Vicious Circle of Social Reforms

I came across this strange Geometrical figure in secondary school through an Ogden Nash poem on Visit to Dentist. These are the lines from the poem “It’s going to hurt just a little bit.”

And this, O Fate, is I think the most vicious circle that thou ever sentest,
That Man has to go continually to the dentist to keep his teeth in good
condition when the chief reason he wants his teeth in good condition
is so that he won't have to go to the dentist.

-OGDEN NASH.

The then figure became a reality for me when I visited one. Now my social ecosystem teaches me more about this bizarre figure.

Mostly Geometrical objects vary as a function of Space. This figure evolves around both space and time certainly being n-dimensional in nature. And it maps itself to everything it could this time for instance mapping itself to social reforms.

Child Labour ban couldn’t have come at a more appropriate place. The ban in hospitality and domestic work means 12 million kids between the age group of 5-14 get affected. No one can argue that the decision is wrong but India is prone to make decisions hastily and without thinking.

Ok so the boy at nearby Chai Gulla or the girl working at your home will get released from the perils of child labour, but where do they go? Boy gets into drug peddling or goes join some small pick pocketing gang. Girl gets sold to join world’s oldest profession. And what happens to their families many of whom depend on the kids directly or indirectly for support. For some sections of the society still producing kids is a means of survival for the family. So another small circle lies there. What we get is Ring whose sphere of evil is not less than anything which was being practiced. This is a circle which pushes them from one profession into another defeating the cause of removing them from a profession in the first place.

What happened last year when the so called immoral Bar Girl dancers in Mumbai (75,000) of them lost jobs? Most of them got into World’s Oldest Profession. Does that mean that the city became more MORAL? Everything good to remove the bad has loads of ugly to go with it. So what’s needed sometimes is to go along with the bad also as to suppress the ugly.

So what do we do, let’s keep the kids working is what I am saying? Definitely not. As we all know rehabilitation package for a small bomb blast take years to get distributed so what are we expecting in case of 1.2 million kids involved. This is a circle of solving one problem and then not following up with the problem and taking it to the end. Something similar to distributing BT cotton and then keep the farmers dieing in Vidarbha due to production cost increase due to supplements involved and in turns losses- Of money and most of times LIFE.

We as a society can’t expect to change so quickly everything. We should realize that in India still we are producing kids at a rate which is much handsome than BRIC countries growth prospects. Human Resources (uff that word reminds me of a person who syncs with nonsense, someone heading it) is something which can be nurtured for something better in future. So rather than imposing a country wide ban chucking states from child labour one by one and then carrying the model on a larger level would have helped.

Anyway no Child Labour is near to impossible, just imagine someone saying you to go off your job one day and say that you are not allowed to work. It’s a job for them and if they don’t work who works? Social reforms leading to cutting down of working population…hmm. Then price of everything goes up and our circle takes a new path of inflation there. Already I and everyone sane enough are quite sick of growing prices.

Finally I think I am just moving in a circle, usually I say a statement X and then follow it with negation of X. So let’s wiggle our heads to cut the circle and find the path out of this maze.

As of now though we will keep orbiting…