There are now several private and government agencies providing certification in India as third parties, such as the Chhattisgarh certification society, which began in 2003. The new scheme aims to regulate certification agencies and procedures by mandating the registration of certification bodies with the National Accreditation Board and by providing certification based on criteria and indicators set by the government under the National Working Plan Code, 2023.

This raises an important question about whether certification can lead to sustainable management of India’s over 70 million hectares of forests and benefit state forest departments, forest-dependent communities, and farmers growing trees on their farms.

The concept of sustainable forest management in India is not recent but starts from the colonial period. After the Indian Forest Act, 1865, the government took control of forest land to maximise timber production for ship building and laying railway sleepers. Dietrich Brandis, India’s first Inspector General of Forests between 1864 and 1883, first proposed the concept of sustainable forest management.

The idea was to sustainably harvest timber from the forest. For this, each forest division was to be divided into working circles of different timber tree species. Each working circle would be subdivided into compartments. By rotating the harvest of trees across compartments, the regeneration of the forest was assured and a wood stock was maintained. The aim was a sustainable supply of timber to the colonial government.

A forest working plan was to be prepared for each of the forest divisions, describing the estimated volume of timber available and how it would be harvested over a 10 to 15-year period. The first national forest working plan code, which was to serve as a guideline for preparing working plans, was published in 1881.

However, the sole objective being maximising timber production, other aspects of sustainable forest management, such as biodiversity and the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities, were largely ignored in the colonial period. Aggressive plantations of teak (Tectona grandis), a valuable timber tree was taken up in wildlife-rich areas, and they can still be seen in many tiger reserves in India. Timber from Deodar trees in the Himalayas were extracted until exhaustion in a few places such as the Sutlej valley.

After independence, the extraction of timber from forests continued rather indiscriminately till 1996 when the Supreme Court intervened. The case, famously referred to as Godavarman versus Union of India, was a landmark in Indian forestry. The petition was filed due to the felling of trees on private land and the Supreme Court ruled that the forest, irrespective of ownership, should be treated under its working plan. This meant that the felling of trees on private land would be in accordance with the working plan and permission must be sought from the forest department for it.

This ruling had the positive effect of greatly reducing deforestation on private land and in forests situated above 1,500 metres and in north-east India, where it completely banned tree felling. Its negative effects were that it made many state forest development corporations obsolete and provided farmers no incentives to grow trees on their farms.

The state forest development corporations were set up on the basis of the recommendations of the National Commission for Agriculture in 1976. The objectives of the corporations were to raise forest plantations and harvest timber and non-timber forest products in a sustainable manner, thereby supporting the country’s economy.

After the 1996 ruling, the activities of many state forest development corporations, like the Himachal Pradesh Forest Development Corporation, were reduced to collecting resin (from Pinus roxburghii) and extracting salvage trees from the forest. The Lok Vaniki scheme initiated by Madhya Pradesh in 1999 to help farmers grow trees on their farms did not succeed because even small and marginal farmers with land holdings of less than a few hectares had to follow bureaucratic procedures to obtain the government’s permission for tree felling. This, in effect, discouraged them from growing trees.

Why forest certification?

Globally, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) established as a non-profit organisation in Bonn, Germany, in 1993 is the leading forest certification agency. The FSC aims to promote environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world’s forests. It claims on its website that the certification covers about 160 million hectares of forest land in 89 countries.

Forest certification has been, over the years, shown to reduce illegal logging in some countries such as Chile and Peru, but has not been identified as the only factor to have reduced deforestation in countries such as Mexico and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Forestry researchers still debate the effects of certification because several other factors influence sustainable forest management, such as recognition of community rights, policies on forest protection, and so on.

When it comes to non-timber forest produce, the certification looks even less important.

Further, certification is a costly affair. A case study on the certification of acacia plantations in Vietnam showed only marginal returns from certification and that too only if the plantations were more than 3,000 hectares. This clearly indicates there were no benefits for farmers with smaller land holdings.

In the case of India, a study commissioned by the International Tropical Timber Organisation notes that in 2020 the demand for roundwood in India—mainly used for furniture making, paper and pulp, panels and plywood, and construction—was around 57 million cubic metres, of which 47 million cubic metres was met domestically. Of this, 45 million cubic metres was from trees outside forests and only a meagre 2 million cubic metres came from state-owned forests.

In this context, certification looks a meaningless exercise because large quantities of timber will be produced from trees outside forests as block plantations of poplar, teak, and eucalyptus exist and domestic buyers are least likely to care for certified timber. In terms of export, very little timber from teak and sisham—0.01 million cubic metres—was exported in 2020.

Any shift in demand for certified timber domestically or internationally could tilt the scale in favour of wealthy farmers who can afford certification costs. It could also discourage small farmers from growing trees on their farms.

