3.4 Let’s March!: Question Answers, Summary and Notes

1. What does the speaker feel honoured to recite?
   A mantra from the Vedas, which carries a prayer, an aspiration and a resolve to free humanity from all man-made crises.
2. How does he describe his journey from India to Norway?
   As a connection between two centres of global peace and brotherhood, one ancient and one modern.
3. What terrible thing was the Sudanese child forced to do?
   He was forced to kill his own friends and family.
4. What does Satyarthi refuse to accept?
   That the world is too poor to bring all children to school, that laws and police cannot protect children, that places of worship have no room for children’s dreams, and that slavery is stronger than the wish for freedom.
5. What is his only aim in life?
   That every child is free to be a child: free to grow, play, learn, go to school and dream.
6. What signs of progress does he mention?
   The number of out-of-school children has been halved, child labourers reduced by a third, and child deaths and malnutrition reduced.
7. What social role are the three “daughters” playing?
   Malala, Kayanat and Shazia are rising up and choosing peace over violence, tolerance over extremism and courage over fear.
8. What did millions of people demand eighteen years ago?
   A new international law to abolish the worst forms of child labour.
9. What lesson does the story of the lion and the bird teach?
   Every person should do their bit, however small, to solve a big problem.
10. Why does the eight-year-old girl’s question shake him?
    “Why did you not come earlier?” shows that the world acts too late. It questions all of us.
11. What matters according to Satyarthi?
    Every single minute, every single child and every single childhood.
12. What does he challenge?
    The passivity, pessimism, culture of silence and neutrality around children’s problems.
13. What was the cobbler boy’s father’s reply, and Satyarthi’s reaction?
    He said, “We are born to work.” This made Satyarthi angry, and it still does.
14. What was his vision as a child?
    To see the cobbler boy sitting with him in his classroom.
15. What rights should every child have?
    The right to life, freedom, health, education, safety, dignity, equality and peace.
16. What does he request the listeners to do?
    To put a hand close to the heart, close their eyes and feel and listen to the child inside them.
17. Who are calling on us?
    Thousands of Mahatma Gandhis, Nelson Mandelas and Martin Luther Kings.

1. Highest credit of his honour: Kaalu Kumar, Dhoom Das and Adarsh Kishore from India, and Iqbal Masih from Pakistan
2. Great personalities from the land of Buddha: Lord Buddha, Guru Nanak and Mahatma Gandhi
3. His “daughters”: Malala, two Kayanats and Shazia
4. Foreign activists for equal rights: Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King

(a) Child labour (b) Child slavery and trafficking (c) Child marriage (d) Child soldiers (e) Illiteracy (also: sexual abuse, child deaths and malnutrition)

• to grow and develop
• to eat, sleep and see daylight
• to laugh and cry
• to play and learn
• to go to school
• and above all, to dream

• Let us walk together.
• Let us speak together.
• Let us democratise knowledge.
• Let us universalise justice.
• Let us globalise compassion.
• Let us march!

1. I will persuade parents of such children to send them to school.
2. I will tell them about free education, free uniforms and the mid-day meal in government schools.
3. I will donate my old books, bags and stationery to them.
4. I will teach them to read and write in my free time.
5. I will ask my teachers to visit their homes and help with admission.

life, freedom, health, education, safety, dignity, equality and peace.

1. in the pursuit of: Many students go to big cities in the pursuit of higher education.
2. to be afraid of: Little children are often afraid of the dark.
3. to give up: Never give up your dreams, even when you fail.

govern · government · mental · metal · enter · eternal · rental · tiger · river

4. We have reduced the number of out-of-school children by half.
5. I have looked into their frightened and exhausted eyes.
6. We have never given up against any threat or attack.
7. We have utterly failed our children in imparting an education.

3. I am deeply honoured to recite a mantra.
4. I have come here only to share the voices and dreams of our children.
5. He was forced to kill his friends and family.
6. I am going to extinguish the fire.

Verbs: democratic → democratise · universal → universalise · global → globalise

(a) (i) No other challenge knocking on the doors of humankind is as big as fear and intolerance.
(ii) Fear and intolerance are bigger than any other challenge knocking on the doors of humankind.

(b) (i) Very few honours in the world are as great as the Nobel Prize.
(ii) The Nobel Prize is greater than most other honours in the world.