Unsung Hero - Prabhavati Muthal

At Age 64, She Adopted Her First Orphan. And Then Her Story Began.

 Manabi Katoch

 

 September 21, 2015

 

 Adoption, Maharashtra, Unsung Heroes

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Thousands of orphaned children in India never find loving homes because the authorities take too long to declare them 'free for adoption.' Prabhavati Muthal, 79 years old and mother of two adopted orphans herself, has been fighting to get justice for these children all her life. We appeal to all our readers to support her by signing her petition.

"We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer 'tomorrow,' his name is 'today'."

― Gabriela Mistral

"Aai tu Aai saarkhi nahi disat, Aaji sarkhi diste. Mala 'Mummy Papa' hawa aahe" 
(Mom you don't look like a mom, you look like a grandma. I want my Mummy Papa!)

Mohini often used to say this to Prof. Prabhavati Muthal. Mohini was 5-years-old now and she had heard from her schoolmates that she had not come out of her mother's womb but from a dirty sack, and because of that, her right arm was paralyzed.

Photo Credit: Tawheed Manzoor/Flickr

On November 30, 1996, Prof. Prabhavati Muthal had retired and was all set to relax for the rest of her life in Chandrapur, Maharashtra, after working for 35 years as a history professor. Her son was a well-known paediatrician at the local government hospital.
There was no orphanage in the town. Thus, unwanted and orphan (mostly newborn) babies landed in Dr. Muthal's ward. Like all government hospital wards, this too was crowded. The nursing staff were always overloaded.
On March 30, 1997, a lady sarpanch from a nearby village brought a brutally battered newborn girl to Dr. Muthal. The baby was just 3 days old. She had been tied in a gunny bag and thrown in the garbage to die. Someone had found her and informed the sarpanch.
The girl was visibly injured. Her skull was fractured. Yet, for three days, the lady sarpanch had not provided her with any treatment nor had she informed the police. Consequently, the child became critically sick, developed a high fever and started convulsing.
Even then, the lady was reluctant to let the hospital keep the child and treat her. Dr. Muthal had to threaten her and force her to admit the child to the government hospital. On seeing how serious the child's condition was, the lady sarpanch disappeared from the scene.
For weeks, the child hovered between life and death. One usually associates government staff with impersonal and callous behaviour, but the nurses at this government hospital rallied together to save the child. One of the sisters told Dr. Muthal: "God will not forgive us if we cannot save this child."
Due to their untiring efforts, the child survived. But the prolonged battle for life had taken its toll. She was badly emaciated and cranky due to constant pain. She had major neurologic deficit, which left her right side paralysed. Feeding and cleaning her was an ordeal.

Prof. Prabhavati Muthal willingly took over this daunting task. With her selfless love and care, the child gradually improved. As she grew healthier, a beautiful face emerged. She looked so attractive that she was called 'Mohini.'

Little abandoned but inncocent infants giggling at Kilbil, not knowing their fate

Her story attracted a journalist's attention and she became well known. Many people, including a doctor, came forward to adopt her. Suddenly, the lady sarpanch re-entered the scene and demanded custody of the child.
The custody of orphan children is decided by the JWB or Juvenile Welfare Board (the name for the Child Welfare Committee before the year 2000). To everybody's surprise, the local JWB gave Mohini's custody to the same sarpanch, ignoring better claimants and the lady's past suspicious behaviour.
Alarmed, Prabhavati approached the Sessions Court. After a prolonged struggle lasting over 2 years, the Sessions Court finally overturned the JWB's order.

Prabhavati then decided to establish an orphanage so that Mohini had a place to stay. The orphanage, called Kilbil (chirping of birds), is now 16 years old.

