Human Rights in Everyday Life in India: The Praxis from Below

Human Rights in Everyday Life in India: The Praxis From Below

Cambridge Scholar Publishing UK  

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-0364-4929-2

Today, I received the author copies of this book. It deals with the rhetoric of human rights that is being contested and debated theoretically at various levels. Drawing on several field-based examples from the Indian context, it illustrates how the frameworks of oppression and resistance operate in tandem. It argues that the oppressors manipulate the rights paradigm to justify oppression, whereas the oppressed leverage the same discourse to contest marginalization and assert their dignity in everyday lives. Despite challenges, the wretched of the Earth articulate the language of rights to ‘educate, organize, and agitate’ to challenge oppression and formulate positive rights to demand their dues. In the process, these people's struggles harness lok-shakti (people’s power) to consolidate the idea of swaraj (self-rule) while shattering the monolithic discourse of rights to imagine a diverse worldview. This work suggests reimagining a just world by strengthening the struggles of ordinary people to consolidate the rights framework. 

While relying on Richard Falk's theory of globalization, which contrasts the phenomenon of Globalization from above with Globalization from below, in the context of the Third World, this work argues that the situation of marginalization is based on dual dynamics. The dominant regressive narrative is hostile, whereas the progressive discourse emerging from everyday struggles of the poor and the vulnerable is based on the praxis of rights and challenges the dual hegemony of neoliberalism and authoritarianism. Human rights advocacy, therefore, is more than just ratifying treaties or addressing the cases of rights violations. It is a tool for the defranchised to right the wrongs. The vocabulary of rights operates in numerous ways, from demanding policies and laws to check barbarism and foster democracy. The rights-based approach is being used to contest for redistributing resources and challenging oppression, guised as patriarchy, casteism, poverty, and other forms of structural discrimination.