century each child was regarded as having a soul of its own, and was given

its own name.

However even in Europe, the concept wasn’t universal. The children of the lower

classes maintained the old way of life, which made no distinction between children and

adults, in dress or in work or in play. Ariès proposes that because the children of the

lower class retained the medieval image of a child, more got involved in work rather

than in schools. Such a lack of distinction facilitated the involvement of children from

the lower rungs of the society in the factories during the industrial revolution. In other

words, “Child labour retained this characteristic of medieval society: the precocity of the

entry into adult life” (Ariès 1973, p. 336). The idea of experiencing a childhood was a

privilege afforded only by the wealthy and landed classes, while the children of the

lower classes made a premature transition into adulthood (Rahikainen 2004). Thus the

three centuries old European (and also the Western) concept of childhood that had

developed in a specific historical context defining it as a distinct and separate phase of

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life, characterised by innocence and frailty, where children were insulated from

economic and community life, was non-universal in nature.

The Indian perception of childhood also differs from the modern, western (upper

and middle class) construct of childhood. Raman argues that socio-cultural factors in

the Indian society determined the demarcation between childhood and adulthood. The

traditional Indian texts33 formed the basis of this demarcation. One such text, Manu

Smriti states that a child belongs to the bottom of the social order along with low castes,

slaves, newly married and pregnant women, old and sick and servants. However, not all

at this low level are treated in the same way. The women, children, sick and the old

have to be protected. Also, given the patriarchal basis of the Indian Sanskritic tradition,

most of the literature referring to children or childhood has only the boy child as a

reference point and there is no place for a girl child (Raman 2000). The presence of

such divergent opinions reiterates the fact which I stated earlier in this chapter, that an

exact definition of a universal child and childhood is not possible as it is a construct

influenced by the socio-cultural differences present in the world.

Work:

Similarly, constructionist forces are in action even when one wants to

understand the terms work and labour making it difficult to clearly put them in

different boxes. Many authors like Liebel (2004), Lieten (2002a), Standing (1999),

Bellamy (1997), and others have written extensively on various definitions of work and

labour. Standing points out that work is a rounded activity combining creative,

conceptual and analytical thinking of a person and the use of manual aptitudes – the vita

activa of human existence. Work involves an “individual element and a social element,

an interaction with objects – raw materials, tools, etc. – and an interaction with people

and institutions. The degree of creativity in work may be small or at a level of ‘genius’ ”

(Standing 1999, p. 3).

Labour and Alienation:

Labour on the other hand is different. ‘Not all work is labour and not all labour is

work’ (Standing 1999, p. 4). The word labour is derived from the Latin word laborem,

which implies toil, distress and trouble. In Greek, the word for labour is ponos, which 33

The Hindu traditional texts form the basis of this line of argument.

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signifies pain and effort. Labour, hence may be defined as an activity done under some

duress and some sense of control by others or by institutions or by technology, or a

combination of all the three. There are several different notions of labour according to

Standing. For an economist, labour is that which is expended in production, for a neo-

classical economist, it is a factor of production, whereas in Marxian terms, it is that

which produces or is intended to produce, surplus value. Labour as an activity must

also be distinguished from labour power, which is the individual capacity for labour, the

bundle of competencies, knowledge and physical attributes of any individual. Finally

Standing argues that “one has the right to indulge in creative activity, but the right to

labour, that is to the right to work in onerous conditions, is absurd” (Standing 1999, p.

4).

Alienation is crucial to the distinction between labour and work. Alienation is

manifest in loss of control and loss of autonomy in working. According to Arendt

(1957), ‘to labour meant to be enslaved by necessity, and labour done out of necessity is

demeaning’ [cited in Standing 1999, p. 7]. Put in words of Standing, “labour that is

involuntary and narrowly specialized, or that uses only a narrow range of physical or

mental attributes, or that restricts the development or renewal of physical, intellectual

or psychological capacities, is a denial of ‘human essence’ ” (Standing 1999, p. 7). This

definition of alienation can be criticized however on the grounds that a person who is

composing music is both narrowly specialized and uses a narrow range of mental

faculties. In a way this is true, but Standing argues that when someone is forced, by

pressure or circumstances, to do something, which excludes all other activities, then it

will lead to only one-dimensional development and the person’s creative capacity will

be stunted. Work as creativity should hence be distinguished from onerous, alienating

labour. This notion of alienation is ingrained in the concept of child labour, which

differentiates it from child work (Standing 1999, p. 7).

Standing’s definition might make one believe that these are concrete concepts,

but when they are applied to the child labour perspective, the literature again would

leave the reader disappointed. As I mentioned earlier in Chapter 1, many authors argue

that there exists a child labour continuum where at one end there is light work and at

the other there is extremely hazardous labour. Work that promotes or enhances a

child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development and does not detract

children from other activities like leisure, play and education is beneficial to the

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socialization of a child (Lieten 2002a). “It is ‘kaam’ and not ‘shram’, ‘mazduri’, ‘rozgar’

or ‘mehnat’ (words for labour in Hindi). Kaam, need not interfere with the sound

development of a boy or a girl” (Lieten 2002a, p. 5191). Work that is not too taxing and

time-constrained may benefit the child. Fyfe argues that doing properly structured,

phased work can be actually a gradual initiation to the adult world. He argues that child

work reflects social and cultural patterns, including power relationships between adults

and children. For instance, child work within an extended family context is a way of

socializing the child to be obligated to kin. Further, gendered roles of children help

them to prepare for the constructed adult sexual division of labour, in which females are

more extensively involved in domestic work. But work that is obviously destructive and

threatens the health and development of children is labour. Stein and Davies (1940)

describe child labour as: “any work by children that interferes with their full-physical

development, the opportunities for a desirable minimum of education and of their

needed recreation” [cited in Lieten 2002a, p. 5191]. These definitions, however, do not

acknowledge that child labour has an economic aspect too. Basu holds that a child is

classified as a labourer when he/she is economically active (1998).

Socialization and Exploitation:

Differentiation between socialization and exploitation is therefore essential for

making a distinction between work and labour, or, in other words, the analysis of

indices of exploitation is crucial to distinguishing child work and labour. Child work as

socialisation, which was discussed earlier can be for enhancing skills, but when this

work is alienating, detrimental to the child’s capacities and development, it is then

exploitation. For instance, it may be considered good for a girl to do some domestic

work, but when this work stops her from going to school and having leisure time, it is

exploitation. There have been many attempts at defining exploitation, in order to clarify

when child work becomes exploitative. The most comprehensive one is that which has

been put forward by UNICEF in is 1986 Executive Board Paper. A child is exploited

when, it is full-time work at too early an age; too many hours are spent on working;

work exerts undue physical, social or psychological stress; life is on the streets and in

bad conditions; there is inadequate pay; there is too much responsibility; work hampers

access to education; work undermines children’s dignity and self-esteem, such as

slavery or bonded labour and sexual exploitation; and finally work is detrimental to full

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social and psychological development [cited in Fyfe 1989, pp. 18–19].

All these above mentioned definitions have one common limitation. Who decides

whether the work is too-taxing or time-constraining or is properly structured? It is

ultimately the context and the discourses of the decision making actors that determines

these terms. A 10-11 year old girl is not sent to school and deprived of her fundamental

right of education. This can appear as exploitation for an outsider like me, but there

might be a whole array of reasons for this decision – lack of interest for education in the

girl or ignorance on the parents’ part or safety issues that restrict movements of young

girls in an area. It is also difficult to give a precise objective meaning to the term

exploitation, argues Fyfe (1989). We can identify the extremes, that is, children working

in the mines and factories under slave like conditions or using dangerous chemicals in

pesticide soaked fields or child prostitution and pornography or fighting guerrilla wars.

At the margins though, there will be always a subjective facet; “exploitation will lie in

the eye of the beholder” (Fyfe 1989, p. 21).

Therefore, it is evident from the above discussion that the terms child, childhood,

work and labour are discourses which have heavy constructionist undercurrents, and

also that these discourses constitute the meaning of child labour (I will come back to a

discussion on discourses in the last section of this chapter). It is these constructs and

the paradigm of construction that provides me the bridge to make a cross-over to Pierre

Bourdieu whose work continuously demonstrates the possibility of an interaction

between object and subject (Grenfell 2007). Bourdieu claims that his approach falls

under ‘constructivist34 structuralism35 or structuralist constructivism’ (1990a, p. 123);

it is not the same as my epistemological constructionist stand point, but as I will

demonstrate below, it does serve as a starting point that allowed me to use Bourdieu's

key concepts. In the following section his concepts that served as analytical tools for

my research data, would be critically discussed.

34

By constructivism Bourdieu meant that “there is a social genesis on the one of the patterns of perception, thought and action which are constitutive of a habitus, and on the other hand of social structures and in particular of what he calls fields and groups, especially of what are usually called social classes” (1990a, p. 123). 35

Departing from Levi-Straussian tradition of structuralism, Bourdieu’s “meant that there exist, in the social world itself, and not merely in symbolic systems, language, myth, etc., objective structures which are independent of the consciousness and desires of agents and capable of guiding or constraining their practices or social representations” (1990a, p. 123).

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II. Pierre Bourdieu and his key concepts

Being one of the most notable and influential French sociologists, Pierre

Bourdieu was applauded for his theories and his distinct empirical research. His brand

of sociology is considered particular as his interests in the issues of knowledge, truth

and reason were influenced by the practical world that surrounded him. As a result all

his work developed with the direct observation of a particular social phenomenon. His

first writings were about the Algerian society in 1958 (Sociologique d’ Algérie) when he

began analysing the traditional markets of the country and the symbolism in the

behaviour of Kabyle peasants which was even reflected in the way their houses were

arranged. He then moved on to understand the logic of marriage patterns in his native

Béarn region of France; hobbies like photography; patterns of taste; and dynamics of the

modern universities and the French academic circles. One train of thought is common

in all these works – the way people experienced the world was a product of their social

conditions [(Grenfell 2007), (Calhoun 2003)]. Bourdieu never separated theory from

empirical research but considered his projects as practical and then theoretical. He

maintained that his theoretical concepts were not invented out of thin air; rather they

were discovered in relationship with the empirical data that emerged from the study of

a social phenomenon (Grenfell 2007).

Many crucial themes emerged in Bourdieu’s work since the beginning of his

career. First of his arguments was that objectivist and subjectivist representations

stand in a dialectical relation. When one views the objective social structures in the

society, one must remember that these structures are themselves products of individual

subjectivities. Objective relations thus do not exist on their own and cannot realize

themselves except in and through the systems of dispositions of agents who have

internalized their own objective conditions. Bourdieu’s attempt to go beyond the

dilemma of objectivism and subjectivism is demonstrated in the following passage,

which was influenced by Blaise Pascal’s work ‘Pensées’:

“The world encompasses me, comprehends me, but I, comprehend this

world because it encompasses and comprehends me; it is through this material

inclusion - often unnoticed or repressed - and what follows from it, the

incorporation of social structures in the form of dispositional structures, of

objective chances in the form of expectations or anticipations, that I acquire a

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practical knowledge and control of the encompassing space. But I cannot

comprehend this practical comprehension unless I comprehend both what

distinctively defines it and also the conditions (linked to positions in social

space) of these two forms of comprehension” (Bourdieu 2000, p. 130)

In other words, he aimed to transcend the artificial opposition between objectivism and

subjectivism and in turn between structures and representations. Grenfell argues that

this kind of an epistemological position of Bourdieu echoed the position of Peter Berger

and Thomas Luckman (1967), who had also taken a similar theoretical journey as him

and described the relation between the objective and subjective positions as ‘an

internalization of externality and the externalization of internality’. Therefore

Bourdieu’s epistemology demonstrated a third way, a theory of practice, which was

termed by Dreyfus and Rabinow (1993) as a ‘science of existential structure and social

meaning’ (Grenfell 2007, pp. 52–53).

This ‘third way’ can be then seen as constructionism considering Bourdieu did

argue that the world is a social construct. He points out, for example, that “a social

problem like divorce, delinquency, drugs, female labour force participation, etc. which a

researcher (who is normally inclined to positivism) or a social agent has taken for

granted is actually ‘socially produced, in and by the collective work of construction of

social reality’. This construction took place in meetings, committees, associations,

conferences, demonstrations, projects, programs, etc., that turned the private, particular

problem into social, public or even official issue” (Bourdieu, Wacquant 1992, p. 239).

But what do we do then with these constructs? The point of diversion for Bourdieu

from the constructionist lies here. He goes beyond just recognizing these constructs; he

sets to deconstruct the social construction of reality with conceptual tools, in a way

which reveals the dynamic relationship between the ‘modus operandi (structuring

structure) and the opus operatum (structured structure) and the logic of differentiating

practice which constitutes them’ (Grenfell 2007, p. 54). Following this line of thought, I

would contend that child labour is a socially constructed social problem, which must be

deconstructed to understand what it means to the child worker. I would further argue

that children, who are by way of birth placed in the field of the family which is a sub-field

of the community, attain a certain set of capital on the basis of the rules/doxa in each

field, guided by discourses exerting symbolic power, end up into a particular habitus.

The field of family is the most important for a child (first point of contact with the

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world), but when it is influenced by poverty, not only material, but also social, the result

is a habitus of a working child. This habitus is so deep-seated that it metamorphoses

into instinct without the conscious knowledge of the actor.

II a: Field

The concept of field is a central part of Bourdieu’s approach. He argues that

reality must be seen as a social concept existing only in relation to others. Thus the real

is relational, which means that social world is made of relations and not only

interactions. This reality is a “set of invisible relations that constitute the social space of

positions exterior to each other and defined by their proximity to, neighbourhood with

or distance from each other, and also by their relative position – above or below, or

even in between, in the middle” (Bourdieu 1990a, p. 126). In this social space, semi-

autonomous and increasingly specialized spheres of action exist that are produced

through a process of differentiation, which he calls fields. He defines field as:

“…a network or a configuration, of objective relations between positions.

These positions are objectively defined, in their existence and in the

determinants they impose upon occupant, agents or institutions, by their present

and potential situation (situs) in the structure of distribution of species of power

(or capital) whose possession commands access to the special profits that are at

stake in the field, as well as by their objective relation to other positions

(domination, subordination, homology, etc.).” (Bourdieu, Wacquant 1992, p. 97)

Therefore a field is a structured social space based on the objective relations between

positions. They are defined by the “stakes which are at stake – cultural goods (life-

style), housing, intellectual distinction (education), employment, land, power (politics),

social class, prestige or whatever—and may be of differing degrees of specificity and

concreteness” (Jenkins 1992, p. 52). Each field has its own specific logic of practice

which is rejected by those of the other fields. It is heterogeneous in nature as it could be

very large fields like that of media, economy, politics and small or local microcosms like

families. A field is made of dynamic networks which are in a ‘constant state of flux

because of the gaps, distance and asymmetries’ between the various forces leading to

struggles. The occupants of different positions in a field continuously aim at preserving

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or transforming the configuration of forces that structure the relations. They use

strategies, either individually or collectively, to safeguard or improve their positions

and “impose the principle of hierarchization that is most favourable to their own

products’ struggles” (Bourdieu, Wacquant 1992, p. 101).

Participants in the field, like economic firms, novelists, doctors, musicians, work

constantly to differentiate themselves from their rivals in order to reduce competition,

argues Bourdieu. But he clarifies that these participants don’t search for distinction;

they produce distinction. They impose a ‘criterion of competency, membership rules or

boundaries based which are meant to keep out those who cannot conform to them’.

Such boundaries can be determined only through empirical investigations (Bourdieu,

Wacquant 1992, p. 100). However in spite of the differences within fields and between

fields, they are still ‘homologous’ in nature as there is a resemblance within the

difference. Each field, be it the political field or the literary field, the economic field or

the field of philosophy, has its own set of ‘dominant and dominated, its struggles for

seeking controls and omission, its mechanism of reproduction,’ etc. Bourdieu also

compares fields to magnetic fields where each and every individual or electron has ‘a

sense of an emanation of the field’ (Bourdieu, Wacquant 1992, pp. 105–107).

While differentiating the concept of field from the systems theory of Niklas

Luhmann, Bourdieu argues that a field is the locus of relations of force and struggles

aiming to transform it, and not just of meanings. They are endlessly changing their

shape and internal forces. Systems on the other hand include ‘functionalism and

organiscism’ and are characterized by ‘common functions, internal cohesions and self-

regulations’. The second difference is that a field does not have parts or components. It

has sub-fields instead which again have their own internal logic and rules different from

the main field. For example, in the field of literary production, the subfields of novel or

theatre are considered as relatively autonomous units. They also display an open space

with ‘dynamic borders’ that create the main areas for struggles (Bourdieu, Wacquant

1992, pp. 103–104).

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Factors influencing mechanisms in the field:

Doxa

Two essential factors determine the way in which a field operates. The first is a

set of fundamental principles that act as ‘a universe of tacit, inseparably cognitive and

evaluative presuppositions’ that organize action and assign positions, within the field.

These rules are what Bourdieu calls as doxa which exercise a limiting influence on an

agent’s potential course of action. Membership to a field means acceptance to these

presuppositions. They “unite those whom they divide, since agents have to share a

common acceptance of them to be able to fight over them, or through them, and so to

produce position-takings which are immediately recognized as pertinent and

meaningful by the very agents whom they oppose and who are opposed to them”

(Bourdieu 2000, p. 100). Although it doesn’t need to be asserted as ‘an explicit and self-

conscious doctrine’, questioning the principles of belief is unheard of as it would

threaten the very existence of the field. In fact the occupants do not even know why

they received the ‘membership’ or why they are instinctively committed to it; yet they

may use these principles as ‘post festum rationalizations which are intended to justify an

unjustifiable occurring or action, to themselves and others’ (Bourdieu 2000, p. 102).

Consequently doxa provides the practical belief that takes the world for granted, it

debars those who try to destroy it and “arranges things, in practice, that the operations

of selecting and shaping new entrants (rites of passage, examinations, etc.) are such as

to obtain from them that undisputed, pre-reflexive, naive, native compliance with the

fundamental presuppositions of the field” (Bourdieu 1990b, p. 68).

Therefore an unconscious submission to conditions that are in fact quite

arbitrary and contingent forms the underlining principle of doxa (Grenfell 2007). It

creates a kind of illusion (a mode of self-deception) that is reflected in ways of thinking

and speaking. Bourdieu explains that…

…illusio does not belong to the order of explicit principles, theses that are

put forward and defended, but of action, routine, things that are done, and that

are done because they are things that one does and that have always been done

that way. (Bourdieu 2000, p. 102)

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Those who wish to use the doxa to maximise their profits, try to affirm the illusio with

any possible means, ensuing a struggle between them and those who are the champions

of the heterodoxa or the denying force. This struggle between the doxa and the

heterodoxa occurs at the level of the ‘implicit and unconscious which is far away from

conscious knowledge and control’ (Grenfell 2007, p. 56). Grenfell further postulates

that Bourdieu’s field, ‘through the medium of illusion, paves the way for the determining

the dispositions of actors, giving them a natural sense of the ways to operate, no matter

how arbitrary they may appear to an outsider’. These dispositions which are inherent

to the process of socialisation of the actor lay down the ‘structural generative schemes

of thought and action’. They can be regarded as ‘energy matrices’ that only get activated

in certain social conditions or fields (Grenfell 2007, p. 57).

Forms of Capital

The second factor that structures action in the field is the pool of capital that an

actor has. Capital, in its objectified or embodied forms accumulates over a period of

time, and has the potential to produce profits. It reproduces itself in an identical or

expanded form and is more or less eternal in nature. The types of capital and its sub-

types have such a structural distribution that reflects the inherent social structure of the

world, i.e., ‘the set of constraints, inscribed in the very reality of that world, which

govern its functioning in a durable way, determining the chances of success for

practices’ (Bourdieu 1986, p. 46). There are three forms of capital that can be found in

each field, but the predominance of one or more depends on the character of the field.

First there is cultural capital which is produced from an engagement with

education and culture. Cultural capital can exist in three forms: in the embodied state

which consist of ‘long-lasting dispositions of the mind and body like culture, cultivation,

Bildung’. It cannot be transmitted by gift, purchase or exchange (unlike money,

property rights, or even titles of nobility) (1986, p. 48). Then there is cultural capital in

the objectified state, in the form of cultural goods (pictures, books, dictionaries,

instruments, machines, etc.). They can be transmitted by legal means but their

consumption depends on the possession of the means to do so (like understanding a

painting collection or using a machine) (1986, p. 50). The third is the institutionalized

state that is conferred by academic qualifications which legally guarantees respect to

the owner via means of ‘a certificate of cultural competence’. It creates a difference

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between officially recognized guaranteed competence and simple cultural capital where

the value of the institution also depends on its position in the institutional hierarchy

(1986, pp. 50–51).

Social capital is the second form of capital that affects the position of an actor in

the field. It bestows the actor with a ‘resilient network of relationships developed from

mutual acquaintances or through membership into groups of worth’. For example,

being a member of an established organization like Rotary Club brings with itself

prestigious and valuable connections. These institutionalized relationships provide

each of its members ‘the backing of a collectively-owned capital’ and may exist only in

the ‘practical state, in material and or symbolic exchanges, which help to maintain

them’. Therefore having a name of a family or tribe or class or school or party that has

socially institutionalized relevance, informs a whole set of ‘instituting acts designed

simultaneously’ to enact, maintain and reinforce exchanges (Bourdieu 1986, pp. 51–53).

The third form, i.e. the economic capital is everything that is immediately and

directly convertible into money. Bourdieu argues that social capital and cultural capital

ultimately produce economic profits and they are actually disguised forms of economic

capital. The degree of transformation depends on the field. Also the three forms of

capital are closely dependent on each other, as an increase in one is achieved at the cost

of the other. For example when an expensive gift is exchanged, it has social investment

which would reap benefits later if not immediately. Similarly, when one wants to

acquire a cultural capital, expenditure of economic capital is bound to happen (Bourdieu

1986, pp. 53–56).

There is a fourth form of capital which Bourdieu calls as symbolic in nature. It is

‘the object of an act of knowledge and recognition’ which is reflected, say for example, in

accumulated prestige or honour (Bourdieu 1990a, pp. 111–112). He argues that social,

economic and cultural capital can also take the form of symbolic capital when the

arbitrariness of their possession and accumulation is misrecognised (Bourdieu,

Wacquant 1992, p. 119). A popular television personality while endorsing a social

message or a brand of product on television exercises his or her symbolic capital. These

capital resources are used by agents occupying positions in the field to gain anchorage

and their amount and weight determines this television personality’s position in the

field. Thus the competitions and struggles that ensue to maintain the shape and

division in a field are also organized around capital. For example a designer may use his

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or her social connections and economic capital to enhance the cultural capital. The

positions dependent on capital culminate into a pattern that Bourdieu calls the habitus

which defines a field for the sake of posterity and is itself dependent on the structure of

the field.

II b: Habitus

The notion behind the term habitus has been used by many authors like Hegel,

Husserl, Weber, Mauss and Durkheim, who according to Bourdieu used it in a

‘methodical way’. For example Hegel uses terms like ‘hexis, ethos, etc. which constituted

the permanent dispositions of realized morality whereas Husserl’s concept (along with

Habitualität) was an attempt to escape the philosophy of consciousness’. Going against

these ‘mechanist and other structuralist’ meanings, Bourdieu thought himself of being

close to Chomsky’s idea that saw practice as ‘an active and inventive intention’. He

further wanted to assert on ‘the generative capacities of dispositions’ which were

socially constituted in the acting agent notion of habitus and its origins (Bourdieu

1990a, pp. 12–13). In the following passage he explains that his concept takes the active

side from the idealist tradition and adds it to rectify the principle defect of materialism

which abandons the role of human activity in practice.

“Constructing the notion of habitus as a system of acquired dispositions

functioning on the practical level as categories of perception and assessment or

as classificatory principles as well as being the organizing principles of action

meant constituting the social agent in his true role as the practical operator of

the construction of objects.” (1990a, p. 13)

Therefore with his concept of habitus Bourdieu wished to break away from the

objectivism of action which meant that an actor is merely mechanical in his practice. He

also wished to break away from subjectivism which defined action only as a product of

deliberate conscience irrespective of the world around the actor. In this way he aspired

to provide a definite manner of constructing and understanding human practice in its

specific ‘logic’ (including temporal) (Bourdieu, Wacquant 1992, p. 121). By doing so,

habitus as a concept emerged to be an important feature of his work. In simple terms

habitus is a cognitive system of structure that has been acquired over a lifetime by a

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human being, because of his or her interaction with the external structures of the world.

He himself defines it in the following manner:

“The conditionings associated with a particular class of conditions of

existence produce habitus, systems of durable, transposable dispositions,

structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is,

as principles which generate and organize practices and representations that can

be objectively adapted to their outcomes without presupposing a conscious

aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary in order to

attain them. Objectively 'regulated' and 'regular' without being in any way the

product of obedience to rules, they can be collectively orchestrated without

being the product of the organizing action of a conductor.” (Bourdieu 1990b, p.

53)

The habitus is a system of dispositions which is formed and realized by the same

conditions unless there is a major change in the position of the actor in the field. His or

her capacities and competencies are not only structured by it, but are also structuring it.

It is reflected not only in his or her action, but also in the everyday choices that are

made regarding matters of cultural, intellectual, social and material tastes and assets.

“A number of behaviours can be understood as efforts to maintain or

produce a state of the social world or of a field that is capable of giving to some

acquired disposition - knowledge of an ancient or modern language, for example

- the possibility and opportunity of being actualized. This is one of the major

principles (with the available means of realization) of everyday choices as

regards objects or persons. Guided by one's sympathies and antipathies,

affections and aversions, tastes and distastes, one makes for oneself an

environment in which one feels 'at home' and in which one can achieve that

fulfilment of one's desire to be which one identifies with happiness. And we do

indeed observe (in the form of a significant statistical relationship) a striking

agreement between the characteristics of agents' dispositions (and social

positions) and those of the objects with which they surround themselves -

houses, furniture, household equipment, etc - or of the people with whom they

most durably associate - spouses, friends and connections.” (Bourdieu 2000, p.

150)

Habitus therefore is a ‘non-mechanical action’ that takes its shape according the actor’s

relation to the external world. Bourdieu further describes that habitus is ‘the product of

a historical acquisition’ and it even ‘enables the legacy of history to be appropriated’. It

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develops over a period of time and is then handed down for interpreting ‘history

objectified in the form of structures and mechanisms (those of the social space or of

fields) and the history incarnated in bodies in the form of habitus’ (Bourdieu 2000, pp.

150–151). Unless there is an internal or external change a habitus crystallizes due to

the same positions and dispositions in history, and consequently it replicates itself for

the oncoming successors. Such a way of describing human action is often considered

deterministic in nature. Bourdieu defends himself in this regard and argues that the

modes of behaviour that are created by the habitus are ‘not finely regulated like

normative or legislative principles’. They are rather ‘vague and indeterminate’ in nature

which can only forecast action. In a given situation a certain type of habitus will

produce certain practices (1990a, pp. 77–78). But when situations are changed, the

spontaneity of action is a result of what Bourdieu calls ‘fuzzy or practical logic’. This

practical sense operates at the ‘pre-objective and non-reflective’ level that takes the

‘world as meaningful by spontaneously anticipating its immanent tendencies’. He

argues that the habitus would provide the logic of practice only when this practical logic

would cease to exist (1992, pp. 20–23).

This habitus is meaningless unless it is situated in the realm of the field because

both have a structuring effect on each other. The two-way relation between them is

demonstrated on one side by the ‘conditioning’ that a field provides to the habitus. It is

defined by the imminent structures of the field; the actor’s position in it and the weight

of capital that he or she commands. If the actor is set amidst intersecting fields, then the

result is a divided or torn habitus. The other side is what Bourdieu calls as the relation

of knowledge or ‘cognitive construction’. The habitus allows the actor to define the field

as a meaningful world that has sense and value attached to it. This is further explained

in the following passage:

“Social reality exists twice, so to speak, in things and in minds, in fields

and in habitus, outside and inside of agents. And when habitus encounters a

social world of which it is the product, it is like a ‘fish in water’: it doesn’t feel the

weight of the water, and it takes the world about itself for granted fish to water”

(1992, p. 127).

In other words, when our habitus matches the field in which we have evolved, we can

get the impression of the situation and act spontaneously.

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Therefore human beings take the world for granted and find it natural because

their minds are structured by the very cognitive structures that constitute the world.

When these structures create reality or the field where they are placed, they mirror the

power equation of the field. Bourdieu argues that those who want to maintain the doxa

then create structures (with ideologies) to preserve the social reality best suited for

their interests and to ensure the status quo in the field, thus leading to symbolic

struggles between the different factions. Here those who are dominant groups, due to

their economic capital (which also aids the accumulation of social and cultural capital)

exert symbolic power to maintain their positions in the hierarchy of the field. He defines

this symbolic power as that “invisible power which can be exercised only with the

complicity of those who do not want to know that they are subject to it or even that they

themselves exercise it” (1992, p. 164). In other words it is the misrecognised but the

most legitimate power that is invisible in its impact on influencing structures and the

resultant action. In a society for example, this symbolic power is reflected in the ideas

of division of labour based on classes, sex or intellect.

Hence, when the objective structures of the world are of domination, the

inequality thus imposed on the individual, could be invisible which would make his or

her domination seem natural. Consequently, even the dispositions that would be

acquired by this individual would be in compliance with the domination ingrained

deeply inside their socialized bodies. Such a submission of the dominated is often not a

conscious acknowledgment of brute force of the dominators; rather it resides in the

unconscious fit between their habitus and the field they operate in. This is what

Bourdieu calls as symbolic violence which is the “power to impose (or even to inculcate)

the arbitrary instruments of knowledge and expression (taxonomies) of social reality -

but instruments whose arbitrary nature is not realized as such” (1992, p. 168). It is

exercised on a social agent with his or her conscious involvement making them feel that

his or her domination is legitimate. It is practiced indirectly through the control of

cultural mechanisms such as language, images, and symbolic meanings. To sum up the

entire scheme of his concepts, Bourdieu developed the analogy of a game.

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II c: Sense for the Game

Bourdieu compares a field to a game, like that of football or baseball. Each field

or game has set rules and structures that assign different positions to each player, and

by agreeing to play it they acknowledge its presence, its rules and its worth. There are

always opposing groups, each playing to dominate the game and win it ultimately. Thus

in a football match the strikers’ try to score a goal and the defenders try to stop them.

The games that are played are guided by two governing principles. First the positions

are established, i.e., who would be the goal keeper, or who would be a defender, etc.

would be fixed. This ‘position-taking’ in a field is determined by two factors – the

volume and structure of his or her capital at that point of time; and the evolution over

time of their dispositions or the habitus. These together provide the player with a ‘feel

for the game’ (Bourdieu, Wacquant 1992). For example, in a game of football, the

position of a player is determined by his or her previous training, physical ability,

technical prowess at playing the game, quality of his football kit, etc. that not only

provide him or her, the logic of the game but also the means to play it. Being part of

other prestigious clubs may add to his or her volume of capital making this player

special. But it must be noted here that if there is a sudden new move by the opponent,

the player would react instantaneously using his or her practical logic without thinking

of the possible results game (Bourdieu, Wacquant 1992, pp. 99–100).

The second principle to play the game is the adherence to the doxa or the tacit

rules and prerequisites of reproduction of the game and its stakes. But all players may

not agree with the doxa and would try to change it for their own benefit. In a football or

soccer game, only the goalkeeper is allowed to use their hands and not the other

players. So if one player wants to use his hand too, the others players and the referees

(who are the book-keepers of the doxa) would attempt to maintain the status quo in the

field leading to a power struggle. The teams then would engage in any sort of strategy

to win the game, which could also include cheating or even injuring (physically or

mentally) some important player (maybe the trump card). The social pressure to win

the game thus exerts symbolic violence on the players who are dominated by the

principle ideology of the game, which is that one party would always win and the other

would always loose [(2000); (1992, pp. 20–23) ]. Therefore in this manner Pierre

Bourdieu tries to convince his readers and interpreters about his analytical tools which

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according to him shape human activity. The scheme does sound convincing at first

glance, however there have been numerous criticisms levelled against him which would

be discussed in the next section.

III: Assessing Pierre Bourdieu’s work

Being one of the most eminent French theorists whose main task was to bridge

the divide between objectivism and subjectivism, Bourdieu’s work is not devoid of

falling into the same traps that he consistently tried to avoid. The most prominent

critics of his work like Paul DiMaggio (1979), Richard Jenkins (1992), Dumont and

Evens (1999) and Anthony King (2000) have challenged him on many counts starting

from the language he uses. DiMaggio (1979) and Jenkins (1992) have criticized

Bourdieu’s use of long, abstract, paradoxical sentences in which phrases are combined

with one another, sometimes reflecting negation. This makes it difficult for a reader

who is not familiar with his style to understand the works. DiMaggio explains that such

use of difficult language is not only because Bourdieu was part of the French literary

tradition that itself was hard to interpret, but also because his own thought process

were very complex. Secondly he explains that Bourdieu’s concepts are a result of the

mating between the various grand theories of Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Freud,

Heidegger, Bernstein and others. Therefore in many respects they appear to be an

underdeveloped ‘collection of new departures’ but ‘too few arrivals’ (1979, p. 1466).

Thirdly, it is argued that although Bourdieu refutes objectivism, his own theory

keeps slipping back into this paradigm. As demonstrated above, he tried to bridge the

gap between objectivism and subjectivism but Jenkins (1992), Dumont and Evens

(1999) and Anthony King (2000) argue that he fails to do so ultimately and ends up

being an objectivist and determinist. The habitus for example was meant to bridge this

gap, but the very fact that it ignores the rational choice theory and relies on an unknown

and opaque body of rules that that social agents follow without really knowing, brings

back the objectivist tones in it. His practical sense theory on the other hand openly

depends on these objective deterministic rules that exist in the minds of the individuals

determining social life. As mentioned earlier, Bourdieu responded to the accusations of

determinism by arguing that habitus operates only in relation to a social field in which it

was produced and that it is subject to changes when there are changes in the

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circumstances. But Jenkins highlights that it remains difficult to understand how these

changes occur (1992, p. 51).

Jenkins’ critique frequently poses the question that how does Bourdieu’s model

of the habitus, produce practices. Although the habitus is argued to be durable as it is

founded on learning from a historical production of individual and collective practices,

it still doesn’t clarify the process. In the following passage Jenkins clearly articulates the

reasons for posing such a question to Bourdieu.

“This is problematic as Bourdieu is putting the cart before the horse here.

In his own terms he is conflating the ‘reality of the model’ (probabilities) with

the ‘model of reality’ (expectations). The former is an analytical construct, the

latter rooted in the social reality under study. Bringing the two together to

construct a processual mechanism which is used to explain behaviour is neither

workable nor plausible. Something which happens at time ‘x’ cannot be

accounted for by the likely state of affairs—as predicted by statistics—at time

‘x+1’. Even if people’s behaviour is the result of the acceptance as probable of a

future which would be similar to the present, how do they learn or identify that

probability? In the first instance it can only be through the internalization (as

children) of the expectations about the future articulated by significant (adult)

others. It is those expectations which produce probabilities and create social

reality, not the other way around (1992, p. 49).

Then there are questions posed about the relation between habitus and field. As the

process that produces the practices is not clear, Jenkins argues that there is also a gap

between micro level of agents and the macro level of fields which needs to be filled by a

theoretical model of real as well as symbolic institutions that constitute the field. In

other words how institutions are experienced by the agents is unclear. People who are

born into a habitus know that field, but what about the fields that this habitus would

experience when the agent is mature? How does the agent then comprehend these new

fields? (1992, p. 56). DiMaggio questions another such connection, that between the

class position and habitus. On similar grounds, as Jenkins, he argues that Bourdieu

suggests the myriad ways in which socialization can, in general, form deep structures of

personality and perception, but he doesn’t clearly establish the relation between the

two, leading to the same view that the concept of habitus is underdeveloped (1979, p.

1468).

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Jenkins also criticizes Bourdieu for not believing the importance of rational

decision-making and calculation. He shows two examples to show this problem in

Bourdieu’s model. The first being the use of the word ‘strategy’, which is a conscious,

and calculative act. “Strategies, in Bourdieu’s sense, are presumed to exist because, for

explanatory purposes, they must exist.” For example, he cites that the kinship and

marriage patterns of Kabyle or Béarnaise were mostly unarticulated or inexplicit

strategies, but Jenkins asks, where do these strategies come from? (1992, p. 52).

Similarly, the word ‘interest’ is something that actors consciously pursue. The only

alternative of defining interests is by an outside observer. Additionally, if the actor is

not conscious of his or her interests, how can he or she engage in the struggles of power

in the field? (1992, p. 54) Due to these alleged short-comings in Bourdieu’s theory, one

finds it difficult to define the real definitions of the analytical tools and words he uses.

Rather one starts identifying him with structural functionalism where in the models of

the social world, the functions of action are read off from its consequences. Jenkins (he

cites Elster’s work as well - 1983) highlights that without a rational mechanism, the

habitus and the social world are in a closed feedback loop confirming each other,

leaving no space for the process in between. This allows the space for functionalist

tendencies to creep in Bourdieu’s work (1992, pp. 50–51). As a result his

epistemological experimentation also faces criticisms. When Bourdieu talks about

‘participant objectivation’ it is not clear, as to what options does he have in his mind

when he talks about objectifying objectification. The idea of reflexivity among

sociologists is also considered as an illusion because a limited symbiotic relation

between the observer and the subject doesn’t exist. Jenkins again points out to

Bourdieu’s ignorance of rational choice and questions about the ability of a researcher

to be conscious of his or her own thoughts and the disability of the subject to do so

(1992, p. 45).

He is finally called a materialist because of his consistent use of economic terms

like capital, game, interests, etc. and his theory that human life is a struggle for

existence, where there is a competition over the means of production and reproduction

(Dumont, Evens 1999). Bourdieu refutes this criticism by arguing that the reader must

set aside his or her own materialist tendencies while reading his work. Further John B.

Thompson writes in the introduction of Language and Symbolic Power, that Bourdieu's

use of economic terminology must be seen in a broader light, as they find meaning

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beyond the economic field. For example, augmentation of some kind of ‘capital’ (e.g.

cultural or symbolic capital) or the maximization of some kind of 'profit' (e.g. honour or

prestige), function on economic logics of capital and profit, yet they are in different

fields (Bourdieu 1992, p. 15).

Therefore, although Bourdieu has had his fair share of criticisms, not every

concept or theory in his work is marred with loopholes. They might be contentious, but

they cannot be ignored because they are significant to today’s Sociology. His theory

made an important contribution to the sociology of culture and to appreciate it one

must understand his concepts like habitus, symbolic violence, cultural capital, and field,

in relation to one another. “The proper impact of Bourdieu’s work can be seen only

with a broader shift in the sociological habitus which lies behind the production of new

empirical understandings” (Calhoun 2003, p. 303). His work unsettles the very

definitions of the numerous recognized ideas of social order, and thus has invited heaps

of criticisms from fellow authors. His work identifies the ways in which actions are

interested in the mechanisms of the world even if they appear not to be or how

reproduction of systems of power and resources occur without the conscious

knowledge of the actors. For example, gendered division of labour in a household is

accepted everywhere which most women adhere to naturally. Calhoun contends that

“Bourdieu’s theory is weaker as an account of creativity itself and of deep historical

changes in the nature of social life or deep differences in cultural orientation”. However,

one must also keep in mind that “no theoretical orientation provides an equally

satisfactory approach to all analytic problems, and certainly none can be judged to have

solved them all” (2003, p. 305). Building on from this note by giving Bourdieu due

credit for his analytical tools and theories, and at the same time keeping the criticisms

of his work in mind, I would demonstrate in the following section how his work is

important my research.

IV: Bourdieu’s role in this research

Bourdieu professes that one must “think with a thinker against that thinker”

(1990a, p. 49). This is almost like a mantra to be followed when anyone wishes to study

any theory. For first timers like me it is difficult to understand the complicated

language that Pierre Bourdieu uses because of his long and abstract sentences that have

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phrases and sub-phrases, which usually combine together to give one simple meaning.

Hence, one should possibly read him again and again to get familiar with his style and

then decipher a way to understand the meaning embedded in each of those enormous

sentences. By doing so one would realise that the sentences don’t mean that he was

himself confused but rather is a reflection of not only his complex thinking processes,

but also the influence of the then prevalent French literary paradigm as argued by

DiMaggio (1979). Yet one asks again, why did he write like this? While reading his

work, I therefore tried to find out about his own habitus; as to how and what influenced

him. Although works of Grenfell (2007), Calhoun (2003), Swartz and Zolberg (2004)

have reflected on his intellectual influences and career path, there is very little

information on his childhood or his study period or his relations with his

colleagues/peer groups. His ideas and theories were considered to be rebellious of the

French intellectualism, but did it have to do with the fact that he came from a humble

background and wished to carve his niche in Paris? Also the fact that so less is known

about his childhood, was it his conscious mechanism to keep the world from

deciphering his own habitus? These can be answered only through psychoanalysis,

because comprehending the habitus of a person is after all a psychological endeavour as

well, apart from being a sociological one. Unfortunately I am not equipped with psycho-

analytic tools to decipher his way of writing, but I can confidently argue that his own

habitus, along with his field experiences played a very important role in shaping his

theories. Therefore, what was this habitus, I cannot answer as it is a research area in

itself; however I can definitely chart out the way in which I interpreted him.

Bourdieu continuously urges the researcher to look at his concepts as a whole

and not as individual parts, a mistake that many of his critics have made. Dissecting a

whole and treating them as individuals can make anything look vulnerable and

fallacious. In this way every criticism that I have discussed above would appear to make

sense. But when the relation between all his concepts – field, capital, doxa, habitus and

symbolic violence – is observed, I think it becomes a very strong model for

deconstructing social meaning. Yet there is one point at which I would agree with

Jenkins (1992), a point that is also crucial for my research on child labour. The answer

to this one question would also render those criticisms useless that are made against his

underdeveloped concepts.

