Articles by G K Lieten

Child labour, for all the advocacy towards its abolition, remains a confusing social phenomenon. If child labour is to include all types of work done by children, even by children who otherwise go to school and assist in the household, the problem would indeed be on a massive scale. In 1999, the ILO agreed on a major policy priority: to tackle the worst forms of child labour first, in the form of Convention 182. Though the ILO stands by the importance of Convention 182, in practice, the impetus and focus appear to have been lost. Moreover, the statistics are ridden with encumbrances and there is a need for more evidence and a realistic approach.

The first CPI-led government in Kerala in the late 1950s introduced key policy changes that have since become associated with the Kerala development model. This article makes an attempt to assess the long-term effects of this innovative approach followed, especially in the two crucial sectors of education and land reform. In seeking to map progress in such key human development aspects, it also seeks to establish the role of social mobilisation and in assigning to the key figure of the 'Kutiamma' her due place in history. But while the impact of social changes on people remains little documented and rests on extrapolation, this period is also assessed in terms of backward and forward linkages - those societal changes that existed before the CPI's election victory as well as changes brought on by the government's own reform measures that in turn led to further political and social development.

For some it is a source of indignation at the social injustice which it involves, for others it is a yardstick to come down on irresponsive governments in the third world, and for yet others it is a natural consequence of an asymmetrical world economy. Child labour in India, when sized down to realistic proportions, remains a ignoble illustration of exploitation and exclusion but a less dramatic illustration than would appear from the exaggerated claims and studies by some western observers. In the tradition of Mamdani, it still often is assumed that children are an economic asset, and that the high fertility, leading to child labour income, is actually a conscious household strategy of rural families. In this, the second part of the article, this view is traced in the course of field work in two villages in Uttar Pradesh. It is argued that advocacy of schooling and of family planning is constrained by limited availability rather than by cultural (de)formations. [The first part of the paper was published last week.]

Issues in Pakistan's Economy by S Akbar Zaidi; Oxford University Press, Oxford (also OUP Karachi), 2000: pp xvii + 462; price not given.

G K Lieten Finance against Poverty by David Hulme and Paul Mosley; Routledge, London and New York, 1996; volume 1 (pp 221) and volume 2 (pp 451).