Is it really a day for children ?



Children paying their tribute to Chacha Nehru



PANDIT JAWAHARLAL Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, was a lover of children and it is his birthday (November 14) that is celebrated all over the country as Children’s Day. He once declared that no child of Mother India was an orphan, the wish being obviously the father to the thought and the occasion no doubt productive of a degree of sentimentality.

But coming down to reality, it must be admitted that the condition of socially handicapped children in our country can hardly call for selfcongratulation.

Child labour goes on unabated in some industries in spite of constitutional and legal bans on the exploitation of children. Bad as it is, it is not as abhorrent or revolting as the uses  slum children are put to by seasoned criminals.

Petty larceny, bootlegging and dope-peddling are common things for these juveniles who eventually graduate to higher spheres of criminal activity. Maiming of children to be trained as beggars is another cruel and vicious practice that occasionally catches newspaper headlines.

The neglect of children by working mothers in the absence of crèches is fairly common and widespread and in certain parts of the country it is common practice for women labourers to drug their children with opium before going off to work.

Many of us have been thrilled at the sight of tiny tots performing in tinerant circus troupes. Whether they enjoy showing their prowess and skill is a subject for debate.But what happens during their training cannot all be fun.

 Children carrying heavy loads, children employed in jobs that entail long working hours and loss of sleep, child beggars, waifs and, perish the word, orphans, are regular features of any Indian city life, and their plight will not be improved by calling them something else.

Various institutions have mushroomed in recent years but they invariably are the products of swift and brief enthusiasm, and close down as soon as the organizers feel they have had enough of it. Some of these institutions constitute the happy hunting grounds of the social climber and racketeer.

Such children’s institutions should be licensed and the Indian Council for Child Welfare must turn its undivided attention to the betterment of the conditions of the poor before street urchins become an uncontrollable problem.

Stopping By Woods On

A Snowy Evening

Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

The last four lines of this poem were found written in Jawaharlal

Nehru’s handwriting under the glass top of his office table at his residence

after his death. The building he lived in was, before Independence, the

official residence of the C-in-C (Commander in Chief) of the Indian army. It

was converted to Prime Minister’s residence later and is now a national

monument known as Teen Murti. It houses the Nehru Memorial Museum

and Library and draws hundreds of visitors every day.