Would you agree that promises made …

There is no denying the fact that promises made to the poor children are rarely kept. In our modern democratic India, people living in slum colonies, resettlement areas and jhuggi and jhopary colonies hardly have an access to civic amenities and the education. They are meant for casting their votes or show attendance in the political rallies. Their grieves are hardly adhered to by the bureaucrats. The writer has given two current examples of the residents of Seemapuri and Firozabad.

In Seemapuri one can see more than 10,000 rag-pickers who live in strucutres of mud, with roofs of tin and tarpaulin. They are devoid of sewage, drainage or running water. They live without an identity except a ration card for voting and buying grain. They remain barefoot and garbage to them is gold. The writer asks Saheb, a rag-picker for school. The boy replies that there is none in his neighbourhood. He further says if they build it, he will go. But this is never done.

In the same way about 20,000 children work in bangle factories and work in glass furnaces with high temperature. They live in dingy cells and stingy lanes choked with garbage. They pass their lives in grinding poverty and fail to get proper food. Thus the poor have no dreams and no initiatives. They are the safest targets of exploitations.