Time for societal reflection

No less an institution than the Karnataka High Court has ordered the Karnataka Government that the 22 students from Meghalaya who were studying in the Gokula Educational Trust in Bengaluru and were taken ill after consuming stale food should now be airlifted back to their home state of Meghalaya. Two students, one from Lyndem in East Khasi Hills and another from Nongstoin in West Khasi Hills had died after consuming the stale food while the rest 22 survived. The children would be accompanied by the Child Welfare Officers from Karnataka and handed over to their counterparts in Meghalaya. This order follows a petition filed by the parents of the children who were taken ill. This is the first instance when such an incident has come to light. It is not known if such incidents have happened in the past since the students who are taken outside the state are not registered before they leave the state. In fact none of the students who leave to study outside the state are registered in any Government portal. This makes it difficult for the Government to assist the parents in case of any untoward incident. Normally parents who can afford to send their children to schools, colleges or universities outside the state admit them to reputed institutions and also accompany them physically and hand them over to the school/college/university authorities.
In the case of the young students – all of whom belong to the indigenous faith- who were handed over to a certain organisation by the Lei Synshar Cultural Society (LSCS), their parents are too poor to accompany them so they were handed over out of blind faith to the host organization in Karnataka. The incident should have shaken the conscience of the Khasi society of which these children are a part of. There is a need to analyse why parents are ready to trust an organisation so far away from home without knowing the kind of environment their kids are being kept in and whether they were adequately fed or even mistreated. Once the children are handed over to the host organization they are not allowed to communicate to their parents, except when an emergency arises. Parents who send their children to study outside the state call them regularly to find out if they are facing any problems. In this case once the children are not able to speak to their parents and vice versa as often as they want to.
If poverty is the reason for the students being sent out to such distant places then society should rise to the occasion. Khasi society has a strong clan system that needs to get to the root of these problems. If well-placed members of the clan assist the poorer members to at least educate one child, it would have been a noble thing to do. In fact tribal societies were inherently organized along those lines so that there would be no destitute since the clan was not just a societal creation but a lifeline and a support system. It’s time for society to retrace its steps and get back to the root of the clan system and also strengthen it and make it a cohesive unit.