Prabhavati Muthal with a 1.5-year-old child who is waiting to be made 'free for adoption' by CWC

However, Mohini's agony did not end here. The infuriated JWB avenged the situation by blocking her transfer to the orphanage for a year. Finally, her case was cleared by special order of the state government. The JWB continued to obstruct her rehabilitation. She was finally declared 'free for adoption' by the Session Court under section 7.3 of the Juvenile Justice Act after one more year.
'Free For Adoption' means that a child's parents or guardians have relinquished their parental rights or have had them terminated in a court of law. Once this has occurred, a child is then 'legally free' to be adopted by another person or family member. Any orphan or abandoned or surrendered child, declared legally free for adoption by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), is eligible for adoption.

"Most of the couples prefer small babies so that they can enjoy each milestone of the baby while growing up. If a child is not made 'free for adoption' soon, then mostly they don't get adopted and lead an affectionless life," says Prabhavati Muthal.

Unfortunately, in Mohini's case too, all the prospective adoptive parents had given up by the time she became 'free for adoption.' No one was willing to wait for years and fight court battles just to adopt a physically impaired child.

When nobody came forward to adopt her for more than a year, Prabhavati decided to adopt Mohini herself and become a mother to a 4-year-old child at the age of 64.

Kilbil had now become the home of many abandoned children. Vasundhara (Vasu) was one of them. Just a few days old, Vasundhara was found in one of the movie theatres of Chandrapur. She did not have one ear. Every adoptive couple wanted a beautiful and flawless child and so did not adopt Vasu. It was Vasu's 11th year in Kilbil. She was supposed to go to a remand house for juveniles once she became 12. Prabhavati couldn't let this child go and so, once again, she took the legal guardianship of Vasundhara.

Vasu and Mohini are sisters with the same mother now!

At the time that Prabhavati was looking to adopt Mohini, the law required that to contest a case, you must be the 'aggrieved party.' This means you should be affected somehow by the case - it is only then that you have the 'locus standi,' that is, eligibility to participate in the judicial dispute.
Prabhavati had none, but she could participate in the dispute because lawmakers then (1986 version of the Juvenile Justice Act) had wisely put in Sec 7.3, which said:

"The powers conferred on the board or juvenile court by or under this act may also be exercised by the high court and the court of session, when the proceeding comes before them in appeal, revision or otherwise." - Juvenile Justice Act 1986. Sec. 7.3 Chapter II

The word 'otherwise' opened the window for any conscientious citizen to seek redress from the Sessions Court purely on merit of the case, bypassing technicalities like 'locus standi.' The same clause also allowed the Sessions Court to declare Mohini 'free for adoption.'
It is vital to keep this window open for the orphans, because they have no one to look after them. The orphanages that keep the children and the parents who adopt the children are really 'beneficiaries' and not truly 'aggrieved.' They have no real stake in any individual child.

The only victim of a wrong decision (or lack of decision) is the orphan child. The child is therefore, the only truly 'aggrieved. '

Picture for representation. Credit: J P Davidson/Flickr

Unfortunately, this Section was deleted only for orphan babies in the newer editions of the Act. The implications are tremendous for the orphan children, because now the CWC has absolute power over orphan children. There is no effective, accessible mechanism to correct its mistakes, misdeeds and inaction.

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Please help Prabhavati make a representation to the government authorities to suitably amend the Juvenile Justice Act and include a clause like Sec. 7.3 of 1986 Juvenile Justice Act in the present Bill for orphan children by signing this petition.

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Prabhavati has also penned the story of her struggle in a book titled Adhantari. This book has bagged an award from the Maharashtra government.

If you wish to help Prabhavati in her struggle for justice for these kids, or wish to donate for Kilbil, or want to adopt a child, please email at kilbil.mvm@gmail.com. You can buy Adhantari (the book is in Marathi) by writing to the same email address. Prof. Muthal is also looking for writers who can translate the book into English.
- See more at: http://www.thebetterindia.com/33655/prabhavati-muthal-helping-orphans-in-india/#sthash.mt5LSVgG.dpuf

Stop Feeding the Crocodile: The Ivy League Syndrome

Stop Feeding the Crocodile: The Ivy League Syndrome

 

http://swarajyamag.com/politics/stop-feeding-the-crocodile-the-ivy-league-syndrome/

 

SWARAJYA, SEPTEMBER 19, 2015

 

Stop Feeding the Crocodile: The Ivy League Syndrome

 

Rajiv Malhotra

Indian–American researcher, author, speaker. Current affairs, inter-civilization, science

A new humanities discourse around India has to be created from scratch. The existing one, is beyond repair. 

