Child Labour

THE LITTLE CHILD, ADIVASI CHRISTIANITY AND JUSTICE

The year was 1988. As a Catholic Priest, my work area was Vikaspuri-Tilak Nagar of New Delhi.

In my enthusiasm and extra energy to meet the new challenges of my social work, I started in right earnest.

Mr. Stanley John was my helper, my assistant and my counselor. A family man with four kids, and an experience working among people of all kind for over two decades, he was indispensable. His respect for seniors was a consolation. I made many mistakes. He understood and empathized with my inexperience and appreciated my willingness to learn from experience. He had his gentle way of letting me know things I need to know. That helped. More over, he had a short stint with me ten years prior to this project.

One day Mr. Beck a resident of Vikaspuri accompanied by a couple of others came to meet me at Delhi Cantt where I was living at that time. They complained that a Hindu family in their neighbourhood had stollen Mr. Beck’s domestic help and hidden her in its home. I was aware that it had all the possibilities of a communal situation. I sent the delegation back home promising to be with them shortly. Some thing inside me kept curbing my instinct to meet the challenge head on. I called up Stanley. After many years as I reflect on the situation, I know I did right by consulting him. Stanley told me very plainly: “You have to be careful with that character called Mr. Beck. He has a sinister look on his face.” He advised me not to go to his home alone but wait till he came to accompany me. Mr. Stanley John knew about the young domestic help in question, who according him was not more than six years old. It turned out that she merely looked six years. She was close to 10.

When we arrived at Mr. Beck’s house, we felt as if we had walked into an Adivasi panchayat. All the leaders from the areas of Janakpuri, Vikaspuri and Harinagar were huddled together in consultation and discussion. They briefed me that the neighbour of Mr. Beck a certain Mr. Sharma had been trying to steal his domestic servant whom he had brought from his village in Bihar. Finally, they had managed to lure her away and the child was in his custody, they said. "Moreover," they added "the Hindus were spreading rumors about Christians in the area". What I realized instinctly was that the leaders of the Adivasi community were making extra effort to give the incident a communal colour. The Advasi community in question, was Christian.

I took Mr. Stanley John and went over to Mr. Sharma’s home a block away. I was received by a gentle elderly woman with a kind disposition. She welcomed me and called out to his son the head of the family. The story they told me was an entirely different one.

The girl in question was spotted in the crowded weekly market in Vikaspuri Extn area. She looked desperate and was trying to jump before a running bus. The elder knew the child to be the domestic help in her neighbourhood. She grabbed the child and pulled her away from disaster. The child told her that she would rather die than go back to Mrs. Beck who according to her starved her and tortured her often besides making her work from early morning five till eleven at night. Since the Beck family worked in offices and the two children went to school they used to lock her up in the house during the day which of course was the general practice by most employers of domestic help in Delhi.

I asked Mr. Sharma whether I could talk to the child personally. They had no problem. There was one hitch. The child was in an undisclosed home and had to be brought before me without letting the Beck family and the tribal leaders know of the place where they had kept the child safely. I promised to return later in the day.

When I came out, the tribal leaders had already changed their version of the event. There was no more the Hindu-Christian divide in their present story. They had hoped in vain that I would support the "Christian cause" and would stand by the tribal community in saving their maid from the clutches of an "evil Hindu conspirator". They soon realized that these deadly seeds of hatred no more had any soil to grow.

As promised I came back after two hours with Stanley John in tow. The child was already in the house. Let me call the child Sheila. Sheila came to the door and moved towards the elder woman and clinged to her body. With one eye, Sheila was observing me and Mr. Beck alternately. Mr. Beck and three others besides Mr. Stanley John were invited by me to be present. After a few minutes of conversation, I asked the child to come close to me. She came without hesitation though glancing at Mr. Beck in fear. When she came near me, her body language was clear to all present that she trusted me. It was not the first time she had met me. I had visited Mr. Beck a couple of times before and the child had seen me. She stood close to me as if to say, I trust that you will find justice for me and protect me.

With much hesitation she told her story.

Sheila was one of 7 girl children of a village priest somewhere in Bihar. The child did not knew the name of the village but could not identify the district without which locating her parents address was almost impossible in India. (Just imagine there are at least 22 Rampurs in India spead over various states). With the little he used to get from the temple the poor Brahmin tried to meet both ends meet. As the girls were growing up, he had the added problem of finding a groom for each of them. When a certain Adivasi christian from Delhi approached him with the proposition of buying one of the girls he reluctantly agreed. The child did not know how much money had changed hands. The next thing she knew was that she was in train bound for Delhi. Delhi for her was a dream city of magnificent sights and sounds and foods. She was rebought by a certain Catholic Adivasi gentleman in Faridabad. The second buyer brought the girl home to his eccentric wife. Some say, the lady was insane. Others say that she had caught her man having an affair with a tribal housemaid and thereafter she began to pretend to be insane. When the woman saw Sheila, she threw a tandrum and began to abuse the man. The tantrums increased by the day. In despair, the man decided to get rid of Sheila. He came to know that Mr. Beck, his old friend and relative (all adivasis are related if they are of the same "gother" clan) was looking for a housemaid. He sent the child to Delhi where she became the property of the Beck family. The two children of Mr. and Mrs. Beck, a small boy and a girl of her age became Sheila’s only solace. With tears running down her cheeks Sheila narrated the horror story of her life with the Becks.