When it comes to non-timber forest produce, the certification looks even less important. Produce such as mahua flowers, sal seeds, and tendu leaves in central India and rhododendron flowers and pine cones in the Himalayas are gathered and marketed locally. There is no evidence of any of these being exported in their raw form.

India aimed to boost its agroforestry through the National Agroforestry Policy in 2014. However, almost a decade later, there has hardly been any improvement in agroforestry.

As for state forest departments, the Supreme Court’s 1996 restrictions on extracting timber are still in place and they have to prepare working plans and get them approved according to the latest working plan code. This should include the volume of timber that can be sustainably extracted without affecting biodiversity and the needs of forest-dependent communities. Only then will the certification be a value addition if the forest products are exported.

For forest-dependent communities, community rights are recognised in about 6.5 million hectares of forest land under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006. Communities using their Community Forest Rights (CFR) provisions have been sustainably extracting NTFP and marketing thereby making good economic gains. Many more millions of forest dependent communities still depend on NTFP for their livelihood even without rights. Further, there is no provision for extracting timber under the management rights given to communities, though forest departments run plantations in forests with recognised community rights.

India aimed to boost its agroforestry through the National Agroforestry Policy in 2014. It made tree saplings easily available to farmers and eased restrictions on tree felling and transit. However, almost a decade later, there has hardly been any improvement in agroforestry. A recent study titled “Severe Decline in Large Agroforestry Trees in India over the Past Decade”, to which I contributed, noted a severe decline of mature trees on farms in India because of changing cropping patterns, mechanised farming, and farmers perceiving no economic benefit in having trees on their farms.

In sum, the global experience shows forest certification can at the most increase the market value marginally but this comes with high certification costs, which doesn’t help marginal farmers and forest dependent communities and certification alone does not lead to sustainable forest management or help in increasing agroforestry.

Towards sustainable management

In India, the causes of deforestation are diversion of forests to non-forestry purpose such as mining, roads, and other infrastructure and degradation due to fire, cattle grazing, and invasive species such as lantana.

Caution must be exercised to not raise plantations on grasslands and other open natural forest, which are important ecosystems in themselves.

Sustainable forest management is important to ensure ecosystem services such as the flow of streams and rivers, to support the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities, and for a forest-based economy. More than certification, what is required is a good working plan to manage the forests and sustainably extract timber and other non-timber forest produce.

The National Working Plan Code, last revised in 2014 and 2023, provides guidelines on managing forests sustainably through a working plan that considers biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and the livelihood needs of local communities, including grazing and firewood collection.

A study in the Congo basin has shown that a forest management plan with rotational harvest of timber and a clear benefit-sharing plan with forest-dependent communities were much more effective than forest certification in sustainable forest management.

To meet the growing domestic demand for timber, plantations outside forests can be increased. This can reduce the logging pressure on natural forests and reduce deforestation. A possible way forward is to encourage forest development corporations to raise plantations on degraded land and farmers to plant trees on their fallow or uncultivable land. Waterlogged and degraded land with invasive trees such Prosopis juliflora could also be utilised for raising plantations.

Some of colonial era plantations of pine and eucalyptus could be slowly removed and planted with native oak and sal trees, which are more resourceful. Communities having CFR in degraded land could also be encouraged to raise plantations with a clear procedure for getting full benefits from the timber produced. Lastly, procedures to fell trees according to a working plan, transit and market them should be made easy for both states and farmers.

However, caution must be exercised to not raise plantations on grasslands and other open natural forest, which are important ecosystems in themselves. There is a need to strengthen the capacity of state forest departments to prepare good working plans that can identify plantation areas, raise quality plantations, and sustainably harvest timber—all the while preserving natural forests for ecological security.

To conclude, these few steps would help improve sustainable forest management in India and increase the income of farmers and state forest departments much more than forest certification.

This article was originally published on The India Forum.

Hailing from Rajasthan’s Rajsamand district, Shankar Singh is a social and political activist, musician, lyricist, theatre artist, and storyteller. He co-founded the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) alongside prominent activists Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey. MKSS is known for its role in advocating for and implementing the Right to Information Act (RTI) in the country.

Shankar Singh has employed a variety of creative strategies to champion the rights of marginalised labourers and farmers, focusing on issues such as wages, employment, and other government social entitlements. His approach is marked by a unique blend of entertainment, music, and sharp wit and satire. He has led many successful movements and campaigns, both at the grassroots and national level. Notably, he has contributed to the implementation of landmark schemes like MGNREGA and government processes such as social audits.

