Directions:
1. Mark your confusion by highlighting or underlining anything you don’t understand.
2. Show evidence of close reading (connections, predictions, questions, clarifying, summarizing, challenging, etc)
3. Write a reader response reflection
When the Little Ones Run the Show: Children's Parliament Offers Disillusioned Indians a Rare Example of Clean Politics, By Emily Wax, Washington Post Foreign Service, Thursday, May 14, 2009
VARANASI, India, May 13 -- As one of the most popular political figures in this impoverished northeastern Indian city, Tazim Ali fields round-the-clock cellphone calls about such everyday problems as child hunger, domestic violence and caste discrimination.
The only thing that's unusual is that Tazim is 9.
He's the 4-foot-tall president of the Varanasi children's parliament, the first body of its kind in India, which -- with 75 percent of its population younger than 35 -- is one of the world's most youthful nations. Tazim keeps his cellphone by his side all night and listens to reports of problems such as children falling down uncovered manholes, forced early marriages and sexual abuse by relatives and teachers.
"I was called recently because a 2-year-old girl didn't have enough food. She ended up dying," said the fourth-grader, who appears grave beyond his years with his neatly parted, wavy brown hair and ramrod-straight posture. "We can get people to pay attention to us. We brought the case to the police. They saw we were serious and didn't want to turn children away. I think any kid who has a problem should call me."
With its passionate leaders and reputation for prompt action, the four-member children's parliament is not just a cute idea. It has become an example of honest, functional politics, and the excitement it inspires contrasts sharply with the disillusionment that many adults here say they feel about their politicians. Turnout in India's month-long elections hovered below 60 percent, surprising many pundits, who had predicted that text-message campaigns, campus rallies and voter drives by Bollywood stars would propel more people to the polls.
Analysts say that many Indians deeply mistrust their political representatives, who are often referred to as bahubalis -- strongmen. Nearly a quarter of the 543 elected members of Parliament have been charged with crimes, including rape and murder, according to the New Delhi-based Association for Democratic Reforms.
Although 880 million Indians struggle to get by on less than $2 a day, members of Parliament running for reelection this year have grown almost 300 percent richer on average since the previous poll, in 2004, according to a study of lawmakers' assets released this week by National Election Watch, a coalition of nongovernmental organizations. The staggered voting ended Wednesday, and election results are due this weekend.
Meanwhile, the Varanasi children's parliament drew a turnout of 95 percent in June in its first-ever elections. With its strict campaign rules, it is also a shining model of clean politics. Candy and cookies are banned. Candidates can spend only about $10 on posters. There's a minimum voting age: 6. And a maximum: 13. Winners are limited to a single term in office.
The children's parliament promotes social diversity, as well. Last year, Tazim, who is from a Muslim family of sari weavers, was elected along with an 8-year-old Hindu girl who worked as a ragpicker. The members meet every Sunday and hold monthly meetings at which thousands of children often show up. They hope to replicate their effort across India in coming months.
"Doctors go to medical school. Engineers study science. But in India, politicians don't get any training," said Rajeev Srivastava of Vishal Bharat Sansthan, the nonprofit organization that founded the children's parliament. "We wanted to create training for the next generation so they can learn to be honest political leaders."
Srivastava came up with the idea of a platform where children could voice their problems after he spent time with child ragpickers and saw a girl being sexually abused.
"Sometimes children can't always go to their parents with a problem," said Srivastava, who sat with the children on a recent evening as they watched the news and cartoons on TV. "It was a crime not to figure out a way to give them a voice."
Children's parliaments have sprung up in other countries as well, thriving particularly in places where law and order has broken down, such as Congo and Guinea-Bissau.
India's version took on special importance during this year's election season. Its young members tried to catapult children's issues onto adult politicians' platforms more often dominated by naked power struggles and tensions over caste and religion.
There is no shortage of children's problems. India has the world's largest population of malnourished youngsters. It also has the world's largest child labor force, according to Save the Children. Youngsters can be seen serving lentils at rural truck stops or selling fashion magazines and doing cartwheels for money at nearly every intersection in the capital, New Delhi.
"The children's parliament is the best way to give these issues a voice," said Priya Subramanian, with Save the Children in New Delhi. "We have seen child labor end in other places through political pressure. The children's parliament can play a role in that pressure."
The Varanasi parliament has boosted the confidence of many of the youngsters involved. On a recent evening, 8-year-old Ili, the former ragpicker, said that before she was elected and enrolled in school by Vishal Bharat Sansthan, her father, a bicycle repairman, was often drunk. But he has stopped drinking, she said, since the children's parliament paid him a visit.
"Before this, I was really shy," said Ili, who goes by one name. "Now I collect reports when adults abuse and hit working children."
Questions to discuss in your groups:
1. Define: disillusioned, caste, parliament, pundit, replicate, catapult
2. Do you think the children's parliament will improve conditions in India and other countries where it is tried? Why/why not?
3. Is it good for the children in parliament to have to deal with grown-up problems?
"India has the world's largest population of malnourished youngsters. It also has the world's largest child labor force..."
4. Is there a connection between these two facts? If so, which is the cause of the other?
5. If you were a child faced with a choice between working and going hungry, what would you choose? Would laws against child labor benefit you? Explain.
Make notes of your answers. When finished, write a reader response to this article; you may use one of these questions as your foundation for your response.