Cause of underprivileged children is humungous: Javed Akhtar

Actress Shabana Azmi, Javed Akhtar and Shefali Sunderlal, CRY America President at a press conference in New York City. (Pic Gunjesh Desai)

NEW YORK: India was facing a strange paradox of being among the fastest growing economies in the world and at the same time being ranked 134th out of 182 countries on the Human Development Index, according to Indian movie writer and lyricist Javed Akhtar, who has just been nominated to the Indian Parliament's Upper House, the Rajya Sabha.

Akhtar, along with wife actress-activist Shabana Azmi, was at an event organized by Child Rights and You (CRY) America to unveil a booklet "Let's dream a little dream together", at the Taj Lounge in New York City on Nov 17.

Speaking in the context of the underprivileged children of India, Akhtar said, "We are strange people living with strange paradoxes." On one hand, he said, India is becoming a destination for medical tourism and on the other, because of minor health issues, there were more women dying during child birth in India in one week than those dying in a year in any European country; while Indian doctors were making a name around the world for their capabilities, millions of people in India do not have access to basic healthcare; while Indian engineers and architects were making a mark abroad, there are 40 million children in India who don't go to school.

Akhtar said the cause of underprivileged children was humungous and only education can bring about change. "Any development in the country is meaningless if we don't take care of our children; they are the future of our country," Akhtar said, adding that recent initiatives of the government of India in this area were in the right direction.

Giving a statistical view of the state of underprivileged children in India, Shefali Sunderlal, president of CRY America said every second child under the age of five in India is malnourished; even though it is illegal, 11.2 million children in India work in hard conditions, often far away from home; 50% of children aged between 6-14 don't go to school; one in four girls in India are married off between the age of 15 and 19.

Commenting that the statistics were depressing and appalling, Shabana Azmi said one needs to recognize that about 40 million people in India are under the age of 18, which is a huge figure and would be a huge advantage for any country in terms of economic progress, development and prosperity.

"Unfortunately our children aren't able to live to that potential because of several factors not the least like access to opportunity, malnutrition, access to public health system, and lack of understanding of children as equal citizens of the country," Azmi said. "We need to change that; we need to see that if India has to march ahead with its head held high, it cannot happen unless we invest in our children and their future."

The recently passed Right to Education law passed by the Indian government, Azmi said, was a huge step forward in recognizing the rights of children. She said successful models for translating government policy into civil society movements such as that of CRY should be emulated by other organizations to bring about change.

In just over six years, CRY America has transformed the lives of more than 245,000 children living across 1376 villages and slums by supporting 41 not-for-profit organizations in India and the US, she said.

On the occasion, Javed Akhtar recited his poem "Mumbai Tere Bachche' (Mumbai, your children) describing the trials and tribulations of Mumbai's street children and Azmi later read out the English translation of the same poem.

CRY America has 10,000 donors and 500 volunteers. Sunderlal made an appeal to more Indian Americans to come forward and be involved in the cause of child rights.

SRIREKHA  N. CHAKRAVARTY
India Post News Service