Recently, Narendra Modi’s visit to Silicon Valley was attacked in a petition by US-based academicians led by scholars like Wendy Doniger and Sheldon Pollock. Over 80 per cent of the signatures were by Indian ‘sepoys’ joining the bandwagon. As a rejoinder, there emerged two counter petitions supporting Modi, each signed by much larger numbers of US-based academicians, who were also mostly Indians. This clash between the two camps of Indians is important to analyse because they represent two entirely different constituencies.

The anti-Modi petitioners proudly characterised themselves as faculty members of South Asian Studies, the new term for what was known as Indology in the colonial era. Stated simply, this is the study of India’s faiths, culture, history, politics, journalism, social sciences and related areas. On the other hand, the pro-Modi academicians were mostly from science, technology, business, medicine, law and other technical fields. I will refer to the former group as ‘South Asianists’ and the latter as ‘technocrats’. It is not a mere coincidence that these opposing camps are shaped by the disciplines they work in. It is important to understand the reasons for this.

South Asianists learn about India using Western-developed frameworks, vocabularies and theories that have Western cultural biases built into them. This hegemonic discourse on India subverts Indian native categories and the Vedic worldview, characterizing Indian civilization as a human rights nightmare whose solutions must come from Western thought. In other words, the South Asian Studies lens uses the West’s past for interpreting India’s present. The solution offered is that India’s desirable future is to mimic the West’s present society. The field is driven by the consensus of Ivy League gatekeepers, who can act like a sort of mafia to make or break an individual’s academic career.

The technocrats are not burdened by such culturally-determined programming, at least not to the same extent. Their disciplines are based more on empirical data and logic. In other words, it is possible to argue one’s controversial thesis in Chemistry, for instance, by demonstrating laboratory evidence that is verifiable. But it is not as easy to prove a theory of human rights violations without dealing with cultural biases of various kinds. The humanities are inherently more subjective, and hence vulnerable to power plays.

Another difference is that the technocrats tend to be more logical. A typical batch of students entering college in the technocrat fields tends to have higher scores in mathematics (i.e. logical mind set) than their counterparts entering humanities and social sciences. Add to this that India’s technocrats are now super confident, knowing that they are second to none in their fields. They have achieved global success based entirely on merit. Therefore, they see no reason to bow down to Westerners when it comes to interpreting their Hindu heritage. This latter quality is what differentiates me from the Indian scholars of Hinduism Studies:  I owned companies where I employed many Americans, and a large number of managers from many nations reported to me. I find that Indians lacking such a background of managing Western professionals with authority are afraid to take them on, because of their deep inferiority complexes.

In other words, our colonized mentality can be isolated largely to our professionals in the humanities and social sciences. We have a clash between Indians in the two camps of humanities and technical fields. The technocrats tend to be patriotic and the humanities/social sciences scholars tend to be Hinduphobic and apologetic. The Indian media, in turn, are largely educated in fields with deep influences from South Asian Studies.

I am not against Western Ivy Leagues in general. But I oppose their stranglehold over South Asia Studies in particular. This is equivalent to the power of colonial era Indology that was headquartered in places like Oxford.

Until recently, the South Asianists and their mainstream media supporters have had a virtual monopoly as the voice and face of India. But in recent years, a counter voice has emerged that cannot be dismissed. Only a couple of months ago, I was personally the target of a massive attack demanding that my books be withdrawn (ironically by the same South Asianists who oppose such bans when their own books get targeted). While it garnered 240 signatures, a counter petition initiated by Madhu Kishwar that supported me got well over 10,000 signatures. Every such victory is another nail in the coffin of the Hinduphobic forces.

