When ‘We’ Show ‘Them’

Here’s what usually happens when a story for children (or a movie) tries to ‘show’ that the deprived / marginalized are ‘also’ equal and therefore to be ‘supported’ or ‘welcomed’. (All these quotation marks because almost every word we use in discussing equality and equity tends to be condescending or problematic, often without our realization.) Typically, you find the character ‘earns’ the ‘right’ to be ‘seen as’ equal (because, somehow, you don’t have this right by birth but have to make an effort if you happen to be from a ‘weak’ group).

In the fairly well-known ‘Meena’ series of films and books widely promoted by Unicef, Meena is a poor girl whose father doesn’t want to send her to school. But you know what, she may be poor but she’s bright. She can see that one of the hens is missing, spots the thief who stole it, gets him caught – and so the father thinks she should now go to school! (Yes, believe it or not, this is the actual plot). But if she were not bright, or was disfigured, or did not get any thief caught – should she not be going to school? Why does she have to do something extraordinary to ‘earn’ the right to go to school, while her brother did not have to do any such thing? In the end, this story undercuts its own message, and ends up unwittingly reinforcing the stereotype it set out to challenge.

This is not an isolated case. Whenever ‘we’ want to show ‘them’ as being ‘equal’ to ‘us’ somehow ‘they’ end up having to do something to earn ‘our’ grudging admiration. A girl ends up playing football or fighting a bully or generally doing certain things a ‘good’ boy should do – and therefore earns the right to be seen as equal! She is not valued for being just what she is – a girl.

In another well-known story, ‘Kali and the Rat Snake’ – Kali is a boy from the Irula tribe, which is known to eat rats and is shunned by the ‘normal’ folk. When he joins the school, no one talks to him. Forlorn and isolated, there’s no hope for Kali. Till a rat snake appears in the school and everyone is frightened out of their skins. Kali, naturally, ends up being able to capture the snake, much to everyone’s relief! Now they can be friends with him, since he’s proved himself to be a hero! But, just for the sake of argument, let’s say a leopard had come into the school at night, left droppings and gone, and Kali had cleaned it up – then, of course, no one would have felt the desire to be his friend. (Maybe a better story would be that Kali deliberately introduces the rat snake, ‘saves’ everyone, and when they all want to be his friends, tells them to get lost – since they were so stupid that they could be manipulated into wanting to be his friends!)

Once you start looking for this, you find this in many, many stories and representations. And of course in real life as well. A Malala has to face the Taliban bullets in order to be valued as a girl who has a right to education. (Why do we need this to make our resolve to educate girls stronger? Because some of them have the courage to face bullets?) Why are we not outraged that a Dalit boy dies because he married a higher caste girl? Because we have not yet been exposed to any ‘heroic’ act from Dalit boys that would justify ‘us’ giving ‘them’ ‘due’ ‘equality’?

Learning to value diverse groups as they are and finding it worthwhile to strive for equality in every way we can – surely this should not fall into the trap of continuing to reinforce inequality by wanting ‘them’ to somehow ‘earn’ being cherished by ‘us’. It’s a case of ‘us’ needing to learn – and it’s the agenda of the century ahead!