The news that 24 children from Meghalaya, aged between eight and thirteen years have been repatriated from Chikkaballapura district in Karnataka following their rescue from the Sowmya Kesanupalli Student Home in Perumale should shock the people of Meghalaya. It shows Meghalaya in poor light yet again. Here is a narrative of people taking extreme steps so that their children get basic education. What this incident reminds those in government is that free and compulsory education does not look after all aspects of requirements for a child’s education. Parents struggle to buy uniforms and books. There are enough Christian missionary run institutions and also Seng Khasi schools besides government run schools so why are parents not enrolling their children in these schools? The reason could be that most schools charge fees and at the beginning of the academic calendar. The cost of uniforms and books too are major deterrents for parents to enrol their kids in school. Some months ago, a number of male students were also brought back from Karnakata, courtesy the initiative of the Social Welfare Department of that state, after two boys from Meghalaya died of food poisoning there. They were served stale food left over from some festival. These male students too were recruited by the Lei Synshar Society. Hence this is the second time that the Society has been guilty of sending children from poor families to distant places without taking stock of their living conditions.
After that incident it should have been the task of the Education Department to dig deeper into the functioning of the Leisynshar Cultural Society an indigenous faith outfit which in collaboration with the RSS regularly recruits these kids from poor families and sends them to study to different parts of this country. Since then, there should have been stronger regulatory frameworks in place to prevent children from being sent out. The Leisynshar Cultural Society should have been kept under the scanner to check its activities and to find out where all it has sent children to study under such harsh circumstances. That the Organisation was not made answerable exposes the weakness of the law enforcement system and also the weak social controls in the tribal society today. If the State Government had taken note of the very poor families and helped enrol them in some schools locally would the children have had to undergo so much trauma?
The fact that there are too many poor families that cannot educate their children closer home also exposes the broken societal and clan system among tribals where the clan has lost its ability to look after its poorer members. What’s the point of the clan if some semblance of equity cannot be enforced where the affluent donate to educate their poorer clan members? Education is a fundamental right of every child. The fact that some are denied this right due to stark poverty requires judicial intervention. The state is provided adequate resources to provide free and compulsory education. So why has the state consistently failed? Parents send their children to distant states because it means one less mouth to feed and clothe and pay the fees for. Has Meghalaya become a state where the poor don’t matter? The MDA2 Government has to take appropriate action against the Leisynshar Cultural Society.