In this conversation with IDR, which is the second of two episodes, Shankar Singh talks about using different mediums—folk music, drama, and puppetry—to engage with communities during social movements. He also discusses what those with specialised skills have to offer to grassroots nonprofits and offers valuable perspectives on carrying on in the face of disappointment and fatigue.

Here are some highlights from the conversation:

00.16 | On working with different mediums

I got the chance to see puppets at one place, the Literacy House in Lucknow, so I started following these people. I felt that I had to learn this and asked them to teach me how to use puppets. Whenever I got the chance, I’d go to them. There was a workshop there, after joining the nonprofit. I went to that workshop. But in the same campus there was a department of puppetry that did only this work. I showed a lot of curiosity in it. I thought that I definitely wanted to acquire this skill. Then I learned puppetry from there. I assimilated puppetry into my thought and then expressed myself through it. 

I felt that these mediums are very strong, be it drama, songs, stories, or puppetry. I completely assimilated these mediums while working with that nonprofit. 

[During L K Advani’s Rath Yatra,] we thought about what we should do. We made a beautiful chariot out of a cart that we got from the vegetable market, placed big horses made of cloth in front of it, and wrote ‘Ghotala Rath Yatra’ on it. We put placards around an umbrella. These placards bore the names of all the ghotalas(scams) that had taken place. And a chair was placed on the cart for the leader to sit on. The chariot was covered with saffron decorations. We did all this behind the tent, and the police did not know that we were doing something. And I announced on the mike, “Tomorrow at 5 o’clock in the evening, a Rath Yatra will start from here. And the leader of our Rath, his name is Rajvani, he will come from Delhi. He will be riding on the chariot and there will be a Rath Yatra.” 

The next day we took out the chariot from there. And I was on top of the cart as a leader. I was dressed such that all the parties were included. The Congress cap and saffron-coloured gamchha (scarf). And the leader sat on a chair on the stage. There was a ghotala umbrella, and on the front it said ‘Ghotala Rath Yatra’. It also said Rajvani. And he came out. And there was also singing, “Ghotala raj ki jai jai bolo, jai-jai bolo, jai-jai bolo. Bhrashtachaar karo, hari hari bolo.” (Praise the reign of scams. Do corruption and take the lord’s name.) “Arey hawala ka halwa chaat chaat khaya.” (We really enjoyed the black money pudding.) 

Whatever scams happened like this, we kept talking about them in songs. 

08.11 | On how people with specialised can collaborate with those working on the ground

Let me give you an example. When this person called Vineet came to us, he said that we can see the Jan Soochna Portal. But how do we show it in the village? For this, he took a projector. Placing his small projector on a white wall, he brought out the Jan Soochna Portal. Then he called over some children, who thought they were being shown a film. So first he played a small film, some seven to 10 minutes long. He showed something related to RTI. The children saw it, enjoyed it. Then he asked one child to bring his ration card. He entered the ration card number in the portal. Vineet then displayed it on the wall, and when he did that the child could see a photo, which was of his father. He said, “Oye, this is my father’s photo,” and was quite amazed. Then Vineet said, look, I will show you all the times you took wheat. When he accessed the information on the portal, he said that the child’s family had taken 80 kg last month.

The child ran home, called his father and brought him back, saying, “They’re saying that you took 80 kg. The film in the projector is saying it.” The father said, “It was not 80 kg, we got 40 kg.” “But they’re saying something else.” The father came and asked to look. Then he saw that it said 80 kg. “Sir, it is not 80 kg. We took 40 kg.” “But here it says 80 kg.” “But I am telling you that I took 40 kg. We have never got 80 kg, we have got 40 kg every time. Every alternate month.”

He went to the dealer, who is from the village, and said, “Look at this, I have got 80 kg on paper and you gave me only 40 kg.” The dealer asked him where he had got this information from, and told him to take the rest of his wheat but not make any noise.

Soon, people queued up before Vineet asking for their ration information, and Vineet kept giving them this information. There was a line outside the ration [shop].

12.30 | On incidents that have left a lasting impact

There is an old couple in the village, they don’t have children. They don’t even have a house; they live under this shed. So I have helped them in getting pension. Sometimes they’re not able to get the ration food, so there are fights with the dealer on why they have not been given it. Sometimes he gives it and sometimes he doesn’t. I could not go for two to three months. Vineet and I both could not go, so they reprimanded us with great authority, that you did not come. I just asked them how things were going. “Okay,” they said.

When I lifted the lid of the drum, I saw that there was nothing in it. And there were no other things either. I asked, “Is there no atta (flour)?” “No, it has been five days. There has been nothing.” “There has been nothing for five days?”

Vineet went to bring her wheat and I was sitting near the old woman. She asked me to write down my mobile number on the wall somewhere. “I don’t have a phone but if someone comes I will tell them to talk to you.” I came [back] after writing [the number]. That day I felt very sad. And the next day I get a call that the old lady has passed away. We had brought that wheat. Even that wheat was of no use.

