West Bengal should be a paradise for children. In reply to an Opposition member of the legislative assembly, the state’s labour minister said that there are no child labourers in West Bengal. This may seem incredible, given the sight of minors carrying tea and cleaning utensils in public eating places and engaged in brick kilns or helping in construction work. But the minister is confident that the numbers of child labourers, beginning from an equally incredible 14 in 2020, diminished steadily to zero in the 11 months of 2024. In 2023, there was just one. According to the rules, having a child in the family work in the family’s shop or in the cultural arena, including acting, is not a crime. It would be easy to claim that the child helping in the teashop is a nephew in a joint family venture. The minister said that the programmes of the chief minister and schemes such as Kanyasree and Yuvasree have succeeded in eliminating child labour. Constant monitoring and awareness have helped the process.

Whatever the rules allow, it is not clear what happens in the villages. Have seasonal absences to help in harvesting, say, or minor girls’ domestic employment been eliminated too? Such questions, referring to specific areas of traditional child labour, must be satisfactorily answered. The minister’s arguments are based on negative assessments. The department has had no complaint of child labour and no child has had to be rescued. This negative logic cannot be easily checked against positive assessments. There has been no census since 2011. The National Crime Records Bureau depends on the states’ reports, so it cannot make an assessment of its own. The only possibility lies in non-government surveys. Most of these, too, use the state’s numbers. Nothing could be more heartening than an assessment matching the labour minister’s claim. At the same time, it is hoped that the minister does acknowledge that child labour is too grave an issue to be used merely to make the state and its programmes look good. It has to do with the childhood and healthy growth of the children in the state and their future as adults. Most of all, the people of the state expect not negative logic but convincing reports from the government. Then such a result would be something to celebrate.