Revision summary
Seeing the homeless child is a moral start; the wage-for-care bargain is the ethical failure. An eleven-year-old cannot consent to domestic elder-care for a government servant. The design is child labour, a power gap, and a bypass of the Juvenile Justice process. Compassion without legality uses the child as a means. The right path is CWC, school, and adult elder-care, not a private contract.
Model answer
Introduction
Ram Murti sees a homeless eleven-year-old and does not walk past. That seeing is a moral start. The bargain — care of aged parents in exchange for a daily wage and some schooling — turns the child into a domestic worker in a government servant’s house, which is where the ethics fail.
Body
What is right in the impulse
- Rescue from the street, food, and a roof answer immediate harm.
- Concern for aged parents is a real duty; concern for an orphan is also a real duty.
- Wanting the boy to study is better than wanting only unpaid labour.
What is wrong in the design
- An eleven-year-old cannot give free, adult consent to a labour contract; the power gap with a government servant is total.
- Care of elderly persons is adult work: lifting, night waking, and medical judgment. Using a child as a caregiver is child labour dressed as charity.
- A daily wage for a child in a private home is prohibited work under child labour law, not a kind stipend.
- The Juvenile Justice Act requires a Child Welfare Committee, inquiry, and a lawful care order. A field visit is not an adoption or a foster licence.
- Education “arranged” after a full day of parent-care is likely residual and unequal to a childhood.
- The arrangement creates a conflict: if the boy complains, he risks the street again; if neighbours ask, the officer’s office is stained.
- Good intention does not cancel trafficking-like dependency: shelter tied to labour.
Ethical evaluation
- Virtue of compassion is present; virtues of justice, legality, and respect for the child’s agency are missing.
- Kant’s test fails: the boy is a means to elder-care. The Gita’s care fails if the weak is used.
- A rights test (UNCRC, JJ Act, Article 21A, Article 24) fails.
Right course
- Immediate safety: food, medical check, and production before the CWC / Childline 1098 the same day.
- Lawful foster or institutional care, scholarship, and school; elder-care through paid adult help, neighbours, or a government scheme, not a child.
- If the family later seeks legal foster care, do it on the committee’s terms, without a wage-for-care bargain.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD S[Street orphan] --> C[Compassion] C --> W[Wage for elder care] W --> F[Child labour fail] C --> L[CWC school adult care] L --> R[Rights-respecting rescue]
Conclusion
Ram Murti’s first look is humane; his bargain is unethical. An orphan is not a cheap nurse for aged parents. Compassion must pass through the Child Welfare Committee, school, and a ban on child labour, or it becomes another use of the child.
Quick related
Students also ask
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What do you understand by moral and political attitude of human beings? How will you justify these in the present political scenario?
Next question in the 2021 paper (Q16). View answer →
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If the boy is happier in the house, is the bargain ethical?
Happiness on a dependent wage is not free consent. Lawful care can keep the roof without making him a nurse.
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Should Ram Murti have left the boy on the street?
No. Immediate rescue is right. The next hour must be CWC, not a labour deal.
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