[Reader-list] RSS and Child Trafficking

[Rakesh Iyer]

Dear all

I am very happy to see a mode of discussion which is less attacking
individuals (and I was responsible too in a certain way and hence
apologize), and more rational, and based on arguments. I hope we can all
continue with this, and I too state that I won't repeat the mistakes of the
past.

I am putting here an article which I got in Tehelka, and from what it seems,
this could be a dangerous way to go down, for on one hand it will destroy
the childhood and the life of the children, and on the other, it will
produce bigoted individuals who will have no tolerance and respect for
anyone different from them.

Hope some comments come on this too, like in other cases.

Regards

Rakesh

Article:


*A Strange And Bitter Crop*

*An ambitious RSS social engineering project is transporting children from
Meghalaya to Karnataka to bring them up ‘the Hindu way,’ discovers**SANJANA.
** Photographs by **S RADHAKRISHNA*


**

IN AN investigation spanning 35 schools across Karnataka and four districts
in Meghalaya, TEHELKA has found that since 2001, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (RSS) has embarked on an ambitious social engineering project to
transfer at least 1,600 children from Meghalaya to RSS-friendly schools
across Karnataka. The latest batch comprising 160 children arrived in
Bengaluru on June 7, 2009. Thirty RSS volunteers accompanied the children on
the 50-hour train journey down to the city.

Tukaram Shetty, the RSS organiser responsible for the programme, in
conversations spanning three months, candidly admitted to TEHELKA that the
children were part of a larger mission launched by the RSS and its affiliate
organisations to ‘protect’ people from Christian missionaries active in
Meghalaya. “We are committed to nurturing the Hindu way of life. There is a
long-term plan envisioned by the RSS to defeat the Christian missionary
forces active in Meghalaya while expanding our base in the region. These
children form a part of that long-term vision. In the years to come, they
will propagate our values amongst their own family members,” A childhood
recruit into the RSS fold, Shetty hails from Dakshina Kannada district of
Karnataka and has spent close to eight years in Meghalaya – familiarising
himself with the terrain and culture.

The RSS programme brings to the fore several concerns operating as it does
within the demographic context of Meghalaya. The state is one of the few
Christian majority states in India, with 70.25 percent of the population
being classified as Christians in the 2001 census. In comparison, Hindus are
pegged at 13.27 percent while a category of religious compositions pegged as
‘others’ – a possible reference to the indigenous tribal religions – is at
11.52 percent. The first Christian missionaries arrived in the mid
nineteenth century to work amongst the Garo, Khasi and Jaintia tribes living
in the region that now comprises Meghalaya. Despite the long entrenched
history of Christian conversions in the state, there exists a significant
minority population of tribals who have steadfastly continued to practice
their indigenous religions – their beliefs often spliced with a thin wedge
of resentment against those who have chosen to convert. The RSS plans of
‘expanding the base in the region’ capitalises on this wedge of resentment
with children and their education being — as Shetty admits — the starting
points of engagement.

The Thinkabettu Higher Primary and Secondary School in remote Uppur — nearly
500 km from Bengaluru — is one of the 35 schools in Karnataka where the
children are studying. In 2008, 17 students between six and seven years were
brought to this school from Meghalaya. Following instructions from the head
of the school, the children of Thinkabettu School stand up, announce their
names politely in Kannada, the local language, and sit down again on the
bare floor. Ask the head of the school to introduce himself and he refuses,
saying, “You have come to see the children, here they are. If I give you my
name, you will use it against me.” The only details forthcoming are that he
is a retired bank employee and that the school, which is a century old, was
started by his father. A woman in the corner is revealed to be his wife,
Nirmala.

Introductions done, the children are asked to recite the latest prayer that
they have memorised. Hands folded and eyes closed, the children, with shorn
heads and in ragged clothes, begin a Brahminical chant that is a tribute to
the teacher — Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo Maheshwara. The children
are sitting in the same hall that serves as their school and hostel. They
live and breathe, eat and sleep and study on that same barren floor. A
30-watt bulb, a blackboard and a few books and slates neatly lined up
complete the picture. An ancient fridge and a ramshackle sofa separate the
children’s space from the kitchen area of the hall.

