“Village councils are doing the right thing. They should be killed. There is no other solution to it. If they go for love marriage in the same clan then real brother and sister should also marry. Why should parents look for grooms and bridegrooms for their children,” said Mahendra Singh Tikait, head of Baliyan village council, Uttar Pradesh.

The meeting comes nearly two months after a man was killed for marrying a girl in the same clan in Dhrana village of northern Haryana. Village councils in Haryana are notorious for issuing diktats against couples who marry within the same clan. Caste system runs deep in the rural areas where people are still bound to the ancient principles and practices. There are many incidents where same clan marriages have been opposed and couples subjected to humiliation and even killed by the angry villagers.

The most disturbing aspect of this meet is that the ppl sat down to congratulate the panchayats on their ‘honour uphelding acts’ and no one was there to notice. The local police@the time of the killing is usually a party to it, the politicians are so keen to cash few votes that the death of 2 lovers is not important but the society?

What happened to the Mango ppl that we are? there are peopl who just sat down and decided that a girl and a boy of the same village, if marry then can and should be killed, as simple as that. and it did not trouble us much. few news channels ran stupid love songs nd displayed images of bodies hanging form a tree, but not a single man from the police, burocracy ot politics has taken a stand.  Jouros to push these stories as ‘off beat’ stuff and run it on sunday but not of hte wedding season is near- it wud not go well wiht the 2 lakh Rs lehenga in the ad.

words fall short to describe the frustration i feel

Dead bodies are never pleasant, neither are injuries but still Police gave the emotionless quotes explaining what we all saw, residents walked in shock and journalists- well they had something more to do. Most wanted to click the pool of blood, while flies were on it, not flying. Many were feeling frustrated that the bodies were taken just before they arrieved. Many compared this blast to anoher blast where they could capture the dead body’s limbs in an order that provoked pain and puke. Few were disappointed on the fact that the families were not crying enuf, and when one female member started to beat her chest, they all lept to capture it.

There were few who pushed the camera to the lady whose neighbours had lost their sons and asked her to detail what she saw, wht she thought and wht did she do. After 5 min there was que to take a shot of the lady becasue she was hapy to pose wiht the blood stains, the shop where the havoc happened and the slippers which still had signs of the ppl who once wore it. While the police blame the explosion on the shell a 60 yr oldl, who has been living in the Dhakka Basti of the Azad Colony where the blast occurred, said that the children died of poverty, “The blast took place because the children were trying to extract copper from a bomb in the shop. They were not educated enough to know that it was a bomb and hungry enough to hit it with a heavy rock.”

the distant attitude of the police, i understand. the shocked neighbours i understand even those who were posing, but US, i am not sure. As we counted the dead and the injured a senior walked upto me and told me not to get disturbed, he dint say any more. because at some level the more pain we see, the more we write. Does blood fuel our ink?

The crowds pray and play at the holy steps known as “har ki paaudi” meaning the steps of god, which link the old city area to the river Ghat. The teenage boys swim the river shouting “har har Gange! “, Much to the concern of their mothers who themselves juggle the prayer thali and their sari as they make way to reach the steps. The twilight brings a new life as the frolic gives way to faith and prayers begin. The priest lights up the 4 foot lamp which has 101 smaller lamps  in it and descends to the river. The light from the lamps illuminates his saffron and sandalwood painted forehead.

With eyes shut he chants loudly shlokas in salutation of the Ganga and the crowd turns to a devoted prayer audience. People on both sides of the river clasp their hands and pray to the goddess for prosperity, their faces lit with slight shimmer of the Arti and glowing with the deep contentment.

The Arti concludes and the chaos returns to the Ghat, along with loud announcements of the names of the children that are lost and the cleanliness measures, the voice at the loudspeakers filled with both concern and disgust. Elderly occupying comfortable positions at benches placed at the bridge talk about how the city has changed over the last 50 years. As the dawn turns to night the tired pilgrims retire to the hotels and eateries mushroomed around the holy place.

The Project Manager for Hand in Hand, an NGO at Kancheepuram, Arasu strains to bring about a change, improve education among children, eradicate child labour and get micro financing take over the role of the money lender.

At a training centre in Chinna Kancheepuram where he addressed a seminar on, “Child Labour Elimination” he emphasised how parents and children needed to be aware of a world outside in order to aim for a better future. He explained, “A child drops out of school and starts working for a meagre amount, because staying in the school seems a waste of time. There are no guarantees, even after completing school; he will do the same job so he starts to supplement the family income. And with no one in the community to suggest otherwise, the child becomes a labourer. It is lack of social responsibility more than poverty that causes child labour.”

