“Creation of a social justice department akin to health and education departments is essential to create a more just society,” said A. Kathir, founder of Evidence, an NGO based in Madurai.
He was speaking at a civil society consultation workshop on social justice and equity organised by Madras School of Social Work (MSSW) along with the Tamil Nadu government organised for various non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating in the district and surrounding districts, here on Tuesday.
“Though the State which is well-known for its social justice movements has many policies towards achieving the goal, the effective implementation of the schemes and the programmes remain a question mark,” he said.
Pointing to the inefficiency in implementing programmes to achieve social justice, he pressed the need having an ‘Inclusion,’ department in all the universities in the State alongside a separate social justice department in the State.
“Equality is an aspiration and equity the working method to achieve that. We speak a lot about equality, but providing opportunities to achieve the dream of equal society is not being cared much,” Mr. Kathir added.
It is popularly said that when society gets wealthier, poverty would be eradicated, but, in reality, wealth would only further poverty by accumulating wealth in certain few hands, noted Mr. Kathir.
“The practical way to eradicate poverty is by achieving social justice,” he added.
Even after several decades of the country’s independence, the equal representation of women and the downtrodden remains an unachievable dream, he said.
“Comparing to our country, countries in the African continent, considered poor and backward, had achieved an equal representation in political parties,” Mr. Kathir added.
Noting of the 50% representation of women as panchayats leaders in the village panchayats, he said that it was just on paper but on ground their husbands or their kin were the actual leaders.
The workshop is an effort to educate the NGOs on enhancing their functioning among the downtrodden people. The organisers said the workshop was also to hear about problems and hindrances faced by NGOs while rendering their service.
M. Antony Stephen, Assistant Professor and Programme Coordinator, Centre for Social Justice and Equity, said the programme was to fill the existing gap between the government and the organisation working on the ground with the people.
“Through the programme which is being conducted in different zones in the State, difficulties faced by the NGOs working on health, education and other social causes will be identified and on acting on them, the State should try to solve the problems,” he added.
Not only that, but various inputs from the NGOs would also be gathered and compiled to be used by the government to formulate policies to resolve them, he added.