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His critics have asked – how does the habitus shape practices? How does capital

determine positions and how do institutions hold meanings for actors? I think the

answer to these is provided by Bourdieu himself. Although it is an underdeveloped idea

in his work, it is still all pervasive – the concept of discourse. He has continuously

claimed through all his concepts that they are structured and are structuring. A

discourse also plays a similar role. He talks of academic discourses, political discourses,

literary discourses which are structured by rules of the field. But these discourses also

play the role of structuring thought and reality (as demonstrated in the 2nd section of

this chapter).

Bourdieu has briefly mentioned the power of discourse in structuring society in

his book Language and Symbolic Power in the following manner:

“Discourse is a structured and structuring medium tending to impose an

apprehension of the established order as natural (orthodoxy) through the

disguised (and thus misrecognized) imposition of systems of classification and of

mental structures that arc objectively adjusted to social structures. The fact that

the correspondence can be affected only from system to system conceals both

from the eyes of the producers themselves and from the eyes of non-

professionals, the fact that internal systems of classification reproduce overt

political taxonomies in misrecognizable form, as well as the fact that the specific

axiomatics of each specialized field is the transformed form (in conformity with

the laws specific to the field) of the fundamental principles of the division of

labour. (For example, the university system of classification, which mobilizes in

misrecognizable form the objective divisions of the social structure and

especially the division of labour, in both theory and practice, converts social

properties into natural properties).” (Bourdieu 1992, pp. 169–170)

In other words discourses are those unwritten, unsaid and mostly unrecognized rules

that not only guide human thought but also shape social structures and classifications.

All critics of Bourdieu and even his supporters argue that the concept of habitus is

underdeveloped, but I would contend it would be complete when we attach the concept

of discourse to it. By doing so, I therefore stretch the hermeneutical content of

Bourdieu’s constructivism. This body of discourses forms the doxa. Through discourses

about the habitus, the field structure and the mass of capital, cultural practices are

produced. When these discourses continue over generations they become deep-seated

in to the social psyche and continue producing similar practices and norms that are

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historical in nature. Discourses have the power to attach value to one object and at the

same time can devalue another. As a result, actors believe that the rules and norms are

just there. But it must be noted here that the moment there is a change in the discourse,

there is bound to be a change in the habitus as well.

I also owe the idea of achieving something different through this research to

Bourdieu. He argues that ‘the pre-constructed is everywhere’. When one wants to

construct an object in a scientific manner, one must first break from the common sense

that exists in the representations that are shared by all and which are inscribed in

formal institutions (Bourdieu, Wacquant 1992, p. 235). This is what I have tried to

achieve in my work. Child labour is seen as a problem by some and a boon by others.

But I consider it simply as a phenomenon which needs to be analyzed, without attaching

any value-judgement to it. Second, where others have mostly worked from the top, I

have worked from the within, from the core of the issue – the child and his or her social

conditions. Thus I am aiming to deconstruct how a child worker comes to the

conclusion that he or she must work. The task would be completed with a relational

analysis of the documented stories of children and their families and the perspectives of

the community that includes the neighbours, the school teachers, the employers, the

policy officials and the social activists.

Hence, I hypothesize the following figure using the framework of Bourdieu’s

analytical tools. Figure 5 shows that the actor – child – is set partly in the sub-field of the

family and partly in the social field which is the community. The community includes

each member of the larger society – the neighbours, the teachers, the employers, the

social activists, the policy makers and the civil society. Since the share of the interaction

is greater with the family, a large section of the sphere of the child is placed on the

family sub-field and a small section on the social field of the community. The child gets

his or her portion of capital primarily from the family (in terms of economic, social,

cultural and physical capital). Although Bourdieu doesn’t mention physical capital, I

include it in the list as it is a by-product of the other three capitals. For example, only

when an actor acquires awareness about the usefulness of modern medicines (through

education, reading newspapers, and research articles), he or she would seek quality

healthcare. In the absence of this, he or she would depend on the local medicine brewer

or quacks. Thus the standard of the medical care would also depend on the actor’s

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economic capital. Further, possessing a well-educated peer group could increase one’s

cognitive capacities.

Figure 5: The Social Field

The child’s interaction with the community also adds to this mass of capital or

deducts from it. For example receiving education from the school system adds to their

capital, but if they experience discrimination there or are exploited by their employers,

then it depletes their physical and cognitive development. Together with the discourses

that become the doxa shaping the structure of the social field that also structures or is

reflected in the sub-field of the family, the habitus of a child is formed. The family is

placed at the most vulnerable position in the social field when it severely lacks

economic capital thereby negatively affecting the procurement of the other forms of

capital (social, cultural and physical). This vulnerability is translated into the habitus of

the child who then automatically decides to help his or her family by working to change

their weak position. The dominators through the use of dominating discourses exert

community: neighbours, employers, teachers,

officials, activists

family

child labourer

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symbolic violence on the child, making it thus normal for them to work. In this manner

the habitus of working gets constructed. When it is transferred from one generation to

another, it becomes a trans-generational reality. However if there are some internal or

external changes in the discourse (in the sub-field of family and the social field), then it

is possible to break-away from this habitus. This break may not be visible in the first

generation, but the latter generations would definitely exhibit a change. On this hopeful

note I would move on to the next chapter, where I would further shed light on my

methodology.

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Chapter 3

Methodological Framework

In the 1st chapter I have clearly chronicled that majority of the literature

demonstrates a quantitative approach to study the phenomenon of child labour. The

research initiatives concerned with the economics of child labour had to use such

methods of inquiry. Evidently the studies commissioned by ILO, UNICEF and other

international organisations employed statistical surveys emphasise on large numerical

data-sets. Some questionnaire based surveys and participative studies have also been

undertaken, but the focus remained on quantifying every aspect of the child labour

phenomenon. As a result, even the analysis was based on econometric tools and various

economic theories of demand and supply. For example, case studies that have been

done on the carpet industry in India, soccer ball stitching units in Pakistan, sweatshops

in Bangladesh and other east-Asian countries, and many more, have quantified through

the use of econometric models the incidence of child labour in these units, working

conditions and the ill-effects.

Liebel argues that methodology has received very little consideration in most of

the research on children’s work until recently and most of them don’t even mention the

strategies employed (2004). But there is a shift (although rare) towards actor-based

studies where children are considered as social actors worthy of expressing their

viewpoint about their own life. Some early works like Research with Children Living in

Situations of Armed Conflict: Concepts, Ethics and Methods (Hart, Tyrer 2006), Children

in Focus-A Manual for Participatory Research on Children (Boyden, Ennew 1997) and

other childhood studies by Schildkrout (2002), Nieuwenhueys (1996) have made a

commendable contribution to the debate on supporting child-centric studies and

suggesting methods to undertake them and achieving goals. However, there is a gap

between theory and practice in this regard as well. Even though a participative

methodology oriented to everyday life of a child is proposed, which is to include the

perspective of working children themselves, it is hardly practiced (Liebel 2004, p. 48).

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The current work intends to make a contribution to the deficient body of

literature on using participatory methods in this field. Inspiration for the methodology

was drawn from the classics like Street Corner Society (Whyte 2006, 1943), Five

Families (Lewis 1959) and Learning to Labour (Willis 2003, 1977). These studies were

not on child labour, but they demonstrated a possibility and an approach to understand

the thought processes of certain economically and socially backward groups in the

society. Some other studies mentioned by Liebel (2004) like those of Pineda and Guerra

(1998) and Woodhead (1998); and more recently the works of Ahmed and Jureidini

(2010), Baas (2008) where participatory techniques were used to study the working

conditions of child labourers and to understand their thought processes - also provided

the motivation for this work.

The second ambition of this work in terms of methodology is to relate the grand

sociological traditions to the methods employed. After conducting preliminary informal

discussions with street children in Delhi, Kolkata and Purulia (India), I realised that

these children were comfortable with their work and some even had future plans.

Education seldom figured in the list of life-choices they had for themselves. As a result I

refined my hypothesis (with the help of Bourdieu’s key concepts) that there is a habitus

of child labour influenced by dominant social discourses, which is trans-generational in

nature. This task required an inquiry into the process of construction of the habitus of a

child labour. It aimed for an understanding of the actors, especially the child, who are

actively involved in the habitus-making process. The inquiry was undertaken to answer

my research questions:

How do children understand their work?

How do they provide reason for their work?

How do they translate the work into action?

A social constructionist epistemological paradigm was therefore adopted which

directed the theoretical framework of this work (as demonstrated in Chapter 2) and

was aimed at an interpretative description of the phenomenon of child labour. Here I

found the hermeneutic approach (which emphasizes the need to interpret

action/human behaviour from the perspective of the social actor Bryman 2004) very

handy for guiding both the methodology and the tools of analysis. The process of

reaching to the point of methods where the philosophical orientation of my

methodology (accompanied by a constant review of the literature on child labour to

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show its stand) that influenced the choice of tools to begin the research and choose the

participants, forms the first part of this chapter. After this, each method of gathering

data would be critically reviewed. Then the problems encountered while doing the

research would be stated which would be followed by a discussion on the tools of

analysis.

I: The background and the four elements of research

Every sociological research process contains of four inter-related, yet different

elements, namely, epistemology, theoretical perspective, methodology and methods;

which enables a penetrating and intricate analysis (Crotty 1998). This is depicted in the

following figure, which shows that clarity on one element leads to the decision of the

next step.

Figure 6: The four elements of research

Extracted from Crotty (1998, p. 4)

I a: Epistemology

It deals with the philosophical background for deciding the type of knowledge

that is legitimately possible. There are many types of epistemologies which should not

be seen as watertight compartments according to Crotty (1998). Of these, the three

most prominent are – objectivism, constructionism and subjectivism. Objectivists hold

that meaningful reality just exists whether anyone acknowledges it or not. There is a

universal objective truth which has no relation to human consciousness whatsoever.

The constructionists on the other hand argue that meanings or truth comes into

existence due to our minds’ engagements with the realities in our world. Truth is thus

Epistemology Theoretical perspective

Methodology Methods

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constructed and not discovered, as objectivists would argue, and different people in

different settings will have different meanings to the same truth. For subjectivists, a

meaning doesn’t develop due to the interplay between object and subject, but grows

from the influence of the subject on the object (Crotty 1998, pp. 8–9). He then argues

that in the schema of the four research elements, considerations relating to ontology

(what is) fall alongside epistemology (what it means to know) and together they inform

the theoretical perspective. The current major ontological debate is between realism

and idealism. The former asserts that realities exist outside the mind, whereas the

latter holds that what is real is confined to the mind in the realm of ideas.

As far as my knowledge goes, most of the research work on child labour till date

falls under the objectivist epistemology because it primarily seeks to define what is

there, that is the visible content of the phenomenon like causes, impact, etc. This

approach is important to understand the issue. However, in this research endeavour I

take a constructionist stand considering that the words child, work and labour have

different meanings in different social settings for different people and these

constructions are a response to the realities like poverty, inequality and discrimination.

At the ontological level realism comes in handy for my research, which according to

Crotty is quite compatible with constructionism in epistemology. When one talks about

construction of meaning, one also talks of construction of meaningful reality. In other

words the world exists regardless of the fact that human beings are conscious about it,

but it has meanings only when the “meaning-making beings make sense of it” (Crotty

1998, pp. 10–11).

I b: Theoretical Perspective

Once the epistemological and ontological base was clear, the theoretical

perspective emerged that lead to the assumptions which formed the starting point of

this work. Crotty argues that theory provides a context for the research task to be

undertaken and logically establishes its claims. It can be governed by one (positivist;

interpretivist; critical realist; feminist; post-modernist) or a combination of more than

one of these approaches. One can classify most of the present literature on child labour

under the positivist approach which follows methods of natural sciences by way of

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detached value-free observation to identify universal-predictable features of humanity

or society or a phenomenon. But I would argue that interpretivism, which “looks for

culturally derived and historically situated interpretations of the social world” (Crotty

1998, p. 67), could also be an insightful, and possibly a more revitalising approach to

study child labour. Such an interpretation is different from the positivist explanatory

mode as it is concerned with the “emphatic understanding of the human action rather

than the forces that are deemed to act on it” (Bryman 2004, p. 13).

"..social reality-has a specific meaning and relevance structure for the beings living, acting and thinking within it. By a series of common-sense constructs they have pre-selected and pre-interpreted this world which they experience as the reality of their daily lives." (Schutz 1962: 59)

Cited in Bryman 2004, p. 14

Following this line of thought, it can be argued that child labourers live in real

social worlds where everything around them has a real meaning, which can be seen as

an off-shoot of their social origins, social mores and attitudes of the family and its

position in the society (habitus) or even a simple imitation of the adult meanings, none

of which are universal in nature. “Crotty (1998, 1996) argues that interpretation seeks

to understand that meanings are constructed by human beings in unique ways,

depending on their context and personal frames of reference as they engage with the

world they are interpreting, thus producing multiple realties” [cited in Ajjawi, Higgs

2007, p. 3]. The concept of habitus, which is heavily influenced by the constructionism

and realism, falls under this interpretive paradigm and it therefore enables a sound

comprehension of the multiple realities of child labourers. The fact that each child has

his or her own way of producing meanings reiterates the non-universal nature of the

child labour phenomenon.

I c: Methodological Approach

The next stage of research was to choose the methodological approach. Crotty

describes this as the strategy or plan of action which lays out the design for choosing

and using particular methods which in turn links them to the desired outcomes. In

other words the rationale that guides the methodology must be determined (Crotty

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1998). Even before I started working on this research, I had already decided on taking

an ethnographic course of action in order to bring forth a “thick description” of the real

field. Therefore I chose the hermeneutic approach to guide my ethnographical methods.

Hermeneutics was developed as a method of interpretation that provided rules and

procedures to decipher what sacred and ancient biblical text meant, especially when

they came from a different time or culture. Later this position was developed by

Heidegger and Gadamer to interpret human experience. The hermeneutic

methodological approach “obeys a ‘dialogic’ validity, which means that it evaluates

research in terms of how well it manages to capture the lived realities of others”

(Saukko 2003, p. 19). Through an interpretive way it guides the philosophy of

interpretation, and also defines the presuppositions that motivate individuals who

make the interpretations (Barclay, 1992) [cited in Laverty 2003, p. 15]. It thus asks the

researcher to engage in a process of self-reflection without bracketing his or her biases

and assumptions which are embedded and essential to interpretive process. “The

researcher is called, on an ongoing basis, to give considerable thought to their own

experience and to explicitly claim the ways in which their position or experience relates

to the issues being researched” (Laverty 2003, p. 17). The researcher stands in the

midst of the real world investigating the lived experiences and as a result draws the

whole picture of the reality being studied.

Often this approach is heavily criticised for being subjective, an issue which even

I had encountered while being in the research field. This is because there is a constant

interaction between the researcher and the participants which makes total objectivity

quite impossible. Therefore, subjectivity must be valued as human beings are situated

in a reality constructed by subjective experiences where even the researcher’s

questions and interpretations are value-bound according to the values he or she holds

(Ajjawi & Higgs, 2007, p. 3). Still, to achieve controlled subjectivity, a conscious effort of

being reflexive was made at every point. Bourdieu claims that while doing a sociological

inquiry, a social scientist must take into account his or her own ingrained orientations

(the habitus, epistemological preferences, etc.) which structure the way he or she

engages with the structure to be studied (2004). Through reflexivity, he provides a way

out of the subjective trap by asking the researcher to constantly be alert of structures

that are influencing his or her embodied dispositions. With this the researcher must

also undertake objectification of the subject of objectification which in simpler words

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means outing oneself in the ‘subject’s’ place (Bourdieu 2000, pp. 121–122). When

hermeneutics was combined with ethnographic inquiry, it sought to uncover meanings

and perceptions of the participants against the backdrop of their overall worldview or

'culture'. It aimed at creating a ‘thick description’ of the life-experiences of the

participants and to comprehend the various meanings from their perspective. This

brought me to choosing participant observation, unstructured interviews and indirect

forms of questioning as my primary tools to gather data from the field and use content

analysis for reviewing texts and narrative as well as discourse analysis to review the

talks of the respondents.

I d: Methods of data collection

The above mentioned tools fall under the qualitative category which is often

interpretive and constructivist in nature. Qualitative methods explore the different

subjective meanings that people use to interpret the world in a given context.

Researchers want to free social events and phenomena from their own perceptions and

see it from the eyes of the respondents that they study. There is a heavy importance to

a detailed description of the social world being examined, where even trivial details are

accounted for in order to create a “thick description”. Starting from social and physical

setting, to language, habits and norms, every little detail is observed and documented.

Lincoln and Guba (1985) have argued that meticulous field experiences help to vividly

convey situations and contexts to the reader. This also generates the possibility of

transferring findings and analysis to other research studies that work on the same field,

with the same context (Shenton 2004). Therefore I have included a large portion of

descriptive data (along with detailed footnotes with important secondary data) in this

work to provide an exact feel of the life of a child labourer.

Qualitative methods want to explore social life in terms of a process to observe

its changes and fluctuations over a period of time. They are simultaneously flexible and

limited in nature. The loose structure of methods that provides the researcher freedom

to gather knowledge may yield totally unexpected results. But at the same time, the

researcher is limited in a degree to adopt the worldview of the people he or she studies.

Thus there is always a subjective leaning in these methods, which quantitative

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researchers often criticise. Critics of qualitative research argue that it lacks scientific

rigour, produces “soft” data, is difficult to replicate and lacks transparency not only

because an answer is always dependent on various factors like the context, the

participant and the interpretation of the researcher, but also because there is no

standard procedure which is present in statistical tools (See Bryman 2004; Jupp 2006;

Flick et al.). However as I said earlier, by being reflexive at every point and by

maintaining a clear record of how one went about doing the research, at least the

method can be replicated, if not the outcome. In this work I have worked with the

advantages of qualitative methods and tried to work around its disadvantages as much

as it was possible. The following section would demonstrate this along with a critical

review of each method I have employed.

II: Research Methods and the story of a researcher

II a: The methods and the process

Reviewing literature, which is an on-going process in a research, was the first

method employed. Literature review comprises of filtering the main themes in the

materials being considered (2004). Documents constitute a very heterogeneous set of

sources of data which include journal articles, newspaper reports, and research papers.

I began by reviewing reports from international think tanks like ILO, UNICEF, World

Bank, Save the Children as well as Indian ones like V.V.Giri Institute of Labour Studies;

journal articles in the field of Sociology, Economics and other social sciences; policy

briefs; and books. Categorising the documents under the core themes surrounding the

issue of child labour, understanding the on-going debates and familiarising myself with

the nature of research happening on this field was the first task. The initial research

questions were formulated at this time. Based on these the interview schedule was

prepared for the expert during my first filed visit.

Interview is a method of data collection which involves a set of questions

administered by a researcher to one or more participants. Qualitative interviewing is

different from quantitative ones in many ways. It focuses on the interviewee’s point of

view and gives them even the freedom to ‘ramble’, lending a deeper insight into their

thought processes as against structured quantitative interviews which look for precise

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answers based on measurable key concepts. The level of flexibility is high in the former

which allows follow-up questions that may or may not be in the interview schedule

whereas the latter seeks standardisation of the ways of dealing with each interview. As

a result the answers for the former are descriptive and the latter receives quick,

standard replies. There are mainly two type of qualitative interviews – unstructured

and semi-structured. In the former there is possibly just one question which allows the

interviewee to talk freely with occasional prompts from the researcher on the points

that need to be followed up. The latter has a set of questions covering all the topics

which serves as an interview guide with no tight ordering but similar wordings are used

for all the interviewees (Bryman 2004).

I administered a semi-structured interview schedule on experts working on the

issue of child labour India to gather preliminary knowledge about its nature and extent

in India. Three activists working in leading NGOs of Delhi, one official from National

Commission for Protection of Child Rights and one ILO official posted in Delhi for the

Child Labour research wing were interviewed36. The purpose of these interviews was

to determine the ideal location for fieldwork, current debates in India pertaining to this

issue and views about education. I also obtained statistical data documented from Delhi

based NGOs like Child Line and Butterflies. Instead of recording on a tape, I took down

detailed notes of each interview and continued informal discussions even after the

questions of the schedule were over. As per the suggestions made by the above

mentioned experts, the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal

were short-listed on the basis of statistics. West Bengal however fared on top of this

list, not because of its numbers, but because of a dearth of academic research and high

levels of corruption that resulted in incomplete implementation of the governmental

intervention plans on poverty and education. Also, being a Bengali myself, familiarity

with the Bengali culture and language and an existing network of contacts served me

well during my field work in terms of logistics (refer to Introduction).

The second round of interviews was done in Purulia and Kolkata where I spent

about a month each in these cities talking to children whenever and wherever I got a

chance. In Purulia, I toured the stone quarries; brick kilns; and coal warehouses. But

here I only met children between the ages of 14-18. Children between the ages of 6-14

36

A note must be made that since most of the respondents requested anonymity, I have changed their names. The questions asked have been provided in the Appendix I, pg 238.

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were mainly found as domestic helps; waiters at small food joints; helpers at grocery

and other stores; and home-based workers. In Kolkata I met numerous street children

who polished shoes or waited tables or ran small businesses either independently or

with an adult. There were also children in local trains who cleaned floors or sold cheap

food/consumer items. A very non-formal, unstructured interview style was employed

for these children. Over a cup of tea or some small food item all these children talked

intensely about their lives, their families and their future plans. These interviews made

me discover a very rich and diverse body of information about the lives of child

labourers and their families. The fact that children were happy with their work falsified

my initial expectations leaving me so overwhelmed that I decided to step back and

rethink my questions.

I came back to my university in Germany and began to decode the answers of the

children. Being away from the field, in a European country had its own benefits. It first

helped me to distance myself from the field and India and be alone with the data. The

physical and the mental distance for a researcher who studies his or her own

country/culture are important for ruminating in a reflexive way. Had I been entirely

based in India for this research, its character would have been dominated with Indian

thinkers (which is not bad, but I had higher ambitions). Being here I had access to the

European way of thinking and bridging the gap between the two trends not only made

the research innovative, but rich and interesting as well. I have hence tried to create a

combination of the European way which is heavily based on theoretical traditions and

the Indian way which focuses more on activism and practical traditions. Secondly,

discussing my data with my friends from different nationalities and culture helped me

see the minute details that I would have normally ignored by taking them for granted.

My professors and friends provoked me to think out of the box of being an Indian and

touch new levels of interpretations.

On examining the data, I realised that these children had a unique psyche and

thought in a very different way; a way which is difficult to comprehend unless one

comes in direct contact with them. I thus became interested in the process of

development of this psyche, how the idea of work comes to these children and what can

influence these ideas. Drawing a whole picture of a life of a child labour thus became

the mission of my work. I clarified my theoretical base with the help of Peter Berger

and Thomas Luckman’s work ‘The Social Construction of Reality: A treatise in the

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Sociology of Knowledge’ (1991) and Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts, especially the habitus

and then set out again for the next round of field work. This time I wanted to do a

participant observation for a ‘thick description’ of the process for which I required to

enter a hub or community of child labourers. A participant observer immerses himself

or herself in a group for an extended period to observe behaviour, on a regular basis

and listen to the conversations happening within the group. Through direct and

indirect conversations, the researcher documents the lived experiences of the group

members in a naturalistic setting and then does a detailed documentation of all the

accounts (2004). While undertaking this method, a researcher must be careful about

the role that his or her presence has on the respondents due to the continuous

interactions between the two. As a result, there were no direct or formal questions and

data was gathered as the information was delivered.

II b: Locations – Purulia and Kolkata

Purulia is the native place of my parents. Although I have lived all my life in

Delhi, I visit Purulia every year to meet all my relatives. I am thus very familiar with

Purulia town, which is the administrative seat of the Purulia district. The government of

India has banned child labour in hospitality industry since 2006 and the growing

awareness about its ill-effects, puts people on guard when they are approached by an

outsider like me, making it a much closed setting in terms of access. Bryman argues that

in such closed settings one should use all sorts of contacts (the route doesn’t matter) to

gain confidence of the ‘gatekeepers’ and the internal managers (2004, p. 297). Being a

small town, where everyone knows everyone and considering that I have a long line of

relatives, logistical help in terms of contacts was very helpful for me. Convenience or

accidental sampling (a type of non-probability sampling) was done which means

respondents were chosen as and when available. Snow-balling of samples occurred as

well when one respondent connected me to another. Through people working in

UNICEF projects I got to know about successful National Child Labour Project (NCLP)

schools in the Purulia town and hence approached the first line of officials. Armed with

a letter from my university in Germany and a reference from a relative I was able to

interview the officers in Development of Backward Classes department (1 respondent),

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Labour Department (1), and the Additional District Magistrate who provided me official

data and statistics as well as one contact at the schools run under NCLP. In Purulia, I

was also able to conduct interviews with 1 journalist, 1 social activist and 3 labour

union workers. As I wanted to show the setting of the field that produces the habitus, I

also recorded ethnographic descriptions of each place in my work.

After being connected with the school teachers of this one NCLP, I decided to join

as a teacher in order to immerse myself into the life of these children for a period of two

months. I taught English and helped in their vocational class where they learned to

make handicraft items. The reader must note here that prior to this research I wasn’t

familiar with the Bengali script, but in order to teach English to these children I had to

learn to read and write Bengali as well because in these schools English is taught in a

Bengali script. In every way I tried to integrate with their system. The group consisted

of fifty children who were either former or are current child labourers, and who studied

at this bridge school under the NCLP. Out of these, seventeen were personally

interviewed and group discussions were held with others as part of daily conversations.

I did not tape anything at this time either as it turned out to be too much of a distraction.

However as a participant observer, I did take day-to-day notes in my field diary and

towards the end took photographs and made videos as well. Later when I present my

data and its analysis, I would use excerpts from these notes to give a glimpse of my

personal reflections on the data.

Constant group discussions with parents were done whenever and wherever

possible. Three government run primary school teachers were interviewed while

informal discussion were undertaken with the four teachers at this NCLP school from

time to time depending on daily developments/thoughts of children noted at the school.

With these, children working on the streets (1 respondent), as domestic labour (2) and

as a full-time worker assisting his/her family (1) were identified (based on

accessibility37) and interviewed with a semi-structured schedule. Further, two blocks

within the Purulia district, Jhalda and Singhbajar were visited to see the prevalence of

child labour in the cottage industries, namely, Beedi - tobacco rolls and Tasar Silk

weaving, respectively. Here semi-structured interviews were done with 4 children

37

Street child – this boy was working in a small food joint was befriended; domestic labour – I used to meet 2 girls at the homes of 2 of my relatives who were 13-14 year old and said that they worked since last 3-4 years; helping home business – a school-going boy who made paper packets and grounded roasted Bengal gram to make sattu powder in all his free time.

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making Beedi, 1 child helping in silk weaving and their family members. Also, 6 adults

and 4 adolescents from these cottage industries were interviewed who have been

working since they were 8-9 years of age. This gave an insight into trans-generational

child labour.

Kolkata was a tougher assignment as it is a large city and I had few contacts

there. This made cracking the officialdom difficult posing a very serious problem for me

as I could not access any official documents or stand points on the issue of child labour

in Kolkata as well as the whole state of West Bengal. However, 12 children between the

8 to 14 age-group, who were seen regularly at particular spots like traffic red

lights/shops, were identified (based on accessibility38) and interviewed. A full-time

domestic help at a relative’s home and a boy, between the age-group of 14 to18 who

have been working since they were 9-10 years of age were also interviewed. Along with

these, 2 employers in Purulia and 2 in Kolkata were interviewed. In total 38 children

were interviewed between the age-group of 8-14, out of which 23 are girls and the 15

are boys. Together in Purulia and Kolkata, 5 employers were interviewed. I have also

taken pictures and videos to maintain a repository of visual images of my respondents

and their contexts. These will serve as contexts to my field notes, like aides-mémoires

[as Bryman (2004) would say] and can also serve as self-explanatory data itself

especially when I want to describe a location.

After this I stepped away from the field again in order to analyze it from a

distance. This constant stepping back and forth also helped me to remain reflexive in

my approach and not miss out on details that can be otherwise missed by someone who

is too familiar with the setting. My field notes contain a constant reflection on my own

thoughts as well.

38

I met these children regularly over a period of a week at the Ballygunj Phari traffic signal, New Market and Park Circus.

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After 10 months I went again for the final round of field work for two and a half

months. This time in Purulia I had detailed conversations with each of the families of 12

children whom I had personally interviewed in my previous field visit. This was done to

gain a deeper insight into their social origins, attitudes and mores. Also the existing

data was updated as some children had left the school and new changes and

consequences were visible. In Kolkata, again I made consistent attempts to meet

officials, and managed one interview in the labour department. But due to the un-

cooperative nature of the department and lack of systemic coordination among the

various departments dealing with social issues like child labour, my further attempts to

conduct interviews were rendered useless. The second problem that I encountered in

this last phase of fieldwork was that which arose from convenience sampling. I had

difficulty to trace some of those children who were not from the school and did not live

at homes, that is, were street children. They had moved away from the location where I

met them in the last visit. The third problem was related to the sensitivity attached to

Notes on personal experiences: The problem of using a gadget like tape or camera is that it makes people conscious of being recorded. This was something I realized during my last job and also in the early days of my field work. I wanted the children to talk without any distraction and be as free as possible. Therefore right from the beginning I informed every respondent about my research intentions and even sought permission (although verbal) for publishing about them. In the beginning, numerous things happened. For instance, I could not fully immerse into their world due to my own class preconceptions and apprehensions against their hygiene levels. But the more I interacted with them and got familiar to their lifestyles, the more I got comfortable with the surroundings of my field locations. Further, in the early days of my work I was myself a distraction to them as I looked and dressed differently. In rural areas of India, a girl wearing jeans/trousers and shirts is regarded as being “modern”, who has possibly no regard for traditions. Therefore such clothes are not commonly worn. I was thus very careful about what I wore and tried to be as simple as possible. Yet, I did stand out initially. Also in the beginning the fact that my reference point was the school administration and the government officials, the children and the families remained conscious around me. I could sense this in their answers which reflected their motive to please me. For example earlier when I used to talk to them about their views on education, the answers were always positive – that education was of utmost importance to them. But once I began to meet the children regularly, my foreignness to the situation gradually decreased. Then the views that were recorded on education had different stories to tell. The second reason for not using a hidden tape was that I found it unethical especially in a situation where the children began to trust me. It was only towards the end of my work (total 3.5 months in the school), that I was able to take pictures and make videos as well without making my participants conscious. The teachers of the NCLP School, especially the head teacher, were extremely supportive of my work which in turn increased the trust factor between me and the children/community. They also gave constant insights into the lives of the children and the community where the school was located. Such a relation based on trust wasn’t completely there with the children from Kolkata as I met them only for about 7-8 days. Therefore I do not rely much on these stories when it comes to doing my analysis.

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the issue of child labour in India these days. I received hostile reactions from some

guardians of children who were suspicious about my intents. Especially in Kolkata,

being an outsider as well as a woman made me stand-out and I was forced to retreat at

many points when the parent or relative of a child got defensive or rude. However,

despite these problems, I did manage to gather a vast body of data which then required

deep and comprehensive analysis.

III: Analyzing the data

Since the main task of this work was to understand how working children think

and shape their life-choices, a combination of narrative analysis and discourse analysis

seemed the logical tools of analysis as it helped me decipher why the children said what

they said. Through the stories of the children I wanted to connect the children’s

accounts of their past, present and future events to their understanding of their own

position during these events and the role of context in which they are placed at the time

of these events. By doing so I wanted to comprehend their likes, dislikes; inhibitions or

the absence of it; and the way they themselves made sense of their own realities.

Riessman argues that when stories need to be comprehended from the qualitative data

available, a narrative analysis is undertaken. She further postulates that narrative

analysis gives meaning to individual and collective action and also creates an

understanding of the social processes that structure and change human relations. She

distinguishes four types of narrative analysis, namely, thematic (pertaining to what is

said); structural (pertaining to the way something is said); interactional (a dialogue of

co-construction between researcher and participant) and performative (explores the

use of words). I have used structural analysis in this work as it not only emphasises on

what is said, but also on the way a story is told. Unlike the thematic approach, “it takes

language seriously – an object for close investigation – over and beyond its referential

content” (Riessman, p. 3).

As I said earlier, I did not record interviews on a tape. Hence the way in which I

use narrative analysis is not the exact way as mentioned by proponents of this method.

The original way is to take every sentence, categorise them into sub-sentences on the

basis of codes generated for a research. Pauses and breaks in a conversation are

recorded and analysed as well. But since my analysis is based on written notes, I

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decided to extract themes from them. Seventy-five themes were identified from the

talks (listed in Appendix 1) which were categorised into three broad codes – the

cognitive realm where rules exist, the notions of hierarchy that are mostly latent and

the emotional realm. The first code tried to understand the unexplained rules, the

second was to see how respondents saw their own position with respect to the broader

society and the third was about feelings. By doing so I was already able to provide an

analysis of the content of the respondents’ thought processes. But these stories have no

use unless they are placed in the broader stories of the society. Narratives make sense

only in the backdrop of discourses of the society, hence discourse analysis was

undertaken.

I have already demonstrated the use of discourses in producing and validating

social reality in the last chapter. But Hardy and Phillips argue that it is important for a

researcher to understand the discourse behind social interactions (2002). Discourse

analysis as a methodology has a strong constructive character, which is in line with the

main philosophy of this research. It focuses on the processes by which the social world

is constructed and maintained. It includes the academic project itself within its analysis.

With its emphasis on reflexivity, discourse analysis aims to remind its readers that in

using language, producing texts and drawing on discourses, researchers and the

research communities are part and parcel of the constructive effects of discourse. The

task of the discourse analyst is hence to explore the relation between discourse and

reality. Discourse analysis is further interested in ascertaining the constructive effects

of discourse through the structured and systematic study of texts. Texts are not

meaningful individually, only through their interconnections with other texts,

discourses and the nature of their production, dissemination and consumption, are they

made meaningful (Phillips, Hardy 2002).

Four broad reasons have been stated by Hardy and Phillips (2002) for choosing

this methodology. Firstly, the idea that language constitutes and constructs social

reality and is not just a reflection or representation of reality, is gaining acceptance.

Social sciences are not only about counting – defining and measuring - variables and

relationships between them, but also about what social relationships signify. Secondly,

with broader changes in the society, new topics and new challenges have emerged that

create new categories and draw our attention to how boundaries are constructed and

held in place. Thirdly, social researchers are now getting more interested in how

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processes of social construction lead to a social reality that is taken for granted, and that

advantages some participants at the expense of others. There is also a growing need to

understand the way in which knowledge is bound up in power dynamics. Fourthly, due

to new technologies that challenge everything, there is a growing need to study the

ephemeral aspects of organisations. We can’t study organisations as solid objects,

because of their fluidity and contradictory dynamics, and as a result, stories, narratives,

discourses have to be studied in order to make them ‘real’ for us. Finally, by using a

discursive approach one can build on and compliment other bodies of theoretical work

by introducing new ideas, new concepts and new challenges.

Children are not born with discourse; rather they are born in the discourse that

is already there in the society or the social field. Those who are in the position of power

in the field create these discourse and the others follow. There are those who even

contest these and thus a struggle ensues. Child labourers are situated somewhere

amidst these discourses of power and discourses of struggles. Children’s narratives are

based on the broader discourses of their family members, teachers, community

members and the larger society. After a stock taking of the social, cultural, physical,

economic and psychological context of the child labourers, through narrative analysis

their talks and thought processes would be analysed. These thoughts form their habitus

which in turn is constructed as much as it is constructing. Hence, the final step is to

analyse the discourses of the family and society which creates and validates the habitus

of working among these children.

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Chapter 4

Setting the Scene: India and one of its Eastern states, West Bengal

The extent and enormity of the phenomenon of child labour in India has been

discussed in detail in the earlier chapters. After reviewing the global picture on child

labour, I have extensively mapped the Indian picture as well and described the Indian

discourses on childhood, work and labour. The Census of 2001 reports that number of

child labour has increased since the previous Census of 1991. The Indian informal

economy - which employs more than 90% of the country’s population39along with

rampant poverty, and population explosion, make for the perfect recipe for such a high

incidence of child labourers. But I think it is the uniqueness of the social structure of

India that ultimately contributes to the success of this recipe. The aim of this chapter is

to analyse the structural dimensions of India, that is, the structures shaping economic,

political and cultural practices which constitute the social field of India; and to describe

the essence of West Bengal and its two districts of Purulia and Kolkata. In this way I

intend to generate familiarity with the background of the thinking processes shaping

the habitus of my respondents which would be presented in the next two chapters.

To understand the Indian society, one has to take into account its traditional

institutions, which have undergone numerous changes over the centuries, but still

continue to define life and actions in the 21st century. The institutions of caste, joint

family, marriage and village community formed the pillars of traditional Indian social

structure. They have not only survived the onslaught of foreign invasions, but have also

spread across all religious divisions in the country, giving them a pan-India character.

Today many Indians like to think that such traditional institutions are disappearing, but

I would argue the opposite. Yes, some boundaries have become hazy, but the basic

structure is still very strong and ubiquitous, still defining ‘The Indian Way of Life’. The

first task of this chapter is to deconstruct these pillars which are essential to understand

the context which defines the social construct of child labour in India. Second, I will

focus on the character of the physical location of my research. For this purpose, I would

39

Arjun Sengupta Report on Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganised Sector (2007).

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analyse the socio-political history of the state of West Bengal in general and the two

field locations of Purulia and Kolkata in particular. This is important because

institutions, field relations, discourses and habitus are historical in nature as they

evolve over a period of time. Therefore by shedding light on the historical development

of a location, I intend to build the foundation for the discourses that were observed.

I: Understanding India

Since time immemorial the Indian subcontinent has intrigued the global psyche;

for reasons of trade, access to centres of learning, arts and culture, governance systems,

well-planned towns and mostly because of the lure of immense wealth and riches of

India. History records the earliest invasions by the Persians and Greeks, notably Darius

and Alexander, respectively between c.500-300 BC. Thereafter from the 10th century

AD onwards, India has seen countless foreign attacks perpetrated by the Turkish,

Muslim, Mongol raiders, and finally by the Europeans, among whom the British invasion

was the most notable. India and its wonders became a darling of various literary

authors around the world and its ever-present charms are probably best summed up by

Mark Twain in his travelogue - "Following the Equator".

“This is indeed India! the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendour and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of a hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition, whose yesterdays bear date with the mouldering antiquities of the rest of the nations — the one sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien prince and alien peasant, for lettered and ignorant, wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free, the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the globe combined. Even now, after the lapse of a year, the delirium of those days in Bombay has not left me, and I hope never will.” (Ch. XXXVIII)40

40

(http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2895/2895-h/p4.htm#ch38) Mark Twain (1897)

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Till date, majority of the notions about this vast country are based on such

romantic descriptions by Mark Twain and other travellers. However the more it was

studied, new views got added to the repository of interpretations about India. The

modernisation of education under the British colonial regime and introduction of

sociology in Indian universities around 1920s gave birth to sociologists, ethnologists

and anthropologists of both Indian and Western origin, who began to write extensively

about the customs and traditions of the country. The traditional Indian way of life

which was strongly guided by caste system, joint family, institution of marriage and a

village governance system then became the central theme of study for these

researchers.

The various researchers documented that each institution was to take care of the

needs of human beings. The caste system provided a way to organise labour in the

society and also guided the rules of matrimony. The ceremony of marriage not only

gave the institutional backing to the union between a man and a woman, but also

determined the interaction between the two families. The joint family laid the rules for

kinship ties and ensured transfer of knowledge, customs and material assets to the

future generations. Finally, village community governance system guided social

interactions and community behaviour by establishing codes of conduct [(Shah 1998),

(Uberoi 1993), (Kurian 1986), (Srinivas 1978, c1962), (Ghurye 1957)]. Till date, these

institutions constitute the social field in India where they are maintained and

transferred via oral and written discourses, thus ensuring a certain amount of capital

and assigning a particular habitus to each actor to guide his or her position in the field.

I a: Caste system

India has often been called the ‘melting pot’ because numerous settlers from

different races came to settle here by way of foreign invasions or trade. The caste

system was a form of social organisation that was to make sense of the large-scale racial

fusion that occurred as a result of these invasions. In the Rig-Veda, that were written in

the Pre-Vedic41 time (1500 B.C – 800 B.C), the term varna, which means colour, was

used to make the first differentiation between Aryans (fair ones) and Dasas (dark ones).

41

It must be noted that most of the ancient Indian texts are Hindu in nature and therefore examples from the Hindu system have been frequently used.

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The second form of social differentiation was given by the Purushasukta (a hymn that

refers to the Primeval Being from whose body the different categories of people

emerged). It postulated that Brahmins sprang from the mouth, Kshatriyas from the

shoulders, Vaishyas from the thighs and the Shudras from the feet of the Purusha (the

Creator). The top to bottom body hierarchy reflected the social status of these four

varnas (Ghurye 1957). At the top were Brahmins who made rules and interpreted

scriptures building the connection between mortal men and Gods; then came the

Kshatriyas or the rulers who had physical strength to protect the mankind; then

Vaishyas who were the businessmen and money-lenders; and finally Shudras who were

the peasants and craftsmen. But there was another group that was excluded from this

and placed even below the shudras, the untouchables (chandals, paulkas, nishadas) who

did the menial jobs like scavenging, cleaning human waste, etc. This last group doesn’t

fare up in the four varna scheme, but it was mentioned in the Vedas.

