Shramjeevi Sangathana

When the Campaign for Human Rights was initiated in 1990 in the Marathwada region, the first and foremost aim of the groups and individuals associated with it was to change this mindset, to forcefully get across to people that what was happening was in complete violation of their basic rights as human beings. As a priority they worked with the Matang community, the most oppressed amongst the dalits, on eradicating untouchability and putting an end to atrocities. Then by taking up issues related to the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS on which MGNREGA was modeled) like minimum wages, they widened their reach to include other backward castes and poorer sections of the upper castes.

Dashrath Jadhav was part of CHR from the very beginning, and soon built up an affiliated identity in the form of a trade union by the name of Shramjeevi Sangathana (Marathwada Vibhag). Though it was registered only in 1996, as a part of CHR the sangathan was active in Latur district since the early 1990s, taking up specific cases of discrimination, filing FIRs against the perpetrators and mobilizing people to collectively fight against injustice. (Movement in Village Patoda) By the mid 1990s, their tireless work resulted in a significant reduction in caste based atrocities. While internal conflicts caused CHR to break up, the Shramjeevi Sangathana continued on its path, building a mass base in 4-5 blocks around Udgir.

One of the sangathan’s most significant achievements has been in regularizing gairan land. Each village in this region has some land designated as grazing or gairan land. There have been several government rulings stating that if landless dalits encroach on this land and cultivate on it, it should be given to them for agriculture. However, in many cases there are obstacles in the way of getting the land in their name legally, especially in encroachments that happened after 1991. Before 1991, the number of encroachments was much lesser because people were scared of retaliation from other villagers. The sangathan has been instrumental in helping families with the administrative procedures as well as with giving them the confidence to stake their claim on the land. (Vanjarwadi)

By the early part of the new millennium, after ten years of concentrated work, the problems of caste based atrocities and discrimination had almost vanished. Now, even if a stray incident happened, the social, political and economic climate had been transformed to such an extent that it could be dealt with through letters and discussion with the officials. (Sangathan and the Police) With the improvement of the socio-economic status of the dalits, issues such as education, health, employment opportunities etc came to the fore. Meanwhile there were some internal conflicts within the sangathan that led to the work being disrupted and discontinued for a few years. In 2008, once again the cadres felt the need to reinvigorate the collective and infuse it with fresh energies. While continuing their work with gairan, in this second phase, the sangathan has focused on fighting exploitation in PDS, creating awareness about MGNREGA, and insurance, pension and scholarship schemes of the government, and ensuring BPL surveys are done properly. Education has continued to be a key issue throughout, the sangathan being involved with the village education committees, having regular discussions and playing a monitoring role in matters such as drop outs, quality of education, mid day meals etc. (Brick Kiln Schools)