*HARD FACTS*

1,600 children brought to Karnataka from Meghalaya since 2001

*The latest batch of 160 children arrived in Bengaluru on June 7,
accompanied by 30 RSS volunteers*

Siblings are always separated to ensure better discipline

*Most schools where children are studying are in the communally disturbed
coastal districts of Karnataka*

While most children are from poorer backgrounds, richer families who are RSS
sympathisers pay up to Rs 16,000 a year

*Children often forget their native languages*

Drawn from remote and often inaccessible villages across four districts in
Meghalaya — Ri Bhoi, West Khasi Hills, East Khasi Hills and Jaintia Hills —
the children taken by the RSS to study in Karnataka belong to the Khasi and
Jaintia tribal communities. Traditionally, the Khasi tribes follow the Seng
Khasi religion, while the Jaintias follow Niamtre religion. Ask Manje Gowda,
Headmaster at the Sri Adichunchanagiri Higher Primary School in BG Nagar,
Mandya district where 38 children from Meghalaya currently study, why
students are taken out of Meghalaya and he echoes Shetty’s logic, “If the
children had stayed on in Meghalaya they would have been converted to
Christianity by now. The RSS is trying to protect them. The education that
the children receive here includes strong cultural values. When they go back
home, after their education, they will help propagate these values to their
families.”

The cultural values that Gowda talks of imparting to children include
familiarity with Brahiminical chants, Hindu religious festivals, and a
weaning away from an overwhelmingly non-vegetarian Meghalayan diet to
vegetarianism. How could this possibly help the RSS in expanding their base?
Shetty told TEHELKA that indoctrination of cultural values and discipline
was the first step. “It is important that children imbibe these values early
on. It will bring them closer to us and away from the Christian way of life.

We teach them shlokas so they will not recite hymns. We take them away from
meat so they will abhor the animal sacrifice that is inherent in their own
religion,” he says. “Ultimately, when the RSS tells them that the cow is a
sacred animal and that all those who kill and eat it have no place in our
society, these children will listen,” he recounts calmly. Are these children
being groomed to be the future foot soldiers of RSS? Shetty’s only answer is
that they will part of ‘the family’ in one way or another and that time will
decide.

As TEHELKA found, across schools in different districts of Karnataka, the
cultural values imparted did not vary. The degrees of immersion into the RSS
credo, however, depended on the schools the children were placed in.
Children who came from financially stable homes were placed in schools with
proper educational and hostel facilities since parents were able to pay for
them. In these schools, the disciplinary regime imposed on the children was
more relaxed compared to the schools where children from poorer families
were placed. TEHELKA found that 60 percent of the children it met came from
economically weaker families. Subsequently, the schools that these children
were placed in resembled the Thinkabettu school in Uppur where both
education and lodging facilities were free and dismal.

Most of the schools where the children have been placed are located in the
coastal belt of Karnataka, the region that has emerged as the centre of
communal violence in the state. The places include Puttur, Kalladka, Kaup,
Kollur, Uppur, Deralakatte, Moodbidri in Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and
Chikmaglur districts. Besides these, the children have been placed in
schools run by influential ashrams such as the JSS Mutt in Suttur, the Adi
Chunchanagiri Mutt in Mandya district and the Murugrajendra Mutt in
Chitradurga district.

How do children from Meghalaya end up thousands of kilometres away in
Karnataka? What is the modus operandi? Almost every child and parent that
TEHELKA spoke with identified Tukaram Shetty as the man who proposed the
idea of educating children in Karnataka, offered to take the children there
and then ultimately accompanied the children to Karnataka.

A former Seva Bharati (an RSS-affiliated community service organization)
worker, Shetty is the official face of the Lei Synshar Cultural Society, a
shell organisation established to maintain the required official distance
from the RSS. In fact, the Lei Synshar Cultural Society is utterly unknown
even outside its own head office in Jowai in the Jaintia Hills district. Ask
for Tukaram or Bah Ram as he is called in Meghalaya and there are instant
flashes of recognition. Outside the capital city, Shillong, right down to
the village level, people easily recognise the RSS as the organisation that
takes children to Karnataka. The organisation runs three offices in the
Jaintia Hills district – in Jowai, Nartiang and Shongpong. Besides, there
are several spaces occupied by the Seva Bharati and Kalyan Ashram
organizations which help in the identification and transport of children.
 RSS organiser Tukaram Shetty candidly admitted that the children were part
of a larger RSS mission to ‘protect’ them from Christian missionaries

YOLIN KHARUMINI, a teacher at a local Seng Khasi school and resident at
Shillong’s Kalyan Ashram described the process. “We are asked to identify
families that have not converted to Christianity and are firm in their
belief in indigenous religions — Seng Khasi and Niamtre. Usually, these are
families that nurse some form of resentment against Christians. Offers are
made to these families to have their children educated in Karnataka. We
always tell them that they will be educated according to Seng Khasi or
Niamtre traditions.” Kharumini’s own niece, Kerdamon Kharumini, studies in
Mangala Nursing School in Karnataka. Lists are drawn up based on the
parents’ capacity to afford the child’s education and hostel facilities.

