Daily Times

Amid coronavirus scare, May Day is being observed across the globe, including Pakistan commemorating the International Labour Movement. It aims to pay tribute to workers’ sacrifices in achieving economic and social rights all over the world. May Day sermons speeches and seminars pay tributes to those who laid down their lives in Chicago, USA in 1886 for labor rights.

The United Nations strives to protect child rights to abolish child labour, exploitation and abuse whether they were flood-hit kids of Lakho Pir, Raajgoth, Jharak, or flood-affected little folks of Jhando Marri or Tando Hafiz, Sindh, Pakistan; be they poor, hungry and sick street children of Calcutta, Bombay or Delhi, or those in wretched conditions in Chad, Gabon and Mali; whether physically, mentally and socially suffering kids of Bolivia, Peru and Guatemala.

But in practical reality, it is a different story. Here are just a few of the countless absorbing, revealing and thought-provoking examples of May Day in the streets of Pakistan: Dragging old cart-pushers in the tight and grubby lanes of Hyderabad. Labouring adolescent car-cleaners at Jinnah Super Market, Islamabad. Sweating little monkey and snake charmers of Lee Market, Karachi. Walking tea and ‘Qahva’ vendors of traditional and downtown Quetta. Loading round-the-clock ‘Qulis’ at the bustling railway junction, Lahore. Labor hunting laborers of Chowk Yadgar and Qissa Khawani, Peshawar. Carving, printing and engraving folks of the cottage industry of Pakistan. Walking and toiling long for meager livelihood home maids or ‘masis’ of the nation.

Fancying the thought of taking a day off to commemorate the May Day, formally and officially practiced at the local, national and international levels, is a far cry for the dawn-to-dusk labourers of livelihood in the slums and streets of many countries, including Pakistan. While men at the helm of affairs and men of letters merely conceptualize and sermonize the May Day for the cause of the labourers, the teeming majority of our labourers, the real labourers, continue to undergo agonizing times and exploitative pressure of labouring long and tedious hours for negligible return.

It is startling that the delightful craftsmanship of our artisans, despite being second to none in the world, and the magical fingers of our cute little children of Sialkot, in spite of producing the best sports goods of the world, are merely exploited: dubbed, projected and labelled as child labour.

Is it not the call for private and public sectors organizing with grace and dignity for these kids to be educated and trained on-the-job with a blend of creativity and skills towards a better of quality of life and laurels for Pakistan. It is time to deliver practically than by lip-service on May Day.

Is it not a question of National Policy on May Day! A question of private-public partnership in emotional maturity, seriousness of purpose and penetrative thinking. A matter of leadership and well-to-do shunning ego or vanity, being selfless and altruistic, rising over and above self.

What makes the world of our teeming labourers go round is ingenuity and innovation on the part of concerned experts, gurus and messiahs in being able, humble and gentle in sitting together, putting heads down and working honestly for the noble cause of what is called dignity of labour.

The writer is a freelancer and can be reached at parvezjamil@hotmail.com