Baba
Namaskar,
This is an issue of exploiter and exploited.
"What a dangerous outlook! What a rosy philosophy of capitalism! God save humanity from such perverted philosophy. Man’s desire for worldly pleasure does not cease until he finds a really great ideal. His hunger is insatiable. The wolf in him seems to say over and over again, “I am hungry, I am hungry.” His mouth is agape all the time and the fools of the earth, resigned to their belief in predestination, are swallowed by it. These wolves eat up their flesh and blood and cast away their insipid bones. Are we to support this wolfish philosophy? The dirty-clothed laborers, their faces lined with hard labor and fatigue, are not human beings in the eyes of those who have Mammon by their side."
"The characteristic of a vested interest is that it has no other thought but itself. The selfish man is the eater, the others are his food. His needs are never-ending. Out of his salary the poor man has to pay his house rent, support his family, educate his children, provide milk for his baby, marry his daughters. Are those necessities only for the people of the upper classes? Are these not the minimum necessities of life? Yes, but these thoughts of the poor are no concern of the rich! Such thinking involves some sacrifice, does it not? From where would objects of luxury for the rich come, if hunger were not the hard task-master of the poor? Let the daughters of the poor collect cow-dung forever and their sons be slaves in the households of the rich. What a fine arrangement! The high hopes of the poor?–pooh! pooh!! Aren’t they all moonshine?"
"No two things in the world are alike. So I do not suggest recasting everything into one mold. Still, for humanism and justice, equitable distribution of the resources of the universe is indispensable; co-ownership of the world’s resources is the birthright of every individual. Even a small attempt at depriving someone of this right is gross selfishness. Except when a special favor becomes necessary to give certain individuals impetus and inspiration, all persons must be given equal rights and opportunities in all spheres. Every individual must have equal rights regarding food, clothing, housing, medical aid and education — those things that are absolutely necessary for existence." (Human Society - 1, Social Justice)
here is another side to the story which generated much public intrigue in the week or so.
New Delhi: The diplomatic row over the Indian deputy consul in New York who was accused of underpaying her nanny may have been resolved, with her leaving the United States. But many Indians say the episode has laid bare the callous attitude toward domestic workers in the world’s most populous democracy.
According to a US indictment, Devyani Khobragade paid her Indian nanny $573 per month, a “legally insufficient” wage, and made her work more than 100 hours a week. Khobragade, who was charged with lying on visa documents about the babysitter’s salary, has maintained her innocence. Her arrest prompted widespread outrage among the Indian government and public.
“The fact that the domestic worker’s rights were violated was completely eclipsed by the shrill outcry by the government over the treatment of its diplomat,” said Ananya Bhattacharjee, who heads a domestic workers’ group called Gharelu Kaamgar Sangathan, based in the affluent New Delhi suburb of Gurgaon. The group had counselled the family of the nanny, Sangeeta Richard, after she filed a legal complaint.
“We had to try very hard to remind everybody that there are two Indian citizens involved in this case, not just one,” Bhattacharjee said.
Domestic workers have few legal protections in India. Activist groups say they are paid extremely low wages, have no fixed hours and no right to a weekly day off. About 40 per cent of the world’s 53 million domestic workers are employed in Asia, but most countries in the region have not enacted laws to regulate their labour, according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch. The report says domestic workers in Asia frequently experience physical, psychological and sexual abuse.
Even though exploitation of domestic workers in India is rampant, researchers say, it is only when things turn truly gruesome that the issue makes the headlines. In November, the wife of a federal lawmaker was arrested on charges of torturing a domestic worker to death in a New Delhi suburb. In October, another woman was arrested for severely beating her 15-year-old maid in the Indian capital. That month, police arrested an Indian airline stewardess for locking up her underage maid in her home every time she went to work.
In 2010, the children’s rights group Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save Childhood Movement) filed a petition in the New Delhi high court asking for protection of domestic workers’ rights and regulation of placement agencies for the workers. The court ordered the city to formulate a policy, but the government still has not done so.
