By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Thousands of miles from Bihar, Kamayani Swami and Ashish Ranjan of Jan Jagaran Shakti Sangathan (JJSS) talked about their ground-level work in Araria, Bihar in organizing workers for a democratic and secular India.
Husband-wife team Kamayani and Ashish work full time on labor issues such as temporary/seasonal migration, minimum wage, employment guarantee & pensions for the elderly. Their organization Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan grew from an NREGA survey in Kaimur and Araria districts of Bihar. JJSS currently focuses on NREGA, Right to Information (RTI) and issues of justice.
In an hour-long talk Kamayani and Ashish gave details of the type of work that they are doing. Araria district has strong presence of Muslims. The area is mostly rural where 95% workers are engaged in agricultural and allied activities.
Starting out Ashish said that lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri followed by Rohit Vemula and JNU has affected everyone including them. Democracy and Secularism ideas are included in the preamble of our Constitution.
Some of the issues that were raised in the recent Bihar election were not developmental in nature but rather targeting a community and trying to polarize the societies. “These issues concerned us, “said Ranjan.
Kamayani added that, “people are not naturally antagonistic to each other. Vegetarianism and sanskiritization of Dalit communities are creating issues on communal lines but Ganga-Jamni values is still strong and all talks of communalism can be overcome.”
Just the simple act of bringing people of different social backgrounds helps in bringing down some of these barriers.
The talk at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was organized by Association For India’s Development (AID), Alliance For Secular & Democratic South Asia, TwoCircles.Net & Massachusetts Global Action.
Link:
http://www.jjabihar.org