Continuing the narrative, Khatbiang Rymbai, a Class 10 student at Vidya -
niketan School in Kaup, Udupi district described in detail how 200 children
travelled to Bengaluru from various villages. “There were many young
children. So when they divided us into groups of 13-14, the older children
were put in charge. In Shillong, we were all given identification tags which
had mobile numbers and the Jowai address of the Lei Synshar Cultural
Society. From there, we traveled in Tata Sumos to Guwahati to take the train
to Bengaluru,” she says. In Bengaluru, they were taken to the RSS office
before being split into groups to go to their respective schools.
 The children are taught to avoid meat so they will start to abhor the
religious sacrifices that are part and parcel of their native religions

In a chilling admission, an RSS worker in Shillong, Prafulla Chandra Koch
and the head of the Thinkabettu school told TEHELKA that care is always
taken to ensure that any siblings are separated from each other. “It is
easier to discipline them if they are not together. We have to control them
if we have to mould them. The lesser the contact they have with home, the
better it is, really,” he stated.

TEHELKA met with several siblings placed in different schools – Khatbiang’s
brother Supplybiang Rymbai was placed in Prashanti Vidya Kendra in Kasargod,
Kerala while she studies in Vidyaniketan school near Udupi in Karnataka. Yet
another student at Vidyaniketan, Reenborn Tariang admitted to having a
sister, Wanboklin Tariang, at the JSS Mutt school in Mysore. Bedd Sympli at
the Abhinav Bharati Boys Hostel in Mandya district has a sister studying in
Vidyaniketan, Udupi district; Iwanroi Langbang a student at the Adi
Chunchanagiri Mutt school in Mandya district had a sister, Daiamonlangki, at
the Vanishree school in Shimoga district. There is not one instance of
siblings studying together. Ask the children why they were separated and
there are no answers.

WHEN TEHELKA asked parents why they had chosen to place their children in
different schools, they admitted they were only informed of it several
months after the children had started school. Says Klis Rymbai, Khatbiang
and Supplybiang’s older sister, “When they left home, all we knew was that
they would go to Bengaluru. We had no details of the school they would go to
– not even a name or address. Much later, we realised that Khatbiang and
Supplybiang were separated and that they were not in Bengaluru. Khatbiang
also told us she was repeating Class VIII after she got admitted into
school. The RSS promised to take care of our children and we trusted them.”
Klis admits that her family is attempting to bring Supplybiang back to
Meghalaya. “He has not adjusted well and is still young so we want him to
come back. Khatbiang has already lost a year so it is best she finishes
school there,” says Klis. The Rymbais are extremely well off, having made
their money through mining in the Jaintia Hills district. The father, Koren
Chyrmang, is an RSS sympathiser, who, besides sending his own children, has
helped convince other families to send their children across. “He used to be
very active but has fallen sick of late This has prevented him from
traveling to other villages in this area with the RSS,” says Klis.

The physical and mental impact of studying in school environments
diametrically opposed to their culture, language, religion, and food habits
has been devastating. In the schools that TEHELKA visited, hostel wardens,
heads of schools and the children themselves admitted to having had serious
physical problems given the differences in climatic conditions between their
villages in Meghalaya and schools in Karnataka. In the Deenabandhu
Children’s Home, Chamarajnagar, Karnataka, according to the Secretary, GS
Jayadev, the six-year-olds from Meghalaya — Shining Lamo, Sibin Ryngkhlem
and Spid Khongshei — had skin rashes for over a month as their bodies tried
to acclimatise to the heat of Karnataka. Besides rashes, Spid’s eyes turned
bloodshot. Doctors at the hospital where Spid was taken by school
authorities told them that it was a natural reaction to the altitudinal
differences.

In Thinkabettu school, too, children had severe sunburns on their faces,
hands and legs though they had already spent three months in Karnataka when
TEHELKA visited them. The situation was no different with the children
studying in the Kalabyraveshwara Sanskrit College run by the
Adichunchanagiri Mutt in Nagamangala. Of the 11 children from Meghalaya who
were placed in this school, the oldest, Iohidahun Rabon (see box) told
TEHELKA that the three of the younger ones — Sowatki Chulet, Tailang Nongdam
and Perskimlang Nongkrot — were chronically ill since they had not taken to
the food being given to them.
 The physical and mental impact of living in environments diametrically
opposed to their culture, language, religion and food is devastating