When news of Khobragade’s arrest, strip search and brief incarceration broke last month, Indians were appalled. India’s national security adviser, Shivshankar Menon, called the actions “despicable and barbaric.” The government launched retaliatory measures, including removing security barricades at the US Embassy and shutting down all “commercial activities” at the popular embassy club.
Khobragade was formally indicted Thursday. But her government had already transferred her to a post at its mission to the United Nations, giving her a higher level of diplomatic immunity. On Friday, hours after Khobragade left the United States, India expelled an American diplomat.
“India has once again proved that the government is only for the big people, not for poor people like me,” said Paru Varui, 30, a domestic worker who cooks in four homes in Gurgaon and earns about $180 a month. She has been a domestic worker since she was 8 and took part in a demonstration here last month seeking justice for Richard.
“The government protects its own officer with all its power, but what about people like me who have been fighting for our rights for years?” she demanded. “My country has not found the time or the will to even pass a law, let alone enforce it.”
An unknown number of domestic workers in India are victims of human trafficking. According to India’s Labor Ministry, more than 400,000 legal complaints about children trafficked for domestic labour have been filed from 2008 to 2012. However, only 25,006 cases have been prosecuted, yielding 3,394 convictions.
Activists say Richard did not have the option of returning to India to recover unpaid wages through its court system.
“There is a legislative and policy vacuum here,” said Bhuwan Ribhu, national secretary of Bachpan Bachao Andolan. “I have never heard of anybody being arrested and going to jail in India for not paying minimum wages to a worker.”
The majority of Indians, he said, “do get away with such things and with impunity.”
On Sunday, the Indian television news channel NDTV 24X7 reported that the Foreign Ministry wants the government to designate the Indian maids accompanying diplomats abroad as government workers, so that they are not subject to the laws of a foreign country.
US officials flew Richard’s husband and children to the United States last month because a legal case was initiated in India to “silence her and attempts were made to compel her to return to India,” according to Preet Bharara, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York. (Courtesy of The Washington Post)
Here is a related situation.
It was the 13-year-old maid’s desperate cries for help that finally alerted neighbours to her plight. She was standing, sobbing, on the balcony of the upmarket Delhi apartment. Her employers had locked her in, she said, and gone on holiday. Finally rescued by a firefighter, she told a tale that prompted a widespread display of national revulsion.
Her employers – middle-class doctors Sanjay and Sumita Verma – had “bought” her from an agency, which had in turn bought her from her uncle. She was hungry, she said, because they barely fed her. She received no pay and was regularly beaten. Their latest act of cruelty had been to lock her in and go on holiday to Thailand.
The couple claim that they thought the girl was 18 and deny mistreating her, but they were roundly vilified and have been refused bail. In court the couple were accused of “subjecting the victim to a treatment which can be best described as torture”.
Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the story is why it has caused such fury in a country where, after all, the sight of a youthful servant rarely raises a flicker of curiosity. Delhi’s thriving middle class would crumble without its army of domestic servants, whose presence enables couples to go out to work and continue to boost an economy projected to be the largest in the world by 2050.
The most liberal members of that society think nothing of employing a maid, a driver, a sweeper, a cook, a gardener and a couple of house boys who sleep on the roof, or in tiny shared rooms.
The International Labour Organisation estimates that there are at least four million domestic servants in India, including about 100,000 children working in and around Delhi. While it has been illegal to employ anyone under the age of 14 since 2006, that has done little to hinder the placement agencies which routinely hire out trafficked children.
A good maid might earn 3,500 rupees (£43) a month, if she is very lucky, or about half the legal minimum wage for an unskilled worker in Delhi. The less fortunate are bought from brokers and kept as unpaid skivvies – simply fed and given somewhere to sleep.
A company called Domestic Help in India is one of thousands of agencies supplying staff. Based in Gurgaon, near Delhi, the company charges employers 16,000 rupees to arrange the hire of a maid for 11 months. Its website is packed with adverts for staff, who can be selected on the basis of age (15 and upwards), religion and gender. Gurpreet, a maid/cook, has two years’ experience and costs 3,000 rupees a month. Harjett, who has one year’s experience, is available to anyone in Delhi for just 2,000 rupees a month. Those less comfortable with the way the system operates often try to assuage their feelings of guilt by hiring staff at above the going rate.
