Here is the story of Sangeetha from Madurai, a city in the State of Tamil Nadu, India. She is now 17 and typically not in the age group of CONNECT readers. But she is a remarkable girl for what she has achieved already and should be a source of inspiration for children everywhere. Beating all odds, she has finished school, the first in her family. Child rights are not empty words; she is well aware of her rights as a child and is not afraid to speak up when she feels these rights are being violated. She is ambitious not only about her future but about changing society for the better.
Unafraid to try new horizons
Quiet and submissive: these are two adjectives that don’t sit well in Sangeetha’s vocabulary. Forthright in her views, the teenager, who is from Madurai, a city in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, has just finished Grade 12, the first in her family to finish school. Though Sangeetha is a first-generation learner, she has a supportive, nurturing environment at home. The girl’s father drives an autorickshaw, earning around INR 400 (under five Euros) a day, on good days. The lockdown in India brought about by the Corona pandemic stripped the family of their meagre income. The father, however, hasn’t wavered in his support for Sangeetha’s dreams.
“My father always tells me ‘be bold. Never takes things lying down. Have the courage to fight back. I will be there for you’. At a very young age, I learnt not to be afraid to ask questions,” says the 17-year-old. Sangeetha is well aware of her rights too, a knowledge that comes from her long association with Sakthi-Vidiyal, a child rights NGO, which is her second home. She has been a member of Vidiyal Child Rights Movement, a child led organization and assumed several leadership positions. Sangeetha comes from a socially marginalized community but she has learnt, both at home and through Sakthi-Vidiyal, that she should not be quiet in the face of discrimination in the name of caste. The NGO has played a crucial role in mentoring the girl, going beyond making her aware about her rights but expanding her horizon and fuelling her ambition.
When Sangeetha was in Grade 8, her school (a state-run one) asked the girl to pay Rs. 1000 as tuition fee, she refused. “My teacher demanded to know why I hadn’t paid the fee. I said I am aware of the government order that state no fee should be collected in government schools. Besides, under the Right to Education Act (a landmark legislation mandating free and compulsory education for children in the ages of 6-14 years), elementary education should be free. The teacher punished me by making me stand outside the class. Then she took me to the headmistress,” says Sangeetha. But the girl repeated her knowledge of the government order to the head too. Not only that, the defiant girl said she would complain to Childline (1098 is a toll-free helpline for children in distress) if the school insisted that she pay the fee. The school asked her to bring her father, who, however, reinforced his daughter’s message, saying ‘my daughter is right. Why should she pay the fee?’ Eventually, the school relented and stopped harassing Sangeetha for the fee.
The following years too, the teenager refused to pay any fee and convinced two of her classmates not to pay any fee. “Most of my classmates though are too scared to ask questions. They are not aware of their rights. They tell me ‘you can talk well. Your parents will support you. But ours will punish us, thinking we are disobeying the school rules’. It does not matter that I show them copies of the government order,” says the girl.
“If we are aware of our rights, they will respect us,” says the teenager who wants to join the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). “If I become an IAS officer, I will ensure that child rights are taught as a subject in school textbooks. What is the point if only children are aware of their rights. Teachers and elders are not aware of them. Most children are not aware either of their own rights,” she said.
Her father, who is her source of strength, encourages Sangeetha to keep abreast of current affairs and to read newspapers. “At home, my brother, sister and I are treated equally and told to follow our dreams,” the teenager says with pride. The girl, who likes to write poetry and compose music, has just enrolled for an undergraduate course in history, a step before pursuing her ambition of becoming a bureaucrat.
(Transcription of audio interview with Sangeetha in Tamil)
