- Uday Pariyar
ud.pariyar@gmail.com

Kamal Nepali suddenly became a superhero after he successfully rescued a little girl trapped in the Seti river crevasse for over 20 hours. He received bravery awards from many organisations and individuals. The media gave an unprecedented coverage of his achievement. We even heard of competition between two TV stations in Kathmandu over who should project Kamal’s heroism better.

Kamal Nepali with PM Girija Prasad Koirala after the felicitation of the little superhero by Government of Nepal

That fateful deed saved the life of a two and half year old girl and dramatically changed the life of the rescuer - a 13-year-old poor Dalit boy in Pokhara. He received not just name and fame but also money and an opportunity for quality education in Kathmandu. The boy deserves it all for his extraordinary deed.

Everybody is excited about the outcome, but interestingly nobody has asked the obvious moral and legal questions about the process. A simple question we can ask ourselves is, would we contemplate sending our kids as small as Kamal for a potentially fatal rescue mission such as this one? Would the girls’ parents consent to send their elder child down for the same task? If another unfortunate incident of a similar nature occurred again, should we venture another child down the deep gorge? Was it right to use the boy?

It was a violation of national and international laws to exploit a child like that. It is annoying to see that even the organisations that claim to champion the movement against exploitation of child labour such as CWIN actually welcomed the task and announced cash prize for Kamal, instead of condemning the use of the child.

What prevented the government, child and human rights organisations, intellectuals and civil society to point out the serious mistake? What do ILO, UNICEF, OHCHR and like minded organisations think about this event? Who would be responsible if Kamal had got trapped and killed? He would have easily lost his life if everything had not gone right. There was no way of saving him because he was sent to a deep hole where nobody was able to enter. The other side of the coin would have the loss of life of one more innocent kid.

According to the news, he was asked for his consent to undertake the risky task. Still it was wrong because he was not an adult who could make an independent, rational choice about his actions. As a minor, he was not able to envisage the potential dangers to his life. Besides, he was not a trained rescue worker and was not given any training before he was sent for the arduous task. Probably his parents were also not consulted beforehand. From that perspective, it was an illegal and immoral undertaking.

It is not hard to understand that he was assigned the task because everybody involved were least bothered about his safety and security. He was used because he was a son of poor, uneducated cobbler parents struggling to feed the family. He was exploited. The fact remains that even dogs are not sent for any dangerous missions without training and preparing them well. In essence, it appears the rescuers and others were prepared to sacrifice a boy’s life in an effort to try and save the unfortunate girl. Everybody’s life is equally important and valuable, isn’t it?

The other big question is – why did the father let the girl fall down the crevasse in the first place? There are many children who get killed or physically harmed every year due to parent’s carelessness, very few are as lucky as little Aradhana Pradhan.

(This article also appeared in this week’s issue of Newsfront weekly, Nepal)

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National Hero born in a Dalit community: Kamal Nepali receives accolades for his bravery