Ghurye however documents that in 1930s-40s there were some 200 castes in

India which were divided into 3000 sub-castes forming endogamous groups that

determined the social life of an individual (1957). These sub-groups are more like

occupational categories and are therefore slightly different from the varnas, although

the birth based logic is same. Drawing a demarcation between varna scheme and caste

system, M. N. Srinivas argued that the former was the broad division of the society, but

the latter is a classification based not only on birth, but also on economic and political

considerations. He defines caste as a hereditary & endogamous group, usually localised,

and generally associated to a particular occupation, holding a specific position in the

local hierarchy. These relations between the castes are governed by notions of

pollution and purity42 (1978, c1962, p. 3). The hierarchy however in the middle regions

is unclear and there is a chance of upward mobility if one caste is able to prove that it is

equal or superior to the superior caste. He further argues that one caste could be

ranked very high in one village whereas in another the same caste might be ranked very

42

Notion of Pollution and Purity: Any task that involved dealing with the dead, dirt or human waste was polluting. Therefore those who were scavengers or even ate scavenging animals like pigs, those who dealt with leather from a dead cow, the holiest Hindu animal, or those involved in cremation of bodies were considered to be polluting. Their touch was defiling, hence they were supposed to live outside the village boundaries. There was a specific time for them to enter the boundaries, finish their time and then leave. The upper castes did not even like to see them. In fact, if someone was going for an auspicious ceremony, the sight of an untouchable was thought to be a bad omen. Similar notions of pollution were attached to the widows, who were to remain indoors while auspicious ceremonies were conducted in a household. They were considered unlucky to have lost their husbands and hence were considered harbingers of bad luck.

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low. This is because power and wealth which are basically political and economic

capital (in Bourdieuian logic), may supersede ritual or social capital. Srinivas holds that

in different contexts (or as Bourdieu would put it, in different fields) different castes can

have different powers. For example, during ritual ceremonies the Brahmin would have

the supreme power for deciding on the acts or the ceremony, but the same Brahmin

would seek the help of a village chief who is politically and economically powerful but is

actually a peasant by caste (1978, c1962).

The point that must be noted here is that whichever type of categorisation one

accrues to, the fact that this stratification wielded power, and structured power

relations as well, is of great relevance to this research. The entire discourse on caste

stratification was such (as it was considered God-given) that the lower castes accepted

their position of being dominated by the higher castes. Brahmins interpreted

scriptures; therefore everything that they said was a divine rule. In Bourdieu’s field

context, Brahmins and the upper castes can be thus seen as the dominators who aimed

to maintain their power and supremacy or the doxa, through the discourse of caste.

There were numerous anti-caste movements (by those trying to support the

heterodoxa) challenging the power of the dominant, but most were brutally crushed.

However those who managed to escape the domination of the Hindu caste system still

could not truly shed the discourse of caste. Many lower castes converted to other

religions like Christianity or Islam to escape discrimination, but the discourse of caste

prevailed. Kurian studied two Christian castes in Kerala – the Syrian Christians (who

were descendents of higher caste Hindus) and the Backward Christians (who descended

from the Hindu untouchable castes) and argued that the former continued to maintain a

distance from the latter. They were reluctant to give church membership to the lower

castes (1986)43. Similarly, Imtiaz Ahmad summarises a collection of articles in “Caste

and Social Stratification among the Muslims” and writes in the introduction that

majority of the Muslims in India were recruited to Islam from the lower rungs of the

Hindu system who automatically became the lower castes whereas the foreign

conquering groups of Arabs and Pathans who were originally Muslims, became the

higher castes. The Muslim caste system is weaker and a modified version of the Hindu

one, but it still exists as occupational divisions (1978, p. xxix).

43

In this study, Kurian does a historical analysis of how the backward Christians continue being backward and being in same socio-economic conditions as the lower caste Hindus.

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Today, many progressive Indians like to believe that caste as a system of

stratification has vanished or exists in a dormant state. In urban settings, as was

predicted by Srinivas (1978, c1962), the rigidity of caste rules has reduced to some

extent because education, reservations for backward castes44 by the government and

new discourses in civil society45. However there is substantial evidence that shows that

caste is still very much a reality, especially in the rural areas. The Human Rights Watch

(HRW) argues that in India the government discriminates against the untouchables or

the Dalits in terms of allotting basic infrastructure like water-pumps, electricity,

sanitation facilities and medical facilities. This was more evident when HRW team

visited the Earthquake hit areas of Gujarat in 2001 where the Dalits and Muslims lived

in separate camps that received fewer facilities as compared to what was received by

the upper-caste Hindu camps. The refugees told the HRW team, “We are surviving the

way we lived, that’s why we are in separate camps” (2001, p. 6).

These discriminated and poor castes suffer from disabilities from all sides.

Majority of them are illiterate, landless labourers whose families and children are

deprived of opportunities and are therefore forced into debt bondage and slavery.

Caste based violence to exercise political and economic control on the Dalits is

widespread as well, allowing physical and economic exploitation of these groups. For

example the Ranvir Sena in the state of Bihar which is an upper-class militant group,

killed 58 Dalits suspected of aiding Naxalites (for details on Naxalites see Chapter 2,

section: Natural calamities and social unrest) in the region, in one day (HRW 2001).

This group has political linkages and has often resolved to bloody violent acts against

Dalits and other minorities to garner support in elections. Similarly, in another case, a

Dalit village in Tamil Nadu was demanding rights to enter the village temple dominated

by the upper castes but their demands were futile. To protest against this, they decided

to boycott the upcoming parliamentary elections but paid dearly for such an act of

44

In 1950, within 3 years of India’s Independence, the Government of India listed all the backward and oppressed castes and tribes under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Act thereby reserving opportunities to study, get employment and in general strive for a good quality of life for people on this list. Successive governments have also amended the criterion to make the list more inclusive for similar lower castes. 45

The fact that K.R Narayanan became the first Dalit President of India or Mayawati being the first Dalit woman to be a Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, one of the largest states in India, gives confidence to many Dalits. Furthermore, human rights agencies and other civil rights organizations are currently working for the development of backward castes and tribes.

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defiance. The village was raided and severely destroyed by the dominant caste of

Gounders and many were left badly injured and abused (Vishwanathan 18/06/2004).

Further, when it comes to caste-based violence against women, then the

situation is extremely grim. Being right at the bottom of all hierarchies, lower-caste

women also suffer disproportionately in terms of access to health care, education, and

subsistence wages as compared to women of higher castes. Due to their vulnerable

position they are more prone to violence, not only from upper-caste members but also

from state administration like the police. Often it is the woman who bears the brunt of

the anger of an upper-caste member who wants to punish her family member/s for

some violation of rules. Robbing a woman off her honour (sexually assaulting) and that

too at times publicly, not only destroys the woman, but also renders a huge blow to the

family prestige. As a result, the woman either commits suicide or is even killed by her

own family members (HRW 2001). Their vulnerable position in a caste-based society is

one of the prime reasons for pushing a higher proportion of lower-caste women to

brothels. Ironically Indians do not practice untouchability when it concerns

prostitution of women. Poor and backward castes often give away or sell their

daughters due to pressures of poverty from money-lenders or landlords, who, again

predominantly belong to the upper-castes of Indian society. There exists the devadasi

system in parts of Southern India, where a girl as young as 8 years is married to the

village temple and is supposed to dedicate her life to serve the gods of the temple. But it

is nothing more than religiously sanctioned prostitution where the upper-caste

Brahmins and priests use the devadasi46 for their own sexual pleasures (HRW 2001, p.

21).

To sum up, it can be said that such discriminations that the caste based (or

occupational) categorisation created and the hierarchies it instilled among people are

bound to have far reaching consequences at the level of cognition. It has lead to the

emergence of a habitus ingrained with caste notions. The impact though difficult to

measure, has given rise to an angry generation of Indians on both sides of the caste

systems, who nowadays do not leave any stones unturned to establish or demolish (as

in Bourdieu’s game theory where each player tries to change the rules for his or her

own benefit) the power equations or the doxa in the Indian society. This caste-system

is transferred from one generation to another through the institution of joint family.

46

This practice is reportedly declining due to awareness and strict implementation of laws.

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I b: Joint Family

India has had a long tradition of ancient scriptures and religious texts (primarily

Hindu). These texts determined basic rules and principles of an individual’s life.

Therefore apart from rules in the public domain like that of social organisation, the

Vedic texts also described rules for the private domain, that is, the organisation of a

family. Kapadia establishes in his work on the Hindu family that Vedic texts strongly

portrayed the rule of the father to be the patriarch who had the ultimate power to

organise and distribute every family possession, be it material or symbolic. Under one

roof, he lived with his parents; his wife; his siblings and their families (including their

wives and children); his own sons and their families; and his unmarried daughters.

From eating food to managing land and wealth, everything was done jointly. There

were specific codes of conduct for each member that governed his or her interaction

with the other. In the father’s absence (illness or death), the eldest son would take his

place and act as a father to his siblings as well. All the women in the family were to

have power but their ultimate control would lie with the patriarch (1958). Such

relations and power dynamics converts the family into Bourdieu’s field which has its

own set of rules and discourses. Till date, this depiction of a joint-family model

characterises the Indian family, however it must be noted as well that many aspects

have changed47 with factors of region, religion and education playing important parts in

triggering these changes.

As a result of urbanisation and lack of spaces, what one finds today is a

transformed family unit that comprises a man and wife, their children, his parents

especially if one of them has passed away, and unmarried brothers and sisters. Most of

the time these siblings marry and move out; but if there is a family business then the

brothers stay near each other (or even together if they have a large ancestral house)

and manage it jointly. The sister gets a share of her paternal property through dowry

and other gifts made to her husband’s family. It is usually the duty of the eldest son to

take care of the parents, but other siblings may also share the responsibility. Taking

care of the old and the invalid is hence a moral duty that parents expect from their

children. Such joint families are different from the extended families that exist in other

47 Nuclear families keep emerging from, as well as growing into, joint families as part of the developmental

cycle of a household (Shah 1998).

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parts of the world, according to Shah. He argues that in a joint family, three or more

generations reside together in one household48, whereas the extended family consists of

all patrilineal and matrilineal relations who reside in other households but come

together at every ritual function and consult each other only at times of social and

economic problems (Shah 1998). Although it is a Hindu institution, it exists among all

Indians, irrespective of their religion. Kurian describes that just as caste system was

replicated among the Christians in Kerala, the joint family model too was adopted by

them where at times even distant relations lived under the same roof sharing and

benefitting from the common property (1986). The same has been the case with

Muslim families as well.

Therefore a joint family is a unique feature of the Indian social structure which

determines the relations within its domains and also hands down similar norms and

discourses to every new member of the unit, be it a new born child or a new member (as

a result of marriage). Inter-dependency is a key feature as each member is made to

understand the responsibility he or she has for the other member. Apart from being

economically inter-dependent, in such families bringing up children or managing

household affairs are also collectively organised. Likes and dislikes are thus

harmonised to a reasonable extent and foundations for a sound code of conduct and

basic life tenets are laid down for future generations. These, together with the power

that is exercised by the head of the family have a tremendous impact on an individual’s

thoughts, beliefs and feelings or the habitus. Such rules in a family along with caste

principles guide the third important pillar of the Indian social system, marriage.

I c: Marriage

The ancient religious texts, Vedas, profess that marriage is an irrevocable

sacrament which validates the relation between a man and a woman. Everyday a Hindu

man must perform numerous religious ceremonies or yagnas and duties for his

household in the company of his wife. The first aim of marriage was to fulfil this

dharma (duty) of human (Hindu) life. In case the wife passed away, the man must take

on a second wife immediately to carry on his dharma. The second aim was to procreate

48

A joint household unit means a house having one common kitchen where same food is cooked for all members and a common pool of economic resources provides the means of sustenance.

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and produce an heir, a male child, for continuation of the human life. The male child

was of great importance as he showed the pathway to heaven by lighting the pyre of his

deceased parent. The last and the least desirable function of marriage was sex. It was

said that only a marriage to a shudra woman was for pleasure, but all other marriages

had greater purposes to serve. Thus Hindu marriage was not just an ordinary affair

wherein the weakness of the flesh played an important role; but was a sacred institution

that bound both man and woman with each other till death and wherein both were to

make compromises and adjustments to ensure a harmonious life (Kapadia 1958). It

was a social duty towards the family and the community, leaving no place for individual

interest. The joint family and the caste system established the social background for

making the choice of a spouse.

Caste endogamy was the only accepted norm and the families were to choose

only those who would somehow share similar notions of dharma as them. Marriage in

the same caste was a must, though the lineage or the gotra had to be different. If at all

there was exogamy, only a lower caste girl could marry into an upper caste family as she

would leave her paternal caste and take on the caste of her husband. The woman had

her powers, but she was required to be placed under the protection of the male head.

As a child, her father and brothers were responsible for her; as a young woman, her

husband took this task; and in the latter stage her sons took over. Therefore on

marriage, she moved away to the residence of her husband taking a part of her share

from her paternal property in form of ‘dowry’. Through the rest of her life, her paternal

family would continue giving the married couple other gifts which are seen as her share.

After marriage, the Hindu wife’s duty was to follow her husband in every task

undertaken and to concede to all his activities, whether they were right or wrong. As a

result, when the husband died, it was streedharma (duty of a woman) to follow him

even on his pyre because taking a second husband was totally inconceivable. This was

one of the reasons for the practice of Sati (Kapadia 1958).

In recent times due to urbanisation and growth in education, some of these old

norms have transformed, for example inter-caste and even inter-religious marriages are

taking place and the choice of spouse is being given to a man or a woman. Some amount

of flexibility has arrived in marital decisions, especially in the urban places where the

boundaries between sub-castes are diminishing. However I would argue that majority

of the people in India still abide by the old rules and the underlying principles of

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marriage still remain the same. As late as the middle of the 19th century, child marriage

was rampant and legal where either both the bride and the groom were 8-12 years of

age or at least the girl was this young. The reason given was that at an early age a girl’s

habits, tastes and ideas were at a formative stage and could be moulded as required.

This trend survives even today, especially in semi-urban and rural India although it is

legally prohibited by the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929. Marriage has always been

a social event wherein not just two people, but two families and their respective

relatives/friends are united for a lifetime. This in turn drives both the sides to have an

ostentatious display of wealth, pomp and show, as an effort to outdo each other to

establish their superiority. It is also the only legitimate (socially and legally) way to

cohabit with a person from another sex in India. Further, virilocality, by which a

married couple reside with the parents of the husband, continues to be practiced.

Finally caste and family backgrounds are still very important and violation to these

rules leads to honour-killings49. Thus, marriage as an institution is far from being

redundant and is very much part of the Indian habitus till date.

I d: Village Governance System (the community)

The scriptures, through the institutions of caste, joint family and marriage clearly

described how the economic, social and cultural way of life were to be organised. But

how were these discourses maintained and who created the mechanisms of checks and

balances to ensure that these institutions functioned in the right manner? In ancient

India it was the village council that performed this function. A group of members that

comprised village elders, mostly from the dominant castes and powerful joint-families,

lead by a headman was responsible for implementing the rule of law. Every dispute,

whether it was within a family or between two or more families was decided in

consultation with this council. It was the task of the village council to impart justice and

49

Khap Panchayats (or lineage-based local governing bodies) in the states of Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab have been sentencing people, especially those of lower castes, with severe punishments for violating some rule or the other (Rajalakshmi 3/12/2004). Inter-caste marriage can lead to voluntary murders by the family members who prefer to kill their children than face defamation from their community (The Times Of India 9/09/2007). To understand the implications of caste on marriage rules, the reader must refer to one of the adverts in the matrimony websites like http://www.bharatmatrimony.com/, http://www.jeevansathi.com/ or see the matrimonial columns in the national newspapers of the country like The Times of India and the Hindustan Times.

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even grant punishments to the guilty. It undermined the role of the individual and

upheld the importance of society or the samaaj. In the absence of such a formal council,

neighbours and village elders exercised the mechanisms of control. The village was

thus a self sufficient unit and unless asked, the kings or rulers of the state did not

interfere in its internal matters.

Today the panchayat or a council of five elders is the legal version of the same

village council governance system as continued by the Government of India. In fact

nowadays it is common to hold elections for the panchayat posts, thus attempting to

weed out the deficiencies of the earlier system described above, making the process

more inclusive and democratic. Although increasing interference from political parties

who form the state government and wealth-based or caste-based political machinations

have skewed the decisions of this simplest of governance systems, doing more harm,

than good for the society. As an institution its influence has also slightly declined with

the emergence of the local civil and criminal courts, revenue departments and the police

organisation. However, importance of society or samaaj and ‘societal norms’, is still

omnipresent, albeit at a covert level. Every custom and duty is followed or at least an

attempt is made to follow them due to the fear of defamation from the society. For

example, when a family member passes away, a 13-15 day period of abstinence must be

followed by all the surviving members of the family and an array of rituals must be

performed. If these customs are not observed, it is most likely that the family would

earn a bad name in the society and be ostracised by relatives and neighbours. As a

result many customs are followed because of social obligations, than personal will.

Further, in rural areas, especially where people are illiterate and unaware of their rights

and have less access to legal courts and government machinery, panchayats still play an

important role. Just like the other institutions, which are no longer restricted to just

Hindus, even this idea of social obligation has trickled down to other religions. For

instance there are panchayats even in Muslim-dominated villages or in areas where

different religions live together, but all adhering to the rules of their village council,

however unjust they may be50. At times, these very councils, which are supposed to

50 In Behrampur, a Muslim village in the Murshidabad district of West Bengal, a Muslim panchayat drove a

mother of four outside the village after she was raped by a local man. The panchayat annulled her marriage

due to the incident and was not allowed to live with her husband or enter the village. The council also ruled

that the couple should pay Rs 50,000 (Euro 760) if they wished to stay together. The victim’s husband who is a

wage-labourer failed to fulfill this pre-condition (The Times Of India 3/11/2006). This example not only

119 | P a g e

uphold the principles of equality and justice for all, themselves turn into perpetrators of

heinous crimes. Instances of people who have been accused of raising their voice

against the ‘societal norms’ and village council’s edicts being lynched to death are

abundant. Sometimes in rural India, it also initiates a more brutal practice of parading

woman of the family of the accused, naked through the village as punishment or even

ordering a gang-rape.

The institutions of caste, joint-family, marriage and societal community thus

guide the Indian way of life and shape the habitus of each of its members. Apart from

finding resemblance in the other religions, traces of these institutions can be found in

the entire sub-continent because in the past the whole area was one kingdom. The

countries in it today, like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh, thus reflect some

similarities in terms of these institutions. For example, the caste system and the

untouchability it attributes to lower castes, finds its clones in these other countries as

well. The Human Rights Watch reports that caste differentiation occurs in both of Sri

Lanka’s main Tamil communities (those descended from plantation workers of Indian

origin brought to Sri Lanka by the British colonial government) as well as those with

ancestors in Sri Lanka. It guides marriage and other social bans and is even visible

among the Tamil Christian and Muslim converts, and members of other minority groups

(HRW 2001, p. 8).

Nepal, which is predominantly a Hindu country, exhibits similar institutions.

Caste system and discriminations against Dalits (the lowest castes) is rampant here as

well. A news article reports that among the Tharu (the fourth largest ethnic

community) in Nepal, marriages were arranged by parents even before the birth of a

child (Sharma 18/07/2011). Although the trend is declining now, it is still prevalent

and non-compliance to such alliances can bring upon severe punishments, some

amounting to even death. UNHCR reports similar arranged and even forced marriages

in Bangladesh. It points out that this country reported the highest number of child-

marriages in the world (2005) and the age gap between the bride and the groom is

displays the presence and importance of panchayats among Muslims, but also highlights how dominators of a

field who possess power, use it against the powerless. Instead of punishing the man who raped the woman,

she was punished as her rape brought shame to the family and the village. A woman’s powerlessness is

reasserted in this way. A warped notion of justice delivered by the panchayat is also displayed by the fact that

by paying money the honour of the woman would be restored so that she can reside with her husband again.

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significantly huge (2006). The Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929 that was passed

before the partition of India, still exists in Bangladesh with its failures. Similarly a

Pakistani survey51 reports that two-thirds or 67% of Pakistanis prefer a joint-family

system over a nuclear one. Pakistani Muslims are also similarly divided into castes and

sub-castes, and have all-powerful village councils presiding over community affairs like

in India. For example, the infamous case of Mukhtaran Bibi, a Pakistani woman, whose

solo fight against injustice has been recognised internationally. Mukhtar Mai, as she is

now called, is a lower caste woman who was gang-raped in 2002 by upper-caste men,

on orders of the village council comprising upper-caste men, as a punishment for her

brother’s alleged crime of having illicit relations with a higher caste woman. This

incident is a direct result of caste-related injustice, meted out on orders of the village

council, bearing resemblance to punishments like honour killings on caste lines ordered

by Khap Panchayats in India. The importance of the community, the samaaj or the

panchayat similarly echoes across the sub-continent because in all these countries the

idea of social prestige is of great value.

What is evident from the above discussion is that in the Indian social field these

institutions guide every aspect of human life. The economic and political capitals are

perks or by-products of the social and cultural capitals accorded by caste, family,

marital alliances and community relations. The upper or higher caste population

usually possess substantial social and cultural capital and enjoy the benefits

accordingly, even if they do not possess sufficient economic capital. In stark contrast

the lower caste population by default do not have any social or cultural capital, thereby

negating their mass of economic or political capital. For example, a Brahmin might not

be economically well-off, but would not die of impoverishment or discrimination as he

would be taken care of by the richer castes who consider giving gifts and alms to

Brahmins as a good deed that has nullifying effects on their own sins. Through a

mediation of ancient and current discourses on these structures, rules of the field are

determined and every individual acts accordingly. A child labourer in India is part of

this field which is structured by the institutions of caste, joint-family, marriage and

community. Therefore his or her habitus is a product of a combination of these

institutions. But before I go on to draw the entire picture of this habitus (I will do this in

51

The Express Tribune - Pakistan (6/10/2010)

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the next two chapters), it is vital that I discuss the socio-economic terrain of the

locations of my research – West Bengal and its districts of Purulia and Kolkata.

II: The scene - West Bengal

Considered as the gateway to east, Bengal (including West Bengal and

Bangladesh of today) occupied a central position for all its rulers, since the pre-Vedic era

when it was called the Vanga Kingdom by the Bang speaking Dravidian people, till the

advent of British. Its proximity to the sea with two main rivers, Ganges and

Brahmaputra placed it on the primary trade routes at all times. Under the British it was

partitioned twice, once in 1905 when Bengal was divided into East Bengal and West

Bengal; and second in 1947 when it was separated from India and Pakistan came into

being. By 1956, the nearby princely states and parts of other states were merged with

the left-over part of Bengal and thus emerged the state of West Bengal. Today it shares

its borders with three countries, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan, occupies about 3% of

India’s land and comprises about 8% of its population (91,347,736)52.

It is ranked second among states with the highest density of population

(1029 people per km²), according to the National Census (2011)53. In terms of religious

divisions, 72.47% are Hindus, 25.25% are Muslims and the rest are from the other

religions (2001)54. Out of these, 23.0% are Scheduled Castes and 5.5% are Scheduled

Tribes55 (2001). About 77% population is considered to be literate, which depicts a 9%

rise in figures since 2001. West Bengal contributes about 6.43% to the total Gross

Domestic Product (GDP) of the country. However, it currently has a debt burden of Rs.

1.69 lakhs crores (Euros 26.3 billion). This sum of money is approximately equal to the

first Euro 30 billion aid package that Greece received from the European Union. With a

population of 91 million and per capita GDP of Euro 648, the debt per capita amounts to

Euro 289 which is almost 45% of the common man’s income, putting pressure on his

purchasing capacity. A map has been provided below for visual comprehension of the

geographical placement of the state in India.

52

Refer to the primary reasons for choosing this state in the introduction chapter. 53

Census of India Website : Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India 54

It must be noted that all reports of Census 2011 are not there yet; therefore some figures are from Census 2001. 55

Govt. of West Bengal (WBHDR 2004)

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Figure 7: Political Map (West Bengal and its Districts 2011)

West Bengal slipped from 19th position in 1996 to 22nd in 2006 as per the Human

Development Index (HDI) rankings (Government of India 2010). It has socio-economic

problems similar to those in the other poor and backward states of India, like Uttar

Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra. Naxalism is rampant here as in

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many other states as well. However on two points it differs from the other states.

Firstly, it shares one of the largest international borders, of about 2,216 km border, with

Bangladesh. Kolkata, the state capital, is a popular destination for migrants and

refugees coming across international borders (with Nepal and Bhutan) and national

borders (with Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar, Sikkim and Assam). But the maximum influx is

from Bangladesh because of similar language, cultural as well as historical proximity.

Since the partition of India in 1947, the Hindu population in Bangladesh has reduced

from 22% to less than 7% due to poverty, religious persecutions and political terrorism.

However even Bangladeshi Muslims have migrated to West Bengal to escape population

pressures and poor economic conditions heightened by natural disasters like frequent

floods and cyclones. After India became a republic in 1950, the Muslim population in

West Bengal was 18.63 %, which changed to 21.55 % in 1981, and reached to 25.25 %

in 2001. Majority of the migrants today reside in the border districts of North and South

24 Parganas, Murshidabad, Nadia, Malda, North and South Dinajpur, Darjeeling, Kooch

Behar and Jalpaiguri. Therefore as West Bengal’s population has shown a gradual

increase, Bangladesh’s population depicts a decline (evident from fall in number of

voters)56. This exerts pressure on the state machinery as infrastructural amenities, like

health services, transport, roadways, schooling facilities, etc. are not synchronised with

the increase in population, thus creating a shortage.

The other feature that makes this state different is that for thirty-four years an

alliance of communist and various other left leaning parties ruled West Bengal. When

the CPI-M (Communist Party of India-Marxist) led Left Front alliance came into power

in 1977, it was said to be a people’s party, for the people and by the people. The Left

Front Government in the beginning became a role model for other states because of

successfully implementing land reforms; strengthening the local political bodies, that is

the Panchayat Raj57 system; confiscating land from big land-owners and redistributing

them among peasants and improving living conditions in rural areas so that people did

not migrate to urban areas in search of opportunities. Moreover, because of its aim for a

division-less society, caste, class or religious based politics/violence seldom occurred,

which is a common feature in other Indian states today. At the administrative level, the

56

India Today (24/01/2011) 57

Panchayat Raj System: It is same as the traditional panchayats of villages, but today the Government of India has decentralized several administrative functions to an elected gram panchayat which empowers the democratically elected village leaders.

124 | P a g e

trend of frequent transfers was stopped; instead if an officer performed well, he or she

continued to hold that position. A culture of unions and protests developed among

workers to consciously fight for workers’ rights.

However, it is argued that the numerous strikes and rising strength of the unions

which became militant in nature lead to the shutting down of numerous jute mills, tea

plantations, motor factories and cotton mills. A study on the evolution of industries in

West Bengal argues that labour militancy, poor work culture, entrenched red-tapism

and poor infrastructure drove industries out of Bengal making it dependent on its

traditional industries (Sen 2009). The Indian Chamber of Commerce reports that state

loses about Rs. 80 billion (approx. Euro 12 billion) every year due to strikes. In 2009-

2010 West Bengal’s share in the national total of man-days lost was 76% of the national

average58. Further, because CPM was a cadre based party, the long 34 year

unchallenged power created an armed wing that established control through brutal acts

of violence59. Similar situations occurred at the administrative level, where one

unopposed, unchallenged official got rooted to his or her position and wielded power

for his or her own benefit. The Bengali intelligentsia argues that severe red-tape and

extreme levels of corruption were the hallmark of the Left Government. Consequently

the state has witnessed a battered economy, collapsing welfare schemes, degradation of

health and education facilities and dearth of finances.

Every public administrative body is marred with alleged corruption charges and

high levels of incompetency. The Indian public distribution system or the ration shops

for food and other essential household commodities which offer subsidised rates,

especially to lower income people is a sound welfare mechanism. But in West Bengal it

exists in a limping state due to corrupt officials. A news report argued that the state

government was patronising the huge influx of Bangladeshi immigrants by arranging

ration cards for either electoral gains or bribes. This created more demand for food and

other essential commodities like kerosene oil, which the rations shops could not meet.

Further, rising corruption among ration dealers who siphoned of commodities to sell

them in black markets lead to the riots in 2007 where irate villagers turned violent

58

The Times Of India (29/05/2011) 59

One of the most recent incidents was the forceful acquisition of lands from farmers to set up factories in Nandigram and Singur (West Bengal) lead to the use of extreme violence against farmers by the CPM Cadres in 2007.

125 | P a g e

against ration shops60. Similarly health services, legal bodies and committees for

implementing welfare schemes for education, handicrafts, etc. suffered from corruption

as well. The Left government has also been blamed for nepotism and it was argued that

the police department was its legal arm to instigate violence and political murders.61

Extreme multi-dimensional poverty is a direct outcome of such dire

circumstances. The Multidimensional62 Poverty Index (MPI) reports that the number of

MPI poor people living in the eight Indian states of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand,

Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal is 421 million. This

number is greater than the 410 million MPI poor people in the 26 poorest African

countries combined (Alkire, Santos 2010, p. 4). The absence of civic amenities and the

pressure of extreme economic poverty push the poor in of West Bengal to send their

children for work. The following figure shows a gradual rise in the number of working

children between the ages of 5-14 from 1971 till 2001.

Figure 8: Number of working children from 1971-2001

(Source: INDUS report on Child Labour in India (INDUS 2007, p. 59)

The INDUS report suggests that in 2001 there were about 857,087 children

working between the ages of 5-14 years in West Bengal, which means that 36.77% of

the workforce comprised of children then. However if one changed the age category to 60

The Statesman - Kolkata (20/12/2007) 61

The Hindu (14/06/2011) 62

MPI takes into account deprivations based on health, education and living standards along with economic poverty. However in the latter chapters, I would include two more deprivations, namely social and cultural, to the term ‘multi-dimensional poverty’.

511443

605263

711691

857087

0

100000

200000

300000

400000

500000

600000

700000

800000

900000

1971 1981 1991 2001

Workers aged 5-14 years 1971-2001 West Bengal

126 | P a g e

5-17, then the number went up to 2,014,280 (INDUS 2007, p. 59). The report also

suggests that over the decades there has been a shift from full-time work to part-time

work because of growing awareness and the implementation of the National Child

Labour Project in 1988 which works as rehabilitation schools for former child

labourers. The following figure clearly depicts this shift from full-time to part-time

work where number of marginal child labourers 2001 was 55.1%, whereas in 1991 it

was only 16.6% of the total number of child workers. This model of school provides

free informal education with special importance to skill training; free stationary and

school uniforms; monthly health check-ups and additional allowance for nutritious

food; and a monthly stipend that is accumulated and given back to the child when he or

she has enrolled to a formal school. Also, since it is an afternoon school, many children

work in the morning and study in the second half of the day.

Figure 9: Number of Main and Marginal child workers in 1991 and 2001

(Source: India Statistics Database)

West Bengal boasts of a long cultural heritage and a tradition of new thought.

Apart from being a seat for literature and art, it also produced great social reformers

like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, and Swami Vivekananda who

created the cultural atmosphere to abolish the evil Hindu practices like sati, dowry, and

caste-based discrimination or untouchability. It is the birth place of Nobel Laureates

like Rabindranath Tagore and Amartya Sen and film directors like Satyajit Ray. It was

593387

118304

711691

384955 472132

857087

0

100000

200000

300000

400000

500000

600000

700000

800000

900000

Main Child Workers Marginal Child Workers Total Child Workers

Workers aged 5-14 years (2001 vis -a- vis 1991) West Bengal

1991 2001

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the first state in India to introduce mass transit systems or the Metro Rail in the 1970s.

In the early 20th Century, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a prominent senior leader of the

Indian National Movement remarked, “What Bengal thinks today, India thinks

tomorrow”. This was relatively true till New Delhi became the capital of India, but till

date this prophecy is being fulfilled, in at least a negative sense63. Naxalism, one of the

largest inland insurgency movements in India, arose from Bengal and cuurently has

spread to more than 100 districts out of 640 numbers of districts in the country.

Therefore today, instead of a glorious Bengal, the image that emerges is of a poor,

backward, politically unstable and corrupt Bengal.

II a: Purulia

The district of West Bengal on its western frontier bordering the state of

Jharkhand is Purulia. The mythical origins of the district are accorded to Ahalya, the

woman cursed to a stone who awaited the arrival of Rama, the Hindu God, for her

freedom and revival into the human form. It is thus called Ahalyabhumi, a land, literally

cursed with adverse geophysical characteristics; a stony textured, hard soil and arid

climate, mainly made up of hills of lateritic and igneous rocks. Majority of the

population can be traced back to the Australoid aborigines of Gondwanaland who

evolved into the ethnic castes and tribes currently present here. The first account of this

district was given by W.W.Hunter in 1877 who traced back the history of Purulia to be

the eastern part of the inaccessible kingdom of Vajra Bhumi in 5th Century A.D. Since 7th

Century it became part of the massive kingdoms of Sasanka, the Palas, the Senas and

later the Mughals. It was primarily the abode of the dark-skinned ethnic aborigines like

Kurmi, Santhal, Bhumij, Bauri, Kora, Mahli, Munda etc. and the fair-skinned

Rajputs(ruling castes) and Vaishyas(traders) who came and settled after every dynastic

invasion. The hostile land had very less resources which lead to constant struggles to

gain control over them. Further, the fair Aryans established control over the dark

aborigines (who were tribal warriors themselves) for their own benefits, consequently

fanning rebellions that continued even under the British rule. The Chuaar rebellion or

Kol revolt were few examples of the clashes between the exploited mass of the

63

The Telegraph - Kolkata (26/06/2006)

128 | P a g e

aboriginal people and the feudal lords. Therefore since long the land has been subjected

to socio-political turmoil rendering the people habituated, though stubbornly resistant,

to encroachments and cultural admixtures (District Human Development Report:

Purulia 2009)64. Today’s Purulia truly is a land of abject poverty and deprivations, rabid

rebellions and historical turmoil.

The historical developments affected the spatial characteristics of the district as

well. The ruling groups mostly controlled the cultivable land in the district like in

Raghunathpur; and settled in and around Purulia town which developed through

transport and trade into power centres of late Mughal and the British Period. The

others got pushed to the inhospitable areas like the forests or the hilly/rocky areas

which remained backward in terms of technology, economy, human development and

basic infrastructural facilities like schools and hospitals. Till date such conditions

prevail and the town of Purulia continues to be the main hub for all facilities, including

quality education and health care65.

The census of 2011 reports that Purulia district has a population of 2,927,965,

which is 3.21% of the population of West Bengal. Among the 17 districts, it occupies the

16th rank in the state Human Development Index report. There is a predominance of

Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, who form 37% of the total population in the

district. The Scheduled Castes are 18.29% (of 23.02 in the State) and the Scheduled

Tribes are 18.27% (of 5.50 in the State). Purulia also has the second largest tribal

population in the state after Jalpaiguri (18.9%). Its literacy rates have increased from

55.57% in 2001 to 65.38% in 2011, with a rise in female literacy by 15%66. Due to

adverse climatic and topographic conditions, subsistence farming is practiced among

those rural households that posses land67. The rest rely on non-agricultural income

generating activities that are time-consuming yet low paying like weaving, handicraft

making, beedi-making, etc. Migration within the district occurs to Purulia town or the

prosperous regions of Raghunathpur; but lack of bigger opportunities curbs external

64

The District Human Development report was obtained from the office of District Magistrate-Purulia, which is the highest administrative unit in any district. 65

For example, when there are complicated medical emergencies, the cases are referred to the nearby districts of Durgapur or Bankura or Kolkata in Bengal or Jamshedpur in Jharkhand which are about 4-7 hours away from Purulia. 66

Census of India Website : Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India 67

When one visits this district, the first thing that would strike the observer is the presence of the vast areas of uninhabited land. At times one can drive miles after miles and not see even one house or soul. People normally occupy areas around a water body or a fertile tract of land.

129 | P a g e

migration to the district. Following is the map of Purulia, where the exact filed locations

have been encircled.

Figure 10: Purulia with its Taluk (blocks) – the encircled parts are the exact locations of

my fieldwork

(District Human Development Report: Purulia 2009)

The District Human Development Report highlights that except by way of

marriages, when females move to their husband’s paternal homes, Purulia is not a

popular destination for male migrations from other parts of Bengal or India. An account

of the degree of backwardness of the district is given in the following figure which

shows that the fertile blocks in the east of Purulia, like Raghunathpur have more

progressive villages and the western or the southern blocks have more backward

villages (District Human Development Report: Purulia 2009).

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Figure 11: Proportion of Backward villages in the subdivisions of Purulia

(Source – District Human Development Report of Purulia)

The backwardness of the region is also considered to be the primary reason for

the prevalence of Maoist and Naxalite activities. The blocks of Balarampur, Jhalda and

Baghmundi, which are also the most backward and poor regions, continuously witness

violence, murders and kidnappings by the above-mentioned extremists who are waging

a war against the state, police and the rich landlords. The hills of Ayodhya and forests in

the district provide an excellent camouflage to these groups where they hide their

hostages or even train their personnel. A late night robbery, especially on the roads is

another way of terrorising the people of the district making it an unsafe and unsecure

region. Also, these parts are closer to the state of Jharkhand which is another important

hub for the Maoists. Fear for one’s life from the State Government machinery and/or

the insurgent groups, is a commonly occurring thought for the common man of the

district. Therefore backwardness and turmoil which were historical features of the

district, continue to shape the present of Purulia even today.

Notes on personal experience: While doing my fieldwork, I witnessed a day when there was a curfew in the town of Purulia and the nearby areas, because some political party person had been killed by the Maoists. I was about to leave for the school where I taught, with a red & saffron scarf on my head because of the sun. My relatives quickly stopped me and asked me to remove it. Wearing red that day meant that I would be somehow associated with the Maoists (Red being their signature color), and this would invite the unwanted attention of the police towards me.

131 | P a g e

Child labour in Purulia is a consequence of these harsh conditions. Labour,

whether it is for economic or non-economic gains, by all members in a family, is a

coping mechanism to the multidimensional backwardness they suffer from. In the

following figure however, one would find a very low number of child workers in Purulia.

This is because a large amount of the labour that is performed is under the garb of work

or help for the family, even though it may entail arduous and long hours of labour on

fields or looms or even in the household.

Figure 12: Number of working/non-working children in Purulia

Source (INDUS 2007, p. 116)

This labour escapes the official census and even local surveys because of the very

definition of labour which means to engage only in economic activities. Besides, home

is the private domain, where legal rules do not work, making it harder to reduce the

intensity of the phenomenon. As stated earlier, this research considers every activity as

labour that negatively effects the human development of a child. Therefore I consider

this estimate to be misleading. I would come back to this aspect in Chapter 6 again,

hence I shall continue with my description of the field location.

Purulia town was my first field location, which is the district headquarters with a

total population of about 120,766. Apart from being the seat of the district

administration, it also has one of the biggest hospitals in the region. Being a major

junction for rail and road transport, it serves as a transit city for those travelling from

North of India or Jharkhand or Bihar to Kolkata or the other districts of Bengal and even

few districts of Orissa. It has three well functioning senior schools run by the

630803

10620 30436

589747

0

100000

200000

300000

400000

500000

600000

700000

Persons Main Workers Marginal Workers Non-Workers

Purulia: Distribution of Population aged(5-14 Years) by Work

Status in 2001

132 | P a g e

government and three privately run schools. There are also two government colleges

and one polytechnic institute. Level of education has improved in recent years as a

result of these measures. The National Child Labour Project runs five schools here for

rehabilitating former child labourers, and I conducted my field work in one of them,

which is located in a slum area, called the Bauri Para or the locality where the people

from Bauri caste are in majority.

Singhbajar, the second location, is a village which is about 15 km away from the

town of Purulia. It is primarily a weavers’ village where about 40 families reside, each

of whom has a loom. The average Tasar silk woven by each family is about 13 meters in

in length and it takes 6-7 days to weave one of these as the process is a lengthy one.

Female members start with boiling the cocoons and spinning the silk yarn, which is

starched (at times dyed), counted and put in the loom by the male members and then

woven into fabric. For each 13 meter cloth produced, the family earns Rs. 400-500

(Euros 7-8 approx)68 depending on the deal that has been agreed upon between them

and the contractors who provide the cocoons to the weavers. The amount of labour that

goes in is grossly out of sync with the payment received. Hence, many weaver families

have left the village for better opportunities to other silk weaving states like Karnataka

or Uttar Pradesh or Tamil Nadu or have simply moved to the town of Purulia for simple

manual work which fetches more money than weaving. Today, only about 10 of these

looms are used in the village, and the remaining families help each other in the process

of weaving. There is small primary school right at the beginning of the village which is

mostly non-functional. But those who wish to study walk to a school about 3km away

from the village. For medical care or to connect with other parts of Bengal or India,

people have to travel to Purulia. It is another example of a highly backward and

impoverished village.

After this, I visited the village of Barabazar that falls under the Balarampur block.

It is a small agricultural village, about 35km away from Purulia town, with a population

of about 8000 people where literacy is high due to the presence of three government

schools that even provide boarding facilities. The village has a fair mix of lower and

upper castes and the area of residence for each caste is clearly demarcated. Most of the

arable land in and around the village’s water bodies and streams was owned either by

the royal Rajput family or the village landlord (zamindar) hailing from the dominant

68

Data is based on interviews with weavers of this village.

133 | P a g e

caste of Barabazar, the Modaks. The infrastructural amenities however are still

backward – there is a government hospital to provide basic medical care that even

caters to the nearby villages, but for cases requiring few more medical tests and a

higher degree of medical competence, like cardiac, bronchial problems, one has to take

the patient to the hospital in the main Purulia town. Similarly, in terms of transport, it

still has only roadways and not even train facilities, from India’s ubiquitous Railway

system. As a result many of the affluent families have moved out of the village leading

to the gradual emergence of the dominance of lower castes like the Doms and Hadis.

Although they don’t own land, they are the ones working on them as share-croppers

giving part of their produce to their landlords, who may or may not be present in the

village.

Jhalda, the fourth location of my work, is a block with 400 odd villages in it, most

of which are involved in beedi making. About 30,000 people reside in these villages, of

whom primarily the women and children roll beedis and the males of the households do

other activities like farming or running side-businesses. A mix of Hindu and Muslim

poor and lower caste communities resides in this block and literacy rate is about 64%.

