Thus his son is also his pupil.In his fields at sundown, tending his father’s sheep and goats, Dev Karan is like any other tongue-tied youngster on the brink of adolescence. I don’t think that should be allowed.”His father, Panchu Lal – a bigger version, a larger turban – smiles indulgently. Panchu Lal is a subsistence farmer and night school teacher in the village of Sargaon. Like the shepherd children who study after dark, he and his colleagues also work round the clock. If you start speaking, what will we learn?”There was a meeting last year where we had a workshop, and we were also doing the parliamentary budgets Adults talked a lot; they didn’t give us a chance to speak.

Being a good Speaker, he says, means giving other children the chance to address parliament and generally air an opinion without adults butting in “Only children should speak. An argument breaks out over an old teacher who can’t control his class. “The children are all over the place, swinging on swings in the middle of the night,” cries an indignant Laxmi. “What the hell are the children swinging for? They have just three hours for lessons – they can swing any time they like to.”Dev Karan, the Speaker, is already dropping off, but Laxmi Devi is just getting into her stride; it is, after all, only 11.30pm.Mr SpeakerDecked out in turban, gold necklaces and earrings, Dev Karan (above), a shy 12-year-old, is Speaker of the children’s parliament at Tilonia, when not minding his father’s flocks.

Seated at a respectful distance behind the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet, are the adults, the civil servants. “It’s democracy in the cradle of feudalism,” quips Susan Abraham, another SWRC worker involved with the children.The discussion includes a debate about whether to include obituaries in the magazine they are planning; a debate about the principle of charging for medicines (night school pupils are given them free); and an enquiry into why a promised hand pump has not been installed in one village. Everyone is seated on the ground before the floodlit ramparts, with scores of barefoot village children in the “public gallery” in front. We in the West may feel sympathy for the shepherds of Rajasthan; to their country men, it is just a way of life.In the ruined fort at the village of Chota Naraina, the sun is going down on another meeting of the children’s parliament. In Calcutta and Delhi, there are street children, incredibly spunky, articulate survivors, earning adult wages while scorning adult intervention in their lives. The Western concept of coming of age at 18 is meaningless: most people don’t know how old they are. Maybe an outsider’s surprise at the maturity of these children playing “adult” roles in work and politics says more about Western prejudices, against children and their capabilities, than it does about the grass-roots reality of desert life.Among the Masai of East Africa, you also see stock-herders as young as five guarding cattle against lions with the aid of a little stick and a lot of bottle: their responsibilities and outlook are not “childlike”.

Thus, in Rajasthan society, children are not seen as a separate or lesser category of person. But in this setting, where children are not coerced into working for outside employers, should we call this contribution to the family economy child exploitation – or is it participation by young stake-holders in their own community?In the West, life is seen as a straight line from cradle to grave; in Indian philosophy, it is a cycle governed by the laws of karma. “I organise meetings, inspect night schools, look at the budget and take to task any ministers who have not been attending to their duties.” She has a fearsome reputation for discipline, and for putting down adults who displease her, which made me nervous; when she gave me a goodbye gift of two bunches of home-grown carrots, I reckoned I had passed a test.Night schools are clearly dear to her heart. “We can only study at night, and these schools give us an opportunity.” Her working day begins at 6am with household chores, and may not end till midnight after a night sitting in parliament. What about time to play? “There’s plenty of time to play with the cattle,” she replies, clearly puzzled by the question “You run around and play with them. And your friends do the same.”Like all the children I spoke to, she says she wants to carry on being a shepherd once she leaves school.