Sheila had to wake up on her own at 5 a.m. Mrs. Beck is the other earliest riser in the family. By the time the Lady of the House woke up at 6 am, Sheila would have made bed tea and prepared the children’s lunch. If they were not ready for some reason, she was severly scolded and at times, the woman applied burning match stick to the child's skin.

After the elders of the family had had their morning tea, the children of the family were woken up and bathed and dressed by Sheila. Thereafter the children were taken to the bus stop. The two heavy sachets were carried by Sheila while children walked free.

The furtive and fearful glances of Sheila in the direction of Mr. Beck and his uncomfortable avoidance of her eyes spoke of some other dynamics of which I would hear months later. I could only guess what was going on at that time. Whatever that relationship had been, it was not a good one. I am sure, a girl of 10 would not try to commit suicide just because, her food was meager and she was ill treated by the woman of the house. There was an unspoken fear of the man of house as well lurking behind the whole episode.

The Hindu family was forthright in their resolve. The elder woman spoke on behalf of the family and said, that Sheila should be taken care of by a Christian institution, may be that of Mother Teresa's. The family would be happy if I would take charge of the child and saw that she was safe. Under no circumstances were they willing to give the child back to the Becks. I consulted Mr. Stanley John. We had few choices. Handing over the child to the Becks was not an option for us either.

I told the tribal leaders that given the reluctance of the child to come back to their homes and in the absence of any denial of the charges the child had leveled against the two christian families which had bought rebought her, it was necessary that the higher authorities have to be involved. I decided to keep the child with the Missionaries of Charity in Delhi while I got in touch with my boss, the Bishop. I told them clearly that before me was a criminal case. However, if it was possible, the matter could be dealt with as a domestic problem, if the Bishop so desired. I needed guarentee that the child would not be abused any further.

I rode a motorcycle those days. That was my only conveyance. It was not appropriate to pillion drive the child to Old Delhi where the Communities of Missionaries of Charity had promised to take care of Sheila. I left the house in order to call for the van of Shishu Bhawan run by the MCs. By the time I met the superior and returned with the van and two sisters, the situation in Vikaspuri had taken a different route.

In my absence, the tribal community got in touch with some of the police officers in the city who were of their tribe. They rushed to the place in full uniform, even though none of them had jurisdiction in the area, nor did they carry a Magistrate's Order for search and rescue. They intimidated the Sharmas and whisked the child away.

One could only now fear for the worst. But what happened thereafter was another criminal conspiracy of the tribals who call themselves "Christians".

I got a summons from my boss. When I reached his house, I was told that he was in a meeting and would meet me a few minutes later. I stayed outside the library. I was not sure what he wanted. It could be anything. However, I was surprised to learn that it was about the Adivasi Child Slavery Case. The Advasi Panchayat was meeting the bishop now with a complaint against me. I was too late to inform him first.

The bishop finally emerged from the meeting and informed me that he had been with the Adivasi Leaders from Vikaspuri. They had come as a delegation, he informed me, and they had said that I was anti-Adivasis and I had insulted them in front of the Hindus. He wanted my explanation.

I was annoyed that now the tables are turned against me and the criminals are now complaining. I explained the events that happened a couple of days ago regarding the child labourer of Mr. Beck. What was interesting was that the bishop had already interviewed each of the delegation individually, somewhat after the Judgment by Samuel on Susanna and the Old Men in the Bible. Each had no idea what the other had said to the Bishop so they had contradicted each other. The others had no idea how to arrive at a common story while seated in the parlour, with a priest guarding them against conspiracy. I was glad that the bishop did do a bit of investigation himself.
I finally joined the whole assembly of the delegation in the Library. The bishop asked the leader of the delegation to repeat the story to me once again in my presence. His discomfiture was evident. This time, he was tongue tied and sat with his eyes downcast, which is the body language of the tribal who would only tell the truth to his tribe's head. There are a few things which they consider natural, falsehood to anyone other than their tribal chief was one of the "natural" things they did with impunity.

The Bishop’s verdict was forthright but diplomatic. It is good, he said to them to apologise to me since I was hurt by their false accusation against me. He wanted to know where the little girl was. The answer was typical “we sent her home”. (To them, a lie is natural) How did they do it? Who went with her? Where is her home? The bishop's questions were quick and pointed. Answers were naturally quick lies: We bought a ticket and put her in the train. After reaching Ranchi, she knows how to reach home on her own. Tell that to a father of a ten year old village girl of India or anywhere in the world for that matter! The bishop did not try to investigate. Perhaps he knew it was as difficult as tracing the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden in the mountain crevices of Pakistan-Afganistan border. The tribals would hide her against justice.

As for the apology, it never came. The face of Sheila whose body language said to me, “Please be my father, and protect me from this heartless group which calls itself Christian.” She just vanished from the face of the earth. But no, my heart aches with the realization, some other 'christian' family is abusing her.

It is true if you stand for the poor, you stand to loose. You teach the children of the rich and the powerful, they will grant you many favours. You try and help a poor girl child and stand for justice and dignity to her, you will face a pack of powerful people. Like a pack of wild dogs, they keep pestering. So with the Adivasis of Vikaspuri and Harinagar. They followed me up with rumours and gossips till my worked ended in Delhi.