However, writing on an expatriate website that offers advice to foreigners moving to India, Shawn Runacres, managing director of the Gurgaon-based Domesteq staff placement agency, says there should be no need to feel awkward if staff are treated well. “Throw out the guilt – remember you are providing much-needed employment at fair rates and excellent working conditions,” she says. “The very thought of no longer having to make beds, cook, dust, wash dishes and do laundry sounds like heaven and, for those with children, if you add to all these things the possibility of affordable, on-tap childcare, it becomes irresistible.” Speaking on Friday, she said she was convinced that the market for domestic staff would continue to grow as India’s economy expanded, not least because of the challenges posed by living in India. “There are many more challenges to your daily life,” she said. She doubts that it would be possible to live without staff. “You would spend your entire time just trying to keep yourself fed and your home in some semblance of shape. You can’t just get water from the tap; you have to clean your water. You can’t just eat fruit off the tree or out of the market. Is it a luxury? No, not in India. It is absolutely a staple of life.” Runacres’s agency – which does not employ children and promises fair wages and dignity of labour – pays well above the average. Others are less scrupulous.
Bhuwan Ribhu, national secretary of the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement), said child labour was now common in the cities, particularly involving girls aged 12 to 18, while boys aged 10 and upwards are more common in the countryside. “India cannot and must not grow at the cost of millions of childhoods,” he said.
Many children are trafficked from poor states such as Bihar and West Bengal through the thousands of illegal agencies operating in the cities. Last year the movement raided a placement agency to rescue six girls and uncovered evidence of 400 girls who had been trafficked.
Ribhu says people cannot resist a cheap deal. “Well educated or not, people try to maximise their profits by employing kids. They do not pay proper wages. The probability of children leaving employment whenever they want is very low, and they may be exploited, beaten and made to work long hours,” he said.
While many people in India may have been appalled by the Delhi case, he said, there were thousands of others who continued to employ children. “Children work because they are the cheapest form of labour, and in these situations they are victims of slavery. They are abused, not only economically but physically and sexually, as the exploiters also have little fear of law enforcement,” he said.
Patricia Lone of Unicef says domestic labour is one of the most dangerous forms of child labour because of the potential for abuse, particularly for girls. “It is a huge problem in most countries in south Asia because of the levels of poverty.”
Sometimes it is parents unable to support their children who pack them off to work; other times it is the children themselves who seek to pay their own way, she says. “But it is related to poverty, which forces parents and children to put themselves at risk.”
The outcry over the Delhi maid was encouraging, said Ribhu, in that it opened people’s eyes to the reality of what is going on. But he is not getting too excited about the arrests. They were, he said, an anomaly in a country where many people simply do not understand that using children as servants is wrong.”Recently, I was in a mall where I saw a couple with a 10- or 11-year-old girl taking care of their baby while they were eating. When I confronted them, the lady replied that: ‘She is in such a good condition here – she would starve to death in her village. Who will go feed her there? And she has even been taught English’,” he said. “When I asked her if she realised that she was committing a crime, she replied that the girl was being kept just like her own daughter and she is ‘even brought to the mall … can anyone in her village even dream of such a luxury, of going to the mall?’ “I explained as nicely as possible to her husband that if I were to call the police to their house, they would be arrested, and if the girl was ‘like their daughter’, why was she not eating with them at the same table? And he had no answer.” (Courtesy of The Guardian)
Here again is Baba's point that on such issues Prout has its own stand.
"What a wonderful capitalistic argument! Perhaps some academic stooge on the payroll of these self-seeking capitalists may even try to concoct a philosophy to support this proposition. God save humanity from such perverted philosophies! People’s physical longings are not satisfied until they come in contact with a truly great ideology. Till then, people’s wolf-like hunger is insatiable, as if they are incessantly repeating, “I am hungry, I am hungry.” Their jaws are always open, and the foolish people of this world resign themselves to their own fatalistic beliefs and fall into them. The ferocious wolf-pack devours their flesh and blood and casts away the unpalatable bones. Should we support this wolfish philosophy? The day-labourers, porters and gate-keepers around us who wear dirty rags and have fatigue etched on their faces are not considered human by those who are rolling in luxury."
