Q. Do you think that law has been able to abolish child labour in India? Comment.

Model Answer:

Despite legal frameworks (Article 24, RTE Act), child labour persists. Sociologically, law acts merely as a superstructure attempting to regulate a structural necessity of India’s urban informalization and capitalist development.

Structural Limitations of Law

• Caste-Class Nexus: A.R. Desai links child labour to structural poverty among marginalized SCs/STs, which superficial legal bans ignore.
• Reproduction of Caste: Neera Burra heavily critiques the 2016 “family enterprise” exemption, arguing it legally sanctions the reproduction of caste-based occupations and blocks social mobility.
• Informal Exploitation: Following Jan Breman’s concept of “footloose labour”, informal urban sectors prefer children as cheap, docile workers who evade legal scrutiny.

Socio-Cultural Endorsement

• Middle-Class Apathy: In The Child and the State in India, Myron Weiner argues that entrenched elite beliefs against educating lower-castes culturally normalize child labour.

The post-COVID-19 surge in child labour, particularly in informal sub-contracting like Jharkhand’s mica mines, exposes the limits of mere legal prohibition.

Conclusion

As Upendra Baxi suggests, law often functions as a symbol rather than an instrument of change. Abolition demands dismantling the deeply entrenched caste-class inequalities feeding India’s informal economy.