There are three government schools and one hospital with average facilities. Seven

brands or companies sub-contract the beedi making to contractors in these villages.

Each batch of 1000 beedis that are rolled in 12-15 hours fetches about Rs. 46-50 (less

than a Euro)69. Most often, the payment is not made in cash, but in kind, i.e., through

vouchers which are only redeemable in the shops run by the contractors. The price of

the products in these shops is always higher by a rupee from the market price. There is

a beedi workers’ union and its leader took me to the village of Dongol in the block. The

69

Data is based on interviews with beedi rollers of this village and members of Jhalda Beedi Association.

Power dynamics in Barabazar: The power relations in this village also exhibit the power of economic wealth. The dominant caste was Modak, which was lower in the caste hierarchy. But the biggest landlord from this caste was regarded even more powerful (economically) than the royal family and Brahmins were mere advisors and priests. The Modaks, in spite of being shudras themselves, clearly distanced themselves from the other lower castes and practiced untouchablity as well. However one of the sons of this landlord, Gangadhar Sinha, who himself was a practicing lawyer and highly educated having two Post-graduate degrees, is often credited for the high level of literacy in the village. He was a revolutionary of his time who denounced caste barriers and built his house right next to the area where the Doms resided. Further, he provided employment to the people from this community in his fields, and preached equality, echoing the thoughts of the Marxist social reformists of West Bengal in that period. (Data is based on interviews with current and former residents of this village)

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village is divided into the Hindu and the Muslim section and all the families here are

engaged in making beedis. The nearest primary school is a kilometre away. Abject

poverty and backwardness define life here as well. Despite these conditions and the

high number of child labourers present, this district has not attracted the attention of

researchers.

II b: Kolkata

In many ways a complete contrast to the backward and rural nature of the

Purulia district, the city of Kolkata became the fifth location of my field work in order to

understand the habitus of a child labour in an urban context of West Bengal. It must be

noted that this research doesn’t wish to compare Kolkata and Purulia as locations.

Instead it aims to only compare the social setting of a rural to an urban one, in West

Bengal and their influence on shaping the habitus of a working child. Like any other

urban hub, Kolkata boasts of having good quality educational institutions and medical

facilities, along with numerous service sector opportunities. The city with its

population of 4.4 million according to the Census of 2011 (as against the 2.9 million of

Purulia), acquires fourth position in India. But when the entire metropolitan area is

considered, which includes the sub-urban areas around the city like Howrah, Hooghly,

North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas and Nadia, the total population is 15.7 million

which is the third highest in India, after Mumbai and Delhi and the 8th highest in the

world70. Situated on the banks of river Hooghly which flows out to the Bay of Bengal,

Kolkata or Calcutta (the old British colonial name) was an important city since the time

of the Mughals. The setting up of factories by many British companies transformed it

into a political and economic capital. Under the British, it also became a cultural and

intellectual city and was the Capital city of British Colonial India till 1911. In the last

two centuries numerous people from different ethnic origins have settled in Kolkata.

Being the only classified metropolitan city in the eastern part of India, it is a popular

destination for migrants.

Apart from Bengalis, the business community of Marwaris from Rajasthan,

Biharis, Chinese, Bangladeshis, Jews and others from the neighbouring states of Orissa,

70

United Nations Population Publications (2006)

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Assam, etc. live here. As a result a very complex social fabric has evolved which

comprises of people like refugees, slum dwellers as well as white-collar middle classes

and the rich upper classes. On the macro level, caste differences are replaced by class

differences, as seen in all the urban cities of India. But at the micro level, that is the

family level, caste norms continue to guide marital alliances71. Yet again, it must be

noted that most often it is the lower caste which due to its backwardness and social

disabilities is unable to convert even their limited mass of social and cultural capital into

economic capital, thereby remaining to be the lower class as well. The presence of a

large number of slum dwellers, who form about 33% of the total population, exhibits

stark class differences in the city. They are mostly engaged in the informal sector which

amounts to be about 40% of the city’s economy.

The over-crowded slums dwellings that are spread all over the city, again display

the same characteristics of backwardness and poverty like the villages in Purulia. Lack

of education, high birth and mortality rates and constant fear of eviction by the state

authorities add tremendously to their troubles. I chose the areas of Esplanade, New

Market, Park Circus and Ballygunj Phari lying in the heart of Kolkata (the encircled area

in the following map), for research which have a mix of authorised slum areas like near

Park Circus and New Market and unauthorized roadside shacks on the streets in the

areas of Esplanade and Ballygunj Phari. These areas are close to popular tourist

destinations and the Central Business District, making them famous and more lucrative

for street hawkers, small eateries, tea-stalls etc. Children, as young as 5-6 years can be

seen in every nook and corner of these areas either selling some item or begging with

another baby sibling in the arms. Hence the children working here are also part of the

informal economy, which is difficult to regulate or account for. Kolkata also reports to

have more than 100,000 domestic child labourers (Save the Children 2006).

71

A research study on marriage trends in India, which was based on a statistical analysis of matrimonial adverts in a popular newspaper (Anandabazar Patrika which is the largest single edition newspaper in India) from Kolkata, clearly depicts the importance and covert presence of caste while making selections for a spouse, even in urban cities. The study highlights that every year 72% of the prospective grooms and 68% of the prospective brides marry within their own narrow caste. This fraction increases to 76% and 72% respectively if a broader classification of caste is used. Also, men who marry outside of caste tend to marry women from a lower caste while women who marry outside of caste tend to marry someone from a higher caste (Banerjee et al. 2010, p. 13).

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Figure 14: City of Kolkata

(Source - City of Kolkata 2008)

However the Census of 2001 reports that only 30,810 child labourers were there in

Kolkata, of which 25524 were marginal workers and only 5286 were full-time workers,

as demonstrated in the figure below.

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Figure 14: Distribution of working children in Kolkata

(Source - INDUS 2007)

These figures are faulty as it possibly doesn’t represent the total number of

street children and domestic child labourers of Kolkata. Just like the street children,

domestic labourers, who are recruited through informal networks, slog in private

households which are beyond legislations, unless reported. Once we add the number of

domestic labourers to the figure of 30,810, then the percentage of children working in

the city would go up to 17.6% from 4.1%, which is the official estimate. To this if we also

add those children, who work fulltime in their own households; the number becomes

even more worrisome. A high incidence of child labour is therefore an important but

often ignored feature of this city.

To sum up, the context of an individual is very important to enable a researcher

to draw a complete picture of any habitus that he or she (the researcher) wishes to

construct. As a result, even though this chapter is largely descriptive, it is useful and

crucial for painting the picture of the context. In the Indian social field, caste, joint

family, marital alliances and village governance system govern the way of life. Although

the influence is more visible in rural areas where lack of education and awareness or

mere backwardness hinders the ability of an individual to move up in the hierarchy of

the field; urban areas pose similar constraints (maybe to a lesser extent) on the

742868

25524 5286

712058

0

100000

200000

300000

400000

500000

600000

700000

800000

Persons Main Workers Marginal Workers Non-Workers

Kolkata: Distribution of Population aged(5-14 Years) by Work Status in 2001

138 | P a g e

financially backward classes. Each and every location that I have chosen for my work

demonstrates this vulnerability of a certain section of the society, which I would argue,

on the similar lines as Oscar Lewis, leads to a culture of poverty. A set of practices

typical to the poor develops as a result which guides their daily actions. This culture of

poverty further leads to a culture of child labour and the development of the habitus of a

working child. Through ethnographical accounts and analysis of my field data, I shall

demonstrate this in the following two chapters.

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Chapter 5

Child labourers and their perspectives on their own lives

The last chapter talked about how the chosen study locations are marked by

poverty and backwardness. Whether it be the villages in Purulia district like Barabazar,

Singhbajar, Dongal or the slum areas of Purulia town or Kolkata, social, economic and

cultural disabilities are acutely visible. Poverty brings with itself, its own package of

problems, something that is acknowledged worldwide. It leads to hunger, malnutrition,

death, illiteracy and every possible problem arising from scarcity of resources. To deal

with these problems, the poor develop strategies and practices which are specific to

only them. Oscar Lewis (1959) proposed the idea that there exists a culture of poverty

after he observed a pattern in the way the poor adapted to their situations in Mexican

villages. His works highlight how groups of people in these villages shared ideas and

followed similar practices to deal with the problems emanating from poverty, thus

adopting a way of life catering typically to the poor. Therefore children born in such

families are socialised into this culture of poverty. Similarly Paul E Willis (2003, 1977),

is famous for his ethnographical account on how working class children end up taking

working class jobs. Lastly, William F. Whyte’s work (2006, 1943) which undertook a

participant observation in an Italian community in the slums of Boston was reviewed

for this work. In this study he differentiated between the ‘corner boys’ and the ‘college

boys’ and discussed how gangs and social relations are organised. All of these works

have had a strong impact on me. I will come back to these studies later in the chapter.

What is important now is the central aim of this research work to illustrate

whether there is a habitus of working among child labourers or not. After reflecting on

the data set, this chapter would draw a picture of what I would call the habitus of a child

labourer through ethnographic accounts of the physical area of dwelling. Then I would

analyse the broad characteristics of these children, their reference points, likes, dislikes

and other day-to-day behaviour. This would be followed by children’s versions of their

own lives and an analysis of their talks. As mentioned in Chapter 3, I have categorized

their talks into those pertaining to emotions, to cognitive rules and to latent hierarchies.

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Then I would present my case that these lead to their habitus. Their thoughts about

their own roles in the family, education, social status and society are thus analysed to

create the process which I think makes it normal and natural for them to work.

One crucial point that must be noted while reading this chapter is that I would

give detailed descriptions about the physical surroundings of the children and their own

stories about their lives. With the help of my notes, I would exactly describe the actual

dwelling space and would use pictures as well for visual comprehension. As I said

earlier in Chapter 3 that since I am using a mix of sociological and ethnographical

approach, something that Bourdieu himself has used in his study on the Algerian society

(1979), these descriptions become vital to explain the production of the habitus of

working. They would provide a “thick description” of the life that child labourers live.

Geertz (1973) popularised this concept to interpret cultures that would provide an

outsider a detailed picture of not only the behaviour of an individual but also his or her

context. Authors like Lincoln and Guba (1985) have argued that such detailed

descriptions also allow transferability of analysis in case the contexts are similar

(Shenton 2004). The habitus is like a sponge that soaks everything around it; therefore

every little detail about the lives of the respondents is fundamental for me to explain

how the habitus of the working child is formed.

I: Analysis of the dataset

I a: Socio-economic composition of Purulia

The fact that Purulia presents a dismal picture on the whole has already been

demonstrated in Chapter 4. As against other districts in West Bengal, it is sparsely

populated, has undulated topography with poor groundwater table, and life expectancy

is about 40 years. It is one of the most backward districts of the state. According to a

district official, Purulia is home to numerous Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes

(ST) and Other Backward Castes (OBC) which in all constitute about 75% of the total

population. The following table provides a quick glance on its position in West Bengal.

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Table 2: Development and growth indices in Purulia Human Development Index 0.45 (Rank: 16 in West Bengal)

Gender Development Index 0.40 (Rank: 16 in West Bengal

Education Index 0.55 (Rank: 14 in West Bengal)

Health Index 0.61 (Rank: 12 in West Bengal)

Income Index 0.18 (Rank: 17 in West Bengal)

No. of Below Poverty Line Households 197381 (43.65%)

Rural Poverty 78.72%

Urban Poverty 6.47%

Total of 2468 villages 994 of them are backward (40.28%)

(Source: District Human Development Report: Purulia 2009)

The Mahatos are the top bosses of the leading political parties and the owners of

businesses and factories in the area whereas the 84 Birhor families are the most

backward and primitive group. The following table shows the positioning of the various

castes and tribal groups in Purulia based on their economic, social, cultural and political

capital. From the district’s total population below the poverty line, the SC families

comprise 40645 (20.59 %) and ST families comprise 47666 (24.15 %). Female literacy

is low and there is a prevalence of extremely high rates of marriage and conception

among females below 18.

Table 3: List of caste and tribal groups (the arrow pointing down shows their place in the social hierarchy)

(Source: Based on interviews with Officer for Development of Backward Classes, Purulia District)

Castes/Tribes Position in local hierarchy Mahatos (Shudra sub-caste of Kurmi)

Dominant - politically and economically - own majority of the land

Suri-Saha (Shudra Caste) Affluent business group Marwaris (Vaishya Caste) Shop owners, money-lenders & merchants Modak and Manjhi (Shudra Caste) Middle to lower income groups Other Castes (including Brahmins and Kshatriyas)

Middle to lower income groups

Sabar (Tribals) Middle to lower income groups Bhumi (Tribals) and Bauri (Tribals) Lower income groups Kheria (Tribals) Lower income groups Birhor (primitive tribe) Extremely backward – nomads and forest

dwellers

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I b: Kolkata

I have already discussed about the conditions prevalent in the city of Kolkata,

which houses one of the largest slum areas in India, after Mumbai and Delhi. One-third

of the city population lives in the slum areas. The following table depicts the

development indices of Kolkata stated in the West Bengal Development Report of 2004

(2004).

Table 4: Development Indices – Kolkata Human Development Index 0.78 (Rank: 1st in West Bengal)

Gender Development index 0.59 (Rank: 1st in West Bengal)

Education Index 0.80 (Rank: 1st in West Bengal)

Health Index 0.82 (Rank: 1st in West Bengal)

Income Index 0.73 (Rank: 1st in West Bengal)

A detailed social scenario of Kolkata could not be constructed due to the lack of access

and unavailability of relevant official data (refer to reasons mentioned in Chapter 3).

The only purpose of introducing Kolkata in this work is to understand how the myriad

social problems of a big Indian metropolis - such as overcrowding, poverty, fast-pace

lifestyle, etc., have an impact on a child's thinking process. Apart from this, Kolkata or

data pertaining to it will not be used as a comparison with Purulia. Therefore in the

following pages, I have clubbed the data on child labour that was gathered from Purulia

and Kolkata.

I c: A stock-taking of the children interviewed

In this section, I would highlight on the quantifiable findings from the data

gathered from the children during my fieldwork. A total of thirty-eight children

between the ages of 6-14 were interviewed across professions72. Their work ranged

from working full-time in their own households (which I consider labour as explained

72

Refer to the master table which has all information about the children, their households and family in Appendix 1 (pg 241).

143 | P a g e

earlier, in Chapter 1); as domestic helps in baasha baadi, i.e. someone else’s home where

they are paid; at their own house as well as domestic helps; at home-based production

units like beedi making, silk weaving, etc.; those who are taken as apprentice, without

pay but with food and lodging; street hawkers who run their own businesses or run it

for someone else and earn a daily wage; those who wait tables and those who work as

wage labourers (porters, cart-pullers, shop assistants, etc.). Finally there are those who

earlier worked as wage labourers, but have currently quit all work in order to study. A

percentage break-up is shown in the following table.

Table 5: Distribution of Child Respondents according to work

Type of work Male Female %

Domestic Help (Away from home) - 3 7.89%

Domestic Help (& Own Household Help) - 6 15.79% Home Based work (& Own Household Help) 1 4 13.16%

Own Household Help 1 7 21.05%

Apprentice 4 - 10.53%

Self-employed 5 2 18.42%

Wage Labour 2 - 5.26%

Waiter 1 - 2.63%

No work 1 1 5.26%

When we add the three types of home-based work, the total number of children

working at home is approximately 50%. Such a huge percentage cannot and must not

be ignored when one wants to evaluate or understand anything in relation to child

labourers. Yet according to an NGO official working in coordination with the

government to run the NCLP schools (National Child Labour Project), this number is

never recorded in the official census. The above table also depicts that girls primarily

work at homes whereas majority of boys work outside. This is because housework is

considered to be a female activity.

Secondly the data shows that these children come from families with an average

size of 6.05, but of these households 94.74% belong to the income group earning less

than Rs. 3500 (about Euro 55) per month. Only 5.26% families earned about Rs. 5000

(about Euro 80). Considering that each family has 6 or more members, the share of

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each member, per day, is less than Rs. 20 (Euro 0.31), which is much less than the

international Below Poverty Line figure of $1.25 (Euro 0.88). 78.95% of these families

live in rented houses or shanties for which a bribe is paid to the police or the local goons

who control the area. 18.42% lived in their own houses which were mostly ancestral

property and for 2.63% the data isn’t available because some children weren’t allowed

to speak for themselves and their “uncle” for whom they worked was hostile.

The third point that emerges from the data is that the average level of education

among these families is low. Only 17.39% of their fathers attended primary school, the

rest 82.61% fathers and all the mothers were illiterates. This is because all of the

parents worked as labourers in their childhood as well. Similarly, all their elder siblings

attended primary school and then discontinued; whereas the younger siblings are

currently attending school (either primary school or the NCLP School). The children

themselves have an average of 3.6, that is, barring a few, most of the other children have

received education at least till 3rd grade. Out of the 38 children, 6 have never been to

school and two have dropped out for various reasons. This is visible in Table 6 which

depicts the level of education among the respondents.

Table 6: Level of Education among Child Respondents Status %

Current Drop outs 21.05% Enrolled in the Government Primary or Secondary School 52.63%

Have Never been to school 15.79%

Rest yet to go to school and are attending NCLP schools now 10.53%

In the table, by current dropouts, I mean those children who have either attended the

NCLP schools or primary schools and have left them after a brief period of time.

From the total number of children, about 44.74% have attended or are attending the

NCLP schools. Hence a progress in level of education through the NCLPs is visible, but

seeing the high dropout rates the problem of retention keeps coming back.

In Purulia, majority of the children from the NCLP School were from the Bauri

tribal group whereas the children from Singhbajar were from the Tanti caste (weavers).

The children in Jhalda were a mix of Kandu caste (historically this group is similar to the

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Bania caste that is a sub-division of the Vaishyas) and lower caste Muslims. All these

children were aware of their own caste. In Kolkata all the children were either Hindu or

Muslim migrants. Eleven out of the twelve children here had migrated alone or with

their parent/s from backward villages of North 24 Parganas, Bihar and Jharkhand, and

one was a resident of Kolkata according to his uncle who was also his employer. These

children had no idea about their castes but considered themselves as part of the poor

castes.

A group of five adolescent youths and six adults, who had been working since

they were 5-6 years old, were also interviewed to understand the trans-generational

impact of child labour. Of the five adolescents between the ages of 15-18, two were

females and three were males. One of the girls who rolled beedis had never been to

school. In the entire day she would either roll beedis or do household work to help her

mother. The other girl in Singhbajar, educated till 7th grade, knew how to spin silk yarn

but preferred to do household work than spinning. I also met another boy in this village

who did part-time work at a grocery shop, gave tuitions to younger children and studied

in 10th grade. Another adolescent boy came from the Muslim beedi rolling group who

did not wish to work as a beedi maker. He dropped out of school after 8th standard and

joined a nearby factory at the age of 14. The other boy left his village home in Bihar

after 4th grade and came to Kolkata with his father in search of work. After trying out

many different business plans, today the father and son duo run a business of bags in

New Market. Among the six adults, three were from the weavers’ village and three from

the beedi rolling village. At least two children in each of these households worked as

labour, either at home or as wage labourers. Apart from these, majority of the parents

of my child respondents were interviewed as well and their profiles are also provided in

the master table in Appendix 1.

Therefore to summarise the quantifiable characteristics, it can be argued firstly

that these children primarily engage in labour that is unaccounted for and non-

economic and there is a gender based division of labour. Secondly these families belong

to the backward communities and lower castes of the society and live way below the

poverty line, making them economically vulnerable. Thirdly, the level of education in

their families is extremely low and in many cases absent. Besides every parent was a

child labourer in his or her childhood. As a result, the level of education is low among

these children as well. The only respite is the NCLP School, because of which the

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number of dropouts stands only at about 21%. Otherwise the number would have been

as high as 50% of the entire group of respondents. In other words, lack of economic,

social and cultural capital defines the conditioning and the characteristics of the

respondents. However before advancing, I would like to draw attention of the reader to

the particular features of the immediate physical environment of these children through

an ethnographic lens, which has a direct bearing on their conditionings, thought

processes and dispositions, as demonstrated below.

II: Of surroundings - the physical space of a child labourer

Human beings occupy a position in the physical and social space, according to

Bourdieu. They are not ‘atopos or placeless but topos’ because they exist in the site

where an action is taking place (2000, p. 131). The respondents, as I have

demonstrated above, are on the lowest levels of all economic, social, cultural and

political hierarchies. This position in the social space, as Bourdieu argues is more or

less synchronised with the position in physical space as well. He draws upon the

distinction between smart areas and the working class areas highlighting the

connection between a ‘certain order of coexistence in terms of agents and a certain

order of distribution in terms of properties’ (2000, pp. 134–135). Bourdieu’s idea about

the association between a place and an agent is demonstrated in the following passage:

Everyone, therefore, is characterised by the place where he is more or less permanently domiciled (to be a 'vagrant', 'of no fixed abode’, is to lack social existence; ‘high society’ occupies the high ground of the social world). He is also characterised also by the relative position – and therefore the rarity, a source of material or symbolic revenues – of his locations, both temporary (for example, places of honour and all the precedences of all protocols) and permanent (private and professional addresses, reserved places, unbeatable views, exclusive access, priority, etc.). Finally, he is characterized by the extent of the space he takes up and occupies (in law), through his properties (houses, land), which are more or less 'space-consuming'. (2000, p. 135)

In simple words, when one talks about a house and the movable/immovable

property in it, values are immediately attached to each item and the features of the

house. For example, when I see an ornate and archaic sofa or bed in someone’s house

where everything else is modern, I would possibly think that it is family heirloom. This

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is because my own habitus is tuned to think that modern and old archaic furniture does

not fit together. Similarly, values are attached to the location of the house in the locality

and the position of the locality itself in the broader physical space of the city as well.

For example, a multi-storey building with spacious modern flats, right in the middle of a

slum area may not have as much value as it would have, if it were to be constructed in a

posh area of the same city. Such association of value to the physical dwelling is

universal in nature. At the moment I am living in Freiburg, Germany. In this quaint

little town, the area of Vauban has become famous for its eco-friendly houses and solar

panels whereas Herdern is considered to be the elegant and posh neighbourhood of

Freiburg with old and grand houses. So the moment I hear that someone lives in

Vauban (Wiehre area), I am inclined to believe that they use organic food and

ecologically produced consumer goods. Therefore it is imperative that I describe the

houses, the locality and the school in it, which form the immediate physical

environment of these children contributing to their habitus. I argued earlier in Chapter

2 that Bourdieu’s theory is relational, as each concept finds meaning in relation to

another. Consequently, in the field of social positions translate more or less in to

positions in the physical space, which determine the habitus of the actor as well. Child

labourers, who come from the lowest strata of the society, also occupy locations that are

at the lowest level of physical and topographical hierarchy.

II a: Kriti’s house

On visiting this locality, one finds a large number of small huts lined up one after

the other, often sharing one wall or having same boundaries. Kriti and her family of six

members have been living in such a house for the last 18-19 years. The walls are made

of mud bricks which help keep the house cool in summers and warm in winters73. The

outside wall therefore has a mud coating which also binds the bricks together. The roof

is made of clay tiles, and at some places there are portions which are thatched because

they need repairing. Kriti’s father, who pays Rs. 1000 (about Euro 15) as rent for this

place, thinks it is the responsibility of the landlord to repair it, but the landlord doesn’t

73

The weather conditions in Purulia are severe – in summers the temperature can go as high as 50 degrees, whereas in winters it could drop to 8-9 degree Celsius. Still in these conditions, the houses have no internal cooling or heating system or gadgets.

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have any intention to do so. There are other houses in this Bauri Para (locality) which

are made of baked bricks and mud and are painted with white or blue lime paint made

of slaked lime and chalk. Kriti’s family wants to leave this house, but there is no other

place available. The doorway is about four feet high, so one has to enter by bending

down a bit. The inside walls are coated with a combination of slaked lime and sand

whereas the floor is coated numerous times with the same mud used for binding the

bricks. A mixture of cow-dung74 and mud is used to coat the floor every day,

transforming the floor into a smooth surface. On entering this 10 sq.mts house, one sees

a small window at the opposite side of the door with metal bars in it. A thin cloth hangs

as a curtain on a wire tied to two nails on the either side of the window.

In the western corner lies a wooden cot of about 6-6ft size, with a few layers of

kantha or handmade quilts that serve as the mattress. Kriti, her younger brother, her

mother and her grandmother (paternal) sleep on this cot and the father and her elder

brother sleep on the floor. During summers, the men prefer to sleep outdoor in the

courtyard which is shared by the other three families in this small section. Two

cardboard cartons and a trunk with a padlock hanging on it are placed under the cot.

The cartons store some second-hand, old blankets and winter clothes that the mother

received from her employer; and the trunk75 contains some brass utensils and clothes

for special occasions. There is also a cane basket which is used to keep vegetables like

potatoes, onions, pumpkin, etc. The wall with the window has two posters – one of the

famous Bollywood actor, Aishwarya Rai (the eldest brother bought it as he is her fan)

and the other of Lord Ganesha on which a sola76 garland hangs (the elephant God in the

pantheon of Indian divinity). The wall on the east side has wires running along it, on

which clothes are neatly folded and hung. There is a small mirror as well on this wall.

Right in the centre of the room hangs a bulb which is connected to an electric wire

coming from somewhere in the roof. In the south-east corner of the house there is a

small kerosene stove, two big clay pots that store drinking water, a small pile of steel

plates & glasses, two cooking pots and four plastic jars containing rice, yellow lentils, oil

74

It is a well known fact that cow is the holy animal of Hindus. So its dung is also considered useful to ward of evils spirits and black magic. It is also supposed to be a powerful disinfectant. 75

A large aluminum container for storing luggage, with a hook for putting padlocks. 76

Sola pith is a white spongy wood obtained from certain type of plants growing in marshlands of Assam, Bengal, Orissa and Deccan. With a texture similar to thermocol, it is used to make decorations, flowers, etc.

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and salt respectively. There are a few small jars as well which possibly contain some

spices and sugar.

Khichdi (gruel made of rice and lentils) or phaena bhaat (stale rice soaked in

water overnight, eaten with raw onions and fried red chillies) or rotis (wheat flat-

breads) with some vegetable is the normal meal of the family. At times freshly caught

fish from some nearby pond is cooked and once a month, if possible, a mutton curry is

made. Since the father works at a sweet-meat shop, the family also has sweets now and

then, which is a rarity among most of the families here. On the southern wall two palm

leaf hand-fans and two hand-made sitting mats hang over two plastic stools, one of

which was given to me to sit on. While talking to the family, a tiny mouse came

scurrying near my feet. I was startled and a bit afraid as well, but the mother reassured

me that the family of mice living with them in the hut had possibly come out to explore

who the new guest was. With these meagre possessions and a life of hardships, the

family remains cheerful and hasn’t lost its sense of humour.

II b: The locality - Bauri Para, Singhbajar and Dongal

Thin and dirty criss-crossing lanes with open drains on both sides mark these

localities. Here, numerous houses are stacked next to each other like a group of match-

boxes. The houses are so close to each other that privacy as a notion doesn’t exist.

Many times the way to one house is through another house. Three to four families

share one courtyard which is a place for socialising, discussions, doing small activities

like feeding the child or sorting out vegetables/food grains. Neighbours help each other

carry out small tasks like making sun-dried lentil dumplings or grinding spices or

washing and cleanings food grains. Everybody knows what is going on in every house

of the locality due to the proximity of the houses. Thus, although the families are not

related by blood, they form a close-knit unit which not only acts as a security for each

family, but also as a social control unit. An informal relation of sharing exists, especially

among the immediate neighbours and mostly all material possessions are shared. For

example, if there is one television in the area, all members residing in the area are

allowed to come and watch together with the family. If there are guests at someone’s

place, utensils and chairs are also shared. Similarly, if one family is happy or sad, the

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entire locality joins either to celebrate or to grieve as the case might be. The closer one

observes them the more it becomes clear that even the thought processes and the

content of the talks/discussions are also communal in nature. Some may argue that this

is prevalent even in other parts of India as well, be it urban or rural. But I think the

heightened level of proximity is a special and unique feature of slum/poor dwellings

only.

In terms of the physical appearance of the locality, the second thing that one

observes is a cobweb of entangled wires hanging from a pole. At every lane one usually

finds a lamp post or an electric transmission line from which numerous wires are

attached that supply electricity to the nearby houses. Except the school building in

these areas, none of the houses have proper electricity. Aside from one house in the

Bauri Para, running water and taps are non-existent in these localities. There are two

municipality taps placed on different lanes which supply drinking water for one to two

hours, two times daily. The people queue up near these taps with pots and drums at

these particular hours. As a result, none of the houses have toilets or bathrooms and

neither do they have a septic tank. The wells, the hand-pumps and the small ponds in

these areas are the used for bathing and general washing purposes, while open spaces

and fields provide the places for defecation. The water sources are also the places for

washing utensils and clothes. Moreover, the ponds in the area are sometimes the end

destinations of the drains in the locality. Pigs, cows, chicken, goats and sheep which are

owned by people and the stray dogs roam around freely in the locality, defecating

anywhere they feel like. The domestic animals are let loose every morning to graze

freely and in the nights they are brought back to the courtyard of the owners. The

neighbouring areas are also similar in nature. The Bauri Para has one more important

feature: it is located right next to the red light area of Purulia, which has its own share of

influence on the people. One look at the green colour of the ponds in the area which is

murky and dirty or the amount of garbage including human waste strewn all over the

place; and one whiff of the stench coming from the drains or the lanes or even the ponds

can give a jolt to even hardened human beings. Yet the people in these localities have

been residing here for years, have produced their children here and have no plans, at

least in the near future, to leave it. This is where my respondents come from.

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II c: The school building & its infrastructure

Two considerably large rooms, a small office room and a toilet serve as the

primary school building for girls in the early morning (6.30am to 10.30am) and for boys

till afternoon (11am to 3pm). It is also the place where the NCLP School is held after

3pm. Due to issues of sanitation, the primary school buildings are used for NCLP

schools everywhere in India. However the toilet is for the teachers’ use only and the

children go out of the building to the open spaces which are normally used for this

purpose by them. The two rooms have two windows each, but since there have been

other constructions around this building, three of the windows cannot be opened

anymore77. So the rooms are dark and dingy in nature. The school building in the Bauri

Para has electricity, but the area is subject to power cuts, and quite often the students

have to study in complete darkness. This is particularly a problem here because in the

eastern part of the country, by 4.30-5 pm, especially during the winters, it starts getting

dark. The rooms have two dilapidated blackboards, eighteen long wooden tables and

benches and a steel cupboard in which the NCLP school supplies like stationary, raw

materials for handicraft, etc., are stocked. There are two big trunks with locks as well

which I assume stock the supplies for the morning primary school.

One room is the classroom for 1st and 2nd grades and the other room is for 3rd

and 4th grades. This means at the same time two different classes with two different

teachers and two different sets of children takes place in one room. The NCLP teachers

however teach the 2-3 children from 4th grade in the outside passage in front of the two

rooms in order to provide separate space to the 3rd grade which has the highest number

of students. While I was doing my fieldwork there, construction of a new floor and a

kitchen was being undertaken. Nationally, the government provides for a mid-day meal

to all children who attend the primary school. For this purpose, plates, utensils and

kitchen supplies are provided to these schools. Earlier, the kitchen was outside the

building on the opposite side of the school door in an open space. Due to hygiene

diktats, thankfully a new kitchen was being built. But as a result of ongoing

construction activities, a lot of building materials like wood planks, cement bags, etc.,

77

Refer to Appendix 1 for data on school infrastructure in Purulia District on page (248-249).

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were present in the classrooms. The primary school serves rice, lentils and vegetables

every day, mutton once a month and boiled eggs at times. The NCLP also provides for a

small snack which was normally cake or biscuits.

Regular family surveys and drives for increasing education awareness are

conducted in the locality to enrol all the children in the school. The primary school has

three permanent teachers for 141 enrolled girls and three teachers for 138 enrolled

boys, between the age group of 5-10 years. However the regular attendance was only

about 90-120 in each shift. Books, stationary and school uniforms are provided by the

government and the teachers get a salary of about Rs. 10000 (Euro 156). The teachers

belong to other localities and have different social backgrounds which were

unfortunately not possible to decipher due to limited interaction with them78. Grades 1-

3 have only four subjects, namely, Bengali, English, Maths and Vocational training,

whereas the 4th grade has three additional subjects – Science and Geography. The NCLP

School however has Science and Geography for both 3rd and 4th grade. For the NCLP,

there are four teachers for 50 kids who are paid a very small monthly stipend of about

Rs. 1500 (Euros 23) and there is an assistant who gets about Rs. 800 (Euros 12.50). The

head of the teachers resided in this locality earlier and hence knows all the families very

well; and the assistant currently lives here. The other three teachers come from

different localities, have simple backgrounds and treat their job as social work.

Yet this school is still better off because the primary section teachers come

regularly. In terms of the NCLP Schools also, this is one of the best in Purulia town. The

primary school in Singhbajar, which is right at the entrance of the village remains closed

for 3-4 months at a stretch. No one knows where the teachers are or where the

government funds for food and other supplies ends up. Some children who managed to

study here have now dropped out because the secondary school is 3kms away from the

village. They do not have any means of transport and walking such a distance,

especially for girls, is not considered safe. For Dongal, a primary school about 1 km

away from the village serves as the only point of education for the children here. But a

similar story of mismanagement and a complete breakdown of the Indian Primary

School system are evident here as well. A high school about 2kms away is the place for

those who are really interested to study. Here people have never heard of the NCLP 78

Since I was concerned with developing a rapport with the former child labourers, I concentrated on going to the NCLP School, meeting the children, their families and the NCLP teachers. Therefore I couldn’t devote enough time to know the teachers in the primary school.

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schools and even going to school for the midday meal is not prevalent. Teacher

absentee rates are high and the quality of education imparted is worrisome. Kurban,

one of the children I met in Kolkata, who had studied till 3rd grade, was unable to spell

his name in Bengali. With such conditions, education as an option is far from being

interesting and useful.

II d: The roadside shacks and shared dwellings in Kolkata

Like any other Indian city, where disparities between the urban rich and urban

poor are clearly visible, Kolkata too provides a perfect setting to understand the

influence of an urban structure on the thought processes of a child. However, having a

large share of international refugees and migrants turns it into a unique field area for

study. A research study79 on the slum areas in Kolkata highlights that among

households although there are three income categories – high Rs 1500-5000, medium

Rs 800-2300, low Rs 500-1500 – 80 % of the population earns between Rs 500-1700

(Kundu 2003, p. 7). With an average family size of 5.6, per person share per day is at

times even less than what people earn in Purulia. To live and do business in

unauthorised locations, the migrants and the other slum dwellers pay high amounts of

bribes to city officials, police and local brokers who arrange deals for them. Each year,

an estimated amount of Rs. 26.5 millions (Euros 414,876) is paid in form of bribes by

the 275,00080 street hawkers who do business on pavements. As a result the dwellings

and quality of life suffer. Shortage of urban space forces people to make shacks under

bridges or near railway tracks or major transport junctions or the famous canals81 of

Kolkata. Park Circus and the area around New Market have many such shacks made of

corrugated tin, cardboard, thermocol, bamboo and palm leaf mats, plastic and discarded

tarpaulins.

If one is staying in slum areas then he or she is part of communal social relations

similar to those in the Bauri Para of Purulia. However majority of the respondents lived

79

Due to the floating population of the street children in Kolkata and zero interaction with their parents, I have to rely on secondary data. 80

Ganguly (30/11/2006) 81

Canals in Kolkata are part of the drainage and sewage system of the city which serves as a dumping ground for majority of the waste water. These water bodies have a bad odour around them and are breeding grounds for numerous water-borne and insect-borne diseases.

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in isolated shacks where each family fends for itself, economically as well as socially and

emotionally. Irfan stayed with his father in a room which was shared with 6-8 other

people who together paid the rent. He did not even know what the other co-residents

did for a living, reinforcing the individualistic character of the urban space. Being a city

with high population pressure, a gross shortage of water, sanitation facilities and

electricity arises as well. Roadsides, open spaces and garbage dumps serve as sites for

defecation. For 5072 slums, there are only 25000 electric lights forcing people to use oil

lanterns or candles. There is one water tap for every 39 slum dwellers, of which 35%

do not work82. Sonia and her mother who live in a shack near Babughat, one of the

major ferry stops along Hooghly River, usually bathe and wash in the river. The mother

works as a cleaner in the government offices on the opposite Strand Road, while Sonia

travels every day after school with her father, who is a bus conductor, to Esplanade (a

hot-spot for tourists) to sell incense sticks with her other friends83. Yet she is lucky to

have a shack. Amir, who was new to Kolkata when the interviews were conducted,

worked as a help at a footpath stall in front of Grand Hotel, and each night he went with

his blind father to sleep under the nearby flyover.

Therefore to summarise, the physical characteristics of the dwellings of my

respondents are far from being pleasant, habitable and acceptable. Pictures at the end

of this chapter have been provided to give a visual impression of these locations and

conditions. They are marred with severe deprivations of basic civic amenities and

display unhygienic conditions which give rise to numerous diseases and problems. The

communal social relations in Purulia assert that lives of each of the families are

enmeshed with the others. Such tight social relations developing from proximity create

mechanisms of social control in these autonomous communities. However such social

pressure in Kolkata is lacking due to the individualised and isolated nature of the

dwellings. Except for survey officials, visits from teachers who are also considered as

part of ‘official government machinery’ and visits from people looking for cheap labour

work-force, these areas do not have visitors from the outside world. The dwellings

affect their habitus and they turn into secluded entities that are self-sufficient in nature

and their relation to the outside world is primarily an economic one. As a result when

people like me enter their domain, they are at first alarmed, then confused and finally

82

Indian Express (26/05/2008) 83

Refer to the map of Kolkata in Chapter 5.

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apprehensive about the outsiders’ intentions. In terms of the world, their own self-

worth is so low that all the respondents were genuinely surprised and curious about my

efforts to understand their lives. They don’t consider their own lives to be of any

interest to the ‘outside world’. Like all other communities, they also clearly distinguish

themselves from the outsiders and develop their own identities. Over the years these

identities transform into their own way of life where they have adopted their own set of

likes and dislikes which maintain their distinction with the wider society. These

dispositions and tastes of the respondents are discussed in the following sections.

III: Dispositions or characteristics and matters of taste

There is no doubt in the fact that children universally are similar. As babies, they

are like blank sheets of paper on which lines are drawn at every step by family members

and society. They are naïve young souls and their worldviews in initial years of their

lives mirror those of their parents and their immediate environment. They have no part

in shaping the world around them and take it as a given reality, which like nature is

transparent at places and opaque at others (Berger, Luckmann 1991, pp. 76–77). Being

born in a certain setting therefore means that children inherit the culture, the identities

and all the behaviours of that setting. The same is true for the children whom I

encountered during my fieldwork. Considering their low literacy rates, lack of

awareness, poor economic and social conditions and dwellings, they exhibit many

different traits which are quite different from children of the other higher classes who

clearly experience the phase of childhood. The latter go to school regularly, indulge in

extra-curricular activities and have ample resources for quality food and clothing for

which he or she doesn’t have to worry about. His or her parents who are educated at

least till a basic level (high school), if not more, provide the child an environment

conducive to enhance his or her capabilities. Child labourers, or at least the one I met,

differ from these ‘privileged children’ in terms of dispositions or characteristics and

tastes from the economically well-off higher class children.

Bourdieu in his work Distinction (2002) argues that cultural practices or the set

of dispositions that form the habitus of people are marked by the level of education they

have received and the nature of their social origin. These cultural practices, as he

demonstrates through his study of the French society, gives birth to patterns of

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consumption or tastes or likes and dislikes that become markers of class divisions as

well. This is possible, he argues, because there are tastes of necessity and tastes of

luxury. Every habit, be it preference for food or clothes, can be classified on this basis.

Following this, the first difference between the respondents and the children of other

higher classes is visible in the physical appearances and personal hygiene levels. Except

the children who were going to the NCLP School, which was very particular about

cleanliness, most of the other children wore dirty and at times torn clothes. Bathing

regularly or washing clothes regularly is not a popular norm. Children like Dola (13

years) and Pankaj (12 years) never wore slippers. They explained that they couldn’t get

used to the protruding part in the front of the slipper, because of which they kept

stumbling and tripping. From the moment they learnt to walk, they did not wear

slippers, so now even if they can afford, they are unable to wear them. Most of the time,

the respondents and their parents wear second-hand clothes because they cannot

afford to be fashionable and buy new ones. But when new clothes are bought, they

usually are the bright and fluorescent type, which the urban fashionistas would term as

‘tacky and gaudy’.

Moreover, food habits also make them different from the wider society. M. N.

Srinivas (1978, c1962) in his study of Indian castes writes that drinking liquor, eating

pig which is a scavenger or eating the meat of cow which is considered sacred, lower the

ritual rank of a caste. But these are also cheaply available sources of protein, and hence

form part of the diet of the communities studied (barring the Muslims who do not eat

pork). The Bauris are known to eat silk worms as well. Similarly, the occupation of

their parents accords lower social rankings to the respondents as well. Amir left his

school because he was bullied by his classmates for being a son of a butcher. Srinivas

(1978, c1962) argues that jobs that deal with dead animals, or dead human beings or

even the job of a barber are defiling occupations. Such conditions distinguish these

children from the wider society and reinforce caste based hierarchies.

