Satyarthi’s award puts spotlight on child rights
The joint award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Indian child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistani girls' education advocate Malala Yousafzai, though largely welcomed with good cheer and much celebration in both countries, has also received some criticism from the chattering classes. Some have sought to nitpick over the means and methods used by Mr Satyarthi to win the fight against child labour while others have wondered if Ms Yousafzai has made any significant contribution towards improving the status of Pakistani girls. In India, Mr Satyarthi's flagship Bachpan Bachao Andolan has come under scrutiny for receiving Western funding and, in return, supposedly pushing the West's ‘anti-developing world’ agenda under the garb of human rights activism; in Pakistan, Ms Yousafzai has always been somewhat of a polarising figure. The teen activist who captured global attention, after she was shot in the head by the Taliban for daring to go to school, has been dubbed a traitor by some in her own country where conspiracy theories about her being a ‘Western puppet' do the rounds. Additionally, the Norwegian Nobel Committee's attempts to frame the joint award as some sort of an India-Pakistan peace symbol have also not gone down well with some quarters — and understandably so, especially as Indian and Pakistani forces trade gun fire in along the line of Control. Finally, the Committee's asinine suggestion that the award somehow promotes a joint Hindu-Muslim effort to fight for education and against extremism hurts its credibility. It adds currency to the observation that the Nobel Peace prize is much like a beauty contest award. Beauty, like peace, cannot be scientifically and objectively measured, and neither beauty nor peace has much to do with the sashes and citations bestowed in their name.
Having said this, however, there can be no two ways about the fact that the Nobel (even if somewhat diminished) has enormous brand value especially among the masses. This, in turn, makes it an effective tool to raise public awareness and bring the issues of child labour and child rights back into the mainstream public discourse. Pessimists may point out that any individual with an iota of social consciousness today is aware of the problems posed by child labour and that, by extension, the Nobel does little else apart from perpetuating the old Indian image of a country full of malnourished children begging by the roadside. But such critics ignore how horribly inured the average Indian is to child labour. Forget about wondering if the fancy clothes we buy at glitzy malls have been sown in sweatshops by children who are criminally underpaid, we find little wrong with chotus bringing us tea and sweeping our floors. When these issues are pointed out, the usual indignant reply is that the ‘job' puts food in chotu's belly and a roof over his head. But the ‘job' also keeps him away from school, and traps him in a life of poverty and deprivation, as Mr Satyarthi himself argues. Hopefully, as we take pride in his Nobel, we will also be goaded into changing our ways. In Pakistan too, Ms Yousafzai's award will not directly improve female education but even if it can inspire one parent or one family to push back against an oppressive society, it would have served its purpose.