Literature for the invisible children

Literature – or sahitya in Hindi – is supposed to be made up of two root words – ‘sa’ and ‘hita’, meaning all (sa) and good or benefit (hita). So the deeper literal meaning of sahitya is believed to be something that serves the “good of all” or something that is for the “benefit of all, of society”. Of course, at a holistic level, the word literature, in its broadest sense, is any body of written works. More restrictively, literature is writing considered to be an art form, or any single writing deemed to have artistic or intellectual value, often due to deploying language in ways that differ from ordinary usage. Quite contrary to this, in a popular extended meaning, literature is termed as a mirror of society.

And here is where the contradiction within the interpretation of the term literature begins – if it is something that is expected to have high artistic or intellectual value – can it really mirror society? Society which has place for all that is good, bad and ugly?

Is literary writing today, or has it been, for ages for that matter, able to portray or reflect all kinds of people living in society? Is it something that truly mirrors all the shades of society? Let us park that question for a while and turn our lens towards children’s literature.

The curious case of children’s literature

A broad definition of children’s literature would include reading material written especially for children and in which children are often protagonists. Isn’t that such a wonderful thing? Children’s literature seems to be the only category of literature that is defined by who reads it! Although, we may also admit here that children’s literature also forms the guilty pleasure of many an adult! But wait a minute! Is the fact that children’s literature is defined by its readers really such a happy situation?

We know that children’s books today cover a whole range from alphabet and number books to novels and encyclopaedias for teenagers and young adults. But let us take a quick look at the history of children’s literature to see what gives it the shape and the nature that it is struggling hard to break free from.

As Wikipedia states, “Early children's literature consisted of spoken stories, songs, and poems that were used to educate, instruct, and entertain children. Do you notice the order of these words? First comes ‘educate’, then ‘instruct’ and then, as the last priority – ‘entertain’. Wikipedia goes on, “It was only in the 18th century, with the development of the concept of childhood that a separate genre of children's literature began to emerge, with its own divisions, expectations, and canon. “

Let us turn to the French historian Philippe Ariès. In his 1962 book Centuries of Childhood (a bible for all of us who love children and question the notion of childhood!) Aries argues that the modern concept of childhood only emerged in recent times. He explains that children were in the past not considered as greatly different from adults and were not given significantly different treatment. As evidence, he notes that, apart from instructional and didactic texts for children written by clerics, there was a lack of any genuine literature aimed specifically at children before the 18th century. Can you believe that? Childhood as a concept, as a social construction, and children’s literature has been around only for about 200 years or so.

Not that we don’t have counter-arguments and qualifications to this line of thinking. We do have other scholars noting that there was a literature in some cultures. But what purpose did it serve? And here is the answer: It was “designed to convey the values, attitudes, and information necessary for children within their cultures”. The Play of Daniel from the 12th century, is an apt example.

So that’s what has been shaping children’s literature for at least the past two centuries. No wonder children's literature, even today, tends to be of a didactic and moralistic nature, with the purpose of conveying conduct-related, educational and religious lessons. It is difficult to break out of the shackles of history, even if it is only a couple of centuries old.

Hindi children’s literature

Turning our gaze towards Hindi children’s literature, we seem to find that this is relatively a more ancient phenomenon. The earliest forms known have been oral narratives based on local myths and legends and adventures of heroes from epics. Panchatantra – the much translated epic from around third century BCE seems to be one origin. And here too, the purpose of this narrative by Vishnusharma was to teach ‘niti’ (or morals) to three princes! The other epics that have an important place in the history of Hindi children’s literature are – the Jataka tales, the Hitopadesa, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The Jataka tales have also been inter-twined with the history of the Panchatantra and the Hitopadesa. And then, there is also the unanswered question as to whether the Jataka Tales were written for children at all.

Amir Khusro and his varied forms of writings in the 14th century have also endowed a gift to Hindi children’s literature. And then again there were the poems and prose writings steeped in nationalistic values during the freedom movement.

