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.  

In the pursuit of justice

 In the pursuit of justice

 

They say justice could be found in courts and police stations

I ran around but couldn’t locate it in the dusty files, or the lawyer’s argumentation

No justice can be done when a judge writes a technical decision

For those privileged, thriving in mansions,

Overlook the starving, hungry, and their desperation that is causing tension

The elite assumed that eliminating the poor, rather than eradicating poverty, is the only solution

Those authoritarian rulers say justice lies in running bulldozers over the hearts and souls of the poor, mocking their deprivation

I could not find justice in those teary eyes full of pain, anger, and frustration

They say justice is mobocracy

In the deep fault lines of inequality, I found dying humanity

I found hateful mobs shattering the love into pieces, killing the democracy

They say justice lies in bombing the innocent

I saw fear and agony in those young eyes whose lives are in a dangerous situation

Those powerful reduced justice to the narrow boundaries of revenge and retribution

The oppressors are deprived of the shred of kindness and compassion

So, where is justice?

Not in the bulky books written by scholars

I found justice in the blooming hope of the innocent eyes of a child desperately waiting for her parents in the middle of the war field,

Justice is the optimism, warmth, and care that a nurse shows when treating patients.

Justice is the blood and sweat of toiling farmers who starved and yet grow food for all, and workers who construct homes for all and yet remain homeless all through their lives

Justice is the confidence and courage of a student who wishes to transform the oppressive situation.

In the ardent rebellious hearts of those who wish for relentless peace and hope, I felt the zest of reasonableness

In the righteousness of empathetic souls lies the zeal for fairness,

Justice lies in the minds that are caring and gentle

Away from the toxicity of hate, war, inequality, or starvation,

Justice exists in the dreams of a happy and equitable world with no discrimination 

Justice imagines a world that is humane and full of consideration