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Social Worker's Throat Slit - Govt. Callous - What Is Needed?

Varupi Jain
wrote an article Delhi authorities condone vicious attacks in India Together

In the sixth incidence of violence against Parivartan workers in the last year and a half, Santosh, a young worker was attacked murderously on 30 December 2004. India Together readers will be aware that the Delhi-based NGO Parivartan is spearheading a continuous campaign in helping poor citizens in slums and resettlement colonies get their due ration supplies using the state's Right to Information Act. An unidentified person slit the the upper part of Santosh's throat when she was on her way to work. Santosh is 20.

My parents, especially my mom is highly involved in social activities. For many years I used to have a bad feeling that they might get hurt or get into some sort of trouble due to the good work that they do, fortunately nothing like that happened(knock wood). After some observation what I realized is that, my parents are backed up by some powerful people like relatives/friends who are big officials in govt. and lawyers/doctors/other social activists who are influential in the society. I think this display of muscle when needed made a big diference and kept the dangers away from them.

Based on the above observation what I believe is that, social organizations which are trying to do some good work need to go out and seek suport from local officials like collectors,police,lawyers, doctors, other influential social workers etc... so that the anti-social elements know that the organization and its volunteers are backed up with enough muscle and this acts as a nice deterence. I was involved in some soical/political movements; from my personal experience what I can say is that, just a display of the strength/solidarity makes a huge difference how the enemy perceives. And believe me there are lots of good influential people out there who loves to rally arround the good causes, if they are approached. Doing good work is not enough, one need to know how to manage it will too.

Posted by Ramdhan Yadav at January 14, 2005 01:34 PM Perma Link