Journey from ‘Electrical Engineer' to ‘Child Rights Activist'
I could never imagine that one day I will get a call from one of my journalist friends who will inform me that I have received the Nobel award. I never thought of receiving Nobel Prize.
As for my journey, the transition was not all of a sudden. My father wanted me to become an engineer. Since I was good in academics, I received scholarships and finally I became an engineer. I have even taught engineers for around 2 years.
But this fire was present within me since my childhood. When I first reached school, I saw a child, son of a cobbler, sitting outside. My age was 5 years at that time and he was also of the same age.
After introduction, I asked my teacher, headmaster and even family members as to why that child was not studying? They all told me these are children of poor people and they work and there is nothing new in that. One day I gathered courage and asked his father the same question. He said that even his father and forefathers used to work from childhood and that's why his son is also working.
With a very pessimistic attitude, he said that perhaps I was not aware that they were born to work only. It was his answer but it still remained a question for me that why some children are born to work only at the cost of their health and education? I could never digest it.
As I grew up, I developed some activism within myself. I started collecting books for those who were forced to leave schools for want of books. I started collecting donations and saving pocket money to pay the school-fee of needy children because at that time education was not totally free.
When I was teaching in the engineering college, I realized that I could not continue two things together and it was time to choose the path that was close to my heart. Nobody knew that path, even I was not aware of that. This was because of the fact that when I started working in this field, child labour was not an issue in the country. There were no laws in India. The law was made in 1986 and I'm talking about 1980-81. Even UN convention on Child rights was passed in 1989, around 10 years after I started work. So it was a tough challenge to carve out a new path by crossing all the roadblocks in those days.
Nobody was ready to consider it an issue at that time. Today, it has become a big issue and everybody has accepted that without eradicating child labor, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) can't be achieved, peace can't be established. How did it become possible? It became possible because of the hard work of those who worked with me in those days and even those who opposed me and continue to do so even today.
There was stiff opposition from within my family. I came from a middle class family. My mother was a widow. Everybody had high hopes and expectations from me as I was the first boy of the locality (in Vidisha where I was born) who was going to become an engineer. Nobody was an engineer even in my relation.
They were all very disappointed. I saw my mother crying whenever I used to speak to her. She was worried for my financial well being. I was in a very bad financial health. I had left job and had a very little amount of saved money. You can't raise a people's movement with a few hundred Rupees. I had a wife and even my son was born.
My wife Sumedha ji has been my biggest strength. Even today, she is my biggest strength. Nowadays she looks after the rehabilitation of liberated children. She is mother to thousands of children and they all love her more than their mothers.
Not deterred by physical attacks and threats to family
We were subjected to physical assault many times. We never shared stories of these attacks with my family. My elder brother used to weep after knowing about these incidents but neither he nor I shared it with my mother. But they were all very concerned because they could not understand the cause I was fighting for.
They used to tell me that if I was interested in welfare of poor children then I should open orphanage or schools for them. They would suggest I should distribute food, clothes and books among them. But I had no faith in these methods. I firmly believed that Human dignity and independence are supreme, Children's rights are supreme. At that time, nobody knew or spoke about children's rights because as I said earlier it started getting discussed in world 10 years later. So it was very tough, I can't describe it easily.
I was attacked at my home several times. My right shoulder is fractured, I can't lift it easily. My left leg, my back is also broken. I suffered head injuries. There is hardly a part of my body that is not injured. My son was attacked when I took his help, after he became a lawyer, for rescuing Nepalese girls. We were both gravely injured. Passersby admitted us in hospital. We were lying next to each other in emergency ward of the hospital. We told each other that we were ok if we had not died.
Even my daughter was threatened. She was a new entrant to college at that time. Threatening telephone calls used to be made to her at home in our absence. She used to be warned that your father would be killed, that you will be subjected to same thing that trafficked girls have to face to. But she is a brave girl as she has seen all this from her childhood. My children used to visit me in hospitals whenever I was admitted after being attacked. This is how they grew up.
Those who consider a cause close to their heart but still are not ready to put their family at stake would not be honest to their cause. If you believe in something then you should be ready to put everything at stake, only then you would be honest to yourself as well as your cause.
What does Nobel prize mean for Kailash Satyarthi
Nobel Prizes are being given for the last 125 years or so. For the first time, this award has been given to the cause of those children who are the most suppressed, most ignored, most overlooked, most backward and most exploited section of the society.
This award has not been given to me. The award is for this cause and I am just the medium.
Now it has been established that you can't bring peace to the world if enslavement of children continues. The world will never be peaceful with the cries and tears of the children.
Within a year, it has been proved once again that the edifice of economic development can't be made with the shackles of child slavery.
