The Abolition of Child Labor in India

The way to hell is paved with good intentions, goes a popular English saying.A recent incident poignantly underscored this fact.

Lat month the Government of India enacted a law banning child labor everywhere in the country.Last week, in a district town in West Bengal , the police arrested a 13 year-old boy on charges of shooting and killing another boy of the same age with an illegally acquired country-made revolver.

According to the boy's father, the boy, a school drop-out, had been working at the family-owned cycle-repair shop .West Bengal Labor Department officials had carried out an inspection of the shop two weeks previously, had told him that the employment of his son was in violation of the newly enacted law .His son should be removed ,and he would be prosecuted if he did not immediately comply.The boy stopped coming to the shop, and devoid of parental supervision, fell into bad company, and turned to petty crime- ultimately leading to homicide.

Who is the victim here?I can think of several.Who is the provocateur?The State will shrug off responsibility: a State has no ethics, morals or conscience. Officials are automatons, carrying out the letter of the law. This same law will hold the father responsible for the action of his minor son, but can a poor man, struggling to maintain his family by putting in long hours of labor afford the luxury of spending more time on a wayward son, made idle as a result of State action?

Turning to a broader question, can we not expect our legislators to seriously debate the implications of obviously populist legislation instead of always seeing things in the light of vote-bank politics?