India, April 20 -- The knock on the door has the sharp sense of ownership. L* walks in, a cheeky grin on her face and an assured sense of belonging.

She plonks herself down and makes herself at home as I talk to Shweta Tara Vandana director of education at Kranti, India's first residential school for the daughters of sex workers, run by the daughters of sex workers.

Set in a pine forest in the higher reaches of Himachal Pradesh, puddles of snow glistening in the April sun, Kranti-the word means revolution-is deliberately small with a capacity of 30 students at any given time.

Right now there are 26, with four spaces kept vacant for emergencies-like the seven-and-a-half-year-old who told one of the aunties in Kamathipura that her father...