Pass law against child labour or they won’t forgive you, Satyarthi tells MPs

Talking to reporters, Satyarthi said bringing the law, together with the Right to Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, was the only way to “give every child the freedom to develop”.

Satyarthi, who shared the Nobel with Pakistan’s teenage activist Malala Yousufzai, said he wanted child labour to go into the “pages of history”.

He admitted that the award has increased the weight of “moral responsibility” and that his job would not be complete till the day a “single child is enslaved”.

Asked how he would spend the prize money, Satyarthi, who quit his job as an engineer to work for child rights, said he had “never seen or touched that much money” and that he would spend “every single penny in doing something meaningful for children in India and globally”, going beyond the ambit of his NGO, Bachpan Bachao Andolan.

On the way ahead for India-Pakistan relations, Satyarthi, whose image of comforting Malala when she broke down after seeing her blood-splattered clothes (from the day she was attacked by Taliban) at an exhibition in Oslo went viral, said “sustainable peace” could come only from “more mutual cooperation” and “people to people contact”.

After arriving here, Satyarthi tweeted, “Jai Hind. No words to express my feelings”, adding “Bharat Mata Ki Jai. Heartfelt welcome home by fellow Indians”. Speaking to the media, he said he could “visualise Gandhiji while accepting my award”.

“When I was sitting on the podium, I was remembering him (Gandhiji) every single moment. I could visualise him walking towards the stage to receive the award,” Satyarthi said.

“I am grateful to India’s vibrant democracy and the judicial system without which I could not have achieved anything. But at the same time I would like to say that change, hope, progress is knocking at the door. We need to act now,” he said.