"It is a characteristic of vested interests that they never bother to think of anyone except themselves. They must eat and the rest of humanity only exists to be eaten. They want increasingly more objects for their gratification. Those who earn three thousand rupees a month think that this is an extremely meagre amount, but they never stop to consider the needs of those who earn a negligible thirty rupees a month. A poor man has to pay his rent, maintain his family, educate his children, buy milk for his babies, and save something to put towards the cost of his daughter's marriage, all out of thirty rupees. Are these needs only applicable to the upper stratum of society? Are they not the minimum necessities of life? Rich people do not want to consider the needs of the poor, because if they do they will have to make some sacrifices. Where will their luxuries and comforts come from if hunger does not burn the bellies of the poor? Is it not a fine idea if the daughters of the poor go on collecting cow dung forever, and their sons work like slaves in the houses of the rich for generations together? Is this not a fine arrangement? As for the high hopes of the poor, aren't they ridiculous? Aren't they out of touch with reality?"
"No two things in this world are identical, so I am not suggesting that everything should be recast in the same mould. However, for the sake of humanism, for the sake of social justice, equitable distribution of all the wealth of the universe is indispensable, and co-ownership of the world's resources is the birthright of every individual. Even the slightest attempt to deprive anyone of this right amounts to gross selfishness. As long as certain difficulties, both great and small, exist in the practical world, however, it will not be possible to grant perfectly equal opportunities to everybody in all instances. Apart from this, all people should be granted equal rights and opportunities, except where it is necessary to inspire some people to undertake activities which will directly benefit society, or as a temporary reward for their distinguished contribution to society. In addition, every individual must have equal rights concerning things such as food, clothing, housing, education and medical care, which are absolutely essential for existence." (Humans Society - 1, Social Justice)
Namaskar,
In Him,
Jyotiish
OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY + SLAVERY
Namaskar,
This is an issue of exploiter and exploited.
"What a dangerous outlook! What a rosy philosophy of capitalism! God save humanity from such perverted philosophy. Man’s desire for worldly pleasure does not cease until he finds a really great ideal. His hunger is insatiable. The wolf in him seems to say over and over again, “I am hungry, I am hungry.” His mouth is agape all the time and the fools of the earth, resigned to their belief in predestination, are swallowed by it. These wolves eat up their flesh and blood and cast away their insipid bones. Are we to support this wolfish philosophy? The dirty-clothed laborers, their faces lined with hard labor and fatigue, are not human beings in the eyes of those who have Mammon by their side."
"The characteristic of a vested interest is that it has no other thought but itself. The selfish man is the eater, the others are his food. His needs are never-ending. Out of his salary the poor man has to pay his house rent, support his family, educate his children, provide milk for his baby, marry his daughters. Are those necessities only for the people of the upper classes? Are these not the minimum necessities of life? Yes, but these thoughts of the poor are no concern of the rich! Such thinking involves some sacrifice, does it not? From where would objects of luxury for the rich come, if hunger were not the hard task-master of the poor? Let the daughters of the poor collect cow-dung forever and their sons be slaves in the households of the rich. What a fine arrangement! The high hopes of the poor?–pooh! pooh!! Aren’t they all moonshine?"
"No two things in the world are alike. So I do not suggest recasting everything into one mold. Still, for humanism and justice, equitable distribution of the resources of the universe is indispensable; co-ownership of the world’s resources is the birthright of every individual. Even a small attempt at depriving someone of this right is gross selfishness. Except when a special favor becomes necessary to give certain individuals impetus and inspiration, all persons must be given equal rights and opportunities in all spheres. Every individual must have equal rights regarding food, clothing, housing, medical aid and education — those things that are absolutely necessary for existence." (Human Society - 1, Social Justice)
ANOTHER SIDE TO THE STORY
here is another side to the story which generated much public intrigue in the week or so.
Callousness toward domestic workers
By Rama Lakshmi
By Rama Lakshmi
New Delhi: The diplomatic row over the Indian deputy consul in New York who was accused of underpaying her nanny may have been resolved, with her leaving the United States. But many Indians say the episode has laid bare the callous attitude toward domestic workers in the world’s most populous democracy.