The psychological impact of the move was also obvious on several children.
In all the schools that TEHELKA visited seeking information about children
from Meghalaya, the school authorities summoned the children from their
classes and instructed them to introduce themselves in Kannada. For the
authorities, it was a matter of great pride that children who had no
association with Kannada had been taught the language well. That students
who did not know a word of Sanskrit earlier now recited Sanskrit prayers
with great clarity. In the Sri Adichunchanagiri Higher Primary School in BG
Nagar, Mandya district, the headmaster, Manje Gowda, flung a Kannada
newspaper at a student from Meghalaya, ordering him to read it. Obediently,
in a low voice, devoid of any expression, the boy proceeded to read a few
sentences, before quietly folding and placing the newspaper back on the
headmaster’s desk. Till he was sent away, the boy never looked up. In school
after school, the same scene unfolded with variations in the demonstrations
of skill and familiarity with Kannada and Sanskrit.

While the authorities claimed that the students from Meghalaya had
integrated well with the rest, there was overwhelming evidence to suggest
otherwise. A few minutes of conversation with the children brought out
stories of how they were laughed at because their names were unfamiliar and
because they looked different. Invariably, and especially amongst the older
students, relationships were forged with others from Meghalaya. In
classrooms, six or seven students from Meghalaya squeezed into a bench meant
to seat four children. Speaking Kannada had integrated the children only so
far. Faced with animosity, they have withdrawn into the familiar. In schools
where this was not a possibility given the limited number of students from
Meghalaya, they withdrew into themselves.

The locations of the schools did not help alleviate their isolation at all.
Iwanroi Langbang, a Class IX student currently staying in Nagamangala (about
150 kms from Bengaluru), talked of her disappointment at not studying in
Bengaluru. “We were only told that I would be studying in Bengaluru. It was
only after I came here that I heard the name of the school and realised that
it was very far from Bengaluru. Here, we are not allowed outside the
compound wall. And even if we get away, there is nothing outside,” said
Langbang. Her school is located off an isolated stretch of the state
highway.

A consequence of completely immersing young children from Meghalaya in a
Kannada-speaking environment was visible at the Deenabandhu Children’s Home
in Chamarajnagar district. A caretaker at the Home described one child’s
growing familiarity with Kannada, “Sibin [one of the children at the Home]
has picked up a lot of Kannada in the two months he has been here. During a
phone call from a relative back home, he kept answering questions in Kannada
which obviously they did not understand at all.” In a shocking display of
insensitivity, the caretaker burst into laughter at what she thought was a
hilarious incident and added, “For 45 minutes, a woman, I assume his mother,
kept trying. Sibin, of course, had no answers since he had forgotten his own
language.” She giggled. The caretaker then proceeded to teach Sibin the
Kannada word for dinner.

ACCORDING TO Sibin’s birth certificate, he is six. Yet another certificate
issued by the village headman of Sibin’s village, Mihmyntdu, certifies that
he comes from a poor family and needs help for his education. TEHELKA was
unable to contact his parents.

The physical and mental consequences suffered by children from Meghalaya
differ from the everyday story of children placed in several thousand
boarding schools across the country. That there is a larger plan behind the
transportation of these children is something that RSS workers like Koch,
have no qualms admitting.

Why are parents willing to send young children aged only six and seven to a
distant place? In the face of these overwhelming disadvantages to the
children, during visits with parents across eight villages in Meghalaya,
TEHELKA found that parents — mostly poor — handed over their children to the
RSS in the belief that their kids would be well cared for, as promised.
Often, the transportation of children followed kinship routes, with younger
siblings following older ones. While this may seem to defy logic, examined
closely, it speaks of the intricate web of lies that the RSS has managed to
weave, webs that ensnare parents, school authorities and often the children
themselves. There are multiple untruths that are the foundation of this
entire process.

*PARENTS HAVE GIVEN THEIR CONSENT IN WRITING*
 Why are parents willing to send their children far from home? The mostly
poor parents believe the RSS’ promises that the kids will be taken care of

When TEHELKA approached schools in Karnataka seeking papers that legalise
the transfers of children across states, letters signed by the village
headman or the Rangbah Shnong attesting to the family’s poor economic
condition were handed out along with birth and caste certificates. Across
different schools that TEHELKA visited, not a single letter was produced
with the parents’ signature that stated explicitly that the care of their
children was handed over to that particular school. No parent that TEHELKA
met in Meghalaya had copies of any signed consent letter signed. Under the
Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 – such consent
letters are mandatory for legal transfers of children.

The transportation of children, then, with no official papers sanctioning
the move, is in clear violation of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection
of Children) Act of 2000. Under this law, the RSS can be held guilty of
child trafficking.

