As the skies are getting illuminated by the bright sparks from the innumerable number of Firecrackers being lit by kids and adults alike, i began to ponder over the topics which gain popularity each year during the Diwali season and that is "Ban Crackers because it leads to child labor". Each year scores of hours of discussions and talk shows happen in air conditioned rooms where intellectuals discuss over the evils of crackers and talk about how they blow a dent in our environment. Then there are environmentalists who boldly come to the studio's in their 4 and 6 cylinder cars to tell you that the pollution level rises by 40% during Deepavali.
What started with the color matches and the mudpot based "Diya" better known as the "Bhakthapu" is today an whole industry, which has been plagued perhaps since its very inception by child labor. However, while we try to point fingers at this industry, we some how fail to see that the whole town of Sivakasi or lets say the best part of Sivakasi, Tamilnadu feeds off firecrackers. A complete ban on fireworks would as well mean stealing the livelihood of this town. Further to this what most of might not be aware of, thanks to our media which promotes what is juicy, is that there is a big racket of crackers being produces illegally without proper licenses or safety measures taken into consideration. This is where you would find most of the child labor, since that would bring bigger profits to the cracker-mafia (Funny that we have mafia in India for everything). Instead of every season playing a blame game and by having some dumb jokers come on the television to tell us about the ill effects of Crackers and how it promotes child labor, why cannot we treat this an opportunity. Why cannot the industry be better controlled by avoiding child labor, enforcing strict quality control on the manufacture of crackers and promote innovation in this area. A google search tells me that the Indian fireworks industry once locked horns with the Chinese Firework giants only to ground down to dust. The reason is not only that our varieties of crackers is scarce, but also that like many or of our other products, they are considered sub standard, unsafe and mostly unpredictable. Anybody who has burst a couple of bombs during Diwali would tell you this. It is a saddening fact that each one of knows most of these things and we still try to solve the wrong problem.
Yes, crackers pollute....but so do our cars, bikes industries. However, no one protests then!!. We tends to love or hate something based on how it is portrayed. Why cannot open spaces be organized where all the residents can come together in burst their crackers? That way the pollution is to some extent localized. The changes are necessary, but not at the cost of someone's livelihood. One would prefer to live 40 years and die with respiratory problems than dying in the next 1 year due to hunger. It makes sense to gradually reduce our habit our crackers, giving sufficient time for the industry to look for newer options. Or how would it be, if we start concentrating more on creating crackers for the export market? Atleast the pollution is not ours anymore? Or how about creating low polluting crackers? Norms in the automotive industry have given us cars that promise to pollute less, why not norms for crackers?
Something for the MBA's and decision makers to brood over???
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