According to a US indictment, Devyani Khobragade paid her Indian nanny $573 per month, a “legally insufficient” wage, and made her work more than 100 hours a week. Khobragade, who was charged with lying on visa documents about the babysitter’s salary, has maintained her innocence. Her arrest prompted widespread outrage among the Indian government and public.
“The fact that the domestic worker’s rights were violated was completely eclipsed by the shrill outcry by the government over the treatment of its diplomat,” said Ananya Bhattacharjee, who heads a domestic workers’ group called Gharelu Kaamgar Sangathan, based in the affluent New Delhi suburb of Gurgaon. The group had counselled the family of the nanny, Sangeeta Richard, after she filed a legal complaint.
“We had to try very hard to remind everybody that there are two Indian citizens involved in this case, not just one,” Bhattacharjee said.
Domestic workers have few legal protections in India. Activist groups say they are paid extremely low wages, have no fixed hours and no right to a weekly day off. About 40 per cent of the world’s 53 million domestic workers are employed in Asia, but most countries in the region have not enacted laws to regulate their labour, according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch. The report says domestic workers in Asia frequently experience physical, psychological and sexual abuse.
Even though exploitation of domestic workers in India is rampant, researchers say, it is only when things turn truly gruesome that the issue makes the headlines. In November, the wife of a federal lawmaker was arrested on charges of torturing a domestic worker to death in a New Delhi suburb. In October, another woman was arrested for severely beating her 15-year-old maid in the Indian capital. That month, police arrested an Indian airline stewardess for locking up her underage maid in her home every time she went to work.
In 2010, the children’s rights group Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save Childhood Movement) filed a petition in the New Delhi high court asking for protection of domestic workers’ rights and regulation of placement agencies for the workers. The court ordered the city to formulate a policy, but the government still has not done so.
When news of Khobragade’s arrest, strip search and brief incarceration broke last month, Indians were appalled. India’s national security adviser, Shivshankar Menon, called the actions “despicable and barbaric.” The government launched retaliatory measures, including removing security barricades at the US Embassy and shutting down all “commercial activities” at the popular embassy club.
Khobragade was formally indicted Thursday. But her government had already transferred her to a post at its mission to the United Nations, giving her a higher level of diplomatic immunity. On Friday, hours after Khobragade left the United States, India expelled an American diplomat.
“India has once again proved that the government is only for the big people, not for poor people like me,” said Paru Varui, 30, a domestic worker who cooks in four homes in Gurgaon and earns about $180 a month. She has been a domestic worker since she was 8 and took part in a demonstration here last month seeking justice for Richard.
“The government protects its own officer with all its power, but what about people like me who have been fighting for our rights for years?” she demanded. “My country has not found the time or the will to even pass a law, let alone enforce it.”
An unknown number of domestic workers in India are victims of human trafficking. According to India’s Labor Ministry, more than 400,000 legal complaints about children trafficked for domestic labour have been filed from 2008 to 2012. However, only 25,006 cases have been prosecuted, yielding 3,394 convictions.
Activists say Richard did not have the option of returning to India to recover unpaid wages through its court system.
“There is a legislative and policy vacuum here,” said Bhuwan Ribhu, national secretary of Bachpan Bachao Andolan. “I have never heard of anybody being arrested and going to jail in India for not paying minimum wages to a worker.”
The majority of Indians, he said, “do get away with such things and with impunity.”
On Sunday, the Indian television news channel NDTV 24X7 reported that the Foreign Ministry wants the government to designate the Indian maids accompanying diplomats abroad as government workers, so that they are not subject to the laws of a foreign country.
US officials flew Richard’s husband and children to the United States last month because a legal case was initiated in India to “silence her and attempts were made to compel her to return to India,” according to Preet Bharara, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York. (Courtesy of The Washington Post)
SLAVERY
Here is a related situation.