The second trait that these children display, is that they have maintained what

Phillip Ariès calls as the medieval characteristic of European childhood, “the precocity

of the entry into adult life” (1973, p. 336). Children as young as 5-6 yrs know about the

hardships of their parents and get mentally prepared to take on responsibilities which

are at par with the adults in their households. This is not the case for the higher class

children. The day to day struggles the respondents and their likes see, transform them

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straight from babyhood to adulthood, without that in between phase of childhood. The

physical endurance they exhibit is tremendous. Like adults, they survive long working

hours and arduous conditions (like children working on streets have to be constantly

alert of cars, police officials and even human traffickers), with a happy face. Apart from

labouring side by side with adults, due to shortage of space, children are also part of all

the discussions and activities that the adults engage into. The only domain where

children are considered children is when it comes to deciding about them. Moyena’s

mother, after delivering her second baby had to re-join work as soon as possible as she

feared losing her job. Moyena was 4 years then, but she had to bear the responsibility of

being a mother and took care of her baby sister since then, whether she was capable or

not or whether she liked it or not. Later when she had another baby sister, she was 6

years old; she reprised her role again replacing the absent mother. An early sense of

responsibility and an absent childhood thus marks the habitus of children of both

Purulia and Kolkata.

The identity of being poor and holding a vulnerable position in the society is

another attribute that is strongly visible among them. Many times they know they are

being exploited, but the power and will to go against it, is lacking. Illiteracy and non-

familiarity with laws adds to this vulnerability. The high or low intensity of this identity

of being vulnerable is however dependent on the rural and urban setting as well. All the

respondents from Purulia live under the protection of their parents and depend on

them for their life decisions. Being poor and staying under the control of parents reifies

their vulnerable position. As a result, they were shy and difficult to talk to and had no

idea about their future. Barring two girls, every boy and girl interviewed in Purulia did

not even understand the question about future ambitions and dreams. Marriage as an

important step in future life however exists very strongly. Children of both genders try

their level best to enhance their skills to be eligible for the marriage market. In the

Bauri Para, a few of the boys were part of a team that organised local festivals like

Saraswati Puja. They collected donations from the community and also from outside

the community by way of stopping every vehicle on the road and asking the driver to

pay or continue standing there. This was a brave and smart way of getting money,

which added to their social prestige. Managing a social event or working as a promising

wage labour are prized skills for boys here. For girls, doing all housework along with

being proficient in handwork like knitting or making embroidered mats, are essential

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skills. In Jhalda, among the beedi making community, a girl’s value is measured by the

number of beedis she can roll in one day. Similarly among the daughters of the weavers,

knowing how to spin the silk yarn from the cocoons is the highest skill a girl can have.

Dilshad (10), an apprentice in a garage and Raghu (11), an apprentice at a tea-

stall, working in Kolkata, did not talk to me freely. They let their uncles with whom they

worked, be their spokesperson and quietly acquiesced to everything the seniors said.

They were again dependent on their uncles who provided them food and shelter.

However the sense of vulnerability was at a lower level among the other children in

Kolkata. Anima works for a family of four and does everything in the household. Her

employers provide her with everything that she needs and she is very vocal and

eloquent about her ideas. Also, she desperately wants to be married so she can lead a

different life. Possessing such an independent temperament is a common feature

among the other street children in Kolkata as well. Their constant interaction with the

outer world makes them street smart, easy to talk to, confident and independent with

innovative ideas and plans about the future. Most of the respondents knew about the

concepts of profit-loss and how to work around rules in order to be monetarily self-

sufficient. Marriage had no meaning in their immediate future. These children did

realise that they were poor, but they also knew how to use their poor and vulnerable

position to illicit pity among the passer-bys and tourists for vending their products. To

sell his table mats Rahul (11) often uses a story, that he is an orphan who wants to go to

school and he needs money to buy books, although he is already going to school and

lives with his parents. Unsuspecting tourists, who don’t know that government schools

provide these books for free, believe such stories and would buy the mats, sometimes at

even high prices. Children who belong to a protected setting with a limited worldview

tend to be more compliant than those who have been exposed to a larger horizon.

Consequently, a habitus of acquiescence and conformation among children hailing from

such backward villages of India is visible and it is these children who are in high

demand in the informal job market.

Hence to summarise, the child labourers are subject to different type of

conditionings which lead to a different type of habitus that is exhibited in their

character as well as in their day to day behaviour. They look different from the wider

society in terms of clothing, levels of cleanliness and have different likings for food.

They understand that they are economically weak and shape their tastes and

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dispositions to fulfil one or the other necessity. Pressures of sustenance do not allow

them the luxury of having a phase called childhood. Except being considered as children

during decision-makings, in every other walk of life they are similar to the adults. Be it

types of clothes or talks, there is nothing that is clearly for children. As a result, most

children accept an identity of being multi-dimensionally vulnerable and they turn

unconsciously (although willingly) into mere puppets in the hands of either parents or

their employers or even the situation. A closer look on how they speak about their own

lives and what is the content of their thought process will further demonstrate the type

of habitus that these children possess in a more profound manner. In the next section,

stories of children and their lives followed by an analysis of their talks has been

undertaken.

IV: Children’s versions of their own lives

Ashima – 13 years (Bauri Para-Purulia)

“My father is a cycle-rickshaw puller. It is a rented rickshaw and there is a fixed

rent of Rs. 1584 that he has to pay its owner no matter how much he earns in the day.

My mother works as a domestic help. I wake up in the morning at 5.30am and do the

usual housework. I start by cleaning the cooking area that is normally left dirty from

previous night, make the tea and then take previous night’s utensils to the pond to

wash. By the time I am done with these initial chores, my mother is already off for her

job as a domestic help. Then I serve some left-over food or rice puffs with onion and oil

to my other 4 siblings (younger than me) and father and then leave for my job. My

mother and I eat our breakfast at our employers’ place which is normally left-over food

from their previous night dinner. I am working at a house with 5 members. I clean their

house, wash utensils and clothes and fill their pots with drinking water from the

municipality tap. By 10.30 I have finally time to eat the breakfast they have given. Then

I return home and clean the house as my mother returns only in the afternoon. I take

the dirty clothes to the pond, wash them and also take a bath. Then I cook the food for

lunch, I like making khichdi (gruel of rice and lentils) because it cooks very fast. This

saves me time to study a little. My parents and siblings eat lunch and go to do their

84

Equivalent to Euro 0.22 cents

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respective activities. Bonani (7) helps me with work as she is still young for school. But

Buban (10) and Rahul (11) go to the NCLP School. Earlier they both used to go to the

primary school but do you know how it works?” (I say no). (She laughs) “The teachers

knit woollen stuff in winters or do other handicraft work which they bring along from

home or simply sit and chat with each other. They are least bothered as to what is going

on in the classes. In summers they sit in the class under the fans and in winters they sit

outside in the sun doing every possible activity other than teaching. Why do you think I

left the primary school? With this kind of education, it was better to work and earn

where at least I brought back money to my father. My employers are good people, I like

to play with their 8 year old kid and usually, after I have done the housework, my next

task is to take care of her. Sometimes I go back during lunchtime to play with the kid

and they feed me. In this way I don’t have to eat at home (saves a meal portion at our

home). They let me even rest once in a while and have been good to me so far. I have

heard stories where the employers are very horrible with their servants, but this is not

my case. So am happy with this situation as along with work, I am studying in 3rd grade

at the NCLP School. When I come back home after school (the NCLP School), I spend

some time for studying before starting to help my mother with making dinner.

Evenings are more relaxed than mornings, so at times I am even allowed to watch

movies or soap operas in Hindi or Bengali. My parents will decide for me what I would

do next…I don’t understand what you mean by future plans. I mean I have to marry of

course, but apart from that I don’t know anything else. My parents do that planning for

me”.

Shalini – 12 years (Bauri Para-Purulia)

“My father works at a coal godown (warehouse) and my mother is a housewife. I

have a little sister, age 6, Moina and an older brother Beju who is about 15/16. We live

in our own house. I wake up in the morning at 6am with my parents and help mother

clean the kitchen and start the fire in the clay stove. She makes tea for us and then Baba

leaves for work. My elder brother is of no use as neither does he work nor does he

study. He has only studied till 4th class and now spends most of his time wandering

around. While Ma goes and cleans the dishes from the last night, I and Moina prepare

something for breakfast like moodi and daal (rice-puffs and lentils). Baba has a bicycle

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so he can freely move around, and he comes back for lunch at home (cycle and coming

back home are luxuries here, just as getting a warm food for lunch). We are one of the

well to-do-families here. We have our own Saraswati Pujo (celebration of the Hindu

Goddess of Learning). We bring a small idol, do the ceremonies ourselves and cook a

khichudi bhog (an offering to Gods made of rice, lentils and vegetable) for about 20

people. I want to study more, so I pray to Goddess Saraswati (the Goddess of

Knowledge), that she allows me to study and find a good job. My parents allow me to

study, send me to tuitions, but sooner or later I would be married of too and then I

would have to do what my husband says. I can cook everything and do all housework

because Ma is generally ill and being the eldest daughter I must take care of the house

and do all the chores. So Ma says I am almost ready for getting married and in 1-2 years

she would start looking for a suitable groom for me. In our families (our locality) it is

normal for a girl to marry at 14-15 or else it’s not good they say. The older a girl gets the

more difficult it is for her to get married. I would do what my parents want me to do.”

(After repeated probing) “I think I want to be a nurse. A nurse is very good lady, she

helps the doctors and she knows about illnesses. I like her white dress too. I hope I can

be a nurse one day. But I don’t know if I would be allowed to or not. Baba and Ma would

decide that for me.”

Chaya – 12 years (Bauri Para-Purulia)

“I have one brother about 4 years of age and we are 4 sisters between the ages of

8-12. I work as a domestic servant like my sister who is 10-1185. My father is a

rickshaw puller and mother is also working as a domestic servant. I normally wake up

at 5.30am, clean the fireplace and make the fire for tea. Then I take the utensils from last

night to wash at the nearby pond and go for my work at the 2 houses – one from 7am

and other from 9am. The second one is a Marwari house and they pay me well, Rs. 500

(Euro 7.65) unlike first house which is of Bengalis who pay only Rs. 200 (Euro 3). I do

the same amount of work at both the houses like cleaning, washing clothes and utensils.

But I get treated very badly at the Bengali house as they are very strict. If I am late, they

scold me and even deduct my salary if for some reason I am unable work for a day or

85

Saying the exact age was always a problem as most of these children have no birth certificates.

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two. I continue working there because they usually give me a good breakfast which

makes me happy. After I finish work at around 11am I come back home and clean the

house. I take care of my other siblings while my sister Santona goes for her work.

When she returns, together we cook lunch, eat it with the other siblings and keep the

rest of the food for my parents. They come back when they have time, most often at the

time when I am away for the NCLP School. Later in the evening I sometimes study, but

at times I am so tired that I prefer to chat with my friends and relax. I like to study, but I

can’t leave my work and just study. I would really like to study hard and work well. But

I can’t do both. My parents don’t like it that I study. At times when I don’t feel like going

for work, my father threatens me by saying that “no work means, no study as well”.

After a lot of discussion with Binoy Sir (the head teacher at the NCLP school), they

allowed me to study but don’t regard it as important. So even if I have done everything

in the house, and then try to revise what has been done in school, it is highly

discouraged by my parents. Sometimes due to work I miss school but since Binoy Sir is

very flexible with the times, it’s easier for me to attend. Once this school finishes, I

would not be able to continue studies, no matter how much I want to. Bigger schools

have tighter time schedules and stricter rules. I will not be able to juggle between work

and studies then. So I know I have to give up studies one day, this is how everyone is

destined to operate here and no one can do anything about it.”

Amit – 14 years (Bauri Para-Purulia)

“I think I am 14 years old and I have 2 sisters. One is about 16 years old and she

has studied till 4th standard. The other is around 7 or 8 and is studying in class 1 now at

the primary school. My mother never went to school and now works as a domestic

servant. I don’t want to leave school ever as I like studying. I was one of the few

students in the NCLP School who had excellent attendance record and even now when I

go to this new school, I have no intention of leaving it or being irregular. As I was good

in my studies, after I finished the NCLP School last year, I was one of the only two

children in this community who got admission in one of the best government schools in

Purulia. Unless some big problem comes, I will continue. If it requires for me to work in

the evenings and study in the morning to pay for my school, I will do that. Since the

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death of my father last year life has been hard for us. But mother says that I don’t have

to work as of now. She and my elder sister would provide for us. My elder sister

anyways didn’t want to study and was getting into bad company. So mother decided to

send her for work and let her be useful for the family. I want to fight all the odds in our

life and some day work well, make money and move out of this community with my

family. This area ruined my father, who got into a habit of drinking because of his

friends and died of liquor poisoning. Now my elder sister also tarnished our image

because she was a friend of Deepti86, the characterless girl who eloped with her

boyfriend. But I don’t know if fate would be on my side or not.”

Zoya – 11 years (Dongal)

“I left school last year because it was useless. There was one teacher for the two

schools of Belladi and Deondra and as a result he was mostly absent. Even the midday

meal that was promised to all students was not given to us. Then the school remained

closed for 6-7 months, so father decided that it was of no use to waste time walking a

kilometre to a school where there were no studies. Now I roll beedi the whole day.

Earlier I used to make about 300-400 beedis, but now with all the time in the hand I can

roll up to 800 a day. At times I help in household chores as I don’t have any other

younger sisters. I have one older sister who is married now and have 4 brothers. Since

none of the boys in our village want to roll beedis anymore, 3 of my younger brothers

still go to school. As soon as they would be 13-14 they too would seek work. Our eldest

brother has gone to Jamshedpur to work as an apprentice for my uncle who is a tailor

there. My father is a rickshaw puller and my mother also rolls beedis in her free time.

He took a loan of Rs. 80000 (Euro 1250) for the marriage of my elder sister and must

repay soon or the interest rates would get higher. So I must help my father repay this

loan. I wish I could also work in the nearby plastic bag factory where all the older boys

of our village work and earn more money, but father says it is unsafe for a girl to go that

far and work in a factory. Therefore from morning to evening I must roll beedis.”

86

Mr. Binoy (the head teacher at the NCLP School) said that Deepti is a notorious girl from this Bauri Para. She used to drink, smoke at the age of 14-15 and had many boyfriends. At times she never returned home in the nights and the rumor is that she was working in the nearby brothel. Hence anyone who was seen in her company was considered a ‘ruined’ girl.

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Kurban – 12 years (Park Circus – Kolkata)

“I have been helping my uncle (mother’s brother) since last 2-2 ½ years when I

left school forever. I hated school because two of my classmates, Vicky and Chotu used

to always abuse me verbally and at times were beating me up too. They made fun of me

because occasionally I worked for my father who was a butcher by profession or helped

another uncle to make leather chappals (slippers). They used to bully me constantly,

tear my copies and take my pencils away. When I made a complaint to the teacher, they

beat me up very badly. The disinterested teacher also did not take any action, so I left

school. Soon things got worse for us; my father’s shop ran into troubles because he

began to drink which is a sin for Muslims and my mother began to perpetually stay ill.

So I started working at this uncle’s shop as a helper. Although my father drives a taxi

now, when he is sober, he spends most of his money on gambling and liquor. Hence I

have to work to support my mother and my younger sister who is studying in 2nd grade.

I earn Rs. 600 (Euro 10) per month and my uncle gives the salary to my mother. He is a

good man and provides us with food and shelter as well. When I grow up, I want to

repay him in some way for the good things he is doing for us. I like to study; sometimes

I sit with my sister and help her out too, but I don’t want to study. There is no use in it

because teachers are partial and make fun of our poverty. So I pray each day to make

money and be a butcher one day. Otherwise I would simply work in the leather factory

here making bags and shoes. A few more years, and then I will take care of everything.

All this is because my father has left no other option for me.”

Irfan – 14 years (Kolkata – New Market)

“I came from Giridih, Bihar a year back with my father. We have a relative here

who runs small businesses and knows some of the local powerful people. They helped

us start our business. My father has a jewellery shop on the footpath and I move around

the whole market with a tray full of safety-pins, hair bands and hair clips. In this way I

reach out to more customers and can also invite them to see our jewellery shop. We

started with Rs. 250 (Euro 4) with which we bought stuff from Barabazar, the wholesale

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market of Kolkata. Each day I am able to sell stuff worth Rs. 250-300 (Euro 4-5) and

slowly our business is increasing. Now once every 2 or 3 days we get stuff worth Rs.

300 from Barabazar and we make a profit of Rs. 100-150 (Euro 2) per day. This is good

for me as I have learned how to create profits and evade rules of this big city but I want

more from life. When I was living in Bihar, I studied in a school till 4th grade but it was

useless for me. Neither did we have proper teachers nor did we have books to study.

The teachers were least interested in teaching us and that is why today I don’t even

know how to spell my name. So, father and I decided to come here to Kolkata after our

relative told us about the options for doing business here. But I won’t stay here long; I

want to go to Bangalore and become a cook. My cousin works there at a restaurant and

has told me that one can earn up to Rs. 10000 (Euro 155) if one learns how to cook

properly. I intend to go there in a few months and leave this job of wandering around

with a tray.”

Ajit – 12 years (Kolkata – Esplanade)

“I work as an apprentice at a food stall in one of the most popular office localities

in Kolkata. This is my uncle’s shop, but nowadays I manage most of it. We both live at a

shack behind the Tipu Sultan Masjid, which is an ideal area for people like us because of

its cheap rents. Am up at about 5.30 am and I light the wood to make a fire for boiling 5

kg of potatoes. By 6.30am my uncle leaves for the fish market and gets fresh fish for the

day’s menu. By the time he is back I am done chopping onions and other things that are

used to make a potato curry. Then after cooking the curry, I carry it to our footpath stall

on the S.N.Banerjee road. We have another helper who is about 17 years of age and is

the son of a friend of my uncle. Together we start up things there, like kneading the

dough for the luchi (fried flat bread) and prepare the utensils for serving. By 7.30 am

we start selling the potato curry with luchi to the daily commuters and office goers for

Rs. 5 (Euro 0.07 cents) per plate. This goes on till about 10am and then both of us take

turns to bathe, eat and freshen up for the next round of cooking. We make fish curry, a

lentil dish and a vegetable and by 12.30 in the afternoon we start selling these dishes

with boiled rice or rotis for Rs. 15 (Euro 0.25 cents). It’s full action time, because we

have to work fast and cater to all our customers at one time. So Shibu, the other boy

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keeps making fresh rotis and uncle keeps serving. I keep cleaning the dishes and

provide second-helpings or water to our customers. By 3pm or 4pm all the food is

finished and we eat our share. Uncle says it is not good to eat in front of the customers

and we obey this rule. In the evenings we clean all the utensils of the day and close shop

to head back to our shack. Uncle is never there in the evenings as he meets his friends

to drink and gamble. I like to spend this free time wandering around the city.

Sometimes uncle gives me little money like Rs. 5, but most of the time he never pays

anything to me because he says he would send my share of Rs. 1000 (Euro 15) to my

parents in the village. I know he can send more, but since he feeds me and lets me stay

with him, and has even taught me everything I know about this business today, I don’t

fight with him. My parents also feel obligated to my uncle for his kind behaviour and

have ordered me to continue working for him. I will see what I would do later, but as of

now this life is good for me. Living freely in a big city like Kolkata and getting food to

eat is much better than staying in a village of Bihar and sleeping with a hungry stomach

on most of the nights.”

V: An understanding of the talks of children

A series of recurring themes and ideas are evident in these above mentioned

stories of the child labourers. I have already argued that the characteristics of the

physical environment have a great impact on the thought processes of a child. They

lead to a certain set of traits and dispositions that further crystallises their habitus. In

this section I would decipher the codes that can be observed in the way they talk about

their own feelings, their work, their family, relations within the family and the relations

with the broader society. I would argue that a combination of these codes makes the

habitus of working. The first code that emerges from the talks contains the unexplained

taken-for-granted rules that the children adhere to. The second code is related to the

rules by which they distinguish themselves from the others or those ideas that display

the presence of latent hierarchies. The third code consists of personal feelings about

their situation. Each code has a set of themes in it that together give rise to a habitus

marked by insecurity, lack of self-worth, ignorance and high levels of endurance. This

categorisation has been done below.

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V a: The unexplained and misrecognised rules

While talking to the children one notices that they constantly refer to some

unwritten rules which cannot be broken. They themselves do not have answers to these

rules, as in who made them or why must they follow them. But they still follow them

unquestioningly. In other words any event in their life that is beyond their own control

is a rule or a norm. Also, certain mechanisms are misrecognised that denote meanings

for the children, which are in a complete contrast to what they actually mean. This is

manifested in the numerous themes visible in the stories of the children. “Time is

money” emerges as the most important theme among the respondents. Children accept

their reality that they are poor by being born in those groups of the society which are

backward and vulnerable. Therefore working for these children is a duty towards their

family to help them come out of the conditions of poverty. This converts an idle child in

to a burden for the household, especially when it is a girl. Many young boys in the Bauri

Para between the ages of 8-11 did not work at all. They could play, go for school, take

tuitions and have a good life. The same age boys in Kolkata however worked because

life was harder in the city. Rahul (11) sells mats and plastic masks at the New Market

(Kolkata) because his father who is a bus conductor spends his salary on drinks. His

mother, a rag picker, cannot provide alone for the family of four, so Rahul juggles

between school and work since he was 9 years. Moyena’s story depicted that girls on

the other hand, no matter how young they are must help in the household. Since the age

of 4, she has taken care of her baby sisters.

Similarly, the eldest sibling, irrespective of the gender, must work and the

youngest one may have respite from working if there is a long line of siblings before him

or her. All the respondents who were the eldest in their family, worked whereas

children like Maani (13), who was the youngest daughter in her family, did not work.

Maani has five older sisters, two of whom have been married already and the three

others are working as domestic help. By way of marriage, in a family of 11 two have

already left. For the rest 9, the income of 6 (3 daughters, 1 son and 2 parents) is

sufficient. Therefore when the teachers of the NCLP School motivated this family to

send Maani to school, it was easier to let go off her meagre income of Rs. 150 (Euro 2.30

cents). Her youngest brother, who is 10 now, has never worked either.

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Further, working children depend economically on their parents as the

salaries/wages are paid to their parents instead of them. Although they work for long

hours, they have no control over the money they earn. None of the respondents had the

liberty to use the money they earned to fulfil their own desires. Not having rights to the

money earned is unfair and is another form of exploitation. However these children did

not feel so and viewed this lack of economic control as a norm and a gesture of

selflessness. They saw their work as a help or duty in return of the care and protection

that a family or an uncle gives. In case of domestic workers, even low salaries are

accepted by children because they are fed two-three meals a day, which saves their

share from their own parents’ household. The misrecognition of exploitation was

demonstrated the most in the unpaid apprenticeships. Dilshad (10), an apprentice at

his distant uncle’s garage had been working there for 1 and ½ years. As usual, school

education was dismal and there were no future prospects in his village in Bihar, so his

parents sent him to his uncle in Kolkata. At the garage he has learnt everything about

cars and is provided food and shelter. But he is not paid anything. Neither does the

uncle send any money to the boy’s family in Bihar. It is a case of bonded labour under

the pretext of care and a promising future. But Dilshad himself doesn’t think so. He is

grateful to his uncle for saving him from being a wasted boy who would have ultimately

ended up being engaged in illegal activities.

The theme of early marriage is very strong and important as well. Girls must be

married young because after 15 or 16 it would be difficult to find a groom for them.

Hence before they marry, they must learn all housework which is a qualification that

would reduce the amount of dowry demanded. Boys on the other hand must marry by

19-20 and by then, they must earn well in order to be able to demand a high dowry and

an efficient wife. So to earn well, they must learn to work early.

Kriti (14) said, “I never learnt to do housework because my parents wanted

that I study. Since I was 7 they sent me to the government school, but I learnt

nothing there and dropped out after 1 year. Then when the NCLP School started, I

got enrolled, studied and went for tuitions too. So again my parents didn’t make me

work. But since last year when the NCLP School got over, I started to learn

housework and help my mother or else my father would have to pay a higher dowry

for my incompetence.”

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Another theme that it is the fate of poor people to suffer is reflected in their reactions to

different events. As said earlier, they differentiate their lives from those of the higher

and better classes/castes and argue that poverty is the root to all their problems. For

instance, numerous reasons lead to frequent deaths in the family. Problems like

drinking habits, early marriages leading to early motherhood, lack of access to quality

medical services, unhygienic living conditions, malnourishment and lack of awareness

about good practices to enhance quality of life, lead to untimely death of kids or adults.

The 12 year old sister of Pankaj (12) died when he was about 4 years as she was a weak

child. But he said, ‘It is normal in our communities to lose family members frequently

and untimely. What can we do about it? Nothing…” Therefore a host of unexplained

events are shrouded by the all-encompassing problem of fate and poverty.

Finally every strategy they undertake is a means of survival, and some of them

are again misrecognised mechanisms. Schools do not give immediate returns; hence

studying is misinterpreted as non-profitable. Income on the other hand, which is a short

term benefit of work, makes it more lucrative to these children and beneficial for their

families. Bad infrastructure of the government schools and lack of resources to go to

private schools further provide justifications to keep away from education. Similarly,

cheating someone or gambling or spending money on lotteries is common among these

children and their parents, because such practices are misinterpreted as quick sources

of making money. The rationale behind the fact that many child labourers get involved

in illegal activities, is also this. In simple words unexplained beliefs that the

respondents hold and misrecognised strategies they employ produce a whole array of

justifications that influence their idea of working as labourers.

V b: The latent hierarchies

Child labourers fall prey to a host of inequalities that are not manifested directly

but are latent in nature. They may knowingly or unknowingly face inequalities at a

subconscious level provided by the structure where they are set in. The most common

inequality that is visible is the difference between activities of girls and boys. Since

there is a dominant preference for a male child in the Indian society, girls

unquestioningly consider themselves inferior to boys. They acknowledge the fact that

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due to safety issues, it is best that they perform home-based jobs and the boys perform

outdoor jobs. A clear division of labour exists as a result. For Pankaj (12) whose sister

died when he was very young and who has another younger brother (8), helping his

mother in household activities is an exception. He cooks, cleans and washes utensils

before going for his classes at the NCLP School in the afternoon. He doesn’t like

housework and feels ashamed to talk about his work among his other male friends who

are involved in ‘manly’ activities like being wage labourers. He said, ‘Had my sister been

alive, I would have never done all this housework. But since she is not, I have to do

everything now. My mother doesn’t like the way I wash clothes, so it is the only

housework I don’t do, otherwise I am proficient in every activity related to a household.

She says I don’t clean them enough, but it’s good that she doesn’t like my work. I can

use this time to study and relax.” A girl’s education is also dispensable for the

betterment of her brother’s life. As demonstrated earlier this was one of the reasons for

which Amit’s sister left school.

Secondly, these children, almost willingly accept the lowest position in their

family hierarchy. As they are economically and socially dependent on their parents,

they must be completely obedient to them. Arguing for their own rights with the

parents is therefore never an option. Whether it is the decision to work or the decision

to marry or decisions about their future, everything is in the hands of their parents.

Children like Chaya (12) whose parents disapproved of her studies often said that she

was fighting a losing battle with her parents. Kriti (14) who stays at home now is being

compelled to marry. Her father has already started looking for a match and some boys

already came with their families to meet her for a marital alliance. Though Kriti doesn’t

want to get married and understands the ill implications of early motherhood, she

doubts that she would have her say in front of her parents.

These children are also subconsciously alert about their inferior position in the

society. Every child in Purulia, where caste divisions are strong, knew about his or her

caste. In Kolkata, the class consciousness was more dominant. Whatever is the

character of the division, all the respondents knew well about their position in the social

structure. They knew that they were from an unprotected, insecure and helpless group.

They feel that even the larger society is disinterested in knowing them or helping them.

Their perception that the teachers didn’t like to teach them or their curiosity and

confusion regarding an outsider like me, clearly demonstrated that they did not

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consider themselves worthy of attention. Maani (13) argues that the percentage of girls

in the Bauri Para who left the primary school was high because according to her the

teachers were less sincere about them. She said, “My community is at the lowest level of

the society and to add to it, we are girls, so the teachers have no interest in teaching us.

None of us girls are ever going to do something big, so teachers also don’t want to invest

their time in us”. At another time, when I was telling them the story of Santa Claus,

Bikram (14) firmly argued that Santa Claus would never come for them. He said, “We

are not lucky children like you and your friends. Besides we live very far from Santa, in

this small community in Purulia; I am sure he doesn’t know about this place and would

never hear what we have to say.” Piu (11) is a domestic help whose father is a

drunkard. Although she was often mistreated by him and had to work a lot because of

which she wasn’t regular at the NCLP School, she was one of the most cheerful girls I

saw in the school. Once she sat next to me and compared her palms with mine. She

then remarked, “Look how beautiful your palms are and look at mine…they are hard

with deep, dark lines and have such little flesh in them unlike yours.” Making a

distinction between themselves and the wider society is a common practice among

these children.

As these children feel inferior to the rest of the society, it is very important for

them to maintain their social prestige in their own community. Performing well in

studies or earning good wages gives a sense of pride among these children. Whereas

when some child fails or is reprimanded in the school, it amounts to be the biggest

reason for dropping out from studies. Kurban (12) the son of a butcher left school

because of being bullied by other kids, which remained unchecked by the teachers. Ajit

(12) on the other hand left school because he had failed in all subjects and was too

ashamed to face his classmates again. Having irregular attendance, inability to keep up

with class syllabus and low aptitude for English language invited the wrath of teachers,

especially where one teacher is catering to more than 60 children at a time. This too

negatively impacts their own social pride and forces them to leave school. Considering

the high degree of social controls in this closed communities, being in company of

wrong people, engaging in illegal activities, violent behaviour and having vices also

dilutes one’s prestige.

Finally another type of distinction can be seen which is of a different nature.

Education was an added asset for only two children in the entire dataset. Shikha (13) is

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one of the two most intelligent students in the Bauri Para who now attends a reputed

government school because she performed extremely well in her entrance exams. She

wears a prim and proper school uniform and regularly goes to school. When I met her

last year, she used to acknowledge that she was a former child labourer. But this year

when I met her again, after she had joined the reputed school, she completely denied to

have worked earlier. She has slowly begun to disassociate herself from her community

life by not interacting much with the other girls. Under the pretext of studying, she

usually avoids her friends. She possibly wishes to gain acceptance in the peer group of

her new school which means she would soon like to totally give up her former child

labourer image, and cross over to the larger society leaving the community behind.

Education has provided her a way into the wider society and now she differentiates

herself from her own community. Similarly, Amit (14) whose sister is known for being

in the ‘bad company’ has started to disassociate himself from her. Mr. Binoy said, since

the news about the girl’s character spread in the community, he clearly evades any talks

related to her. To sum up the section, most child labourers accept themselves as one of

the most inferior and weakest groups in the society. This insecurity further shapes their

ideas on working.

V c: Their emotions and feelings about their lives

As a consequence of their life situations, the talks of the children reflect feelings

about their lives which are clouded by low self-esteem, confused ideals and ignorance.

These children are like any other average higher class/caste and well to-do children

with similar wants and demands from life. Most children want to study and live a life

without work. They don’t want to worry about the fact that where would the money for

the next meal come from. They want to spend their days either by studying or by

playing. They don’t want to face the rude behaviour of their employers, neither do they

want to be scorned or stigmatised by the larger society for being part of a lower

community. When given the right guidance, many of them exhibit a smart and

intelligent brain. Some children had an excellent knack for drawing, painting or doing

intricate hand embroidery. With training, they can sing, dance, recite poems and

perform plays as well like any other kids. But every feeling gets changed the moment

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they are hit by the ground realities. The low social and economic background of their

families, the poor conditions of their dwellings and the host of socio-economic problems

they encounter in their day-to-day life transforms everything.

Multidimensional poverty displaces study and brings in work instead. Work and

not study becomes a way to gain social prestige. Except in few cases, working is an ideal

situation because it helps them get rid of their problems, at least momentarily. In the

absence of good infrastructure education is not profitable; therefore it is more often a

waste of time. Consequently, even though some would like to study, they don’t want to

study. Children also said that, had they known that they would continue studying

forever, get a good job and have a better life, then maybe it would have been of use. But

most of them weren’t sure of their future and the role of education in it. Therefore the

majority of them thought that few years of education was a waste of time. Rather it

would be better to work, earn and learn skills. They also face a constant dilemma

because their uneducated parents and partially educated peer group (or older siblings)

present an atmosphere of working whereas the NCLP School propagates the opposite.

An absence of role models who can show that education and not work is profitable

severely effects this dilemma. Further, some children preferred to learn vocational

skills than the normal school curriculum. They argued that it was better to learn skills

which could be used later to make products and do a business with them. Children like

Irfan and Kurban had concrete future plans and were confident that they would have a

good future in a few years. They were proud that in their respective villages and

communities, they were the first to earn or do business. This was a matter of prestige

for both of them.

They have never heard of the Child Right’s Convention, but they knew that in

some ways they were being exploited. Their helplessness consequently leads to low

self-esteem and feeling of being the victims of every situation. Constantly fearing loss of

jobs or horrible behaviour from employers makes them insecure and reduces their

ability to stand up against exploitation. Even when it comes to their position in the

family, girls especially, expressed frustration. Those who were regular students at the

NCLP School knew that early marriage lead to high infant mortality and high maternal

mortality. Yet they could not do anything about it because ultimately the power to

marry them off lay in the hands of their parents.

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Child labourers therefore face a totally different scenario and have a thought

process special to them. They belong to a group in the society which lives in a different

atmosphere altogether. Such children wear second-hand clothes and eat leftover food;

the first thing that they do when they wake up in the morning is not think that they have

to go to school, but think about the work that they would have to undertake in the day;

they don’t have toys to play with or have nutritious food like fruits and milk; they see

from the day to day the struggle to survive. Many a times, their custodians don't bother

about their well being but want peace and trouble free life at the end of the day. For this

they feed them harmful things like local liquor that can put them off to sleep or just keep

them in suspended mode so one can avoid them87. Such practices develop into cultural

practices that continue over generations. Thus develops a culture of poverty which also

gives birth to a culture of child labour in a society as would be argued in the next

section.

VI: Culture of poverty leading to a culture of child labour

Oscar Lewis (1959) wrote about hard living conditions, poor socio-economic

status and lack of civic amenities in his study of the five Mexican families in 1959. In

detail he had documented how the poor families in Mexico developed practices that

emerged from their living conditions which was not only an adaption to the social

structure but was also a reaction of the poor to their marginal position in a class-

stratified, highly individuated, capitalistic society. High level of poverty leading to high

debts, low regard for education ushering illiteracy and a feeling of helplessness, defined

these families. The five families of this study, with 6-8 members each, struggled to

change things like clay/kerosene stoves into gas ones, to provide basic things like

stomach-filling food, slippers and clothes to their children, and somehow device

strategies to augment their income. As a result cultural practices emerged which these

families adopted to answer their problems, which were even passed on to next

generations. Children as young as 4-5 began to absorb these practices thus leading to a

87

A news channel reports that parents in tribal areas of the Mahbubnagar district have been using adulterated locally-brewed alcohol to put their children to sleep while they head out to work. The channel showed that a five-year-old was drinking local beer. Because of troubles in accessing some part of these villages, the heath authorities say find it tough to deliver milk to poor families. They also say that culturally, tribals here have a long tradition of giving toddy to their children (NDTV 30/06/2011)

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culture of poverty. I am writing about such conditions prevailing in 21st century India,

where majority of the population leads a life that is structured by poverty, which is not

only economic, but also social, cultural and political.

Numerous authors who have worked on the issue of child labour have discarded

the notion of such a culture of poverty. Lieten for example argues that it is wrong to

assume that children born in poor families which have a set of different norms and

expectations are socialised into the role of being labourers. He further rejects the

notion that marginalized and exploited families are at the bottom of society with their

separate norms and aspirations that distinguishes them from the elite and justifies a

class-imposed differential treatment of children (2002b, p. 5). In the above sections, I

have demonstrated exactly the opposite of what Lieten argues. I have documented a

group of children living in the 21st century in a country like India which has an image of

being an emerging and shining economy. Even today majority of the population lacks

basic amenities like health care, water, electricity and education that a state must

provide to all its citizens equally, irrespective of their social status. Therefore I argue

that there exists a culture of poverty in India too.

In light of two more ethnographical works I argue that this culture of poverty

translates into a culture of child labour. The first is the work of Paul E. Willis (2003,

1977), who studied the patterns of choice in terms of employment that depended on the

class of the individual. His ethnography shows how children of working classes

differentiated themselves from the other classes, the school system and would tend to

take up working class jobs. Working class children by being in the “wrong” class have to

overcome their economic, cultural and social disadvantages in order to be mobile and

break out of their class. Otherwise they end up doing the same what their parents have

been doing. Similarly the work of William F. Whyte on the Italian community living in

Boston depicts how the ‘corner boys’ whose lives revolved around the gangs and street

life in the community, differed from the life of the ‘college boys’ who were more

interested in education and achieving social mobility (2006, 1943). The former were

the lower class unemployed youths who had low levels of education; whereas the latter,

although from the same class had different ideals and wanted to leave the class by

means of education. Putting these studies in the framework of Bourdieu’s scheme of

concepts – every class is endowed with a certain position and a particular mass of

capital in the social space. As a result they would have a class habitus which would

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further determine their position and weight of capital, reproducing the same habitus for

future generations.

On this note, when I reflect on the character of my respondents, I see a similar

situation being repeated. Children who belong to a particular group in the society, in

which every member is working to make ends meet, would also learn to be labourers

themselves. Although the majority of the respondents of my research work went to

school, they did not have faith in it and regarded working as the safest option for their

lives. This is evident even in the cases of Amit and Shikha who are excellent students

but were also unsure what future held for them. They went to a reputed school, secured

good grades and had the encouragement of the community. But financial conditions

and availability of opportunities would ultimately determine the duration and the

quality of education they receive. Such is the culture of child labour which is

determined by multidimensional poverty (economic, social, physical and cultural), high

level of physical and mental endurance and feeling of helplessness due to as unsure

future. This culture further determines the habitus of working. In the last section of

this chapter I would highlight the entire picture of the habitus of a child labourer which

would be followed by an analysis of the discourses that underline it, in the next chapter.

VII: The Habitus of Working among child labourers

In his analysis of the unemployed sub-proletarians in the Algerian society Pierre

Bourdieu also talks about a condition of poverty which imposes the notion of necessity

among these people (1979). The economic insecurity of these poor Algerians blocked

their opportunities to seek better employments. However it must be noted that

Bourdieu doesn’t just concentrate on the objective structures of economy to define the

plight of the poor. He clearly writes this in the work on suffering of the world, “…using

material poverty as the sole measure of all suffering keeps us from seeing and

understanding a whole side of the suffering characteristic of a social order” (Bourdieu,

Accardo 1999, p. 4). In the previous sections of this chapter I have taken a

multidimensional stock of factors that contribute to the habitus of a child labourer.

These factors show that poverty is not the only reason why children work. It is about a

whole array of reasons that pushes them to work.

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In Figure 15, I have chalked out these factors that were derived from the talks of

the children, act at the level of cognition and shape their habitus. Here one must go

back to the definition of Bourdieu’s habitus which is a system of dispositions defining

the regular modes of behaviour. It is acquired from the surroundings of an actor and it

also constructs the behaviour of the individual and allows him or her, to make sense of

the system that is there in the surroundings. Depending on the mass of capital that one

has, the habitus helps one understand his or her social position in the larger field and it

guides the action hence undertaken. I therefore argue that a combination of themes,

which are charted out in Figure 15, form the habitus of a child labourer.

Figure 15: The entire array of factors making the habitus of working child

habitus of working for a

child

illiterate parents

poverty

lower caste

early marriages

backward physical dwelling

feeling of helplessness

working peer

group being

scorned by the society

dependent on borrowing

using hand-me-down goods

no control

over future

alienated from

personal rights

high levels of endurance (mental)

high levels of endurance (physical)

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As demonstrated earlier, these children have low social and cultural capitals

which get translated into low economic capital. This low mass of capital determines

their position in the field of social relations. The position is low in this case as well.

Additionally, since their position in the physical space is also similar, they get pushed to

the lowest level of the field. When children realize that they are vulnerable and

voiceless, they give into the ruling doxa that is shaped by the dominant discourses. The

children in the Bauri Para, in Singhbajar, in Dongal and in the slums of Kolkata willingly

gave into the decision of their parents that they must work. This is not because they are

fools or brainless. It is because there habitus doesn’t leave them with any other option.

From the moment these children opened their eyes they were part of the discourses of

their family that revolved around poverty. When they grow older and come in contact

with the wider society, the discourses are of hierarchies where the powerful dominate

and the powerless are dominated. The children get indoctrinated into this

powerlessness, which they face not only in their own families but also in the society.

Working and earning money to be economically powerful then seems the only

option that they have in front of them. From the time they are able to make sense of the

world around them, they take up activities. Work is the only activity which they are

proficient in. When one takes a look at their low performance in academics, this is

reflected blatantly. But again, children can’t be blamed for this. The structure where

they are placed, which is made up of illiterate parents and a discriminating society, is

not conducive to give them education. The same structure however is conducive for

working. Therefore if one wants to address the issue of child labour, one has to aim at

the structure which produces child labourers. Children are born into a culture of

poverty, but they are socialized through a culture of child labour that shapes the habitus

of working.

Therefore in conclusion, I would argue that everything around a child labourer

professes work. Their habitus makes them accept that they are the most vulnerable

section of the society and as a result they must give in to the structures around them. It

is thus important to understand what are the structures constructed and validated

around them and how do they influence the habitus of a child labourer. In the previous

chapter I talked about the institutions of caste, joint family, marriage and village

governance that structure the Indian way of life. These institutions define the way

discourses are shaped which act as the doxa in the social field. But children are not

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born with pre-installed notions and ideas. They learn about them in the course of their

life. The next chapter therefore seeks to understand how the ruling discourses are

generated and maintained by the various actors in the social field where a child

labourer is placed. By doing so I would show how the entire habitus of working is

constructed for the children by the other actors in the field. In the following pages,

there are pictures of the dwelling spaces along with some pictures of the respondents I

encountered in this study.

