CHENNAI: It was decidedly unusual to hear a Nobel Laureate advocating anger. Stranger still when that comes from a person who has won the Nobel Peace Prize.
But on Saturday, the man who was feted for his work in setting free more than 80,000 children from bonded labour, said anger was justified if one confronts injustice. “Anger inspired by compassion and not driven by hatred or violence is the greatest tool for change,” Kailash Satyarthi said, delivering the concluding address at TNIE’s ThinkEdu Conclave.
“I’m probably the only Nobel laureate who will ask you to get angry,” he added with a smile.
A message he strongly emphasised during his speech, listened to with rapt attention by school students among others, was that remaining silent amounts to encouraging violence.
Strongly urging the younger generation to find a hero within themselves, Satyarthi said, “Young people have to take the lead. Going to schools and colleges and universities all these years, it has made me confident that you are hungry to do and deliver something good for humanity — beyond caste, borders and nationalities and social and gender bias,” he stated.
The eminent child rights and anti-child labour activist talked about how schools were coming under attack by forces of fanaticism because they realised that schools and education had the power to burn through their ‘human bomb capital’.
“Ten-year-old and eight-year-old children are being made human bombs. When a boy was given the gun to kill suspected traitors of Islamic State, and he could not do it, he was buried alive by them. Boko Haram and ISIS are feeding off this,” he said sadly.