| In partnership with grass root organisations and dalit community leaders, we have been working in 248 villages of Western Rajasthan (Jodhpur, Badmer, Jaisalmer) for the last eleven years. The field level interventions have shaped into a Dalit Rights Campaign (Dalit Adhikar Abhiyan) with village and block level community based organisations/committees. The campaign was built around 11 block level Dalit Resource Centers (DRCs) which were working on awareness building, mass mobilisation, leadership training, support for access to justice and government programmes and schemes. In September 2009, the programme made a shift by withdrawing support to the DRCs. However, activities around the Dalit Adhikar Abhiyan continue. It is aimed that the local organisations and/or dalit people’s organisations will play a more pro-active role in taking up awareness building and in addressing local issues.
The programme aims at resolving cases of discrimination, atrocity against men and women and land encroachment. The dalit families are also linked to various government schemes. Currently most of the cases of social injustice are being resolved locally by using the Constitutional principle rather than with feudal and patriarchal values. As we have phased out from organising and mobilisation work, more attention is given to facilitation of access to justice. A cadre of paralegals has been trained with the support of the Indian Institute for Paralegal Studies (IIPS), Ahmedabad. Besides the paralegal training, community leaders and panchayat representatives were also trained on the basic constitutional framework and social justice laws. A fact finding guideline is under preparation to help the local leaders to take up the cases.
Till September 2009, the following number of cases have been addressed:
Case of discrimination resolved – 343 Case of atrocity resolved – 349
Case of atrocity against women resolved – 50
Areas of land released in favour of dalits – 1187
Areas of land under legal process – 7126 |