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Plate 1: Type of huts/dwellings in the Bauri Para of Purulia

Plate 2: The lanes of the Bauri Para, Purulia

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Plate 3: A clay stove made in the ground, Barabazar, Purulia

Plate 4: Entrance of one house through another, at Bauri Para, Purulia

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Plate 5: A house made of mud bricks and mud, with a small wooden door, Bauri Para,

Purulia

Plate 6: A classroom where even sacks of rice are stored, Bauri Para, Purulia

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Plate 7: The dirty ponds where utensils and clothes are washed, road to Bauri Para

Purulia

Plate 8: Dirty water and filth surrounding the pond, Bauri Para, Purulia

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Plate 9: The lanes in these localities

Plate 10: A roadside tea stall where Raghu works, at S.N.Banerjee Road, Kolkata

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Plate 11: Amrit makes paper packets after he comes back from school, in Barabazar,

Purulia

Plate 12: Zoya and her friends roll beedis, in Dongal, Purulia

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Plate 13: Ranjit arranges his uncle’s roadside shop of slippers in New Market, Kolkata

Plate 14: Irfan with his roadside stall of jewellery in New Market, Kolkata

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Chapter 6

Analysing the habitus of a working child: Is it possible to change this habitus?

A child deserves care, attention, love and respect from all the other members of

the society. In the initial stages of his or her life, the child doesn’t understand

differences of gender, caste, class and religion. As he or she grows up, the nature of the

surroundings start shaping the perceptions of this new member of the world. Soon

enough the child starts mirroring everything that encircles him or her. From the

beginning of my work I have argued that child labourers have a habitus of working.

This does not mean that children are born as child labourers; it means that their

situations and the other actors in it transform them into being one. In the earlier

chapters I have summarised the issue of child labour from global as well Indian

perspectives, where I talked about all the current debates on the issue. Then I provided

a detailed analysis of the Indian social structure which was crucial to understand the

discourses of children and the society. A detailed understanding of the socio-economic

character of the field locations, that is the villages of Purulia and Kolkata, was also done.

Finally in the previous chapter I described and analysed the data collected. It stated

everything about the child labourers’ lives– their physical environment, their

dispositions and their versions of their own lives. A discussion providing the picture of

the habitus of working also emerges in that chapter. Every respondent felt it to be

normal and accepted norm of their lives to be working because it is his or her fate. But

this picture is incomplete because as I said earlier, children are not born as labourers.

The current chapter aims to draw out the process by which the habitus of working is

constructed, validated and maintained for them by the other actors around them.

In Chapter 2 I had provided a figure where I placed a child labourer partially on

the sub-field of family and partially on the total social field which consists of actors like

teachers, neighbours, employers, social activists and policy makers. I did so because a

child is influenced by both the family and the broader society. Further, since a family is

placed in the social field, it itself reflects many ideas of the broader society. I would

argue in this chapter that together all these actors construct the thought processes of

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the children in such a way that being a labourer comes naturally to them and a habitus

of working evolves. The actors produce discourses or rules to comprehend the

structures in the field, namely, caste system, joint family, marriage and village

governance system. Given that children learn about society through the discourses of

their seniors, I would first analyse the talks and motivations of these other actors. Then

I would reflect on the trans-generational nature of the habitus, and highlight ways of

breaking it. Finally, I would suggest ways to deal with this habitus at the level of society

and policy.

I: The discourses that form the basis of the thought processes of a child labourer

Working has become a reality for many children who are stricken by poverty in

India and elsewhere. But it is just not economic poverty; these children suffer from

social and cultural poverty as well. In order of influence, as to which aspect is more

important, it is ultimately a ‘chicken and egg’ situation. Therefore it is best to see these

three types of poverty in relation to one another that turns into a viscous circle, as

depicted in the figure below.

Figure 16: Inter-relation between the social, cultural and economic poverty

This reality is however neither given, nor is it comprehensible on its own. It is

constructed and made understandable by discourses that are either written or verbal

making social reality real for actors. I have already demonstrated that a child labourer

accepts his or her powerlessness without any qualms as his or her habitus leaves no

Economic Poverty

Cultural Poverty

Social Poverty

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other choice. This accords power to all the other actors around him or her, namely, the

family members, the neighbours, the teachers, the employers, the social activists and

the policy makers. Following the footsteps of Bourdieu whose primary aim was to

deconstruct the social construction of reality through his conceptual tools of field,

capital, doxa and habitus, I would also do the same to highlight how the idea of working

becomes natural for child labourers. Bourdieu talks of discourse in his works, but I

think he doesn’t give it its due importance. Hence I would add the notion of discourse to

his scheme of analysis and move on further.

In Chapter 2 I have stated that the power dynamics in the field and the social

positions of the actors are determined by stakes or interests. Those who possess the

right amount of capital wealth, which includes social, cultural and economic, that fulfils

the criteria of the field in question, are therefore accorded a position of power in that

field. With this power they aim to maintain a status quo of the doxa and create

discourses in order to serve and preserve their own interests. Hence, discourses are the

means by which these interests are managed and transferred to next generations. They

are descriptions by an actor that organise and reify the construction of facts, in a way to

support his or her own interests. When an actor has a powerful position then his

discourses would be to maintain the doxa (that benefits him or her) whereas someone

who is in a lower position would develop a discourse of struggle to change the doxa

(that is detrimental for him or her) by every means possible. Therefore it is important

to understand how management of stakes occurs. Put in words of Potter, “The role of

analysis is not to assess whether these are right or not, but to explore the practices

through which stake is established and discounted (1996, p. 114). In the rest of this

section I would do an analysis of the interests and the discourses of actors in power and

their relation with the grand discourses that are present in the Indian social structure.

I a: The discourses of the family and neighbours

I have already established in the last chapter that the communities that were

studied had very less of private space. The extreme proximity of the houses and the

overlapping common spaces make it hard to distinguish which discourses come from

the family and which ones come from the community they live in (the neighbours).

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Whenever I wanted to interview one family, 6-7 neighbours would gather and answer

collectively to everything that was asked. Therefore, in these communities I treat family

and the immediate neighbourhood as one entity who together influence the children.

The dataset then demonstrated how majority of the parents are illiterate. Four of the

fathers had attended school in their childhood, but the time period was so short that

none of them remembered anything about that phase. Even being able to write their

name in Bengali script was a task in itself for them. The mothers on the other hand

were completely illiterate. All of them had been married when they were between 13-

15 years of age while men were married when they were 23-2488. By way of being

married early the women started bearing children when their own bodies had not fully

developed. Many reported miscarriages or still-born babies and other post-natal

complications. Three of the mothers lost their under-five babies and two lost their

children when they were about 10-12 years old. Malnutrition and anaemia are common

problems among these mothers and their wards. Additionally, there is a pressure of

giving birth to a boy child. If the first child is a girl, the parents continue to try for a

male offspring, even if it results in the birth of 2 or 3 more female offsprings before

either better sense prevails or finally a male child is born. In families where there were

more boys, the family sizes were also small. For instance, Kriti (14) being the middle

one, has an elder brother, and a younger brother. The father said, “After our youngest

son was born we decided to stop having children, because having two boys meant that

our future was secured.” Whereas the mothers of Ashima (13), Shalini (12) and Chaya

(12) said, that they kept having one girl after another, in the hope of producing at least

one son in the process.

This preference for a male child, who is seen as a security can be traced back to

the principles of the joint family system in India. When a family stays together, sons,

especially the older ones have to take care of the old, invalid and the other dependents.

Daughters, who would be married off and sent to other households, do not share this

responsibility of the parents with their brothers. Secondly, the Hindu religious belief

that a parent’s soul is peacefully released if and only if a son cremates, stands firmly

ingrained in Indian social mores. The parents believe strongly that they cannot ignore

these social norms. Consequently, the discourse on preferring a male child emerges

88

Large age gaps between the husband and wife are observed all over India. In urban areas this difference is anything between 2-5 years whereas in rural areas gaps as high as 15years or even more have been observed.

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which also provides the justification for having numerous kids. These parents and

communities don’t realise the fact that more kids mean more mouths to feed, instead

ironically they prefer to believe that having more kids mean more hands to work.

This is again because the parents of the respondents think they have absolute

rights over their children. When it comes to being responsible for their well-being, the

parents wash their hands off their duties, but to exercise control on the children’s

freedom, the parents become the front-runners.

Ashima’s mother said, “I work the whole day, I do not have time to

run around my children and take care of their needs or control their daily

movements and actions. Whatever they want, they have to get it

themselves; if it’s not available at home, they must earn and get it….I also

don’t want to be responsible if today my daughter elopes or gets

pregnant, so I would rather have her married as soon as possible, before

she invites trouble on us.”

When a child wants to continue studying, most of the time he or she is asked to take

care of the finances involved in it. The NCLP School or the other primary schools are

free but when a child moves to the secondary school, he or she gets limited support

from the family because there are additional costs of paying for fees, uniforms and

books. Shikha (13) and Amit (14) were the only two children in the dataset whose

parents felt responsible for their studies. All the others weren’t sure if they would be

able to or even would want to support their kids. In situations like these children are

expected to work in order to pay for their own studies.

However, controlling a child’s life for the sake of family honour and well-being is

of utmost importance. Social pressure from the community or the samaaj is extremely

high. Every parent of the respondents from the Bauri Para is afraid of the “love bug” in

the area. There have been numerous cases in the community where young boys and

girls have eloped. In recent years, there was a case of a 9 year old boy getting formally

married to an 11 year old girl. There was another case where a 12 year old girl got

pregnant and delivered a baby. These incidents scare the parents who believe in the

traditions of arranged marriages and don’t want their family name to be defamed by

non-compliance to traditions. Further, because love sees no boundaries, the young

lovers do inter-caste marriages as well, which is again extremely objectionable as per

caste rules. Kriti (14) belongs to Modak caste, which is a bit higher in the caste

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hierarchy than the Bauri tribals or the Moochi (cobbler) castes living in an adjacent

locality. Hence, her father doesn’t want the daughter to marry any lower caste, that too

by way of elopement and thus, would prefer to marry her off as soon as possible. The

mother of Ashima (13) argued that if they don’t marry their daughters young, then the

samaaj or the community would talk and gossip about the family’s incapability to secure

a groom for their daughters. Such gossip is supposed to further bring down the family’s

honour. Harassment of young girls by local boys, under the influence of movies and

uncensored television media has caused panic among parents subsequently increasing

the number of child marriages among these families. Therefore, in a community where

marriage is important, the girls need to know household work and boys must be able

earners to be eligible to marry as well (as demonstrated in the last chapter).

Caste and class ideologies also create the discourse of distinction by which these

families separate themselves from others. By accepting their position at the lower

The stigma of wrong company: Madhu (12) was one of the liveliest children I met in this school, but the second time when I visited the school she wasn’t there anymore. Mr. Binoy (the head teacher of the NCLP School) told me that she had left studies as her mother wanted her to stay at home and work. So I went to enquire about this from her mother. I was accompanied by other girls and Kaveri (16), the sister of Amit. First I thought that Kaveri was following us out of curiosity, but I later realised she was a friend of Madhu. On reaching there, I tried to speak to Madhu, but she kept mum. The other girls also tried talking to her, but she did not utter a word nor did she look at me. Her Mother (28) said, “Last year I was pregnant with this baby boy of mine. I had to go to my mother’s place for 4 months. So I had to take Madhu out of school or else who would have taken care of the house, the kids and her father”. She kept repeating this and did not wish to say anything else. I kept talking to Madhu but she sat mum and dropped an occasional tear. She did not say anything to me. This was an image that was in complete contrast to the image I had about this girl from last year. She was talkative and an extrovert. Her mother was repeatedly saying that if she wanted to study, she could go back to school…but suddenly she got very angry. She shouted at Kaveri and ordered her to leave. And then she relayed the story. “While I was away due to my pregnancy, this bad girl Kaveri and the other one Deepti (refer to last chapter, footnote no. 86), tried to influence my daughter and do wrong things at our home. My husband was away at times and these two girls started bringing boys to our place. These girls drink, smoke and are sexually active and they tried to make Madhu do the same things. Luckily we got back in time and stopped everything. There was a guy who used to make rounds of our house and wanted to marry her. We had to threaten him to stop him from coming near our house. This is a bad locality. Some people are not bothered about what is going on in someone else’s family. No one came forward to help us out or keep an eye on my kids. They pretend to be your friends and then they are the ones who are back-stabbers. I hate this community. Madhu has stopped going to school because now she is scared of being labelled as one of them by her classmates. She is also ashamed of herself now and has brought down the image of her father who is a respectable bank clerk. I have never studied but I want her to study and do well in her life. But she must remember that she has to protect the family name as well.” The other children in the community confirmed the story.

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rungs of society and their backwardness, the parents are able to explain the causes of

many problems they face. For example, inefficiency of the education system and lack of

opportunities for their children is explained in this context. The mother of Diya (13)

argued that the teachers in the government school deliberately don’t teach the children

of the poor and backward castes to cut out competition in the job markets. “If our

children become educated, they would compete with the children of the teachers and

this is dangerous. Then who would clean their homes, plough their fields and do all the

menial tasks of the society? Our children are hence destined to work and not study.”

The parents echoed what Ashima had reported about the teachers that they did

everything else in the school, except teaching (refer to Ashima’s story in Chapter 5).

The dismal conditions of the school infrastructure and the attitude of the teachers are

constantly discussed among these communities, cementing the caste and class

distinctions between them and the wider society and professing the uselessness of the

available educational facilities.

Further, the uncertainness about their abilities to pay for their children’s studies,

limits their regard for education. Keya (10), a domestic worker, has never been to

school. Her father said,

“I know I won’t be able to teach my daughter beyond the free school level,

so no point in wasting her time now. It is better that she learns to work instead

and helps us in supporting the family. Our children are not lucky as you

(Dakhina) who has had good education with sound job prospects as a

qualification for the marriage market. So even if you don’t know household

work, it is ok for you. But our children, especially the daughters must learn

housework or else they would be sent back from their in-laws homes on the

pretext of being incompetent. So it’s better to teach her work than make her

study.”

This lack of importance to education, especially of the girl, reinforces her inferior

position in the patriarchal Indian society. In Chapter 4 I described how a girl moves to

house of her husband and her in-laws after marriage and loses her rights to stay at the

parental home. In the traditional society, it was customary that she must reside with

her husband till she dies. Therefore leaving the in-laws’ home or being sent back to the

paternal house was seen as a dishonour to the family of the girl. Today, barring a

miniscule percentage, this custom is still very strong, especially in the village societies

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where the social control of the communities is omnipresent. The boys don’t face this,

but they have a different set of expectations to fulfil. Since they are supposed to take

care of their parents and other dependents in the long run, there is a huge pressure on

them to learn to work early and earn soon enough. Unless a boy is really interested in

studies, he is not required to study but whether he likes it or not, he is required to work.

The parents also accept that because they are illiterate, their children don’t have the

environment to study, even if they want to. They cannot guide them in their studies,

neither are they in a position to provide regular tuitions. As a result children are at a

serious disadvantage. Having to study, without a discourse on study is very difficult and

only those with extreme will-power would continue on such a path.

Lastly, considering that these families have a culture of poverty, every discussion

started and ended at poverty. It is an integral part of their life and is reflected in every

talk or discussion. Ideas about ways through which costs can be cut, are discussed

constantly. For example, if one family gets to know about a discount in a shop, the

information is shared and whoever wants would also goes there to avail the discount. If

some employer is paying well or is good natured, he or she is asked to find employment

at a similar household for the others in the community. When food prices go up in the

market, community and family members begin to device strategies to tackle them.

Strategies of managing money are constantly discussed; and whatever is beyond control

is accrued to fate. Statements like, “It is our fate to sleep empty stomach on some

nights…” or “It is the fate of the poor that frequent deaths occur in our families…” or “It

is the fate of the poor child to work and earn his or her living…” or “Poor children don’t

Other technical disadvantages: While I was working at the NCLP School, I wanted to help the children with English, thinking that I wouldn’t be able to teach anything else as all was in Bengali, and I do not read or write Bengali. When I looked at the English book, I realised even the English words were written in Bengali, just like Maths book was written in a Bengali script. Next to very English word, the way to pronounce it would be transliterated in Bengali.

For example a word like Black was accompanied by the transliteration in Bengali: .

Entire lines and paragraphs were transliterated in this manner. Initially, I was surprised to see this and could not make a sense of it. Then I realised that these children belong to such families where there is no use of English words, unlike our families where in the daily vocabulary of words numerous English words are present. So these children are not familiar with any English pronunciation. Having no discourse of the English language in the family also posed problems when children moved to higher classes and senior schools. The books at this level did not have such transliteration and created problems for the children. Inability to cope with English courses was a major reason for drop-outs as well.

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study, they labour…” are common and repeatedly form the chunk of the major discourse

floating in these communities. They also clearly understand that Purulia is one of the

most backward districts inflicted not only with problems like poverty but also with

Maoist and Naxalite insurgencies. Keeping their children engaged in some activity or

the other was a way to prevent them from getting inducted into such ideologies which

(these families think) thrive on poverty and unemployment.

The discourses of the parents and immediate neighbours start a cycle of events

for the children. They first install the ideas of poverty, early marriage and inefficiency

of the school system, caste and class distinctions, vulnerability and lack of opportunities

in the minds of the children through daily talks on these topics. Then through the talks,

children are able to make sense of the four structures in the social field of India – the

castes system, joint family, marriage and village governance – that play an integral yet

invisible role in shaping these discourses. When a child grows up hearing these, soon

enough he or she starts believing them and takes them as given rules or the doxa. What

is most important about these discourses is the fact that parents have created these

discourses to protect their own interests, like preferring a male child or having more

hands to work. The lack of differentiation between childhood and adulthood allows

them to use their children to share the economic burdens of the family. Children then

become more of an economic asset than a liability as the parents are able to control

their labour. Their absolute power, legitimised by the occurrence of similar cases in the

neighbourhood, turns children into mere commodities who can be even sold or sent for

bonded labour in lieu of debts taken.

The nature of the society where this happens also guides the discourse. In a

patriarchal society like India, usually the male head of the family controls all the

activities in the family. Even if he is himself not earning anything or uses up his own

money for drinking and gambling, he still expects the subordinate members of the

family to submit to his authority. The hierarchy in the family is arranged first by gender

and then by age, assigning the least amount of power to the children. A girl child bears

the brunt of it because working women in such households transfer their duties to their

daughters. Sometimes parents even have the tendency to shift their own

responsibilities on an external agent like an employer who would not only pay or feed

their child, but would also keep their child away from troubles. This reduces their own

burdens of rearing a child and motivates them further to produce more kids. Having

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fewer burdens also allows parents to indulge in vices and wasteful expenditure (like

drinking liquor or gambling). But a child doesn’t realise these interests of the parents;

he or she believes that such is the life for them and that is why they must work.

II: The broader society: Employers, teachers, policy makers and civil society

II a: The discourses of the employers

Employer and employee relations are universally relations of power and a child

worker and employer relation is no different. On talking to the employers, two very

distinct discourses emerged from their perspectives of the working children –one of

suppression and one of pity. Everywhere, a child is employed for the main reason that a

young human being can be easily moulded to the ways of the job than an older person.

The low level of cognitive processes in a child makes it easy to shape him or her

according to the likes and dislikes or the interests of the employer. They are employed

under the pretext that their work is vital for the survival of certain industries. The main

argument of employers at workplaces like weaving looms, zardozi makers (embroidery

with gold thread, beads and sequins) and diamond cutting units is that children have

nimble fingers and sharp eyes which are necessary for such intricate jobs. In mines the

small children are said to be important as they can crawl into the deepest and thinnest

shafts to retrieve coal or other minerals. But the actual reasons of employing them are

that they are a cheap, docile and malleable lot that can also be used to evade labour

regulations. Having a large number of legally invisible children without rights to

demand salaries or compensations in lieu of some accident is more profitable than

having an adult work force that has the power to unionise.

The relation of suppression and exploitation is therefore very clear cut. By every

means the child is made to realise his or her lower status and incompetence as a result,

which deserves punishments. Studies conducted by organisations like Save the

Children state that 70% of the child domestic workers in Kolkata suffer from physical

abuse and almost 90% suffer from emotional abuse. Salaries as low as Rs 200 (Euro 3)

are paid to child domestic workers for fulltime labour in one month (2006). Another

study of the health conditions of domestic workers in Kolkata highlights that majority of

these workers suffer from gastrointestinal infections as well as skin diseases caused due

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to bad personal hygiene and have anaemia and other vitamin deficiencies due to

malnutrition (Banerjee et al. 2008). These have serious impact on the psychological

well-being of a child which most often doesn’t allow them to even revolt against their

conditions. The habitus of child domestic workers or apprentices makes them

dependent on their parents to think and fight for them. But when they are away from

the parents, and are at the mercy of their employers, they meekly accept their plight as a

fate they must suffer from.

There is however, a relation of pity too that exists and can be used to

conveniently hide the distinctions that the employers think they have from these

working children. When some employers hire children, they think of it as an act of

charity by adding money to the poor family’s income. Those who take on a child as an

apprentice think they are doing a favour to the child as well as their family by teaching

him or her skills to survive. Much of this apprenticeship is free labour, but the employer

becomes the do-gooder and receives or at times demands gratitude from the family and

the child. Due to the absence of any checks and balances, such ‘uncles and aunts’ are the

worst type of exploiters who make promises to the families, but never fulfil them. The

situation of domestic helps is even worse as it is the private domain of ‘respectable’

people of the society. The employers think that whatever amount they pay to the family

is supposed to be a help, therefore it is never equivalent to the value for the amount of

work the children undertake. In many cases, they justify the low wages by claiming that

they are providing food and shelter as well to the kid. Some employers also think that

employing a child worker primarily to be a playing partner/care-taker of their own

children absolves them of any related duties towards the child labourer. But matters of

distinctions play a key role here as well. One employer said,

‘I treat the domestic help in my house the same as my other family

members. She eats the same that we eat, she watches television with my

children when she wants, she sleeps in the afternoon and has short periods of

time when she can rest. I give her new clothes once a year and she has access to

all the toys of my children.”

Yet, even in such ‘fair’ treatment household, the fact that the child worker wears the

discarded clothes of the children in the household, sits on the floor while everyone is

eating on the table and has her own set of utensils which must not be used by others or

the fact that family members sit on the sofa to watch television and she sits on the floor

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or the fact that she sleeps on the floor, are ways of creating distinctions of employee and

employer. These otherwise insignificant demarcations make her distinguish herself

from the others in the family, no matter how equal he or she is treated. Children of the

household are usually not reprimanded if they abuse or harm the domestic help and

many times they treat the child worker more as a toy than a human being.

The irony of the fact is that the child labourer sees his or her position in such a

‘fair’ household as being lucky. Most stories of child labourers are marked by open

instances of cruelty, exploitation and physical abuse. They set benchmarks and

examples for the others in their peer groups by providing a vivid picture of the

discourse of the employers. Hence, when they get even the slightest amount of care or

good treatment, the children find it a very welcome change from the ‘normal’ stories of

exploitation that they have heard off. On returning home, these ‘fairly’ treated children

(if they go back) become the lucky ones in their communities since it is a matter of pride

and happiness to be treated fairly by the employer. Therefore, being treated badly by

the employers is considered normal for these children and being treated well is

abnormal. Good treatment is so seldom that when it happens children are confused and

might even consider their employers or the clients as fools. As a result some children

even use it to their advantage like the street children in Kolkata who knew how to cash

in on their vulnerability and made up stories to evoke pity of their customers. Over the

years, such distinctions, exploitations and suppression became a norm for the children

which they accept readily and they become numb to even react to these. As a result a

habitus develops which is stained with ideas that force the children to believe in their

fate.

II b: The discourses of teachers

In the last chapter I have described the grim conditions of the school

infrastructure. Through informal discussions with three teachers from the government

primary schools in Purulia and two teachers from the NCLP School in the Bauri Para, an

insight into their attitudes towards these children can be analysed. The former group

had a casual approach to their job in the first place. Jobs at government schools in India

are permanent in nature, with a substantial fixed salary each month and a modest

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pension after retirement. Whether they teach or not, they are not accountable to

anyone. The government education system has these glaring loopholes across the

country. One research on teacher absenteeism in the government schools of India state

that 25% of the teachers fall under this category (Kremer et al. 2004). Another study in

West Bengal highlights the poor quality of education because of irresponsible, under-

qualified and disinterested teachers. So the sufferers are mostly the backward and

underprivileged poor castes and tribals of the state (Rana et al. 2003). Successive

studies have shown lack of accountability and monitoring to be single-most important

factor in the poor quality of intake and consequent useless performance of the teachers.

To get a job of a teacher, candidates have to pass an examination and secure a

certain percentage. But a nexus of touts making false mark sheets and forged

documents keeps the genuinely qualified students out of the system. In Purulia and

West Bengal there is an obsession about securing a government job which would give

security for the future. Possibly, the state’s long history of famines and partitions from

the colonial times has left these people insecure. Hence, candidates are at times willing

to pay bribes as high as Rs. 500,000 (Euro 7000-8000) to officers who manage the

examination system. The long government reign of the Communist Party also

strengthened those who were politically active and gave preferences to friends and

relatives of so-called ‘party sympathisers’, irrespective of their educational competence.

Once such kind of dubiously-selected teachers are in the system, the lack of

governmental accountability gives them a safe haven to keep receiving their steady

salaries whether they teach or not. The above mentioned studies accuse many teachers

of sleeping in the class, or simply lazing around having worthless chit-chat with fellow

teachers, or making children pluck their white hair. Few videos on the internet show

the poor levels of competence among these teachers. For example in one video they

show that the teacher is teaching spellings and is herself writing, ‘Sande’ for Sunday and

‘Apil’ for Apple89.

The talks with the teachers of the primary and NCLP schools in Purulia revealed

some vital discourses. When asked about the use of schools for these children one

teacher remarked, “These children don’t want to study. They are interested in the

midday meal and come to school only for that. They are happy if they are not taught.” 89

Due to lack of access and time, I could not gain access to schools in the villages like Singhbajar and Dongal and personally observe this. So my data on the quality of teachers is a mix of data available on internet and from the interviews of the children (Mahua News 2011)

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Considering the thoughts of my child respondents, I think this is not entirely true. Of

course there are some children who are genuinely not interested in studying, but the

majority of them wanted or want to study. When teachers start from this point, half the

battle is already lost. In private schools, when a child is disinterested in studies, parents

are summoned and detailed analysis of the child is done, including psychological, to find

out the reasons for such behaviour. Every effort is made to retain the child in the

school. In case of these children, such efforts are not made. In fact drop-outs and non-

serious temperaments are considered normal and a studious and sincere child is

considered an anomaly. In other words many teachers in these backward areas do not

have any interest in expending any efforts towards imparting some semblance of a

teaching to their sets of pupils. Some teachers also thought that these children were

unfit for education or the education they were imparting was of no value. A blatant

disregard for the backward people was expressed by one teacher, who said,

“None of these children are smart or intelligent, so if we want them to

perform well, then we must invest a lot of time on each student. But we don’t

have time for this as one teacher usually has to handle 50-60 children at a time.

Besides, what is the use of spending time on them, when we know that none of

them are going to study always? Sooner or later they would drop-out because of

their economic conditions.”

Such an attitude reinforces the fact that children from these communities are incapable

due to their economic backwardness and therefore it’s natural for them to remain

illiterate.

The second half of the battle against illiteracy is lost due to the school

infrastructure which acts as a deterrent to not only the value of education among

children but also to the quality of education imparted by the teachers. Government

schools in cities normally work well because the infrastructure is better and there is

some degree of monitoring through parent-teacher meetings and by senior government

officials. But schools in rural areas, especially in areas that are very backward, suffer

from every possible malady that can be inflicted upon the Indian Government’s school

infrastructure. Corrupt officials, bureaucracy, dismal physical structures, etc. are

common features of these schools. Therefore, high rate of drop-outs and such poor

working conditions would de-motivate even the few ‘good and genuinely interested’

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teachers. As a result the teachers don’t see any use of their own role in imparting

education for these children.

Had these schools performed well, possibly there wouldn’t have been the need

for the NCLP Schools which have been created to rehabilitate drop-out children. The

teachers at the NCLP Schools confirmed that majority of the children who were

inducted under the programme did not even know how to spell their name, although

they were supposedly in 3rd or 4th grade. But these teachers at the NCLP School have a

different approach to this same set of children. Although their initiative is also based on

the principle of charity, it is sincere by nature. This is primarily because of the positive

children-teacher ratio (50:4). The teachers take personal interest in each child by

interacting at length with their families. They also have monthly or bi-weekly parent-

teacher meetings, where they try to motivate the whole group of parents to encourage

their children to study. Flexible timings, less stringent rules about wearing the school

uniform and informal way of interaction with the children made this school popular.

Besides this school is only 4 years old, so the rate of drop-outs hasn’t been measured

yet. Still on knowing that one child, Kriti (14) whom they had nurtured for the last 3

years had dropped out even after being enrolled in a mainstream school, the teachers

expressed frustration. Another girl, Madhu (12) who had studied in the school for 2

years had left it because she had to take care of her siblings while her step-mother was

Notes on my personal reflections: When I joined the school, apart from trying to teach subjects, I also thought of taking drawing classes with these children. They were very excited to know this as they loved to draw but it wasn’t part of the vocational training (Drawing cannot be turned into a business unless someone is really good at it). But I think I was more excited to see the enthusiasm of the children to draw that I impatiently began to wait for papers and colors. A week passed by and nothing happened. When the second week ended, I asked Mr. Binoy about the status of my request and he said that he too is waiting for permission. Since drawing wasn’t part of the NCLP curriculum, he said it was difficult to get some money for the papers and the colors. Finally on the third week, after incessant nagging, the papers came but still no colors. I got fed-up and decided to take matters in my own hand. I bought few boxes of colors and gave it to the kids, and then we started. The children were so excited that at times they would ask the other teachers not to teach them so that they have more time to draw. This little incident made me ask myself, “Would I want to be in such a situation year after year where I am so tied to the system that taking even one small step for the children would be a problem? Would I like to sit year after year in a room with leaking roofs, power-cuts, mosquito bites, bad lighting, and teaching more than 50 children at a time and have the same spirit of enthusiasm as I had in these three months?” Possibly no….

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away for delivering a baby. Over the years if the rate of drop-outs increases, possibly

even these same teachers would stop working with the same zeal and enthusiasm that

they have now.

However one point struck me even among these teachers. The chalk dust that

settles after wiping the blackboard usually made the teacher’s chair next to it dirty. One

of the teachers never cleaned it herself. Rather she would order some child to clean it

who, would either find a rag or use his or her palms to clean the chair. Wiping a chair is

no big deal, but in this context the instinctive order of the teacher and the instinctive

reaction of a child to obey again depict the difference of power between these two

actors. In a private school such an order would have a “please” prefixed to it and a

“thank you” suffixed to it. If not, then there would have been a huge hue and cry about

the indecent behaviour of the teacher. Here, this wasn’t the case. Possibly I may be

criticised for reading too much in between the lines, but the nature of speech used by

these teachers during their interactions with the children reinforced my belief. The

children were constantly reminded that they should work hard in return for the efforts

the teachers were putting to reintegrate them with the mainstream school. Although

this attitude is rendered negligible by all the good work that these teachers were doing,

it cannot be ignored. The bottom line is that these children get a special treatment

(either good or bad) from the education system of India. The government schools

totally destroy any hope that a child labourer has of escaping his or her reality whereas

the NCLP School supports the dream, or at least are doing so currently to some extent.

They are responsible for those 4 years, and after that they cannot do anything. The

presence of these two types of schools further engraves a notion of distinction on the

thought processes of a child labourer when he or she sees the difference in quality of

education for the higher classes of the society. The child sees that there is only one type

of school for these other classes which is characterised by lavish school buildings;

where children have perfect sets of uniforms with shoes and the school bags and

bottles. But then the child looks at his or her own school which has a dilapidated

building and where he or she only has one set of uniform (without shoes) and plastic

bag or cloth bag to store the books. Ideas on distinctions are thus reasserted by these

conditions of the school as well.

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II c: The government of India and the discourse of its policy makers

India has one of the most comprehensive child labour policies in the world. If

each law is implemented to the word, then already the incidence of child labour in India

would go down. But this is far from happening. Instead the legal system and the child

labour legislation have also in a way contributed to the acceleration of the incidence of

child labour in the country. Poverty is used by the government to hide the

discrepancies in labour laws and child labour legislations. The critique of the Indian

state with regard to children, done by Myron Weiner, suggests that Indian policy

makers consider poverty as a harsh reality and instead of abolishing child labour;

amelioration is aimed at (1991). A closer look at the previous acts also shows how it

became easier to employ children. Being a colony to which production from the

European countries was being shifted in the 19th Century, the laws helped to employ

children. While Britain was doing away with child labour in its own country, in 1881,

the British rulers introduced the first laws against the employment of children in India.

The Indian Factories Act stated that the minimum age of seven years must be

maintained in every setup. Later the 1911 Factories Act legalised the work of children

in cottage industries. In 1922, with new developments in the global forum about child

labour, the 1881 Act was amended and the age was increased to 15 years. The

Employment of Children Act in 1938 was devoted entirely to child labour. It listed

occupations and processes where children could not be employed, but this act

exempted family-run workshops, which employed large numbers of children. After

independence the government of India through its Constitution provided certain rights

to the child and imposed the duty of ensuring rights and opportunities on the state.

The first act by the independent Indian state was the Factories Act of 1948,

which set 14 as the minimum age of employment in factories which were defined as

premises employing at least ten persons where manufacturing is being carried on with

the aid of power, and above twenty where no power is employed. The law also

restricted the continuous number of work hours, night work and employment of young

persons in the use of machinery. The definition of the ‘factory premise’ and the

requirement that a ‘fitness’ certificate from a doctor, rather than a birth certificate or a

school attendance certificate for children over fourteen were the loopholes of this act

(Weiner 1991, p. 79). Many industries moved from large units to becoming small home

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based units, as was in the case of weaving or diamond cutting factories or fire-cracker

producing industries. Workplaces like these did not require electricity for a machine to

function as looms were hand operated, diamonds were cut using hand tools and gun-

powder was wrapped in paper with hands. Similarly, the doctor’s certificate could be

produced with bribes. Hence, children were employed on a basis that could neither be

termed legal nor illegal.

A series of Acts90 were passed later to extend protection to children, but all had

some loopholes or the implementation machinery was weak. These could easily be

taken advantage of, in order to use children for labour. The Indian Ministry of Labour in

1979 produced a report on these laws on child labour, in which it acknowledged this

problem and stated that is was very hard to enforce rules. There was lack of manpower;

each administrator had huge areas that required his control and monitoring. If an

incidence of child labour was reported (which was seldom), it was very hard to collect

evidence to prosecute the culprits. The parents, the employers and the community

would deny it. They had a general belief that working is better than being vagabonds.

The report also indicated that the government has tried to shift blame onto other actors,

in order to rationalise its failures (Weiner 1991, p. 81).

In 1986, the union minister for labour, P.A. Sangma said that a move to ban child

labour would mean economic hardships for those who depended on their income. The

general manager of the Handloom and Handicrafts Export Corporation said that a ban

on child labour would be suicidal for the carpet industry. At this point, the major

international organisations like the ILO and the UN supported India’s new strategy of

regulation rather than abolition. In a seminar of 1986, speakers at an UN conference on

child labour accepted that in many developing countries, child labour is unavoidable, in

particular child labour performed within family, mostly in rural areas in order to

supplement the family income (Weiner 1991, pp. 86–87).

Therefore, a new child labour policy was approved by the Indian Parliament in

1987, which prohibits employment of children in certain occupations and regulates the

conditions of work in others. But the major reason for the increasing numbers of child

labourers in India can be attributed to the government’s reluctance to pass the ‘Right to

Education Act’. When the Constitution of India was drafted in 1950, it stated that within

10 years, the State shall provide free and compulsory education to everyone till the

90

A complete list of policies is given in Appendix 2 (pg 252).

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primary level (ILO 2009). However it was only in 2009, that is, 59 years later, this law

was brought into effect. Due to lack of infrastructure, a strong will, and myopic vision,

the government had for long put this Act on hold. This is because, the public spending

on primary education is very low and the larger amount is invested in higher education.

Mismanagement of priorities is considered the biggest problem of the Indian

government and it is criticised for its large spending on military equipment or building

a facade of a 1st world country image at the global level91.

In 2006 there was suddenly a ban on children in hospitality industry which left

thousands of children stranded. This move was welcomed by many but was also

criticised as no alternate was provided for the disbanded child workers. It reflected a

total disengagement of the policy makers with the ground situations. The ban increased

the vulnerability of the children. They could not work, but they had to work, so they got

pushed into deeper levels of exploitation because the employers could bargain even

more under the pretext of protecting them from police and officials. It can be said

therefore that child labour in India is prevalent not only because of poverty and social

attitudes, but also because of the distorted priorities and implementations of the

government, and the failures of its policies. The issue never finds place in the political

discourse of the parties or in their election manifestos, possibly because children do not

provide vote banks, unlike minorities or women. Till date the notion of child labour

being a “harsh reality” is prevalent in order to hide their incompetent laws and

infrastructure. By working and bringing home an income that pays for a family’s

survival, children bear the burden of the government which ideally should take care of

all its citizens. They become security nets for the families, a duty that the state must

fulfil. Besides India’s sweatshops and cottage industries (like carpet, handicrafts, silk,

bangles, locks, etc.) bring in a large amount of foreign revenue (Levison et al. 1996). By

curbing child labour this revenue would also lessen because such small-scale industries

greatly rely and thrive on the economies of using cheap child labour. Therefore the

91

The recent scams in the country have raised numerous questions about the priorities of the Indian government. The large amount of public money that has gone in to the hosting of Commonwealth Games in 2010 and the humungous proportions of corruption surrounding it, raise a question that how does a country with a poor population of about 50% living below the international poverty line afford to spend more than Rs. 700 billions (Euros 10,823,905,467). In Aug. 2011, it has declared to pay $2 billion (Euro 1.4 billion) for the bailouts in Europe, but the public remains clueless as to why does the government want to do so. Is it because India wants to change its position in the field of global politics?

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government very well has good reasons to stay ‘deaf and blind’ when it comes to issues

pertaining to all aspects of child labour.

In the backdrop of this discourse of poor laws and distorted priorities, two of the

three government officials interviewed echoed something similar to the prevalent

political discourse. One official said,

“Child labour is least of our problems as it’s a way of life for the poor. If

they don’t earn, they would die of hunger. Poverty is more of a serious issue and

we need to tackle that first. Once poverty is eradicated, child labour would

disappear on its own.”

They acknowledged the severe lack of political will to address the issue which renders

all child labour laws useless and cripples the infrastructure to implement them. By

talking in this manner, these bureaucrats stuck to the official version on child labour

and displayed a clear disconnect between them and the reality92. On the other hand, the

third officer who was more of an active child labour activist had a different theory about

the issue. He regarded child labour as more of a practice rather than a response to

poverty and felt that the only way to deal with it is to bring about social change. I

accrue this difference in perspective to his regular visits and interactions with the

communities where child labourers were in majority. He did agree however, that

infrastructural lacunas heightened the incidence of child labour.

In Chapter 4, I discussed in detail the political machinery of West Bengal which is

characterised by two problems – corruption and red-tapism. These features have

seeped into every nook and corner of the state administration, be it in Purulia or

Kolkata. As a result, despite the presence of numerous schemes for the poor and the

various bans that the central government of India has formulated, the beneficiaries are

the middle-men. A journalist in Purulia pointed out that, in every department in West

Bengal operates a nexus of corrupt officials and bribe accepting politicians who are

connected to the local mafia. To cite an example of this nexus, he reported that every

year a staggering amount of Rs 1.5 billion (Euro 23,186,719) worth coal is illegally

mined in the district, yet the mining activities never fall under the public scanner. In

92

In April 2011, a case of death of a child labourer due to excessive beating rocked the capital of New Delhi. The media and the child rights activists featured the news on all television channels and news papers. But what was more shocking was that even after 3 days of the incident neither the Child Welfare Minister of the country nor the Delhi Chief Minister knew of Moin's story, despite the fact that it has been headlined by television channels and newspapers (NDTV 20/04/2011). Is it because being a poor child, he is expendable and doesn’t need attention?

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Kolkata, a large part of the income of the street hawkers goes in paying bribes, as

mentioned in Chapter 4.

To add to this are the dismal conditions of the schools, especially in rural areas

and the high percentage of teacher absenteeism. As a result, in the absence of sound

monitoring agencies, the child labourers do not fear laws or law enforcers and thus

become available in the labour market. When there is a supply, the employers also

don’t hold back in creating the demand for children as they too don’t fear laws. In

bigger cities however children and employers do fear laws; but they know that the

system is corrupt and listens only to those with money. By way of bribes they know

that they can easily escape traps and punishments. Corruption is so rampant, that even

the police and regulatory bodies in the city facilitate ideal conditions for children to be

engaged in work. Therefore, considering such situations and discrepancies, it becomes

clear that the legal or the infrastructural framework also allows children to keep on

working.

II d: The discourse of the social activists

The social activists are considered to be the most neutral93 in this regard and till

now whatever progress has been made to reduce the incidence of child labour in India

is mostly credited to them. Researchers, social activists and media are part of the

dominant discourse that child labour is a problem. I think this inadvertently adds to the

ideas of distinction. They treat children only as vulnerable entities that need protection

rather than treating them as citizens with equal rights. Some activists totally discount

the fact that children have their own thoughts and feelings and are capable for deciding

for themselves. Instead of thinking to empower them by giving them rights to fight for

themselves, they themselves take on the role to fight for children’s rights. Such a

protectionist discourse doesn’t directly create a habitus of working, but it supports the

discourse of powerlessness among these children which again translates into matters of

fate. This motivates children to work and earn in order to gain social pride and

93

Bourdieu would argue that every actor has his or her own axe-to-grind based on his or her position in the field of social relations and power. Therefore social activists could also be seen in the same light. But I give them a benefit of doubt and consider their role as neutral because it is a known fact that they are the front-running drivers of change. To investigate their real interests a different kind and scale of research must be done which was not possible for me and neither was it required for my own arguments.