Amongst many projects that Arasu managed, giving ration supplies to the children in schools had yielded best results. Under the project funded by Hand in Hand, Sweden, each student’s family was granted ration worth Rs.500 every month. This rations included rice, millets, toothpaste, soap etc. Arasu said that he did not believe in forcibly keeping the children in school, he said, “There has to be incentive and motivation to go to school instead of punishment in failing to go.”

A firm believer in participatory learning, Arasu said that education needed to be associated with happiness instead of boredom. Keeping track of attendance and lecturing on the evils of child labour was not effective in solving the problem because it was just a link in the vicious circle of poverty, he explained. He added that because child labour was only a link, one had to pay attention to all the other links like occupation, poverty, health, micro credit etc. Arasu is also heading projects involving Women self help groups (SHGs), Citizen Centres, Health and hygiene and Solid waste management.

Although the government considered children to be child labourers if they belonged to the age group nine-14 yrs, in reality, he said, the age group involved all those upto-20 years. Child labour is prevalent in poverty stricken households where each member of the family added to the family income.

According to Arasu, “We lose sight of our goal if we segregate it from the larger picture, if you aim to eradicate only child labour in a community you will never succeed unless you improve the finances of the community by micro credit, assist them in setting up institutions like citizen centres and schools and provide them with basic health and hygiene facilities.”

Arasu was all for creating awareness because awareness generated action. He believed that instead of having inspectors to check child labour it was more effective to create Child Right Protection Communities. Because when the community felt responsible for the future of the children it would take affirmative action. It is only when an entire community feels responsible that an issue, as complex as child labour, can be tackled.

The village of Parmeshvaramandalam is known for its activism (HOW) against illegal sand mining but its wide caste divide is unknown to the world. While the Brahmins and the upper castes enjoy absolute authority and freedom, the Vedhars, a sub tribe of the Irulas live life in deplorable conditions.

In thee village Dharmakarta, Parthivan Arangovale, was a tall man with an even taller stature. As he walked down the dusty streets of the village he proudly showed the areas where farming was still carried out despite failure of agriculture in due to sand mining. He was the head of the village temple, for which a huge water tank was being built. Boasting about the grandeur of the temple he said, “When this tank is complete there will be no better village in entire area.”

He passed a settlement which looked distinctly different from the rest of the village. While the houses in the village were painted in many colours, had beautifully carved doors and windows, this area had 15 shacks, made out of dry palm fronds. Not a single house in the settlement had a door, a window or a boundary wall, as if they had nothing to wall in or wall out.

When asked about the settlement, he said dismissively, “They are Vedhars; they kill snakes and eat mice.” He led us to a shack where a frail old lady sat under a dry tree. As Ponniyamma saw the priest, she rose to greet him. She prostrated at his feet. With tears in her eyes she addressed him as ‘Swami’, meaning My Lord.

Ponniyamma, a Vedhar, a widow considered herself a curse since her two sons died due to snake bites and none of her three girls could bear children. Her only son who was alive had abandoned her and now works in Kancheepuram, 40 kms away. Ponniyamma’s husband, a snake catcher had died too of a snake bite. She was left to the mercy of the villagers; she had no land, no property, no family and no hope.

The Priest explained why Ponniyamma’s community was kept away from the village, “They eat mice and kill snakes so it is better that they stay far from us. They do come to the village but only when there is a snake. What will they do in the village otherwise?”

The Vedhar community, living on the margins of the village had no source of income except collecting charcoal for the villagers, earning a mere Rs.25 a day. The only other profession was snake catching which did not fetch cash. They were paid only in kind. Snake bites and snake catching are doubly hazardous here with the nearest hospital 25 kms away from the village in Chengalpettu. Vedhars have no bullock cart to reach the medical centre in time. Almost each family has witnessed a death due to snake bite; still the community is onto catching snakes because they have no choice to do anything otherwise.

When asked about the deplorable conditions of the tribe, the village councillor, Jayanthi Sumatra said, “They get the two free sarees according to the government scheme. Also every villager who has a ration card gets rice. These people just create a scene unnecessarily.”

As the Vedhar women, in tattered sarees, walked towards the river to occupy the downstream bathing Ghat Arangovale explained, “There is no constraint on how much water they use. They bathe downstream because the bore well is above it.” The bore well supplied water to the entire village, except the settlement of Vedhars who walked to the village for water.

As the priest walked back from the village, nobody overtook him, either they couldn’t or may be they chose not to. The village accepted the community as a part of the village but marginalised them depriving them of a life of dignity.