The walls of the Art Gallery at the India International Centre (IIC) in New Delhi are lined with photographs that focus on the circumstances and lives of poor and marginalised children who are forced to work due to poverty. The candid clicks by Chitvan Gill, a filmmaker, writer and documentary photographer at the exhibition titled ‘Life in the Shadows’ narrate stories of tragedy, hope and resilience. “It took me three-and-a-half months and a lot of courage to put this collection together,” said Gill who went around villages in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan to put them all together. The exhibition was initiated by N N Vohra, former president of the IIC, and was planned in collaboration with Monika Banerjee of ‘Work: No Child's Business’ (WNCB). The aim was to conduct a series of events to commemorate the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour (2021). Buy Now | Our best subscription plan now has a special price “The one thing that I found common among children, whether on brick kilns, in bangle factories, or stone crushing workplaces, was the immense happiness these children had despite their impoverished circumstances,” the Assam-born photographer said. “It was so overwhelming to see them giggle, look at you and the camera with so much awe and try to get close to you." Excerpts from the interview: Q.1. What is the biggest problem we face while dealing with child labour? I think the poor in India continue to be so because people at the top could not care less and because we don't have an active political will to deal with the concerns and circumstances of the poor of this country. How are we to progress as a country when close to 80 per cent of our population works in the unorganised sector. The idea that India is doing great guns and is an important international player stands defunct when viewed against how more and more people are being pushed below the poverty line and the rich are getting richer. Thus, there is an urgent need to restructure the economy and hold the government accountable for the rising level of poverty. There also seems to be a flaw in the way civil society dealt with the problem. The simple solution to child labour is imparting education to these children. But I see something deeply problematic with the way that is done. Picking up children and putting them in a school, away from their parents, generates a sense of fear among them. ‘Humare bacche ko uthaake le jayenge’ (roughly translated as ‘They will take away our kids') is their first reaction to seeing a car in their village. A solution to this could be conducting a survey and constructing a school in their locality. Q.2. Do you think banning commodities from the firms that have employed children would be a viable option? I don't think so. If we would do that, it would eventually hurt the economy of the families and would put them back into the cycle of sheer poverty. It is thus important for us to not view the problem from the top but trickle down to arrive at a solution. Q.3. Which photograph stands out as the most powerful to you? The photograph where a 10-year-old child sits opposite a 90-year-old woman in a factory that manufactured constituent parts for locks is one of my favourites. It was clicked in a remote village in Uttar Pradesh. According to me, this picture represents India. It also represents the cycle of poverty that these people are a part of. If we don’t do the needful today, maybe this boy would get trapped in the cycle and might end up in the same place as this woman, 80 years later. Q.4. Have you been able to point out a myth that we hold about people living in poverty? The one thing that I noticed in every village that I went to was the love and affection that the parents have for their children. They would bring them cricket bats, dolls, and toys. They could play for a while and then revert to work. We sit in our comfortable drawing rooms and criminalise these parents, not realising that they do everything that lies within their capabilities to give their children a life that is better off than theirs, at least. This criminalisation is deeply flawed. They need not be rebuked but helped. Q.5. What are some of the biggest problems that the people living below the poverty line have to face? Their life seems to be an ordeal. But one of the biggest problems is that of migration. These people are always on the go. Their lives have been restricted to looking out for work, getting on trucks, packing bags, and moving from one workspace to another. The instability and the constant trudging push them into depths of struggle and helplessness. This leaves women behind in the villages to deal with the ordeals of a poverty-stricken life. One good thing that has changed over the past 30 years is that children have been pushed out of hazardous workplaces, with exceptions. Their work has now been shifted to households which allows them to go to school and work. There is also increased awareness to withdraw children from bidi-rolling industries and perilous activities like taking out bricks from the furnaces at brick kilns. We, as people, are acutely distanced from reality. All our conversations about child labour and poverty conclude with laws that prohibit them, the right to education, midday meals, Anganwadis, and multiple other things that exist on paper. In practice, what individuals experience is abject poverty, a sense of hopelessness, despair and constant struggle. 📣 For more lifestyle news, follow us on Instagram | Twitter | Facebook and don't miss out on the latest updates!