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freedom. The realisation of their powerlessness also forces them to follow the

dominant discourse, whether they like it or not. When I started to engage with the

children initially, I was seen as part of the school system and branded as a social

worker94. Automatically, all the early talks displayed positive thoughts about school

and negative thoughts about work, because the children thought I belonged to that

discourse. As the days went by, and I gained some more acceptance in the community,

the real stories of the children emerged, some of which were anti-school and pro-work.

Every activist I spoke to was of the view that the UN Child Rights Convention

(UNCRC) is important for the children. But among the children interviewed the entire

concept of having a right was missing in the discourse. In other words, the UNCRC that

has been formulated just for the children is far from reaching them. While the NCLP

School keeps motivating the children and informing them about some rights like under-

age marriage, a proper rights based discourse in the primary school is missing. Besides

lack of awareness at the family and community level about laws pertaining to children

or even themselves contributes to the absence of a discourse on rights. As a result

without the knowledge of any rights, a child labourer is more prone to exploitation from

the parents and their employers.

At the global level a new school of thought is developing which argues that child

protection should not be at the cost of their right to power-sharing and participation.

But social activists, at least in Purulia, were not aware of such trends and had a vague

idea about the UNCRC. When asked about child workers’ movement, a social worker

who is one of the coordinators of the NCLP School said, “Such an initiative is welcome,

although I doubt if it would work because children are not mentally mature to deal with

problems that adults can handle.” This perception clashes with the image of the

responsible, mentally mature and physically able child that I discovered through the

interviews. When a 4 year old child is capable of rearing a baby sibling or a 7 year old

child is able to take care of all household activities or a 10 year old child takes a high

risk to go into a deep shaft of a mine, I think they are also capable of voicing their

opinion in deciding what is good or bad for them. Some expert interviews with the

leading child labour activists in India also reflected a similar non-reliance of a child’s

ability to think and act for his or her own welfare. Such a discourse therefore adds to 94

The longer engagement with children in the Bauri Para and the NCLP School is the reason why I have primarily relied for analysis on the discussions and interviews as they are thicker descriptions of thought processes than those obtained from the 2-3 interactions with the children in Kolkata.

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the discourse on vulnerability of the child as it indirectly affects their capacity to fight

for themselves.

II e: The importance of these discourses

I have argued so far that child labourers follow the discourses that have been

created by the actors who surround them. But the actors themselves are also part of a

socially constructed universe which guides the organisation of the society. This social

organisation is influenced by the grand discourses on caste system, joint family

institution, importance of marriage and control of the village governance system, which

structure the Indian social field. Moreover it must be noted that those actors who are in

power in the social field of a child have their own axe to grind, at the cost of a child’s

labour. The parents maintain discourses on poverty and social norms to exercise their

control on the child, whereas the employers garb their interests of securing cheap

labour under notions of help and charity. The teachers on the other hand are frustrated

from the system or are simply not interested to do their job and end up pushing

children into the doldrums of backwardness and illiteracy by not teaching them; while

the government shuns its responsibilities and hides its incompetencies behind the

poverty argument and forces a child to take on the burdens of this family. Therefore the

entire surrounding of a child provides every possible ingredient to create a habitus of

working, starting from legal to socio-cultural.

I have categorised the discourses that emerge from the above mentioned talks,

into three groups. First there is the discourse on social norms of the society, like

marriage and family system that act at the level of cognition. Then there is the

discourse on distinction amongst people in society and on the inefficiency of the system

that solidifies the existent hierarchies in a field. Finally there is the discourse of

vulnerability that destroys the child’s resistance, serving as the final influence on the

thought process of the child. The three discourses act in collaboration with each other

and together construct the child’s perception of a world where they must work, to exist.

They take things as they are and accept their reality of being a child labourer. But the

discourses are managed in a way that their real purposes remain hidden. In other

words, since discourses are about managing stakes, those who produce these

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descriptions for their own interests put them in a frame that they seem normal and

justifiable. Otherwise the ulterior motives would be exposed and a reverse effect might

occur.

.....one of the principle reasons for doing actions indirectly by way of descriptions is that the actions are sensitive or difficult in some way and commonly they will involve a potentially undesirable or problematic identity. That is they may be actions which display the speakers as selfish, cowardly, insensitive, racist, pushy or one of a whole range of possibilities which are negative in the relevant context...this makes factual versions so suitable when there is a conflict or sensitive issue (Potter 1996, p. 109)

Following this line of thought, I argue that all the actors produce various versions

about phenomenon of child labour in order that on one hand a child finds it natural,

normal and even legitimate to work and on the other hand no one realises their exact

motive to create the version. A study on the carpet industry in India by Levison et.al

states that, “families, employers and the government have mutually compatible

incentives to use child labour and resist its abolition” (1996, p. 4). As demonstrated

above, this statement appears to be justified considering the over-lapping themes

and ideas that emerge from the discourses of these actors. I include the discourses of

the teachers in this scheme of interests also, since they are part of the government

system. But I exclude the discourse of the social activists and put my faith in their

intentions considering that their efforts are paving the way to generate awareness

and check the incidence of child labour.

In simple words all the actors have a range of interests, which has motivated

them to construct the discourse on child labour that makes it normal for a child to

work. Potter (1996) explains that speakers or the institutions responsible for the

descriptions have something to gain or lose; they are not entirely disinterested. They

have a stake in certain courses of action, which the description relates to, or there are

personal, financial or power considerations that come into play. For example, the

parents want a son which has roots in the grand discourse on patriarchy and joint

family system. It justifies their having numerous children, putting pressure on the

other family members as a result. The power of a discourse is such that it can give

any meaning to anything in a way that can even make a good thing bad or a bad thing

good, in a very natural way.

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A central feature of any description is its role in categorization; a description formulates some object or event as something; it constitutes it as a thing, and a thing with specific qualities. The description presents something as good or bad, big or small, more violent or less violent, although often with more subtle options. Another common role of descriptions is to present some action as routine or, conversely, exceptional. (Potter 1996, p. 111)

The discourses of the above mentioned actors, makes children as well as other

outsiders believe that indeed child labour is a reality that the poor have to face. They

make work normal and study abnormal; they make exploitation normal and turn

good treatment as an irregularity; and they convert the basic human rights of a child

into a system of favours that only a few lucky ones get. These discourses also

translate into attitudes which are traditionally seen as individuals’ isolated cognitive

evaluations of parts of the world, according to Potter. But he cites Billig (1991) who

argues that attitudes should be seen as public positions that are inseparable from

current controversy. “This implies that every attitude in favour of a position is also

implicitly, but more often explicitly, also a stance against the counter position. These

attitudes are stances on matters of controversy which justify the position of the

attitude holders and with these they criticise the counter position” (Potter 1996, p.

106). Child labour in India is entangled in such a matter of controversy between

right and wrong attitudes. For example, parents continuously harp on the poverty

argument. If this was truly the case, then they would have stopped producing large

number of kids, thinking that their poor status will not allow them to feed them. But

what happens instead is that their fascination for a male child and their thinking that

children are completely controllable assets makes them produce more kids. Similar

distorted interests and priorities motivate the employers who see employment of

children as a profit maximising strategy, and the government who wants to

rationalise its failures. Whatever be the case, the ultimate result is a reality that is

both rational and inevitable.

Discourses are also used to protect an account. For example, when the teachers

say that children are disinterested in studying or are unfit to study, they are actually

developing a defensive rhetoric to hide their own incompetence, laziness and lack of

motivation. Similarly when the employers use children in order to gain cheap labour,

they rationalise by showing their inevitable use in certain industries. Such a defensive

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rhetoric is a description (discourse) by which an account is protected against attack,

according to Potter (1996, p. 107). The same goes for the government and its officials

who largely use the poverty argument as defence rhetoric to avoid internal as well as

external (including international95) attacks. Therefore every discourse around the child

has been produced for a reason, but the child has no idea about it. They simply accept it

as a given, because it comes from their own custodians. By virtue of being parents or

teachers or employers who are seen as benefactors or the larger society, the actors hold

a valued position in the child’s life (something that is true universally96). But when

these actors project that child labour is an inescapable reality, the habitus of working

arises and the child takes to working as normal and natural.

III: Can children escape this habitus of working?

Considering the living conditions and the stories of the child respondents and the

discourses of the other actors, the answer to the question is simply, NO. Children by

being placed at the most powerless position society (and accepting that) react to their

realities on the basis of their habitus. It enables them with an intelligible, logical and

necessary relation between practices and situations. Therefore a child who is born

amidst the dirt, stench and filth of a colony, where poorly constructed houses and

unhygienic conditions are predominant would think that it is a normal place to be born

in. Then he or she doesn’t have a problem defecating in fields or bathing in open ponds

or wearing second-hand/torn clothes or walking without slippers. They do not have

toilets or bathrooms, nor running water and neither do they have ample amount of

electricity. But when this child goes out of his/her colony and discovers a world that is

in complete contrast to his or her immediate physical environment, a question arises at

the subconscious level to understand why the difference exists. In the world outside

95

Policy analysts like Weiner (1991) see the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act as an answer to the heavy international criticisms that were being levelled at the Indian government which was affecting their foreign exports in carpets, silk and others. The Rugmark campaign by which the US banned the import of children made carpets severely brought down the foreign revenues. By 1987, when the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act was passed, the view that poor families have to send their children to work was firmly established. Consequently, the Act was meant to provide better conditions of work for the children, and it too, like the preceding acts, exempted the use of child within the family unit. 96

Proponents of cognitive development theory like Lev Vygotsky, who have worked extensively on children's psychological development, argue that children are social beings and are inclined to learn from a more competent individual in their sphere of social interaction (Ivic 1994)

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their locality they find fancy houses, posh lifestyles marked by assets like cars,

jewellery, well-dressed individuals and excellent civic amenities. They observe that in

their areas there are no garbage collecting trucks or sewage cleaners from the

municipality who undertake cleaning drives like it is done in the other areas. On seeing

these differences between their world and the outside world, their first notion of

distinction arises. They recognise that they reside in the “neglected colonies” of the

society. The nature of this physical space redefines their habitus.

The discourses of their parents, the employers, the teachers and the larger

society that includes the government officials and the social workers, further help in

crystallising an attitude that supports child labour. Discourses on the social norms like

marriage, disregard for education, preference of a male child and mechanisms of a

patriarchal system dominate the day-to-day activities of these families. These plunge

them deeper into backwardness and the vicious cycle of poverty. The discourses also

formulate more distinctions between them and the wider society. By way of birth these

children have extremely low social capital. In Chapter 4, I described how caste acts as a

classificatory system even in today’s India where the higher castes and classes brand

the lower ones as dirty untouchables who must be seen and treated with contempt. The

discourse on the notion of karma (or sacred duty) serves as the most important rule of

legitimisation or the doxa. It is believed to be the karma of the lower castes to work for

the upper castes from the time of their birth till their death.

Therefore, a poor lower caste or a displaced tribal family, who are outcastes

must send every member of their family to work, or must pledge them to slavery in

order to save themselves from being chastised for not doing their duty. The utter

disregard for the lower castes is so deep-seated among the higher castes that even their

names have derogatory connotations attached to them. For example, in a upper class

household (even in West Bengal where caste discriminations are far less as compared to

other states), words like Chuar and Chamar (names of untouchable caste) or Choto Lok

and Neech Jaat (lower castes) are terms which are used to belittle, insult or abuse

someone.

Caste and class based distinctions are also capable of leading to a system of

natural selection. This is because social capital would determine the cultural capital as

well. Bourdieu and Paseron have argued that education contributes to the reproduction

of social classes (Grenfell 2007, p. 104). In other words, education contributes in

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managing the differences between the higher and the lower strata of the society.

Weiner argues that there is a stark difference between the higher education setups and

the primary education setups of India which “is a means of maintaining differentiations

among social classes because excessive and inappropriate education for poor would

disrupt existing social arrangements” (1991, p. 5). Those who receive quality education

would naturally be the ones who are running the administration of a society through

the government machinery of bureaucracies, academics, teachers and unions. . But the

condition of schools and the quality of education that these children receive, as

demonstrated above and in the last chapter, would seldom make them fit to go beyond

primary or secondary school even if they have money. Their performance would

greatly depend on other support as well, like tuitions, extra hours of study, and an

atmosphere to study and access to prestigious institutions. In spite of all the hurdles, if

someone manages to rise in terms of educational qualifications, he or she might still not

be able to compete with the children from the other classes because there are rules of

membership to these fields. Bourdieu has argued, that even if someone from lesser

educated classes enters the ‘race for academic qualifications’, the other groups who

were earlier dominant would add something extra to step up their positions in the race

leading to an ‘inflation of academic qualifications’ (2002, p. 133). As a result, stricter

criteria of selections would be undertaken and children from such backgrounds would

rarely reach the offices that manage the administration of a system.

Therefore control mechanisms of the society would remain in the hand of the

powerful who would continue making policies that would be far from benefitting those

from the lower backgrounds. Such groups would as a result have very low economic

capital as well. Barring a small fraction of people who would want to change their

status through mobility, the entire group would continue to suffer together because of

multi-dimensional poverty. Thus a cycle, as depicted in Figure 16 at the beginning of

this chapter would ensue. The poor would continue getting poorer in terms of

economic, social and cultural capital while the rich would continue getting richer and

even hold the higher and powerful positions of the society. This is the system of natural

selection which further makes it normal for children from these communities to work.

The set of dispositions or habitus that arises from the position of an individual in

the field and his or her mass of capital, leads to certain trajectories according to

Bourdieu. He argues that people don’t move in a random way in the social space, rather

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they move according to the forces of the structures that create the field and the ‘specific

inertia’ which is embodied or objectified in properties, goods, qualifications, etc. The

movement also depends on the amount and nature of the inherited capital which

‘corresponds to a band of more or less probable trajectories’. A shift in the trajectories

is usually ‘collective events’, like during wars, revolutions, natural calamities, etc. or

through ‘individual events’ like affairs, benefactors, etc. which are usually described as

fortunate or unfortunate accidents. He further elucidates that the shift would also

depend on the dispositions of the individual in question who should be fit enough to

make use of the situation that occurs (Bourdieu 2002, p. 110). Child labourers

influenced by the discourses around them and their limited mass of inherited capital,

follow the most probable trajectory as well. They take to working as if they are meant

to work because there is congruence between their dispositions and the job they

undertake. As a result, the child respondents felt they were made for doing manual

labour than studying, because working has been part of their disposition since the time

they started making sense of the world around them.

Furthermore, in this manner the children accept defeat from their situations and

even though they are considered to be mentally immature, they socially age and take up

responsibilities way beyond their counterparts from the wider society. Bourdieu

professes that in these circumstances an agent adjusts his or her ‘aspirations to their

objective chances and become what they are with what they have’ instead of fighting

against the system that could provide other possibilities (Bourdieu 2002, p. 110).

Children like Sandhya, Shikha, Amit have dreams of continuing studies and doing well,

but they have adjusted to the fact that if need be, they would readily give up these

aspirations. The children in Kolkata were however more in control of their lives and

therefore had more confidence in pursuing their dreams. But the children in the Bauri

Para or the villages of Singhbajar and Dongal felt even more powerless and vulnerable

as they have no right to even dream.

When put in Bourdieu’s words, “the habitus is necessity internalised and

converted into dispositions that generates meaningful practices and meaning-giving

perceptions” (2002, p. 170). Therefore whatever is the necessity inherent in the

learning conditions forms the guide to their actions. The fact that most children had low

grades or low attendance levels show that education is not a necessity for them. But

they get up early, do all the household chores and then head out for their work, be it in

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their own household or somewhere away from home, depicts that working is a

necessity for them. After talking to the child labourers I also came to a conclusion that

they possibly know at a subconscious level that they are suffering, but they don’t

express it. They know even if they express, situations wouldn’t change for them, so they

see the necessity to internalise the distinctions of the society in their system, both

physically and mentally in order to remain sane. The high level of endurance, the

cheerful attitude and the ever-smiling faces are their ways to bear the grave realities of

their being. Therefore in this way it is difficult to escape their habitus as they

themselves give into the situation.

As a result, they become victims of symbolic violence where the dominated feel it

natural to be dominated. When Willis wrote about his “lads”, he argued that these

young boys were taking up jobs of manual labour voluntarily. To rationalise their

manual labour, they argued that office-related work was feminine and hand-related

manual work was manly. Therefore they did not aspire for rewards or recognitions as

they considered themselves as subordinate species. “The capitalist system is stable

because the subordinate classes do not accept the proffered reality of the steady

diminution of their own capacities; instead they reverse the valuation of mental and

manual gradient” (Willis 2003, 1977, p. 146). This assent to subordination exhibits

symbolic violence, by which class differences were maintained. The doxa which is

exerted via discourses naturalises their domination. For example in schools when these

children got reprimanded, it was something that punctured their pride. But it also made

them believe that they were not fit enough for studying. Similarly, when a child accepts

to sit on the floor and eat while the rest of the employer’s family sits on the table, he or

she does not revolt. He or she accepts his or her low position in society and gives in.

Similarly, when a child sees that he or she has to walk 2-3kms in order to receive

education whereas the children of the upper classes are able to go in a school bus or a

private vehicle, they think it is normal for them to leave school due to the distance and

remain illiterate. In this way, by accepting every problem in their life, assenting

consciously or subconsciously to every act of domination, they perpetuate the habitus of

working and further contribute to the domination of their own kind.

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IV: Habitus of working: A trans-generational reality

When children remain illiterate, backward, socially and culturally disadvantaged

and economically poor, they would continue with the same set of problems and

perpetuate the existent societal divisions when they become adults. This would then be

transferred to the next generation and children of these children in the future would

also tend to become labourers. In other words the habitus of working would be

transferred from one generation to the next. Bourdieu argues that,

“The body is in the social world but the social world is in the body (in the form of hexis and eidos). The very structures of the world are present in the structures (or, to put it better, the cognitive schemes) that agents implement in order to understand it. When the same history pervades both habitus and habitat, dispositions and position, the king and his court, the boss and his firm, the bishop and his diocese, history communicates in a sense to itself, gives back to itself its own reflection. The doxic relation to the native world is a relationship of belonging and possession in which the body possessed by history appropriates immediately the things inhabited by the same history.” (2000, p. 152)

In other words, when situations and the existent structures, structuring them

remain consistent over a period of time, they would translate the same set of habitus,

capital and position to the oncoming generations. All the parents of the respondents

and the 6 adults, who were separately interviewed in the villages of Singhbajar,

Barabazar and Dongal, confirmed their life-long engagement with work. Each one of

them was a child labourer and did not experience a childhood that gave priority to

studies. Harish Bhaya, a 75 year old weaver has been working on the loom since 68

years. He started helping his father by arranging the threads in the loom and at times

went to school as well. But he did not like the school much as the teacher was in the

habit of mercilessly beating the boys on the smallest of pretext. By the time he was 10,

he could do the thread starching and counting and then by 12 he began working at the

loom. Today he has a family of 11 people, out of which 4 are children. In those days,

since every family had its own loom, family members were supposed to help. As a

result, none of his two sons and three daughters went to school because they were

required to work at the family loom. When his daughters were between the ages of 14-

15, he got them married by selling off his land that he had inherited from his

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forefathers. Rising inflation and stagnant low wages from the contractors who paid in

return of woven Tasar Silk, made things worse. Currently, he alone works on the loom

and his sons and 3 grandsons work in Purulia town as wage labourers. His two

granddaughters help at the family loom and other household chores.

None of them want to continue weaving because the money is too less. The same

was the case of Gouri Dey (38) who now lives with her brother's family. Since she was 7

or 8 she has spun silk yarn from the cocoons. She was married at 14 to a 32 year old

man who was ailing with a terminal disease. Her father had made some deal with this

man, so the marriage alliance was done in lieu of it. In 5 years the husband died and she

had to come back to her brother’s place with her two sons. Today her sons, one being

16 and the other 14, go to school and study in 10th and 8th grade respectively. After

school, they both work as wage labourers at grocery shops in Purulia town. None of

them want to be weavers either, although they both know all the processes and

intricacies of silk weaving. Gouri’s brother expressed disappointment in the fact that

both the boys have never practiced weaving, so they would never make good weavers.

He doesn’t have sons and thinks no one would carry on the tradition of weaving in his

family after him. All the families in this community therefore think that weaving as an

occupation will die and they would all have to engage in different activities. In Dongal,

similar stories were related by married women between the ages of 22-38, who have

rolled beedi since they were 7 or 8 year old. Today their daughters do the same and

their sons work in the nearby cement bag factory.

Purulia and other such backward parts of West Bengal, and all the other states of

India echo such stories of numerous generations trapped in the habitus of working.

Bourdieu has argued that there is a history of things and a history of bodies. The former

is objectified in the form of structures and mechanisms (in the field) while the latter is

‘incarnated in bodies in the form of habitus’. “Habitus, the product of a historical

acquisition, is what enables the legacy of history to be appropriated” (2000, pp. 150–

151). People inherit history in its entirety; therefore everything that their predecessors

had internalised would translate into their own habitus. In this way the recipient of a

particular history doesn’t have a choice, whether he or she likes it or not, the person has

to accept it and make sense out of it. In other words, one generation receives the

habitus of working from its former generation and makes it a legitimate reality for next.

Consequently, a large section therefore continues to remain illiterate, poor and socially

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backward with limited hope of breaking the cycle. Unless a change in the system is

injected, child labour will continue to be a trans-generational phenomenon.

V: The changes that can break the habitus of working

There is a famous quote from the well-known self-help book writer, Glenda

Cloud, which says, “Change is inevitable and growth is intentional.” When one looks at

the global decline of child labour rates, as stated in Chapter 1, one can see the changes.

But looking at the rise in the number of child labourers in India and the pattern of

discourses as discussed in the above sections, it can be argued that there is a severe lack

of an intention to bring about a change in the situation. Yet a miniscule percentage is

trying hard to swim against the flow and change things. The NCLP Schools in Purulia

town and the response they have from the child labourers are excellent examples to

depict this. In the Bauri Para, earlier there wasn’t any role model because all the

children were out of school and working. The habitus of working was all-encompassing.

But after the NCLP School was started here, a great deal has changed.

Firstly, some of the attitudes are changing. Ms. Abha who is one of the teachers

here said, “When we started, we were appalled to see the conditions of these children.

They would come without a bath wearing soiled clothes, straight after work. They

would fight incessantly over tiny issues and would use highly abusive language. We

started telling them about the benefits of maintaining personal hygiene and tried to

control their abusive language. Now children make it a point to come in clean clothes

and don’t fight or abuse like those early days.” The children here have also started to

distinguish between what is good and what is bad for them. For example, all the girls

had very low regard for Deepti and Kaveri, who were known to be promiscuous and

tainted characters because of their alleged sexual activities at a very young age. Ashima

(13) said, “We know that it is not healthy for our bodies to have ‘those’ relations at an

early age, so we won’t indulge in such bad activities.” A distancing based on health

reasons rather than social norms is new among these children.

Secondly, there is a change in the attitude towards education. Although it is a

very insignificant percentage, but as an eternal optimist like me would say, something is

better than nothing. The children like Amit and Shikha who have secured admissions

into reputed secondary schools, have become the new role models. Their sparkling

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uniforms in white and red and the social prestige they have secured in the community

due to the good reputation of their new school is already serving as an example for the

younger children. Shalini, who wants to become a nurse, doesn’t consider herself as

intelligent as Shikha. But she thinks that she can still try for it because her father (who

himself is educated till 8th grade) supports her. The children think that they only face

one problem now – uncertainty about future.

The care and sincerity of the NCLP teachers is the biggest source of

encouragement and motivation for the children and the community. Parent-teacher

meetings and regular interactions keeps the parents motivated and aware as well. The

humane treatment of the people in the locality is in stark difference to what they are

used to. As a result, the children and the community have high esteem for these

teachers, especially the head teacher. Having such a reputation has had a ripple effect.

People seek advice from these teachers and confide into them about their internal

family problems as well. They have discussions about their children and their futures at

length. Some parents, like those of Chaya, are genuinely not interested. But majority of

the other parents think it is good that their children are working and studying.

The impact of these schools was felt the strongest at another community where

three girls resisted marriage. Rekha Kalindi (12), Afsana Khatoon (13) and Sunita

Mahato (11) fought with their parents with the help of their teachers to say no to child

marriage. Rekha got her inspiration from the sad life of her elder sister who was

married when she was 14 and bore four dead children because of which her husband

deserted her. Today this girl lives with her second husband, but life is hard for her.

Rekha did not want the same to happen to her and with the help of her teachers she

fought with her father who finally gave in on one condition that she continued working

along with her studies. Their heroic stories of social bravery caught the nation’s media

limelight and they became a household inspiration for girls in Purulia. The three girls

were also felicitated by the President of India with National Bravery Awards, thus

adding more prestige and importance to their stance. The government official who

works closely with these schools said these girls have started a spate of defiance among

young girls between the ages of 12 and 13. The official informed that since year 2009,

35 of such girls from the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in this

district have refused to be coerced into marriage until they attain the legal age of 18

years. These girls therefore serve as new role models for all girls in the district and

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could be seen as the harbingers of a social change in the district. The official happily

added in, that now some girls have started to form groups and whenever there is a

problem of child marriage in the community or if there are parents who don’t want their

children to study, these girls go as a team to convince the family for such children. The

process is long and extremely slow, but still it is something that gives hope.

Bourdieu has strongly argued in his works that a habitus is a rigid entity only in

that context where it is structured. The moment there is an external or internal change

in the context, even the habitus becomes prone to changes then. This is because, people

are not fools. Till situations are same they would behave in a particular way, but the

moment there is a change (in this case the presence of NCLP School’s and its role) they

would act according to what he calls ‘practical or fuzzy logic’ (Bourdieu, Wacquant

1992, pp. 20–23). Children similarly are not fools but they are considered to be so, by

the entire society. They are also capable of seeing a benefit, a profit from the new

situation and then they would react accordingly by accepting it. Harping on the fact that

rules are always adhered to when there are interests and profits attached to them, I

argue that in every society the pre-determined rules that codify preferences of customs

and actions could be changed if the discourses are changed. Hence, when education is

seen as a profitable investment, the families would automatically let their children

study. But till the time child labour is seen as profitable for these families, the habitus of

working would persist.

VI: Breaking the habitus of working for the benefit of future generations

A child would do what he or she grows up seeing around in the community as he

or she is an integral part of the social canvas. They possess a habitus that has to be

broken in order to make a change in the society. But given the societal attitudes,

extreme economic backwardness of the poor, high incidence of illiteracy, surplus labour

due to increasing population and the large informal sector in India, it is a doubtful

proposition whether child labour can be totally deleted from the Indian system. In fact I

think that it is a utopian thought. As long as there is a dominating section and a

dominated section in the society, exploitation of the most vulnerable would occur

incessantly. But that doesn’t mean that one mustn’t attempt to reduce it. Looking at my

data and its analysis and the statistics on child labour, both internationally and in India,

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I am forced to however question the real efficacy of the national and international

efforts to curb child labour. Although I do not wish to discount them totally as the

initiatives have definitely created some awareness; otherwise people like me wouldn’t

have been doing research on this topic. But I do think that these efforts have not made

as much impact as they were intended to because the approach to the issue has been

top-down, in majority of the cases.

Each year large sums of money are invested on research related to child labour.

Global conferences, forums, workshops are conducted to address the issue. But when

children themselves willingly assent to work, who and what can change the situation?

The importance of understanding this “will to assent” is missing from the global

perspectives. For example, in most recent report presented at The Hague Global

Conference on Child Labour (van de Glind 2010), the purpose of the social setting of a

child worker is grossly underrepresented and no where there is an intention to

comprehend how the child reaches the point of work. Besides, how much do these

conferences affect the child down there in the Bauri Para of Purulia or the street vendor

in Kolkata? The global charters like the International Labour Organisation’s convention

No.138 and No.182 and the United Nations Charter on Child Rights are definitely great

initiatives. But how does it affect a child in a remote village or even a well-known urban

city in Asia or Africa, who has no inkling about these rights? Let alone a child, when one

asks an average "apparently responsible" adult about these rights, one would notice the

same lack of information and even disinterest. Working from a point that is closer to

the real situations of a child is therefore the key to this. The society that forms the

immediate settings of these children and a subject oriented approach where the focus of

all initiatives would be to aimed to change societal perspectives need to be aimed at.

Further, children are at the core of the issue and thus should be entitled to talk

for themselves. By being born in a country, they have rights like all the other citizens.

But a rights-based discourse is missing everywhere. Moreover, in a society like India

which is heavily influenced by the traditional social structures that shape attitudes, all

the other changes like poverty reduction, education for all, etc. and even a rights based

discourse can be ineffective unless the societal attitudes change. I do not therefore

entirely support the new global discourse on working children’s rights in its current

form. This new line of thought is based on partially educated working children in Latin

Americas and Africa which points out to the fact that children have a voice. "They want

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to earn well, learn something and escape parental control" (Liebel 2004). It sounds

different from the version of the children I met who were subservient and have had no

contact with the international forums. They have a habitus of working that is common

to most of the rural kids in India. So to even give these children the voice and working

rights, there first needs to be a public discourse for it. But a large section of the Indian

public discourse, like the international ones, takes a top-down approach to address the

issue. As a result rules are made that stay somewhere up there in the sky and the

children continue to be exploited down there at the earth’s core. Therefore I

recommend that in order to break the habitus, work should occur at two levels – one at

the level of the society and one at the level of the government policies.

VI a: Mechanisms at the society level

One has to realise that to address an issue, it is important to work with all its key

stakeholders. Society, which includes academic researchers, teachers, employers, policy

makers, social workers and the civil society should therefore first aim to understand

more about the child’s immediate surroundings and the realities he or she faces in every

day-to-day life. Children are important for the future health of a society and being able

to say what they want is necessary and long over-due. My current work is at a very

small scale and has its own limitations because I am the sole researcher in this project.

Consequently, I have mapped out the habitus of a very small sample, but larger studies

need to be undertaken to extract more detailed versions of the habitus and the process

of habitus making. Academia and researchers should also undertake studies of the

larger society from where they themselves emerge and which is also the pool of origin

of the policy makers, teachers and social workers. Employers must be researched and

their psyche of operation must be also understood. Besides providing alternative

opportunities to these children, there is a need to create a situation where employing

child labour becomes a problem. Adult unions in every sector should be sensitized to

protest or lodge complaints against employers who take their jobs and give it to

children. Further, in case children are still employed, employer associations must be

made to understand the benefit of treating the labourers better, because this would

increase their productivity. This is what the women's liberation movement did. It made

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the employers realise, that if they take care of their women employees, they can benefit

more and motivate these workers to work more efficiently.

Then community programmes must be strengthened, spearheaded by

traditional media, new ‘social media’ and the social workers themselves. Television and

media are the best and the quickest source to tap the sensitivities of the masses and

they should take on this responsibility in a more serious manner. For example, a prime

news channel in India, NDTV, funds short documentaries on various issues and social

problems. I think the current campaign educating people about maternal and child

health is a great initiative in this regard. Before the influx of cable television, there were

two national channels which aired both entertainment series as well as news. But now

news is restricted to news channels and entertainment to special entertainment

channels. Barring a few minority, everyone else is normally tuned into the

entertainment channels. Therefore television series for mass awareness must also be

aired on the other entertainment channels as well to spread awareness for the masses.

Even if long time-slots cannot be allotted in such entertainment channels for awareness

campaigns, short adverts during prime time shows can help the social cause a lot. New-

age Indian television programmes like ‘Balika Vadhu’ or ‘Na Aana is Des Meri Lado’

which have woven issues of child marriage and female foeticide in their story lines

could be a good medium for generating awareness and must be popularised.

Social workers on the other hand, many of them who are perpetually strapped of

funds, can raise funds from the corporate sector. But to do so, they need to make the

companies realise that a healthier society provides avenues for a developed market as

well. Mass awareness programmes to sensitising people about rights of children and

the laws to protect them can lead to higher reporting of violations. Organisations like

Save the Children have already started to use visual media to campaign against child

labour. Simultaneously education must be made into a lucrative affair which would

entice parents to send children to study rather than to work. Mechanisms to involve the

civil society could be taken by which members can provide coaching to children in need

and help them through the initial years of schooling when they receive no support from

their families through volunteering programmes. It is also important and perhaps

useful to realise that all work should not be seen as harmful or problematic. Regulated

work combined with studies could actually be beneficial for children as work can be

creative as well. For this, social workers must adopt a more pro-active approach of

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informing children about their rights. To be able to voice their opinions, children must

be made aware that they have right to protection from the constitution of India, under

which any sort of exploitation is not acceptable and is punishable by law. Rights-based

campaigns with the help of local NGO networks will further allow deeper penetration of

the discourse on rights. This would also encourage children to form groups for

motivating other children and follow the each one teach one policy. For example those

children who are already studying in a school, could form groups to mobilise others in

their neighbourhoods. Such groups could also act as a strong support for the children

who lag behind in studies.

Age-old practices cannot vanish with a snap of a finger. Therefore the current

efforts of sensitizing the parents about birth control mechanisms and attacking the

attitudes of preferring a boy child must be fortified. Further, the caste system with its

notion of pollutions and purity, which is so ingrained in the Indian psyche, must be

actively attacked. For example, through picture exhibitions and other audio-visual

media, topics like caste-tolerance, equality of human life, birth-control, increasing the

age of marriage, adult literacy via evening schools could also be professed. Whatever is

done, children must be the core of the scheme. In Kolkata, child domestic labour is

rampant because there is a constant supply of low cost and readily available child

labour from the rural and backward areas of West Bengal. By devising mechanisms to

cut off this supply the demand would automatically shift to a new segment, which would

be adults. Spreading awareness and an economic reward amongst the law enforcers

would further accelerate the crackdown. Therefore, a multi-dimensional approach to

combat the issue is required which would attack it from all sides. Further, it is also

essential that the society takes on an active role in curbing the incidence of child labour.

Through volunteering programmes, social workers can involve a large section of the

population to help these children. Without an active collaboration between all

members in the society, a substantial drop in the numbers is far from happening.

VI b: Mechanisms at the policy level

In India, the successive governments, both central and state, are guilty of not

providing the basic amenities and rights which are enumerated in the Indian

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constitution. It still doesn’t provide clean as well as hygienic spaces of dwelling, water,

electricity and quality health services for majority of its population97. Providing for

basic human rights is a must to root out any social problem of a society. This is a long

and costly process, but with proper planning and the right attitude, it could be possible.

In absence of space, the present colonies of slum dwellers should be cleaned and made

habitable as per the standards of the other sections of the society. Half of the diseases

that kill or make these people suffer originate from the unhygienic conditions. So

treating these areas equally developing the backward regions should be a major priority

of the government. Amartya Sen’s theory of development which professes the

expansion of conditions and freedoms to enhance capabilities of individuals must be

taken more seriously (2000). Attempting to bring a rights-based-discourse without the

provisions to actually exercise those rights is futile. If having quality schooling is a right,

it wouldn’t materialise in the absence of good and efficient education structure.

Similarly, unless people are equipped with equal chances or opportunities to seek

employment (to be educated and lead a healthy life), right to employment enshrined in

the constitution would be rendered useless.

Ensuring these basic rights to all citizens of the country is the first effort that the

government must deploy. But to ensure that the efforts are rightly implemented, the

government has to remedy its political will, faulty practices at policy level and problems

of corruption. The problem with all government machineries is that they are highly

bureaucratic and take a long span of time to decide policy matters. India and its states

like West Bengal are therefore no different and red-tapism rules. During my fieldwork, I

realised that at one point of time, possibly three to four departments were working on a

single issue, but there was no coordination between their efforts. Instead, each

department had a tendency to shift responsibility or made an effort to prove their

superiority. This not only leads to over-lapping expenditures but also wastes valuable

time and manpower.

Apart from considering these points of effective policy making and their

subsequent implementation, corruption, the gravest evil in the Indian system, must be

addressed too. Today India is going through a mass agitation over the formation of an

ombudsman which would bring every top official in the government machinery, under

public scanner. Such efforts should be teamed up with policy reforms aiming for

97

Refer to Appendix 2 for detailed figures and indicators (pg 249-251).

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transparency of the system to strengthen the infrastructure of accountability at all

levels of society. Loopholes in the existing laws must be plugged, reforms must be

introduced and stricter implementation of legal norms must be undertaken. The

government must make every possible effort to make sure that the benefits of schemes

reach the right people. Further, violations must be punished severely.

Secondly, the school machinery should be focussed on, where managing staff and

teachers must be made completely accountable through systems of monitoring and

evaluation. Such monitoring doesn’t necessarily have to be completely official in nature.

A mix of some officials, socially aware parents and children could also help to monitor

the performance of the teachers. Having parent-teacher meetings should become a rule

for all schools. The criteria and examinations for a teaching job should become stricter

to maximise the quality of education imparted. The teacher student ratio must be at

least 1:20, if not less than this. Further, school building and infrastructure must be

changed and refurbished to provide a jovial atmosphere to study. This would also

encourage the children to come to school. A system of gradation and

rewards/recognitions to encourage both teachers and the government schools could be

introduced that would provide an incentive to perform well. Finally the curriculum

should be made more interesting and all encompassing. It should not only have subjects

that are required, but also subjects that pertain to extra-curricular activities like arts &

crafts, drawing, dance and music. In fact, the attitudes and frameworks adopted by

NCLP schools should take over the primary school model. Teachers who have to

constantly report about their activities to a higher authority would bring accountability

among primary school teachers. Such a situation must be created that there is no need

for a bridge school.

Finally, once children move to a higher level of education after their stint at the

primary school, they should be given a choice to be able to choose between studies or

some vocational activity. Providing market oriented skills could be more enticing than

plain studies for certain section of the students. Those who want to study alongside

working should also be given extra support from the school itself in terms of loosening

restrictions and grading systems. Special care must be taken that teachers are patient

enough with them and adopt an encouraging attitude. If the government is able to

achieve this, within two or three generations things would already change drastically

and group of children who earlier could never even think of competing with the rest of

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the society, would finally stand at par with them. In simple words, government has to

make education profitable for these children. Benefits of education must be advertised

in a way that these people feel tempted to study. For example, when a company wants

to sell a product, it does attractive advertising to lure people in buying it. Similarly

education has to be packaged in this way to reach out to masses. There should be

follow-up strategies as well that at least extend for one or two years after the child has

left the primary or the bridge school.

The report of The Hague Global Conference on child labour also proposed some

other vital policy recommendations. The speakers argued that a coordinated policy

response was the key to curbing child labour. Internal as well as external migration

must be checked as it puts pressures on an area’s administration and facilities and there

should be policies for checking each type of migration. Then, policies must be

developed to regulate the informal economy as it is the sector with the worst form of

child labour. It was recommended that countries should learn from the strategy of Latin

America where the potential efficacy of conditional cash transfers that helped families

to break the poverty trap and reduce child labour, has been demonstrated. One speaker

also talked about the importance of cultural practices both at local and international

levels. A multi-dimensional approach to cater to the problems like illiteracy and

poverty and which provides vocational and technical education were unanimously

agreed upon suggestions. For this, a coordinated strategy which involved collaborating

with several departments was also suggested (van de Glind 2010).

Last but not the least, till the time that child labour isn’t totally exterminated

from the face of earth (that is, if it is), working children should be given rights like all

other labourers in the labour market. This, augmented by the knowledge of personal

rights could reduce the level of exploitation. Otherwise they are pushed into two-way

illegality. On one hand they do not have rights of labour because they are minors and on

the other hand the absence of their rights pushes them into more informal and illegal

work which is not regulated by the state. With rights, these same children could at least

protest against exploitation and demand for fair treatment as well as fair wages.

Following are some of the rights that have been formulated by working children’s

organizations in Africa (1994 and 1996):

the right to vocational training in order to learn a trade

the right to stay in the village and not move away;

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the right to carry out our activities safely;

the right to access to justice the right to sick leave;

the right to be respected;

the right to be listened to;

the right to light and limited types of work, adapted to our ages and abilities;

the right to healthcare;

the right to learn to read and write;

the right to have fun and to play;

the right to express ourselves and organize ourselves;

the right to be able to work freely without being harassed or subjected to force;

the right to be allowed to live our life fully and move around freely;

If such a discourse on working children’s rights starts to exist, exploitation could be

controlled as well. When children know that they are being exploited and they have a

right to talk about it or fight it, an enormous step is already taken towards curbing child

labour. With such rights, and the machinery to support them, even the employers and

parents would think twice before they use children for their own interests.

“The organizations of working children on all continents call for equal rights as between children and adults. They defend themselves against being undervalued, subordinated and hindered in making their own decisions with reference to their youth (being ‘minors’). They want to be taken seriously as persons, listened to and paid attention to. They insist on being allowed to question the supremacy of adults, and expect the latter to explain and give reasons for their actions and decisions in so far as they concern the children’s present and future. Their claim to their own independence and making their own decisions is substantiated by the fact that children are people with their ‘own rights’, are entitled to live with human dignity, have specific needs and skills, and best know their own situation. (Liebel 2004, pp. 20–23)

These and many such movements are rapidly emerging and in countries of Latin

American some of these organisations are gaining recognition from the governments,

local administrations and social organisations as ‘representatives of the working

children and as partners for negotiation’. For example in Lima, Peru, a contract with the

city authorities gives paid work under dignified conditions to a few hundred children

over twelve years old. ‘In Dakar, the capital of Senegal, the police recognize the

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membership identification card of the children’s organizations and treat working

children with more respect’ (Liebel 2004, pp. 34–35).

Therefore what is extremely necessary is to bring about changes that would

break the habitus of working among children. They do realise that there is a world

beyond work and backwardness, but they also understand that unless they have the

means and the attitude to break this habitus, no policy or scheme would help them. In

this chapter I demonstrated that the discourses of the actors around them, coupled with

multi-dimensional poverty affecting their self-worth and deplorable living conditions

normalise working for these children. As a result they take to working as ‘a fish to

water’ in the words of Bourdieu (1992, p. 127) because their habitus teaches them to

work. But when this habitus is confronted with a different situation, unless they are

prepared for it, they suffer from a ‘fish out of water’ problem. It is difficult for them to

make sense of the new situation. This is evident from the fact that when education is

not part of their habitus, these children find it difficult to fit into the system of a school;

they don’t perform well or are irregular with attendance and ultimately drop-out. In the

absence of a discourse on education and in the presence of an overwhelming discourse

on working, the latter wins. Hence, understanding the habitus is the key to chart out

policies aiming to decrease the incidence of child labour.

