Our children, their children

A few months ago, the middle class, hooked to their TV sets, asked if a Prince or a Buddhia would happen again. Now, the new question doing the rounds is whether a Nithari will ever happen again. The simple answer to the question remains 8216;yes8217;. In a political framework that is still debating the Free Education Bill , and as a society that gasps only momentarily at the misfortunes befalling the children of the marginalised, we are in a world where Nitharis will continue to happen.

Examine the evidence: Delhi8217;s parents have been in collective trauma over the new nursery admission policies. TV channels relayed faithfully over the past six months how rich public schools have refused to abide by the new orders of the High Court. Cut to another set of parents 8212; nameless and faceless 8212; who came into focus only many months after their children went missing in Nithari, some miles away from the dulcet battles of the kind cited earlier. Kanchan Public, RK Public, Mahadev Public: these are the schools sprouting in every corner of Nithari village, with its fetid drains and rundown surroundings, and they reflect the aspirations of the poorest of the poor, most of whom do not even have a vote. Even as politicians debate the role of the urban poor in India, the poor themselves have figured out exactly how to the climb ladders of mobility.

Or at least, they are trying. Many of the parents who lost children to the Noida paedophiles have large families. But all the children go to small public schools, which in popular perception here are a notch higher than the local government schools. More expensive, too. 8220;I spend Rs 350 per month for the tuition fees of my daughters and sons,8221; says Jhappu Lal, father of six, who lost his daughter, Jyoti, in the Nithari killings. For this father, a dhobi, working harder was the only way to fund his children8217;s education. It hit him very hard, then, when his daughter 8212; the dividend of all the investment he had made 8212; was snatched away from him.

And yet we do nothing to help. As a society, we give our total attention to the admission of rich kids but none to cases that have been dragging for the past two years in the Delhi High Court that seek to get these same public schools which have received land at concessional rates to give seats to poor kids. Worst of all, as a society, we have already forgiven Shivpal Yadav, brother of Mulayam Singh, for calling Nithari another small, routine incident.

The question remains: at a time when the urban poor have figured out that education is the only way to get a better deal from life, can we afford to ignore this concern?