In early post-Independence years, the National Book Trust was set up with a strong agenda of nation building. It served the purpose well, by publishing not only in Hindi but also in at least 13 other Indian languages simultaneously. It also started experimentation in children’s books – with attention towards illustration and book design as essentials of the process. Around the same time, the Children’s Book Trust was set up to publish books which would make Indian children aware of their rich and worthy cultural heritage and also inculcate scientific temper to prepare them for the modern world. Magazines, like Vidyarthi, Shishu, Bal Sakha had created the space for a periodic interaction between children and literature. Later entrants like Nandan, Parag and Chakmak paved the way for a new kind of writing for children – something that did not talk down at the children but treated them as thoughtful intellectual beings.

With a proliferation of books for children in Hindi, the idea that textbooks were the only source of exposure to children’s literature (and to learning, something that haunts most adults when they think of children!) slowly gave way. Gradually, the importance of good illustration, book design, paper, size of the book, the font used and above all – a storyline that a child reader can identify with rather than one that “teaches” something – found its way into conversations around children’s literature in Hindi too. Budhiya ki roti, Bas ki sair, Mahagiri, Nanihal mein guzre din, Rupa Hathi are a few examples that have given space to adventure, wit, fun, intergenerational relationships and conversations, dialogue between adults and children as the salient features in a book. A growing exposure to and awareness about the richness and variety in international children’s literature has also influenced these trends.

Still, the introduction of the element sheer reading pleasure is but a nascent phenomenon for the world of Hindi children’s books. Imaginative stories like Batuta ka joota, Ped Ghoomne Chala, Bhalu ne kheli football have tried to experiment with the fun element and have been liked by young readers widely. One can see that children’s books in Hindi are learning to shake off their age-old moralistic and didactic tenor. As adults continue to be the chief creators and decision makers of children’s literature – loaded with their purposive anxiety of passing on their rich past to a new generation – and as children themselves become more and more vocal about their choices and likes and dislikes – the world of children’s literature is today an arena of continued constructive struggle. We do now have stories that simply try to understand the young reader and his or her life, to portray lived experiences, to experiment with the tensions of reality.

Lastly, but very importantly, we have children writing for children. The world of children’s literature in general, and Hindi in particular, has largely been oblivious, sometime even hostile, to this new area of growth. Yet, increasingly, it has been forced to yield space and attention to it, with growing numbers of editors and publishers becoming ready (more often than not, rather unwillingly!) to give cognisance to this sphere.

Who is missing in this new picture?

With all the hue and cry about how the world of Hindi children’s literature is expanding in leaps and bounds and also developing as a genre significantly, we have lost track of children from the margins of society. There are many categories of children who are still invisibilised – in society and in children’s literature.

I cannot claim to have looked at all the books published for children in Hindi in the past 20 years, but I have surely studied at least about 40% of the lot. And a careful reading of these books being published, read, enjoyed and celebrated reveals that only about 1% of them speak to the children from the margins — adivasi children, children of working class parents.

And even when they are given a space in books, more often than not, as characters, they are expected to perform some heroic deed, overcome some obstacle, achieve some feat to get even that inch of space. And so we have Raju ka Cricket Match, where Raju is a boy with polio who just has to win the school cricket match. How else can a story be written about him and the book published? Can we please get over this tokenism and give a respectful space to our child characters in books that are actually theirs?

With the Right to Education Act 2009 in place, we have a huge number of first generation school-goers joining the reading club. And they don’t find themselves in the books they read. They don’t relate to the stories we are giving out to them. Think of my neighbour’s daughter who is hearing impaired. I have only three books that I can read out to her, books that are inclusive from her point of view that will make her feel included.

So, let me end this piece with an urgent appeal to all of us here that now is the time that we shifted our gaze and brought to focus the different groups or communities of children who are still largely unrepresented in Hindi children’s literature. Children who are special in many different ways - children from the hunting-gathering community, children eating bhakri and thecha, children speaking Mundari and Halbi, children who pick scrap, children who clean dishes in a roadside dhaba for a living, differently-abled children. All children.

And when they are included, they need to be treated with respect, with an understanding of the lives and struggles they face every day. And with the understanding that, at the end of the day, they still are young people – with all their fun, frolic and mischief intact!