The Delhi child servant scanda
By Gethin Chamberlain
By Gethin Chamberlain
It was the 13-year-old maid’s desperate cries for help that finally alerted neighbours to her plight. She was standing, sobbing, on the balcony of the upmarket Delhi apartment. Her employers had locked her in, she said, and gone on holiday. Finally rescued by a firefighter, she told a tale that prompted a widespread display of national revulsion.
Her employers – middle-class doctors Sanjay and Sumita Verma – had “bought” her from an agency, which had in turn bought her from her uncle. She was hungry, she said, because they barely fed her. She received no pay and was regularly beaten. Their latest act of cruelty had been to lock her in and go on holiday to Thailand.
The couple claim that they thought the girl was 18 and deny mistreating her, but they were roundly vilified and have been refused bail. In court the couple were accused of “subjecting the victim to a treatment which can be best described as torture”.
Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the story is why it has caused such fury in a country where, after all, the sight of a youthful servant rarely raises a flicker of curiosity. Delhi’s thriving middle class would crumble without its army of domestic servants, whose presence enables couples to go out to work and continue to boost an economy projected to be the largest in the world by 2050.
The most liberal members of that society think nothing of employing a maid, a driver, a sweeper, a cook, a gardener and a couple of house boys who sleep on the roof, or in tiny shared rooms.
The International Labour Organisation estimates that there are at least four million domestic servants in India, including about 100,000 children working in and around Delhi. While it has been illegal to employ anyone under the age of 14 since 2006, that has done little to hinder the placement agencies which routinely hire out trafficked children.
A good maid might earn 3,500 rupees (£43) a month, if she is very lucky, or about half the legal minimum wage for an unskilled worker in Delhi. The less fortunate are bought from brokers and kept as unpaid skivvies – simply fed and given somewhere to sleep.
A company called Domestic Help in India is one of thousands of agencies supplying staff. Based in Gurgaon, near Delhi, the company charges employers 16,000 rupees to arrange the hire of a maid for 11 months. Its website is packed with adverts for staff, who can be selected on the basis of age (15 and upwards), religion and gender. Gurpreet, a maid/cook, has two years’ experience and costs 3,000 rupees a month. Harjett, who has one year’s experience, is available to anyone in Delhi for just 2,000 rupees a month. Those less comfortable with the way the system operates often try to assuage their feelings of guilt by hiring staff at above the going rate.
However, writing on an expatriate website that offers advice to foreigners moving to India, Shawn Runacres, managing director of the Gurgaon-based Domesteq staff placement agency, says there should be no need to feel awkward if staff are treated well. “Throw out the guilt – remember you are providing much-needed employment at fair rates and excellent working conditions,” she says. “The very thought of no longer having to make beds, cook, dust, wash dishes and do laundry sounds like heaven and, for those with children, if you add to all these things the possibility of affordable, on-tap childcare, it becomes irresistible.” Speaking on Friday, she said she was convinced that the market for domestic staff would continue to grow as India’s economy expanded, not least because of the challenges posed by living in India. “There are many more challenges to your daily life,” she said. She doubts that it would be possible to live without staff. “You would spend your entire time just trying to keep yourself fed and your home in some semblance of shape. You can’t just get water from the tap; you have to clean your water. You can’t just eat fruit off the tree or out of the market. Is it a luxury? No, not in India. It is absolutely a staple of life.” Runacres’s agency – which does not employ children and promises fair wages and dignity of labour – pays well above the average. Others are less scrupulous.
Bhuwan Ribhu, national secretary of the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement), said child labour was now common in the cities, particularly involving girls aged 12 to 18, while boys aged 10 and upwards are more common in the countryside. “India cannot and must not grow at the cost of millions of childhoods,” he said.
Many children are trafficked from poor states such as Bihar and West Bengal through the thousands of illegal agencies operating in the cities. Last year the movement raided a placement agency to rescue six girls and uncovered evidence of 400 girls who had been trafficked.
Ribhu says people cannot resist a cheap deal. “Well educated or not, people try to maximise their profits by employing kids. They do not pay proper wages. The probability of children leaving employment whenever they want is very low, and they may be exploited, beaten and made to work long hours,” he said.
