It was fitting that even as our soldiers guarded our borders with their lives, 32 young people, from 12 to 22 gathered on the lawns of the Vishwa Yuvak Kendra, near the sprawling Teen Murti House, to register change. Here, Jagriks, as the young people called themselves, shared stories on how they were living the Indian Constitution.
They were participating in Samvidhan Live – Be a Jagrik, an initiative by ComMutiny - The Youth Collective, supported by 32 other NGOs. The project, which has been running across the country for the past three years (they do a four-week run each year), has initiated a series of tasks that aim at living out the Constitutions Fundamental Rights and Duties. For instance, one task was for them to survive the day using just ₹32. There were others too, to bridge the gap between textbooks and reality.
Stories to tell
Within the large hall, amidst messages of all kinds, on banners and charts, Hashib Alam, from Yuva, an NGO at Delhi’s Azadpur, says he is ready for his new job in academics. A school drop-out from Bihar, he was groomed by Trishpal, his mentor, who guided him to get a master’s degree in History from IGNOU. Today, he is doing what Trishpal did, by being a Jagrik leader and helping shape the destinies of the less-privileged in Azadpur.
“Azadpur is a hub of migrants of people from Bengal, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh. It is also the place that made me literate,” he says. “My luck changed when I came to Delhi to help my brother with his work. This place is known as a wholesale vegetable market, but it has made me what I am today.”
Describing a Jagrik as an aware human being who knows his rights and duties, Alam says there must be equal space for everyone. “Our Jagriks identified street children and encouraged 300 of them to join us.
On Christmas Day, we conducted a dialogue with them and identified 19 children. Today, many of them have become leaders.” It’s important to help young people confront their demons, but also to fulfil their dreams, he says.
Done with discrimination
Rajkumari, who is in her final year in a B.A. programme in Harda College in M.P., says she was disturbed at the discrimination meted out to her family. Her father, farmer at Durgara village in Harda district, would keep silent whenever she asked him why they were looked down upon. She joined Synergy Sansthan, a local NGO associated with the programme.
“At Synergy Sansthan, I learnt the art of communication.” As a part of the Jagrik programme, she was given the task of visiting five temples in M.P. “At the fifth temple, the priest said I was forbidden from coming inside as I am a scheduled tribe. But I mustered courage, went inside, clicked my picture and updated my profile. The priest and villagers were horrified. They came marching to my house and shouted at me for breaking a social taboo,” says Rajkumari, who feels has shown the path to other oppressed castes.
But discrimination is not a small-town, caste-based affair. Ankita Singh, who promotes youth leadership with Delhi-based Pravah, says she’s faced it in her conservative Rajput family, and in both public and private spaces. “I have negotiated a great deal, to break gender stereotypes.” Today, she works as a senior programme coordinator.
She says the trick of working with over 1,000 boys and girls from 14 States is to identify adolescents and young people and orient them through games. “At level 1, they learn the meaning of Constitution literacy. At the second level, they learn how to influence others in society and become proactive in helping people understand what the Indian Constitution gives us and expects from us in return.”
Task master
Another task had the boys wear saris and visit public places. “The board game has different sets of challenges. For instance, our Jagriks would take up the role of the opposite gender. A boy would assist his mother with household chores. He’d need to cross-dress to understand what trans people endure,” says Singh. But this isn’t the challenge. The real challenge is to start a conversation with people who may be the perpetrators. Themes of inequality, safe drinking water, domestic abuse, the right to education, were all picked up.
Srinidhi, a Jagrik from Chennai conducted workshops of life skills at government and private schools. The youngest Jagrik was Mohammad Shaikh, a 12-year-old, while the oldest is Rajkumari, 22.
