Geetanjali Krishna: God help Manju!

PEOPLE LIKE THEM

I haven't met too many nuns in my life, but the ones I've met have intimidated me somewhat. I guess that's because organised religion for me has mostly been something others practice. Perhaps that's why I also greatly admire people who take the high moral ground "" I'm still searching for mine, so I can't do so myself. Now, dear reader, it's not that I'm in the mood for self-disclosure. I wanted merely to explain why I let Sister Maria do all the talking the other day, although I found myself at odds with her.

We were talking about a girl both of us knew. Manju, a girl from Jharkhand, had lived so long with her employers (they'd hired her when she was just a child) that she seemed to have forgotten her own family. "It's impossible," said Sister Maria, "that she could have forgotten her family...they must have brainwashed her!"

The good lady further said the employers were morally wrong to not allow the girl to go home. "Do you know," she said, "they don't even give her leave? The poor child has been working there for the past fifteen years with no break!"

Of course it was wrong, but in my book, unless a victim feels she is being victimised, nothing much can be done for her. And since the girl in question was well into adulthood, I really couldn't see how we could help her if she didn't think she needed any help. "But Sister," I said mildly, "Manju has not asked for help "" quite on the contrary, she has repeatedly told us she's happy, and doesn't want to be disturbed."

The good Sister retorted that she didn't even know what salary they paid her, if at all. "What's more, the deluded child has forgotten her church! She now prays to Goddess Kali, and hasn't been to church in fifteen years!" said Sister Maria.

People change, I said, and who knows? Maybe she hadn't forgotten her parents, but wanted to leave her dirt-poor past behind. Anyway, what difference did it make if she prayed to one god or the other?

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realised I'd put my foot in instead. So, I changed tack. "We have no legal ground to stand on," I said, adding, "Since she does not feel her employers are mistreating her, she won't lodge a complaint. Nobody can lodge a complaint on behalf of an adult who doesn't think she has a problem in the first place!"

Clearly, Manju was, at the very least, a victim of poor labour practices. She received neither time off nor a minimum wage in her hands. But that just made her part of the sad multitude of domestic workers who work in abysmal conditions only because the law places them in the unorganised sector in most Indian states. No labour standards, no laws apply to employers of people like Manju.

"The law may not be on our side, but my conscience won't permit me to eat a good dinner in my comfortable house while that poor child is suffering!" declared Sister Maria. Which is why she'd tried to speak to Manju about this. The Sister believed that if Manju didn't realise how pathetic her life was, then she was obligated to bring home this unpleasant fact to her. But Manju, the Sister admitted, was still not convinced.

I asked Sister Maria what she planned next. She smiled gently: "Since neither the law nor the victim is on our side, I can only turn to God now..." I found myself so bursting with things I wanted to say, I ended up saying nothing at all.