While many people in India may have been appalled by the Delhi case, he said, there were thousands of others who continued to employ children. “Children work because they are the cheapest form of labour, and in these situations they are victims of slavery. They are abused, not only economically but physically and sexually, as the exploiters also have little fear of law enforcement,” he said.
Patricia Lone of Unicef says domestic labour is one of the most dangerous forms of child labour because of the potential for abuse, particularly for girls. “It is a huge problem in most countries in south Asia because of the levels of poverty.”
Sometimes it is parents unable to support their children who pack them off to work; other times it is the children themselves who seek to pay their own way, she says. “But it is related to poverty, which forces parents and children to put themselves at risk.”
The outcry over the Delhi maid was encouraging, said Ribhu, in that it opened people’s eyes to the reality of what is going on. But he is not getting too excited about the arrests. They were, he said, an anomaly in a country where many people simply do not understand that using children as servants is wrong.”Recently, I was in a mall where I saw a couple with a 10- or 11-year-old girl taking care of their baby while they were eating. When I confronted them, the lady replied that: ‘She is in such a good condition here – she would starve to death in her village. Who will go feed her there? And she has even been taught English’,” he said. “When I asked her if she realised that she was committing a crime, she replied that the girl was being kept just like her own daughter and she is ‘even brought to the mall … can anyone in her village even dream of such a luxury, of going to the mall?’ “I explained as nicely as possible to her husband that if I were to call the police to their house, they would be arrested, and if the girl was ‘like their daughter’, why was she not eating with them at the same table? And he had no answer.” (Courtesy of The Guardian)
PROUT HAS ITS OWN STAND
Here again is Baba's point that on such issues Prout has its own stand.
"What a wonderful capitalistic argument! Perhaps some academic stooge on the payroll of these self-seeking capitalists may even try to concoct a philosophy to support this proposition. God save humanity from such perverted philosophies! People’s physical longings are not satisfied until they come in contact with a truly great ideology. Till then, people’s wolf-like hunger is insatiable, as if they are incessantly repeating, “I am hungry, I am hungry.” Their jaws are always open, and the foolish people of this world resign themselves to their own fatalistic beliefs and fall into them. The ferocious wolf-pack devours their flesh and blood and casts away the unpalatable bones. Should we support this wolfish philosophy? The day-labourers, porters and gate-keepers around us who wear dirty rags and have fatigue etched on their faces are not considered human by those who are rolling in luxury."
"It is a characteristic of vested interests that they never bother to think of anyone except themselves. They must eat and the rest of humanity only exists to be eaten. They want increasingly more objects for their gratification. Those who earn three thousand rupees a month think that this is an extremely meagre amount, but they never stop to consider the needs of those who earn a negligible thirty rupees a month. A poor man has to pay his rent, maintain his family, educate his children, buy milk for his babies, and save something to put towards the cost of his daughter's marriage, all out of thirty rupees. Are these needs only applicable to the upper stratum of society? Are they not the minimum necessities of life? Rich people do not want to consider the needs of the poor, because if they do they will have to make some sacrifices. Where will their luxuries and comforts come from if hunger does not burn the bellies of the poor? Is it not a fine idea if the daughters of the poor go on collecting cow dung forever, and their sons work like slaves in the houses of the rich for generations together? Is this not a fine arrangement? As for the high hopes of the poor, aren't they ridiculous? Aren't they out of touch with reality?"
"No two things in this world are identical, so I am not suggesting that everything should be recast in the same mould. However, for the sake of humanism, for the sake of social justice, equitable distribution of all the wealth of the universe is indispensable, and co-ownership of the world's resources is the birthright of every individual. Even the slightest attempt to deprive anyone of this right amounts to gross selfishness. As long as certain difficulties, both great and small, exist in the practical world, however, it will not be possible to grant perfectly equal opportunities to everybody in all instances. Apart from this, all people should be granted equal rights and opportunities, except where it is necessary to inspire some people to undertake activities which will directly benefit society, or as a temporary reward for their distinguished contribution to society. In addition, every individual must have equal rights concerning things such as food, clothing, housing, education and medical care, which are absolutely essential for existence." (Humans Society - 1, Social Justice)
Namaskar,
In Him,
Jyotiish