*THE CHILDREN ARE IN SCHOOLS RUN ACCORDING TO THEIR SENG KHASI OR NIAMTRE
RELIGIONS*

Amongst the Khasi and Jaintia tribes, there is a tenuous relationship
between those who have converted to Christianity and those who have not. The
RSS carefully selects children from poor families who have not converted to
Christianity. “I was told that the only way to protect my daughter from
conversion was to send her outside. If I didn’t, the Church would take them
away and make them priests and nuns,” said Biye Nongrum in Swer village. “I
was afraid for my daughter and so I agreed to hand her over,” she says. Six
years after her daughter left home, Biye has no details of the school that
she is studying in. All she has is a class photograph. “I don’t have the
money to visit my daughter and bring her back, even if I find out where she
is. But I will never send another child away,” she says. Biye ekes out a
living by selling sweet pancakes to richer families in the village. The
ramshackle house that she shares with her mother and at least three other
children further signal her poverty stricken condition. The socioeconomic
status of the families are an indication of why it is difficult for the
parents to ever bring their children back — they simply cannot afford it.

Several parents told TEHELKA that the RSS schools where their children were
studying were schools that upheld their indigenous religions – a rationale
that has many takers. In Jel Chyrmang’s home in Mookhep village, TEHELKA
found a framed photograph of Jel’s daughter, Rani Chyrmang, being
felicitated by the patron saint of her school, Sri Balagangadharnath. Ask
Jel who the saffron-robed saint is and she blithely repeats what she has
been told, a story that would be hilarious if the circumstances were not so
sad. According to Jel, Sri Balagangadharnath is a Seng Khasi saint who runs
her daughter’s school. There is no doubt in her voice at all. Jel’s
ignorance, however, does not extend to others in the family. Her husband,
Denis Siangshai, who contested the recent Lok Sabha elections, turns out to
be an RSS worker. Using his daughter as an example, he admitted to having
convinced others in the area as well. “People have a wrong notion of RSS. I
always tell them that the RSS will give them good education and culture,”
says Denis.
 The transportation of children without clear consent letters from parents
and guardians is a clear violation of the Juvenile Justice Act

Most parents have no idea that the schools chosen by the RSS espouse a
different ideology. Besides the forced culturisation, even the libraries and
books handed out to the students are RSS publications from recognized
right-wing publishing houses in Bengaluru. In the JSS Ashram school, the
library was stocked with publications of RSS ideologues published from
Bharata Samskruti Prakashana (Indian Culture Publications). No trace of Seng
Khasi teachings or Niamtre practices.

*THE CHILDREN ARE ABANDONED AND DESTITUTE*

For a non-tribal society like Karnataka, the notion of a father abandoning
the family is seen as a social and economic disaster. Meghalaya, though, is
a matrilineal society, where men move to live with women in their villages.
Mothers continue to remain the primary caretakers. Even if the mother dies,
the child is brought up by relatives and is never entirely abandoned.

*THE CHILDREN HAVE ADJUSTED WELL*

When children first leave Meghalaya, parents and children are not aware
where the children will ultimately be taken. As direct communication between
the children and parents is limited owing to the socio-economic conditions
of the parents and the lack of facilities at the schools, the RSS is the
main intermediary between the two. The RSS tells parents that the children
are happy and well adjusted in their new environments. The reality is
something else.

Raplangki Dkhar, a standard VI student at Vidyaniketan, was clearly waiting
for his uncle to come take him home. “Only if people from home come and take
us, we can go back. Every year when school ends, we hear that we will be
taken back. But it has been two years already,” said a forlorn Raplangki.
Only two of the children TEHELKA met had ever returned home to visit. Back
in Raplangki’s hometown in Raliang, Meghalaya, when TEHELKA asked his uncle
why he had not visited Raplangki, he is surprised, “I had no reason to doubt
the fact that my nephew has adjusted well. At every RSS meeting in Jowai we
are assured by them that the kids are healthy and happy.”

Direct phone calls between children and parents are dependent entirely on
the parents’ finances. If the parents have not been able to pay for the
child’s education, the schools that they are placed in are often the free
orphanages run by the Mutts, where access to phones is non-existent, as is
the case with the free hostel run by the Sri Adichunchanagiri Mutt.

For the RSS, these falsifications are part of a process. A process that is
bound to add an additional layer of complexity amongst the people of
Meghalaya, quite apart from the mental and social costs inflicted on young
children.

*WRITER’S EMAIL*
sanjana at tehelka.com

 *From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 6, Issue 26, Dated July 04, 2009*




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