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Chapter 7

Concluding notes, reflection on findings and future work

The discourses of the world define child labour as a problem which needs to be

addressed to save these children from having a permanently marred future. As

illustrated in the introduction and the first chapter, numerous national as well as

international initiatives are being taken to tackle this problem. But global experts

acknowledge that the rate of progress isn’t equivalent to the rate of initiatives taken.

This is because the child himself or herself doesn’t see child labour as a problem.

Rather, he or she willingly accepts to work which is bound to make policies useless.

Also, majority of the people around these children don’t see it as a problem. The current

work was undertaken precisely to investigate the phenomenon of child labour from this

perspective. After providing a background to the issue and presenting the theoretical

and methodological framework, the Indian social structure was analysed. Here it was

argued that the institutions of caste, joint family, marriage and community exert social

pressure on Indians even today. As a result numerous attitudes like preference for male

child, stigmatisation of the lower and the backward groups on the basis of caste, etc.

prevail. Then with the support of empirical data and ethnographic descriptions

accompanied by pictures, the habitus of working was illustrated which makes it normal

for a child in a particular context to work. It was also shown that it is an impregnable

system of dispositions that is structured by the field relations, the mass of capital and

the body of discourses that form the doxa or the rules which all the actors have to

adhere to. But when there are changes in the context, there is a possibility to change

the habitus, although the process is long and slow. Therefore the hypothesis of the

work stands valid.

The main purpose of this research was to show the content of the habitus which

develops from a culture of poverty and the entire process of its construction. Illiterate

parents, poverty, stigma of being from lower social status, early marriages,

impoverished physical dwellings, feeling of helplessness, working peer group, debts and

borrowing, lack of personal rights, uncertainty about their future and high levels of

mental as well as physical endurance shape the habitus of working among child

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labourers. It provides these children with the logic that they are meant to work and

they accept it as given. This acceptance arises from the discourses of the parents, the

neighbours and the larger society that surrounds them. For the maintenance of selfish

personal interests, discourses on poverty, fate of poor children with low intellect,

education as a waste of time and societal distinctions, are created by these actors. The

result is that these children end up accepting that labouring is an inescapable reality for

their kind and in turn accept their subordination by the larger society. Work becomes

normal for them and education is abnormal; being ill-treated and exploited is standard

and being fairly treated is an irregularity.

I: Reflection on Findings

I want to make two points from this research. Given the fact that everything

around the children motivates them to believe that it’s normal to work and they see it

more as an answer than a problem, the need of the hour is to change this attitude. Their

habitus shows that they don’t have any other options as they belong to a society marked

with inequalities wherein securing essential civic amenities and fulfilling the basic

needs of food, clothing and shelter are a problem. They are stratified on the caste and

class divisions which forces certain groups of individuals into the pits of poverty and

backwardness. The society they live in doesn’t feel bothered to see a young child on the

street selling some goods or toiling as a domestic help or languish in some factory or in

the mining industry, because these kids are from a particular lower caste or class. They

work in the informal economy that is hard to regulate and have a corrupt, inefficient

and disinterested legal structure that allows for ready avenues for work. They receive

the worst quality of education which destroys even the slightest hope to change their

conditions. They believe that they belong to a society where there are no options for

their kind and they have to bear the burdens of failures of the state machinery.

Child labour is definitely wrong for children, but given these situations, some of

which could amount to death, working becomes a survival strategy. This does not mean

that I accept child labour as an inevitable reality given by nature. Rather, I have shown

that it is a construction that has been created to justify the children’s work by the

various actors. Their habitus of working is a construction which however is not rigid; it

can be redefined and reconstructed with the right policies and attitudes. This is the first

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important finding of this work that there is a need to change the attitude of the children

that is shaped by their habitus. No matter how impossible it seems, it is achievable as

demonstrated by the influence of the NCLP Schools on the children of Purulia. The

changes are small, but nonetheless not so insignificant. Such changes should be

highlighted and propagated so that they serve as examples for others in the society.

The second important finding of the work is that to affect the habitus, change has

to be brought in society. In other words, the attitude towards these children has to be

changed as well. They are not mere objects that are to be controlled by other actors;

they are human beings with their own thinking processes and likes or dislikes. They are

therefore entitled to equal rights as all other citizens in the country. Social activists and

policy makers should also be more realistic when they deal with this issue. Eradicating

poverty, inequality, corruption and red-tapism will not occur over a fortnight. These

children are breadwinners or surrogate parents or homemakers for many households,

taking the responsibility of the adults. So they should also be respected as workers. If

they work, their rights as workers must be protected by the law. Empowering them,

ensuring fair wages and saving them from exploitation would not only positively affect

the well-being of children, but would also act as a disincentive for employers to employ

them. However, without rights and without options, the illegality of child labour would

make exploitations even more severe and covert.

At a personal level, this research has had a profound impact on my own thought

process. Watching the lives of the children unfold from a very close distance has

enriched my comprehension of the Indian social structure, which otherwise seemed

normal and mostly flawless, because of the habitus I come from. I have never faced

discrimination in my life, not even based on gender (which is common in India). But to

understand the discriminations these children face in day-to-day life opened up the

darkness of existing chasms of Indian society for me as well. It brought me closer to a

reality that most people like us who live in urban cities and enjoy comfortable life-styles

are unaware off. Simple things, like running water or having round-the-clock electricity

then seem as privileges that only few people in our country enjoy. Therefore I wish that

this work also has the same impact on the reader, especially on those who argue that

caste, joint-family system, institutions of marriage and the community are part of

historical and traditional India.

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II: Future works

Research about the phenomenon of child labour is vast and varied. Almost every

aspect of this equation is being explored today. Therefore I think that researchers have

to go down a few levels and start from the core of the issue – the actors. The ever-

present gap between theory and practice needs to be filled. Only then will policies

become meaningful and helpful. The research sample for this work was limited and the

area covered was small. But still, with the “thick descriptions” and the practical

recommendations that I have provided, this research can be considered important in its

own sense. Lincoln and Guba (1985) have argued that a good qualitative research

should have credibility, transferability, dependability and conformability (Shenton

2004, p. 73). I have tried to fulfil each of these requirements by providing a detailed

background to the field, to the theoretical and methodological framework and by

specifying every step I took to undertake this research. I chose well-recognised

methods for research and analysis. Also with the help of detailed descriptions and a

constant reflection on my personal thoughts, I have further tried to make the current

work as transparent as possible.

Therefore, on the basis of my work, it is still possible to argue that in other parts

of India and elsewhere in the world, wherever similar situations would prevail, child

labour would continue unabashed. In every society, be it developed or developing,

stratification based on caste, class or race, or a combination of these factors may exist,

which turns one section as dominators and one as the dominated. Exploring power

relations that are at the core of all social problems in the world could be a key to

remedy them. In case of child labour as well, research should be taken place to delve

into attitudes of the actors and the power dynamics of a society. Each actor, that is, the

parents, the employers, the teachers, the social activists and the policy makers should

be researched with the use of participant observation technique wherever possible. For

example, by investigating the perceptions of employers, one can devise strategies to

persuade them into not employing children.

In the end, I would say that we researchers are outsiders and we cannot and

should not pass judgements on these children by deciding what is good or bad for them.

We must understand the context of their decisions and then think of the course of action

accordingly. Only by stepping into a child labourer’s shoes can we understand the

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efficacy of the statement that necessity knows no laws. The need of the hour is to have

an actor-centric approach wherein the main protagonists – the children – have a voice

of their own and are given due importance.

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Appendix 1:

Field Data

Table 8: Codes and themes from the talks of the respondents (note some themes are

clubbed under more than one code)

Emotions Cognitive rules (things beyond their control)

Latent hierarchies

1. Bleak future 2. Planned future 3. Rude employers

hurts self-esteem

4. Fooling someone or winning lottery are ways to make money

5. We are weak, cannot fight exploitation

6. Bullies at school 7. No matter how

less I get paid, my uncle cares for me

8. I like my employers as they feed me well.

9. Bad company must be avoided

10. I want to study 11. I don’t want to

study 12. Being educated

demeans the dignity of labour

13. I feel good because I am the first in the family to study this far

14. I can’t decide about my life, parents would decide where I would marry

15. I am ready for marriage and

21. Early marriage 22. Early motherhood 23. Deaths are

frequent 24. Remarriage 25. Helping in the

house is not labour

26. Being an apprentice is beneficial

27. It is the fate of poor people to suffer

28. Money gives power

29. Father dominates 30. Uneducated

parents 31. Many siblings 32. Fascination of for

a boy child 33. Being eldest, more

responsibility 34. Parents will

decide for us 35. Work as a pastime 36. My uncle is good

to me 37. Waking up early

and doing work is our duty

38. We cannot take rest

39. Fear of life from Maoists

40. Work is better than being kidnapped and indoctrinated by

54. Girls do housework and boys do outside work

55. Unsafe for girls 56. Fate of the poor to

work 57. Bribes to feel

protected 58. Bad school structure 59. Irresponsible

teachers 60. Fear of losing job 61. Must pay dowries to

maintain social position

62. Failing in studies, punctures pride

63. Teachers don’t listen to our complaints when we are in a school of mixed people

64. We must fight a losing battle to study with our parents

65. Teachers were reprimanding me for making mistakes or being irregular

66. Working as a child is associated with lower castes

67. Education is seen as mobility

68. Caste distinctions 69. Being the only

daughter or only son an advantage

70. Being the youngest child an advantage

237 | P a g e

take the responsibility of a house

16. Jealous neighbour

17. There is nothing to dream off

18. I don’t like to be reprimanded by teachers

19. Hope dies last 20. If I fail in a

subject it’s shameful

Maoists. 41. I can’t pass

without tuitions as parents can’t help me with studies.

42. We are different than you

43. A girl is a burden if she doesn’t help in housework

44. Caste consciousness

45. Education doesn’t reduce dowry

46. Irregular attendance a norm

47. Gambling and drinking parent/s

48. Strategies of survival

49. Schools not profitable

50. Want to make profit and aim for better

51. When employers feed us, then we don’t have to share the food at home

52. Children need to be saved from the ‘love bug”

53. I am ready for marriage and to take up the responsibility of a household

71. Girl’s education/well being is dispensable for the benefit of a boy member of the family

72. Santa Claus doesn’t come for us

73. Curiosity about the others

74. Boys have a good life if they stay with parents

75. We are different than you

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Semi-structured Question Schedule for Experts:

1. Which states have the highest incidence of child labour in India? Why? 2. Which sectors have high demand for child labourers? Why? 3. What are the causes of child labour in India? 4. What are the solutions? 5. Is education important? If yes, why? If no, why? 6. Are the currents Indian policies on child labour good? If yes, why? If no, why? 7. Is child labour a problem? If yes, why? If no, why? 8. How do you define terms like child, childhood, labour and work? 9. Do children have rights? Should they be allowed to speak for themselves? If yes,

why? If no, why? 10. What do you think about working children’s rights movements? 11. Is it possible to eradicate child labour from India? If yes, why? If no, why?

Semi-structured Question Schedule for officials and social activists in Purulia and

Kolkata:

1. What is the socio-economic character of this region? 2. Who are the dominant groups and who are the most backward groups? 3. What are the primary problems faced by this region? 4. What are the official estimates of child labour in this region? 5. Which sectors have high demand for child labourers? Why? 6. What are the causes of child labour in this region? 7. What are the solutions? 8. Is education important? If yes, why? If no, why? 9. Are the currents Indian policies on child labour good? If yes, why? If no, why? 10. Is child labour a problem? If yes, why? If no, why? 11. How do you define terms like child, childhood, labour and work? 12. Do children have rights? Should they be allowed to speak for themselves? If yes,

why? If no, why? 13. What do you think about working children’s rights movements? 14. Is it possible to eradicate child labour from this region? If yes, why? If no, why? 15. What changes can be seen with the advent of NCLP schools?

In addition to these and general background questions about the primary school,

teachers were also asked:

1. Do you know the parents of the children you are teaching? If yes, how? If no, why?

2. What is the reason for high number of absentee rates among teachers? 3. What is the reason for high number of absentee rates among students? 4. Why do primary schools face high drop-out rates? 5. How would you rate your student’s aptitude, sincerity and will to study? 6. Do you see any effect of education on these children? 7. Why are NCLP Schools more popular than primary schools?

239 | P a g e

Figure 17: Chart of Respondents Purulia

Purulia

Purulia Town (NCLP School & others)

Singhbajar (Tasar weaving village)

Barabazar (Home-based work)

Dongal, Jhalda (Beedi making village)

Ashima, Shalini,

Shikha, Ravi, Kriti,

Pankaj, Anu, Chaya,

Dola, Moyena, Durga,

Bikram, Maani,

Madhu, Piu, Amit,

Diya, Bijoy, Asha, Keya

Sumi Amrit Abedun, Zoya, Reema,

Payal

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Figure 18: Chart of Respondents in Kolkata

Kolkata

New Market Traffic Lights of Ballygung Phari

Park Circus Kasba (Domestic Help)

Irfan, Sonia, Rahul,

Amir, Ranjit, Ajit,

Raghu

Chandni, Chandan Kurban, Dilshad Anima

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Table 8: Complete profile of child respondents and their families

Given names Sex Age

Location Work Child's education Father Mother

Total income of family

House-rented or owned

Siblings

Other dependents

Total Family Members

Primary

Bridge School Secondary

Education level

Occupation

Education level

Occupation Male Female

1 Ashima F 13 Purulia Domestic Worker (H) 4 NCLP G.School 0

rikshaw puller 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 1 2 1 7

2 Shalini F 12 Purulia Household 4 NCLP G.School 8 coal seller 0

housewife

< Rs. 5000

Own 1 1

1 6

3 Shikha F 13 Purulia Household 5

NCLP

G.School 10

rikshaw puller 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 1 0 2 6

4 Ravi M 12 Purulia Wage Labour 4 NCLP G.School

Absent Father 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 2 1 0 5

5 Kriti F 14 Purulia No work 4 NCLP Dropout 0 sweet maker 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 2 0 1 6

242 | P a g e

6 Pankaj M 12 Purulia Household 5 NCLP G.School 0

rikshaw puller 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 2 0 2 7

7 Anu F 13 Purulia Domestic Worker (H) 5 NCLP Dropout 0

rikshaw puller 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 1 2 2 8

8 Chaya F 12 Purulia Domestic Worker (H) 5 NCLP G.School 0

no earning 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 1 4 2 10

9 Dola F 13 Purulia Household 5 NCLP G.School 0

rikshaw puller 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 2 0 2 7

10 Moyena F 10 Purulia Domestic Worker (H) 3 NCLP

Not applicable 0

no earning 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 0 2 2 7

11 Durga F 14 Purulia Household 4 NCLP G.School 0

rikshaw puller 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 1 0 2 6

12 Bikram M 14 Purulia Wage Labour 5 NCLP G.School 0

farmer 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 0 2 1 6

243 | P a g e

13 Maani F 13 Purulia Household 5 NCLP G.School 4

rikshaw puller 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 2 5 1 11

14 Madhu F 12 Purulia Household 4 NCLP Not applicable 12

Bank clerk 0

housewife

< Rs. 5000 Own 1 3 2 9

15 Amit M 14 Purulia No work 5 NCLP G.School

Absent father 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 0 1 1 5

16 Piu F 11 Purulia Domestic Worker (H) 2 NCLP

Not applicable 0

Musician/ no earning 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 0 1 0 3

17 Diya F 13 Purulia Domestic Worker (H) 3 NCLP

Not applicable 0

rikshaw puller 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 3 0 0 6

18 Amrit M 12 Barabazar

Home Based Production Unit 7

Government School 0

wage labour 0

wage labour

< Rs. 3500 Rent 0 1 0 4

19 Reema F 12 Dongal Beedi (H) 6 Government School 0

wage labour 0 beedi

< Rs. 3500 Own 2 0 0 5

20 Payal F 13 Dongal Beedi (H) 7 Government School 0

wage labour 0 beedi

< Rs. 3500 Own 1 1 0 5

21 Abedun F 14 Dongal Beedi (H) 0 No school 0

rikshaw puller 0 beedi

< Rs. 3500 Own 2 3 0 8

244 | P a g e

22 Zoya F 11 Dongal Beedi (H) 3 Government School 0

wage labour 0 beedi

< Rs. 3500 Own 1 3 0

23 Sumi F 14 Singhbajar Household 7

Government School 0

weaver 0

weaver

< Rs. 3500 Own 1 0 1 5

24 Amir M 13 Kolkata Street Hawker 5

Government School N.A

no earning 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 2 0 1 6

25 Irfan M 14 Kolkata Street Hawker 4

Government School N.A

farmer 0

housewife

< Rs. 3500 Rent 1 1 2 7

26 Sonia F 9 Kolkata Street Hawker 1

Government School N.A

bus conducter 0

rag picker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 0 1 1 5

27 Chandni F 10 Kolkata Street Hawker 0 No school N.A

bus conducter 0

rag picker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 1 0 2 6

28 Rahul M 11 Kolkata Street Hawker 0 No school N.A

bus conducter 0

rag picker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 0 0 1 4

29 Chandan M 12 Kolkata Street Hawker 4

Government School N.A

no earning 0

rag picker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 1 0 2 6

30 Dilshad M 10 Kolkata Garage Help 3 Government School N.A

farmer 0

housewife

< Rs. 3500 N.A N.A N.A 0 3

31 Kurban M 12 Kolkata Street Vendor 3

Government School

absent 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 1 1 0 4

245 | P a g e

32 Ranjit M 12 Kolkata Apprentice 5 Government School N.A

farmer 0

housewife

< Rs. 3500 Rent 1 3 2 9

33 Ajit M 12 Kolkata Apprentice 4 Government School N.A

farmer 0

housewife

< Rs. 3500 Rent 1 1 0 5

34 Raghu M 11 Kolkata Apprentice 4 Government School N.A

farmer 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 1 1 0 5

35 Anima F 14 Kolkata Domestic Worker 0 No school N.A

wage labour 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 2 3 0 8

36 Keya F 12 Purulia Domestic Worker 0 No school N.A

wage labour 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 1 0 0 4

37 Asha F 10 Purulia Domestic Worker 0 No school N.A

rikshaw puller 0

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 0 2 0 5

38 Bijoy M 10 Purulia Waiter 2 Government School

rikshaw puller

domestic worker

< Rs. 3500 Rent 1 1 0 5

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Table 8: Profiles of the Adolescent Respondents

Name Sex Age Place

Occupation

Education Level School

Father’s occupation

Mother’s occupation

Total income of the family

House ownership

Male siblings

Female siblings

Other dependents

Total family members

1 Shefuna F 17 Dongal Beedi 0 No school beedi beedi < Rs. 3500 own 0 2 1 6

2

Sharab Ansari

M

18 Dongal Factory 8 Government School beedi beedi < Rs. 3500 own 1 3 1 8

3 Mallika F 16 Singhbajar Household 7

Government School weaver weaver < Rs. 3500 own 1 2 1 7

4 Pervez M 15 Kolkata Street Vendor 4

Government School farmer

housewife < Rs. 3500 N.A 1 2 2 8

5 Biren M 17 Singhbajar Wage Labour 10

Government School weaver weaver < Rs. 3500 own 0 2 1 6

247 | P a g e

Table 10: Profiles of adult respondents from Sighbajar and Jhalda

Names Age Location Work

Education

level Total income of family

No. of family members

No. of working children in the family

School Level

1 Harish Bhaya 75 Singhbajar Weaver 8 < Rs. 7000 11 4

2 Gouri Dey 36 Singhbajar Weaver 0 < Rs. 5000 3 2

3 Rakesh Mandal 32 Singhbajar Weaver 7 < Rs. 5000 4 0

4 Devaki Kandu 28 Dongal Beedi 0 < Rs. 5000 4 2

5 Sushila 29 Dongal Beedi 0 < Rs. 5000 5 2

6 Charu Bala 22 Dongal Beedi 0 < Rs. 5000 5 1

248 | P a g e

Appendix 2

Secondary Data (Sources: Internet and Official Report)

Table 11 Accessibility of Educational Infrastructure – Educational Institutions within Village/Ward (%)

Block / ULB Primary Schools

Middle Schools

Block / ULB Primary Schools

Middle Schools

Arsha 89.6 11.5 Neturia 78.2 19.4 Bagmundi 83.8 9.2 Para 91.9 28.1 Balarampur 90.0 8.9 Puncha 94.5 30.3 Bandwan 86.7 11.1 Puruliya - I 95.7 20.0 Barabazar 88.8 14.9 Puruliya - II 99.1 27.6 Hura 95.7 25.0 Raghunathpur - I 89.2 32.4 Jhalda - I 87.4 18.9 Raghunathpur - II 90.6 23.6 Jhalda - II 83.2 13.0 Santuri 86.5 18.3 Joypur 85.8 10.6 Puruliya(M) 100.0 100.0 Kashipur 88.6 10.0 Raghunathpur(M) 100.0 100.0 Manbazar - I 74.6 18.9 Jhalda(M) 100.0 100.0 Manbazar - II 87.5 19.9 District 87.6 18.1

Table 12 Facilities in Primary Schools – 2008 (% with)

Blocks/

ULB

Pucca Building

Drinking Water

Toilet

Blocks/ ULB

Pucca Building

Drinking Water

Toilet

Arsha 100.0 75.4 31.3 Neturia 99.1 95.3 35.5 Bagmundi 99.3 92.8 23.7 Para 98.8 91.6 60.2 Balarampur 96.8 98.4 29.4 Puncha 100.0 85.2 28.4 Bandwan 99.2 95.5 55.3 Puruliya - I 97.8 85.5 26.1 Barabazar 99.5 93.6 14.3 Puruliya - II 98.0 76.4 21.6 Hura 100.0 92.6 51.3 Raghunathpur - I 98.1 98.1 75.2 Jhalda - I 99.3 60.4 34.0 Raghunathpur - II 100.0 84.8 41.4 Jhalda - II 99.1 66.1 33.0 Santuri 98.9 98.9 66.3 Joypur 96.6 92.2 28.4 Puruliya(M) 61.8 57.9 13.2 Kashipur 96.9 89.0 75.3 Raghunathpur(M) 95.2 90.5 28.6 Manbazar - I 98.5 83.2 33.2 Jhalda(M) 50.0 88.9 5.6 Manbazar - II 99.3 97.1 15.4 District 97.5 86.7 38.0

249 | P a g e

Table 13 Availability of Teachers in Schools - 2008

Primary Upper Primary

Primary Upper Primary

Blocks/ ULB TPS TSR TPS TSR

Blocks/ ULB TPS TSR TPS TSR

Arsha 3.5 2.1 7.3 1.5 Neturia 1.8 3.5 8.1 2.5 Bagmundi 12.0 2.6 32.5 2.2 Para 2.6 2.6 8.8 2.1 Balarampur 1.7 2.3 4.0 1.8 Puncha 2.0 3.3 9.1 2.6 Bandwan 13.4 3.6 46.7 3.2 Puruliya - I 3.5 2.7 14.9 2.3 Barabazar 3.2 2.6 12.9 2.7 Puruliya - II 2.2 2.2 11.6 2.6 Hura 3.4 3.7 20.0 3.1 Raghunathpur - I 1.1 3.3 3.8 2.3 Jhalda - I 1.9 3.1 6.2 2.0 Raghunathpur - II 1.7 2.5 8.2 2.4 Jhalda - II 2.1 2.0 9.3 1.6 Santuri 0.9 3.6 3.2 3.0 Joypur 2.2 2.2 5.2 1.7 Puruliya(M) 1.3 3.0 7.0 2.9 Kashipur 3.5 3.6 14.2 2.1 Raghunathpur(M) 0.2 3.9 1.9 2.0 Manbazar - I 3.1 3.4 9.0 1.8 Jhalda(M) 0.3 3.2 1.5 2.1 Manbazar - II 1.1 3.5 6.7 3.1 District 2.0 2.8 7.8 2.3

Note: TPS – Teachers per School; TSR – Teacher-Student Ratio Source for these 3 tables: Office of the SSM, Purulia; District Information on School Education – 2008-09; Census of India, 2001 (Purulia DHDR pg. 157-158)

Figure 19: India’s Low Health expenditure in comparison with other countries (% of

GDP)

(Source: World Bank Development Report 2011)

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

Germany Finland India Mexico UnitedStates

SouthAfrica

Ghana Brazil

Health expenditure, public (% of government expenditure)

2007

2008

2009

250 | P a g e

Figure 20: India’s High Out-of-pocket health expenditure in comparison with other

countries

(Source: World Bank Development Report 2011)

Figure 21: India’s poor condition in terms of providing sanitation in comparison with

other countries

(Source: World Bank Development Report 2011)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Germany Finland India Mexico UnitedStates

SouthAfrica

Ghana Brazil

Out-of-pocket health expenditure (% of total expenditure on health)

2007

2008

2009

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Germany Finland India Mexico UnitedStates

SouthAfrica

Ghana Brazil

Improved sanitation facilities (% of population with access)

2005

2008

251 | P a g e

Figure 22: India has maximum share of underweight children below five years in the

Developing World

(Source: UNICEF 2009)

Figure 23: India’s public spending on Education is one of the lowest in comparison with

other countries (% of GDP)

(Source: World Bank Development Report 2011)

Bangladesh, 5% Pakistan, 5%

Other devleoping Countries, 43%

Nigeria, 5%

India, 42%

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Germany Finland India Mexico UnitedStates

SouthAfrica

Ghana Brazil

Public spending on education, total (% of GDP)

2005

2006

2007

252 | P a g e

National Legislations and Child Labour policies in India

(Source: This section has been adopted in its entirety from ILO Policy Brief on India,

2009 - available online at

http://www.ilo.org/legacy/english/regions/asro/newdelhi/ipec/responses/india/nati

onal.htm)

The Constitution of India (26 January 1950), through various articles enshrined in the Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principles of State Policy, lays down that:

1. No child below the age of 14 years shall be employed to work in any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment (Article 24);

2. The State shall direct its policy towards securing that the health and strength of workers, men and women and the tender age of children are not abused and that they are not forced by economic necessity to enter vocations unsuited to their age and strength (Article 39-e);

3. Children shall be given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity and that childhood and youth shall be protected against moral and material abandonment (Article 39-f);

4. The State shall endeavour to provide within a period of 10 years from the commencement of the Constitution for free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of 14 years (Article 45). Child labour is a matter on which both the Union Government and state governments can legislate. A number of legislative initiatives have been undertaken at both levels. The major national legislative developments include the following:

The Factories Act, 1948: The Act prohibits the employment of children below the age of 14 years. An adolescent aged between 15 and 18 years can be employed in a factory only if he obtains a certificate of fitness from an authorized medical doctor. The Act also prescribes four and a half hours of work per day for children aged between 14 and 18 years and prohibits their working during night hours. The Minimum Wages Act, 1948: Prescribes minimum wages for all employees in all establishments or to those working at home in certain sectors specified in the schedule of the Act. Central and State Governments can revise minimum wages specified in the schedule. Some consider this Act as an effective instrument to combat child labour in that it is being used in some States (such as Andhra Pradesh) as the basis on which to prosecute employers who are employing children and paying lower wages. The Mines Act, 1952: The Act prohibits the employment of children below 18 years of age in a mine. Further, it states that apprentices above 16 may be allowed to work under proper supervision in a mine. The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986: The Act prohibits the employment of children below the age of 14 years in 13 occupations and 57 processes

253 | P a g e

that are hazardous to the children's lives and health. These occupations and processes are listed in the Schedule to the Act; The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) of Children Act, 2000: This Act was last amended in 2002 in conformity with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child covers everyone below 18 years of age. Section 26 of this Act deals with the Exploitation of a Juvenile or Child Employee, and provides in relevant part, that whoever procures a juvenile or the child for the purpose of any hazardous employment and keeps him in bondage and withholds his earnings or uses such earning for his own purposes shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable for fine. In some States, including Karnataka and Maharashtra, this provision has been used effectively to bring to book many child labour employers who are otherwise not covered by any other law and to give relief and rehabilitation benefits to a large number of children. Amendment to Child Labour Act – October 2006: The Government has included children working in the domestic sector as well as roadside eateries and motels under the prohibited list of hazardous occupations. More recently, in September 2008 diving as well as process involving excessive heat (e.g. working near a furnace) and cold; mechanical fishing; food processing; beverage industry; timber handling and loading; mechanical lumbering; warehousing; and processes involving exposure to free silica such as slate, pencil industry, stone grinding, slate stone mining, stone quarries as well as the agate industry were added to the list of prohibited occupations and processes; The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009: Provides for free and compulsory education to all children aged 6 to 14 years. This legislation also envisages that 25 per cent of seats in every private school should be allocated for children from disadvantaged groups including differently abled children.

An important judicial intervention in the action against child labour in India was the M.C. Mehta case (1996) in which The Supreme Court, directed the Union and state governments to identify all children working in hazardous processes and occupations, to withdraw them from work, and to provide them with quality education. The Court also directed that a Child Labour Rehabilitation-cum-Welfare Fund be set up using contributions from employers who contravene the Child Labour Act. Additionally, in 1993, the Supreme Court in Unnikrishnan v. State of Andhra Pradesh ruled that each child has the right to free education until he or she completes the age of 14 years. Article 21-A which was incorporated into the Constitution, reflects this standard. In 2005, the M.V. Foundation, an NGO working on child rights brought a public interest litigation petition which argues that child labour up to the age of compulsory education is unconstitutional and is a negation of rights under Article 21-A which provides for compulsory education up to the age of 14. This case is still pending before the Supreme Court. Notably however, under this case the Court has asked the Government to file a status report on the implementation of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, a government programme providing free and compulsory education to all children.

The Ministry of Labour and Employment has been implementing the national policy through the establishment of National Child Labour Projects (NCLPs) for the

254 | P a g e

rehabilitation of child workers since 1988. Initially, these projects were industry specific and aimed at rehabilitating children working in traditional child labour endemic industries. A renewed commitment to fulfil the constitutional mandate resulted in enlarging the ambit of the NCLPs in 1994 to rehabilitate children working in hazardous occupations in child labour endemic districts.

India is a signatory to the:

ILO Forced Labour Convention (No. 29); ILO Abolition of Forced Labour Convention (No. 105); UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)

255 | P a g e

Publication bibliography

Audio or Video Document

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Book

Child labour. A textbook for university students (2004). Geneva: International Labour Office. Available online at http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/66559252.

Ahmad, Imtiaz (1978): Caste and social stratification among Muslims in India. 2d rev. and enl. Columbia, Mo: South Asia Books.

Ariès, Philippe (1973): Centuries of childhood. London: Jonathan Cape. Available online at http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/255143654.

Asian Development Bank (2011): Global Food Price Inflation and Developing Asia. Philippines: Asian Development Bank. Available online at http://www.adb.org/documents/reports/global-food-price-inflation/food-price-inflation.pdf, checked on 2/09/2011.

Baas, Laura (2008): Child Labour in the Sugar Cane Harvest in Bolivia. Amsterdam: IREWOC. Available online at http://www.childlabour.net/documents/worstformsLAproject/SugarcaneBolivia_Baas2008.pdf, checked on 22/08/2011.

Basu, Kaushik (1998): Child Labour: Cause, Consequence and Cure, with Remarks on International Labor Standards. Washington: The World Bank.

Bellamy, Carol (1997): The state of the world's children 1997. Oxford ;, New York: Oxford University Press for UNICEF. Available online at http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/36286998.

Berger, Peter L.; Luckmann, Thomas (1991, 1963): The social construction of reality. A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Available online at http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/41042255.

Blaikie, Norman W. H. (2009, c2010): Designing social research. The logic of anticipation. 2nd. Cambridge, UK ;, Malden, MA: Polity Press.

Bourdieu, Pierre (1979): Algeria 1960. The disenchantment of the world : the sense of honour : the Kabyle house or the world reversed : essays. Cambridge [Eng.] ;, New York: Cambridge University Press. Available online at http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3748575.

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Bourdieu, Pierre (1990a): In other words. Essays towards a reflexive sociology. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press. Available online at http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/22432801.

Bourdieu, Pierre (1990b): The logic of practice. Reprinted. Cambridge: Polity Press. Available online at http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/255739963.

Bourdieu, Pierre (1992): Language and symbolic power. 1. publ. in paperback. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Bourdieu, Pierre (1993): The field of cultural production. Essays on art and literature. 1. publ. Cambridge: Polity Pr.

Bourdieu, Pierre (1998): Practical reason. On the theory of action. Stanford, Calif: Stanford Univ. Press.

Bourdieu, Pierre (2000): Pascalian meditations. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press.

Bourdieu, Pierre (2002): Distinction. A social critique of the judgement of taste. Repr. London: Routledge.

Bourdieu, Pierre; Accardo, Alain (1999): The Weight of the World -. Social suffering in contemporary society. Stanford, Calif: Stanford Univ. Press.

Bourdieu, Pierre; Nice, Richard (2004): Science of science and reflexivity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Available online at http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/255582721.

Bourdieu, Pierre; Wacquant, Loïc J. D. (1992): An invitation to reflexive sociology. Repr. Cambridge [u.a.]: Polity Pr. Available online at http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/316112397.

Boyden, Jo; Ling, Birgitta; Myers, William E. (1998): What works for working children. Florence, Italy, Stockholm, Sweden: Unicef, International Child Development; Rädda Barnen. Available online at http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/40944008.

Bryman, Alan (2004): Social research methods. 2nd. Oxford ;, New York: Oxford University Press. Available online at http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/55108074.

Cigno, Alessandro; Rosati, Furio C. (2005): The economics of child labour. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available online at http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/475053293.

Clark, Alison; McQuail, Susan; Moss, Peter (2003): Exploring the field of listening to and consulting with young children. Nottingham: DfES Publications. Available online at http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52976910.

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The Express Tribune - Pakistan (6/10/2010): Two-thirds of Pakistan prefers joint family system. Available online at http://tribune.com.pk/story/59309/two-thirds-of-pakistan-prefers-joint-family-system/, checked on 18/07/2011.

India Today (24/01/2011): Illegal immigration: East Bengal in West Bengal. Available online at http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/story/east+bengal+in+west+bengal/1/126587.html, checked on 26/07/2011.

The Times Of India (11/04/2011): 52% maternal deaths occur after delivery. Available online at http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-05-11/pune/29531786_1_maternal-deaths-maternal-mortality-rate-hypertensive-disorders, checked on 26/07/2011.

NDTV (20/04/2011): Moin's tragedy, India's shame. Available online at http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/moins-tragedy-indias-shame-99983, checked on 7/06/2011.

ZEE News, India (7/05/2011): Over 1.7 mn children work in beedi industry: Study. Available online at http://www.zeenews.com/news578951.html, checked on 7/05/2011.

India Today (8/05/2011): Naxals increasingly using child soldiers to swell its ranks. Available online at http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/articlePrint.jsp?aid=137474, checked on 5/06/2011.

The Times Of India (29/05/2011): Bandh loss bigger than West Bengal development budget: ICC. Available online at http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-03-29/kolkata/29357314_1_bandhs-mandays-west-bengal, checked on 27/07/2011.

The Hindu (14/06/2011): West Bengal government aiming at corruption-free regime: Governor. Available online at http://www.hindu.com/2011/06/14/stories/2011061455620900.htm, checked on 27/07/2011.

India Today (30/06/2011): Andhra Pradesh: Poor parents feed children toddy instead of milk. Available online at http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/story/andhra-pradesh-poor-parents-feed-their-children-alcohol-instead-of-milk/1/143129.html, checked on 30/06/2011.

NDTV (30/06/2011): Alcohol, not milk for tribal children in Andhra Pradesh. Available online at http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/alcohol-not-milk-for-tribal-children-in-andhra-pradesh-115856, checked on 3/08/2011.

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ZEE News, India (30/07/2011): West Bengal ranks fourth in infant mortality rate. Available online at http://zeenews.india.com/news/west-bengal/west-bengal-ranks-fourth-in-infant-mortality-rate_716560.html, checked on 26/07/2011.

Ganguly, Deepankar (30/11/2006): Hawkers stay as Rs 265 cr talks. The Telegraph - Kolkata. Available online at http://www.telegraphindia.com/1061130/asp/frontpage/story_7071031.asp, checked on 7/08/2011.

Gentleman, Amelia: Children's domestic labor resists India's legal efforts - Asia - Pacific - International Herald Tribune - The New York Times. West Bengal. The New York Times. Available online at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/world/asia/18iht-india.4637103.html, checked on 3/05/2011.

K.K Shahina (20/11/2010): Mother, shall I put you to sleep? Tehelka. Available online at http://www.tehelka.com/story_main47.asp?filename=Ne201110Maariyamma.asp, checked on 3/08/2011.

Rahman, Azera (12/06/2008): Missing, a strong legal framework to combat child labour (June 12 is world day against child labour) - Thaindian News. Indo-Asian News Service. Available online at http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/missing-a-strong-legal-framework-to-combat-child-labour-june-12-is-world-day-against-child-labour_10059132.html, checked on 21/08/2011.

Rajalakshmi, T.K (3/12/2004): Caste terror. Frontline. Available online at http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2125/stories/20041217002304200.htm, checked on 23/07/2011.

Sharma, Lochan (18/07/2011): Arranged Marriage Before Birth Diminishes Among Nepali Ethnic Group. Global Press Institute. Available online at http://www.globalpressinstitute.org/global-news/asia/nepal/arranged-marriage-birth-diminishes-among-nepali-ethnic-group, checked on 18/07/2011.

Vishwanathan, S. (18/06/2004): Intolerance and resistance. Frontline. Available online at http://www.hindu.com/fline/fl2113/stories/20040702002104400.htm, checked on 19/07/2011.

Newspaper Article

The Telegraph - Calcutta : Bengal (2006), 10/10/2006, checked on 4/05/2011.

Roy Chowdhury, Shreya (2009): Children of a lesser God? Netas don't care. In The Times of India, 16/05/2009 (Delhi). Available online at http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-05-16/india/28188241_1_child-rights-issue-of-child-labour-bachpan-bachao-andolan.

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Press Release

ILO: Facts on child labour 2010.

UNICEF UK and BRITISH AIRWAYS: Rights for Every Child.

Special Issue

Netter, Thomas (Ed.) (2005): Jobs and the MDGs: Working out of Poverty. World of Work: The Magazine of ILO (55). Turin: ILO.

Öjermark, May Hofman (Ed.) (2007): The end of child labour: Millions of voices, one common hope. World of Work: The Magazine of ILO (61). Turin: ILO.

EJF (Ed.) (2007): The Children behind Our Cotton. London, UK: Environmental Justice Foundation.

Öjermark, May Hofman (Ed.) (2008): Multinationals and Decent Work. World of Work: The Magazine of ILO (62). Turin: ILO.

The State of Global Child Trafficking for Sexual Purposes (2009). Bangkok, Thailand: ECPAT International.

Responding to Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation in South Asia. Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Working Papers

(2010): Inflation Expectations and Monetary Policy in India: An Empirical Exploration; by Michael Debabrata Patra and Partha Ray; IMF Working Paper 10/84; April 1, 2010. Working Paper.

Banerjee, A.; Duflo, E.; Ghatak, M.; Lafortune, J. (2010): Marry for What? Caste and Mate Selection in Modern India. Working Papers. London School of Economics, London. Available online at http://econ.lse.ac.uk/staff/mghatak/marriage.pdf, checked on 31/07/2011.

Emerson, Patrick M.; Souza, André Portela (2002): Is there a Child Labour Trap? Inter-Generational Persistance of Child Labour in Brazil. Working Paper No. 02-W14. Vanderbilt University, Nashville.

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Hart, Jason; Tyrer, Bex (2006): Research with Children Living in Situations of Armed Conflict: Concepts, Ethics and Methods. RSC Working Paper. University of Oxford, Oxford. Refugee Studies Centre.

Unknown

Ulfers, Friedrich; Cohen, Mark D. (2007): Nietzsche’s Amor Fati: The Embracing of an Undecided Fate: The Nietzsche Circle.

Unpublished Work

Alegri, Giorgio (2007): Listening to the children: Case study on child labourers and Non Formal Education in Dhaka. Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies Masters Programme in Asian Studies. Lund University.

Basu, A.K; Chau Nancy H. (2004): Exploitation of Child Labor and the Dynamics of Debt Bondage.

Bhalotra, Sonia: Is Child Work Necessary?

Burra, Neera (2009): Child labour in rural areas with a special focus on migration, agriculture, mining and brick kilns. NCPCR. Delhi, India. Available online at http://www.ncpcr.gov.in/Reports/Child_Labour_in_Rural_areas_with_special_focus_on_Migration_Agriculture_%20Mining_by_Neera_Burra.pdf.

Chaudhuri, S.; Dwibedi J.K (2005): Trade Liberalization in Agriculture in Developed Nations and Incidence of Child Labour in a Developing Economy. Kolkata. Available online at http://129.3.20.41/eps/it/papers/0510/0510009.pdf.

CRY: Status Report of Child Rights in Nandigram.

Konar, Ajoy; Lahiri-Dutt Kuntala (2005): Limestone quarries of Chaibasa, checked on 5/05/2011.

Naidu, M.C; Dasaratha Ramaiah K. (2006): Child Labour in India - An Overview. Department of Economics, S.V.University. Andhra Pradesh, India. Available online at http://www.karmayog.org/childlabour/upload/18596/JSS-13-3-199-204-2006-384-Naidu-M-C-Text.pdf.

Ray, Ranjan (1999): Poverty, Household Size and Child Welfare in India. Tasmania.

Samu, K. (2009): Children/Child Labour in news. Human Rights Documentation, Indian Social Institute. New Delhi.