Giving Compass' Take:

• Ashif Shaikh, writing for India Development Review, suggests that for social justice to happen within districts of India, organizations must involve communities and foster agency to make necessary changes. 

• Shaikh discusses how communities need three types of rehabilitation out of caste-based work. What are the core challenges for communities trying to break away from an ingrained caste mentality? 

• Read about India's expectations for the social sector in 2019. 

There are 650 districts in India. However, most nonprofits work only in a few districts. Given how large our country is, there are only two types of people that can work towards creating change at scale – the communities that are facing the issues first hand, and the government.

The government has not been able to work on issues related to social justice in the last 60 years. Perhaps they think that this is not important enough, or there is no political will to do it. So, we at Jan Sahas, chose to involve the community.

We realised that if issues around social justice had to be taken to scale, and if we wanted to create deeper impact, we needed to involve the communities affected.

But caste-based marginalised communities in our country have faced historical injustice — not just for the last five-six generations, but for the last 2,500 years. Even if they earn money and stop doing caste-based work, the social stigma never goes away. Even if the person becomes a collector, or starts an enterprise, the discrimination continues.

If people have to come out of caste-based work, they need three types of rehabilitation:

  1. Economic or livelihood rehabilitation: In the caste-based work of manual scavenging, the biggest issue is that the oppressor or employer provides them food, clothing and shelter. What this means though is that they are unable to negotiate with their employers.
  2. Social rehabilitation: The government never thinks about this aspect. Under social rehabilitation, if someone gives up their (caste-based) work, they should be given work that factors in the social aspect as well.
  3. Political rehabilitation: Being political is not about party politics. It is about the power of representation. If women from excluded communities want to be part of the local panchayat, they should have the space to do so.

Read the full article about giving communities agency by Ashif Shaikh at India Development Review.