The clash is also over who has the adhikara (authority) to speak for our heritage. South Asianists close ranks to mock at the voices that are not certified by their institutions. But our tradition has always valued experience over book knowledge. Our history is filled with exemplars who did not get certified by any institutions resembling the Western Ivy Leagues.

With this background, I wish to discuss the right and wrong approaches to address this problem. In the 1990s, my Infinity Foundation pioneered the funding of Western academicians in order to improve the portrayal of Indian civilization. It took over a decade and several millions of my hard earned dollars before I understood the academic game. Gradually, I developed my insights into how insidious the South Asian Studies machinery is. I witnessed first-hand the complex funding mechanisms, intellectual and political networks, and interlocking of agendas across government, private foundations, church and academics. That is when I concluded that planting chairs in such a giant machinery was like feeding a crocodile hoping to turn it into a friend.

I am now an ardent critic of Indian movements that seek to establish Hinduism-related chairs within Western academe. Such projects are premature and counterproductive, driven naively by glamour and prestige.

What we need first and foremost is a new corpus of content and discourse, one that would challenge the prevailing discourse on Indian civilization. Such provocative discourses simply cannot be produced from within the walls of the very same fortress that has to be exposed and dismantled. It cannot be achieved as an ‘inside job’ because that would entail a greater degree of personal risk and brilliance than what is available among our academically certified scholars today. It would also need a large critical mass of like-minded scholars in one place, with political clout and will. It is a sheer waste to develop a random scattering of chairs here and there, occupied by individuals craving personal (petty) career success.

Given the cost of setting up one academic chair in USA (approximately $4 million), it would be far better to use that money and set up a whole department of scholars in India with the concentrated goal to develop anew discourse on some specific topic. As an example, a centre to develop a Hindu perspective on women’s status and role could be tasked to produce game changing discourse on that theme. This would then be disseminated worldwide through multiple channels. Several such theme-specific centres ought to be established in India. This is how China has taken control of the way China is being studied worldwide. They did not outsource the knowledge production about their civilization the way Indians have.

Such an approach would nurture the ‘Make in India’ spirit in the field of South Asian Studies. It would keep the adhikara and world class expertise within Indian institutions. The new genre of discourse would also be intimately connected with our raditional mathas and peethams, rather than with the likes of Ford Foundation, Western churches and think tanks and their paradigms. This would de-colonize our youth and media once they realize that we are the best experts on who we are as a people.

OUR GOLDEN BOMBAY....

The following pictures of old Bombay are very special.  Some of them belong to the 17th century, some 250 years old. From these pictures we can trace the growth of Bombay City as we know today in our minds.  It seems that these pictures are from some Parsee Archives.

