Child Abuse In The Land Of Child Worshippers

Uma Ranganathan, April 13, 2007

< http://desicritics.org/2007/04/13/043221.php >

Felix is my friend Ariela's four year old son. One of the nicest
memories I have of his visit to India a couple of years back is of the
way he connected with the waiters and odd job boys who used to hang
around the seaside guest house, where we happened to be staying in Goa.

Seconds within our walking into the restaurant, Venis, Claudie, Anthony
or one of the other young men working for the establishment would swoop
down on the little boy and spirit him away, bouncing him on their
shoulders, playing hide and seek, pointing out the pigs or the dogs in
the backyard. Ariela and I were grateful to them of course because it
gave us enough time to sit back over a cup of coffee and jabber about
everything under the sun without being interrupted every two minutes by
a kid banging on the table with assorted pieces of cutlery, needing its
nose wiped or bawling for attention.

"You know" A says to me reflectively at some point, "This would never
happen in Germany." Back in her own country, she feels, people are so
preoccupied with themselves, they don't have time for kids. Children in
restaurants are frowned at. In public places they are considered a
nuisance. 

"Not once have I experienced anything like this back in
Munich", she says, nodding at Felix, who giggles with delight in the
arms of a young waiter who whirls him around like a mad dervish. He is
having such a good time that when his mother goes round to fetch him to
take him back to the room he doesn't want to go with her at all.

Today, when I think of Felix monkeying around with the hotel staff
however, I can't help also thinking of the four or five year old girl in
Bombay whose mother would punish her by scalding her. Or I see before me
some young urchin employed in a bidi or a carpet factory in a small town
somewhere in the country, being kicked into shape by a sadist of a boss,
or some little girl being sexually abused by her father or an uncle, a
teacher or close friend of the family. 

India, motherland of paradoxes has come up with a whopper for us to mull 
over. A nation wide survey on child abuse, based on 12,000 case studies, 
has recently revealed that in this country of child lovers, 53 per cent of all 
kids have been exposed to sexual or physical abuse, with Maharashtra 
leading the way and Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh close behind.

I am anticipating the opinions which will be aired in the next few days
or weeks on what needs to be done, the cries of indignation, a plea for
laws which ensure severe punishment for offenders. We will be looking at
this theme from the political angle, from the sociological angle and
various other angles each of which will offer valid opinions. Yet a part
of us will remain cynical because it will recognize the fact that in all
these years of analyzing violence, corruption and so many other things
in this country we have not been able to change attitudes, to any large
extent.

What is it that is lacking? Could it be that merely theorizing about
problems and holding seminars all over the place still leaves a huge gap
in our understanding of what goes wrong and could it be that the gap is
what one might call "self knowledge" or "self awareness?".

Confronted by the report on child abuse, Minister for Women and Child
Development, Renuka Chowdhury now maintains that awareness can be raised
through sex education, and one way to do that is to enforce it in
schools. The way I see it however is that, although sex education is
crucial, especially for youngsters, it is still only one aspect of
awareness. 

A person with a deep sense of awareness of his own mind and
body, will be aware not only of what is right or wrong for him (or her)
in the area of sexuality, but will also develop a fine sense of what
relationship itself is about. But this is an area in which many of us
Indians fall short. 

Although we are generally, well informed about the
country and the world - at least the better educated among us - and
although we can rattle off information about the European economy or
American politics with aplomb, we seem to be sadly lacking when it comes
to the awareness of our own behavior and attitudes - the kind of
awareness which lays the basis for a mature and responsible world.

This lack seems to me, to begin in the early years itself when a child's
curiosity is checked in a myriad ways and the mind is held back from
exploring. Often it is not something that another person says to you.
You drink in the rules almost with your mother's milk. There are
questions you simply don't ask, you leave certain subjects untouched. 

How many of us grew up being able to talk frankly about how we felt
about a whole lot of things, ranging from sex, to feelings of sadness or
jealousy, just to name a few topics? Little by little our inner freedom
begins to be curtailed, and the room in which we are allowed to move
around mentally and emotionally, begins to get narrower by the day. We
are often not even aware of the ways in which we are restricted.

What does this have to do with child abuse? The same thing I guess, that
it has to do with any kind of deviant behavior. After all what is
deviant behavior if not the result of extreme ignorance, frustration and
the result of neglect or repression? I am not saying that those who
perpetrate horrible acts should be ignored or let off the hook or that
we need to turn the other cheek like Christ did (Or at least not all the
time).