NOBEL PRIZE FOR PEACE 2014 SHARED BY INDIA AND PAKISTAN

From Sampath’s Desk:

 

2014 NOBEL PRIZE FOR PEACE SHARED BY KAILASH SATYARTHI OF INDIA AND MALALA YOUSAFZAI OF PAKISTAN

 

The most coveted Nobel Prize for Peace 2014 was conferred on two well deserving persons in the Indian sub-continent - Pakistani education campaigner and teen-aged girl Malala Yousafzai (then aged 17) and India’s children rights activist Kailash Satyarthi (then aged 60 and now 66).

 

Malala hailing from Mingora, Swat, Pakistan was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman on 9.10.2012 in Pakistan after she became prominent and famous for her campaigning for girl’s education. She had won the award for what the Nobel Committee called her ‘heroic struggle’ for girls’ right to education. She is the youngest ever winner of the prize.

 

She undertook against all odds a relentless campaign for girls’ education in a country where fundamentalists don’t want to confer the right to education enjoyed by males on females who formed one half of the population and held half the sky. This underscores that women education has been a challenge and far cry in many societies across the globe. Muslim women in many countries struggle to grab their rights of education and employment on par with males and are not that atop in the socio-economic ladder/pyramid. A complex web of circumstances makes even their schooling a daunting task. Still, braving the fundamentalists’ bullets, Malala had the courage, tenacity, perseverance and strength of purpose to spread her message to girl children in his country and all around the world asking them to stand up for their rights. The Nobel Prize to these two activists should make the girls and women all over the world bold enough to come out of their protected cocoons to seize due respect and recognition they rightly and richly deserved.

 

Kailash Satyarthi of Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, India (B.E/M.E. from Barkatullah University and Honorary Ph.D from Alliance University – known for his activism for children’s rights and their education) had maintained the traditions of Mahatma Gandhi and headed various forms of peaceful protests focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gains. He had also significantly contributed to the development of important international conventions on children’s rights. The ‘Bachpan Bachao Andolan’ (Save the Childhood Movement) that Satyarthi started in 1980 was a marked success and fast spread across the country benefiting at least 80000 ill-destined children so far from the scourge of illiteracy. No wonder, he dedicated his prize to children entangled and enmeshed in the vortex of slavery, bonded labour and trafficking. He was also a recipient of Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Award in 1995.

 

 

For eons together, womenfolk - from womb to tomb - remained repressed, suppressed, subdued and almost enslaves with equality denied to them on feeble and flimsy subterfuges of race, religion, customs, traditions, beliefs, practices and other reasons by the dogmatist, diehard, conservative and reactionary males, effectively preventing them progressing - socially, educationally and economically. Women were always forced to live fully dependent on males – even for their small needs. Discrimination of women was prevalent ubiquitously all across the world transcending all barriers.

 

Every child irrespective of economic status of their parents is entitled to right of education and hassle-free enjoyment of childhood. But alas, we see children doing petty and menial jobs in factories, brick-kilns, matchbox/firework industries, restaurants, shops, and even as domestic servants - to eke out their livelihood and also support their families. Girl children, traditionally a neglected lot, suffer still worse. In some cases, violence and lack of parental care drive children away from home. The runaway children are abused. Some poor parents even sell their children because of acute poverty. Child beggary is an anathema and bane of society. Is it not heart-breaking to see children as mendicants in public places? Can alms given to them be a permanent solution?

 

The U.N. Convention on Rights of Child runs thus, “Child, for full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding. The child should be fully prepared to live an individual life in society, in the spirit of peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity.” Albeit the much-vaunted U.N. charter/provisions, how many countries strictly follow them in both letter and spirit and how many children in the world enjoy the bliss of childhood?

 

Parents must not use the smokescreen of sanctity of family to hide certain ugly realities perpetrated by them against their own children. They should realize that children are asset to them and society, also fountainhead to posterity. An abused child tends to think, “Offence is the best defence.” Child abuse is opprobrium.

 

The global voice as represented and manifest in the conferment of Nobel Prize for these two most deserving rights activists of India and Pakistan must stir up the conscience of the world people to do full justice at least hereafter to those who have been denied the same for long. Let us hope the spirit of the Nobel Prize for Peace conferred on and shared by these two in the sub-continent open a new chapter of decent life with dignity for children and marginalized sections of the society.

 

Perhaps there is also a lesson for India and Pakistan for peaceful co-existence as friendly neighbour countries.

 

 

R.SAMPATH

5/11/2020

 

(The article was originally written by me on 11/10/2014, now re-edited on 5/11/2020