OUR GOLDEN Olden Bombay. Hope you enjoy Bombay (Mumbai) of yester-years, observe the population at that time. THESE PICTURES ARE CLASSIC SHOWING PLACES AND SIGHTS IN BOMBAY AS IT EXISTED OVER A CENTURY AGO. View of Bombay from Malabar Hill, with the Island of Caranjah and part of the Indian Continent in the distance. Bombaja Fort, Bombay, 1700 Malabar Hill and the Parsee Towers of Silence, or Doongarwadi. Khan Bahadur Dustorjee Nosherwanjee Parsee, High Priest of the Deccan, 1871. Portrait of a group of Parsee ladies, 1853. Walkeshwar, Malabar Point, 1860. Bombay Central station exterior. ​ Peak hour at Bombay Central station. One can see at least six persons in the main hall and ghostly traces of two more. Bullock-hauled train of the Gaekwar of Baroda, 1863. The very first trains were driven these unfortunate animals. BB&CI (Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway) steam engine. Old AC coaches being cooled with ice. ​ Gol Deval, the city's oldest shrine dedicated to Shiva, pre 1900. ‘Khada Parsee’ (The Standing Parsee) is the almost 40 feet tall and 150 year old cast iron and bronze statue of Shet Cursetjee Manockjee. It was built in the 1860s by his youngest son Manockjee Cursetjee for almost 100,000 rupees. Manockjee, known as a reformer in education sector, is responsible for founding one of the first schools for girls in Mumbai in 1863, now called Alexandra Girls' English Institution, in South Bombay. ​ Group of Parsee pupils and masters in class at the Elphinstone High School,1875. Sir Dinshaw Manackjee Petit Hospital, now known as Parsi General Hospital. Victoria Terminus, now Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. Apollo Bunder, before the famed Gateway of India was built. Colaba Reclamation from Wodehouse Bridge. To the left is seen the railway line that ran all the way up to Colaba after Churchgate. View from Colaba Reclamation, with Rajabai Tower in the distance. Once upon a time, it was that close to the sea. A local steam train travelling towards Backbay from the Colaba Terminus, 1910. The Majestic Hotel and Waterloo Mansions, Bombay. Currently, Amdar Nivas, where Sahakari Bhandar is located. Royal Alfred Sailors Home c 1900, now the Maharashtra State Police HQ. The Prince of Wales Museum, now Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS).​ Elphinstone College and the David Sassoon Library, Kala Ghoda. Watson's Hotel, now known as Esplanade Mansion, stands tall but almost dilapidated at Kala Ghoda now. But, look at this hotel in its prime - what views of Bombay Harbour! This photo is from the 1880s; the only other building at that time in the area was the Sailors' Home (now Maharashtra State Police HQ) in the distance. The wide road you see is the Esplanade; and hence the name of the hotel. The patch of land on the right of the photo, by the sea is where the Taj Mahal Palace and Towers eventually came up - but that was not until 1903. Before that, for more than 30 years, Watsons Hotel was the numero uno establishment in the city. Mark Twain stayed here; Kipling wrote about it, and the earliest screening of the Cinematographe in India by the Lumiere Brothers was in this hotel (just one week after it was first screened in Paris). BEST double-decker tram, 1944. BEST double-decker tram, 1956. ​ Cricket players in uniform with their cricket bats. ​The editor's room, Times of India. The ancient jute fan was pulled via a long rope by a person sitting outside the room. The Bombay University buildings with Rajabai Tower still under construction. ​ The Bombay Municipal Building c 1900. The Bombay High Court. Flora Fountain with the Central Telegraph Office in the background. The CTO was the General Post Office till the early 1900s. The Bombay Green, 1862. The Bombay Town Hall with the Bombay Green Ground, as seen from the top of St. Thomas Cathedral, c 1850. Sailing ships can be seen in the harbour in the background. Town Hall, Asiatic Library. Bullock-drawn road roller. ​ Elphinstone Circle (now Horniman Circle), c 1827. Palkhis (taxis) waiting for customers in the business area of Fort, 1800s. Elphinstone Circle (now Horniman Circle) and Garden Gate with the St. Thomas Church in the background. Can you imagine the sea right outside Churchgate station? You can see the Railway Headquarters (next to Churchgate at present) on the left, the High Court in the middle and Mumbai University (Rajabai Tower to the right). Notice the steam hauled passenger train in the right bottom corner. In those days the trains used to go up to Colaba and the line used to hug the coastline. Churchgate Station being renovated, c 1900 Churchgate Station, c 1920. Churchgate station, which was built in 1870, is named after the street leading out of this gate. During the eighteenth and up to the mid-nineteenth century, Bombay was a walled city. The city walls had three gates, and Church Gate, named after St. Thomas Cathedral, Mumbai was one of them. The gate was situated near the present day location of Flora Fountain. In the mid-nineteenth century, the city walls were torn down to aid in the expansion program. Street in Fort, c 1860. The Fort Gate, seen at the far end, was similar to the Church Gate. Scotch Church, the courthouse, and entrance to the dockyard. This is the church opposite the Lion's Gate on the way towards the Asiatic library from Regal Cinema.