THE WORK
OF OUR HANDS
Vatsala Kaul
has high praise for Kancha Ilaiah’s book for children on the values
of ‘simple’ work
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TURNING
THE POT, TILLING THE SOIL: DIGNITY OF LABOUR IN OUR TIMES
Kancha Ilaiah
Navayana
108pp; Rs 150 |
The cavernous divide
between those who ‘labour’ and those who ‘work’
in India has always inhabited the shaky bedrock of our social system.
Labour is work that leads to no accumulation of wealth, though it often
perpetuates its own impoverished struggles. Its devaluation, as scripted
in Hindu religious texts and fostered by years of selfish conditioning,
has only worsened, aggravating the disengagement between the historically
privileged and those banished to the fringes as ‘lower castes’,
‘Backward Classes’, ‘Scheduled Tribes’ and ‘untouchables’.
Flung into such compartments without escape, millions of Indians —
adivasis, potters, weavers, dhobis, farmers, cobblers and domestic workers
— are regarded as a lobotomised, unskilled mass, providing ‘services’
it seems they have no choice but to perform. As Ilaiah points out, the
modern education system — in continuance of an ideology that considers
physical labour undignified — anoints mental endeavour but is
derisive and disparaging of physical work. Basic productive services
are neither valued nor well-paid. It is to this work and to those who
perform it that Ilaiah seeks to restore a core of long deserved respect.
The book is presented
as a possible course book for children of classes 7-10, their teachers
and parents. Of the book’s 11 ‘lessons’, eight deal
with the scientific temper, artistic abilities, knowledge pool and many
skills of adivasis, cattle-rearers, farmers, weavers and barbers. There
is enough to grip the imagination — how the adivasis discovered
and standardised most of the foods we eat; how leather workers used
the tangedu plant for eco-friendly tannin; how tillers use traditional
knowledge in planning their harvests; how potters improve their clay
with smooth ash and charcoal; how dhobis use fuller’s earth to
remove stains and kill germs; how dais — largely the women of
the barber community — are able to turn breach babies in the womb
without ultrasounds or other costly techniques. There are interesting
asides, and inventive exercises readers are encouraged to try —
they work as well for adults as for kids. What do you know about CK
Janu? Ever tried composting? Or protesting against manual scavenging?
How much does a farmer earn on a crop?
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Those
who fret over whether to let their domestic help use the AC need
to resolve their own conflicts before handing this on to their
children |
Grownups who fret
over whether to let their domestic help use the ac are advised to resolve
their own conflicts before handing this book to their children. The
book was sparked off by Ilaiah’s shock at students from the iits
and iims protesting against reservations by going out to sweep roads
and polish shoes, clearly demonstrating what little dignity they associated
with such labour. Through lucid, logical text, Ilaiah places this work
in socio-historical perspective, impressing upon the reader how entire
categories of usually marginalised people have learnt, invented, discovered
and created products we use but take for granted, and how they are as
capable as others — often more so — of becoming teachers,
software engineers, doctors, nuclear physicists or anything else.
Ilaiah’s
well-intentioned narrative can become simplistic in places, such as
in the chapter on ‘Labour and Religion,’ where he denounces
Hinduism and its caste system. It’s an impractical approach —
one can not imagine the relatively privileged suddenly converting to
Ilaiah’s point of view if they are not already attuned to caste’s
heinous unfairness. By contrast, medieval Europe is described as a blissfully
classless society — an assertion that is simply not true. Admittedly,
however, while almost every religion has had cliques that arrogated
to themselves powers and privileges, neither class nor slavery were
sanctified by religion in the way Hinduism sanctified caste. Even if
the word ‘caste’ were now to disappear, a vicious complex
of reasons helps its long-entrenched effects to survive in this country
and seep even into the lives of converts to more egalitarian religions.
Although one understands
that Ilaiah’s case rests on presenting ‘labouring’
people as informed, skilled and creative, it is a little disappointing
that he doesn’t touch upon the fundamental, intrinsic equality
of all people, skilled or not, learned or not, labouring or not. We
may owe weavers a ‘historical debt, so they must be given preference
in education and employment,’ but that should not mean that those
whom we do not owe any such debt should not get, or be enabled to get,
the same opportunities. Ilaiah excludes those who may not be ‘skilled’
or ‘inventive’, and new migrants to the ‘labouring’
classes who may or may not have traditional wisdom and learning.
While most of the
writing in the book is blissfully straightforward and not without humour
(Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo are ‘cobblers’, for instance),
academic jargon does creep in. But then, it’s always hard labour
to build up debate and easy work to nitpick.
The cause is worthy,
and the last chapter on gender issues more than welcome. This wonderfully
designed book is a much-needed resource for both parents and teachers
and anyone else who wants to educate themselves — teeming with
interesting information, yet spacious and uncrowded. It is also beautifully
embellished — one can’t use so neutral a term as ‘illustrated’
— by Durgabai Vyam of Bhopal, whose Gond-style black-and-white
drawings are feisty works of art.
In times when children
think cows eat garbage and not grass, and that flower pots grow one
on top of the other on roadsides, Turning the Pot, Tilling the Land
will prove vital in empowering our children to respect all kinds of
peoples and their work, and to understand, and hopefully work against,
the atrocious machinations of the caste system. Class 7 is too late
to start, though; it would be best to share the contents of this book
as soon as kids are old enough to understand the words ‘play’
— and ‘work’.