When we arrived [at the cremation,] there were some very big things being said there. Spiritual conversations. I mentioned that I have met this family, and said that this death happened due to hunger. Then this person asked how. I said I had visited them and there was no food in that house for five days. I said that I had bought the bag of wheat from the ration shop yesterday, and it was not even useful.

17.36 | On maintaining his passion for social change

While doing this work, many times you feel tired and disappointed. It definitely happens. It happens in my mind too. Whenever I have felt that I am in a lot of conflict and trouble, or if I am not sure about what I am doing and feeling stuck, that day I go to some poor person’s house. You sit there for an hour or two, you will understand their whole economics, and you will think, how can I stop? What is the condition of the family I have met? And what about me? I am much better off. I start thinking, personally, I don’t have any problem at all. I would not be doing any good if I withdrew myself. One’s enthusiasm doubles. And there is a lot of strength [in being around] a poor person, who has nothing but darkness all around, how will he survive in his life? Strength is found there. In this area, we know the houses, the families [that are struggling]. A friendship is formed whenever you go and talk to them. They also come to us, and together we try to find solutions. And then I don’t feel any physical fatigue, and my enthusiasm comes back.

Read the full transcript here.

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Know more

• Watch the first part of this interview here.
• Learn about the Indian theatre movement.
• Watch Shankar Singh sing to bring awareness to the people of Rajasthan.

In February 2024, we revisited the regulations identified in the 2022 report to see if the legal position regarding women’s work has changed in any way. We found that legal barriers largely continue to exist, with only a few states easing restrictions on women’s employment at night.

Listed below are our findings:

1. There are limitations on working at night in several states

There are 24 states with laws that limit women’s participation in various kinds of factory operations. Among these, there are 11 states that bar women’s employment at night. Two laws govern these strictures: the Factories Act, 1948, at the union level and the shops and commercial establishments laws at the state level. Governments have argued that these stipulations are necessary to prevent sexual violence and safeguard women from the physical dangers of longer working hours.

Even when women are allowed to work at night, the laws place several prohibitive conditions on their employment. For example, in most states employers must ensure that female workers make up a minimum proportion—either 10 or two-thirds—of the workers and the supervisory staff for the night shift. Such constraints make it difficult for employers to run night shifts with women workers, thereby reducing job opportunities for women. To illustrate: an employer would have to cancel a night shift if some women are on leave and there aren’t enough female workers to fulfil the two-thirds requirement.

Some states permit women to work at night in commercial establishments ranging from offices and theatres to warehouses and hospitals. States such as Bihar, Chhattisgarh, and Gujarat require inspectors to be “satisfied”, ensure that establishments provide “adequate protection of (women’s) dignity, honour and safety”, and mandate facilities such as shelters, restrooms, toilets, and night crèches.

Though Indian states have historically prohibited women from working at night, there have been gradual relaxations on this front. However, the pace of reform is slow. Since 2022, states such as Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have done away with laws that prevent women from working at night. Women in Andhra Pradesh are now allowed to pursue factory work at night, and those in Madhya Pradesh can engage in night-time work at commercial establishments. However, most other states, including Bihar and Rajasthan, continue to prohibit women from working at night in factories, while West Bengal continues to prohibit women from working at night in commercial establishments.

2. Women tend to be excluded from higher-paying jobs

Under the Factories Act and other labour laws, women are prohibited from working in various industrial processes even during the day. These laws are based on the assumption that some industrial processes may be too dangerous for women. The alleged heightened risk factor and increased susceptibility to accidents when women work with certain machinery led to bans on employing them in processes deemed dangerous or hazardous by state governments. Since 2022, no state has eased restrictions on women’s employment in ‘dangerous’ jobs. Women’s participation in new and growing industries and better-compensated work is also curtailed.

Even in traditional industries, the law may exclude women from jobs that pay more. Processes that women are prohibited from participating in—such as glass manufacturing and the processing of oils and fats—are generally better compensated.

The table below shows a comparison of minimum monthly wages in some industries from which women are prohibited and where women are allowed to work. The industries in which women are prohibited usually have higher minimum wages.

India’s 10 most populous states collectively impose 139 prohibitions on women from working in specific industrial processes ranging from electroplating and generation of petroleum to the manufacturing of products such as pesticides, rechargeable batteries, and so on. In many cases, there is no literature that identifies the special danger to the women, as opposed to the men, working in these jobs. Besides, these roles are open to women in some states and prohibited for those in others, which makes it evident that there is no scientific basis for exclusion. For example, women can be engaged in abrasive blasting (used for cleaning surfaces across industries) in Karnataka, but not in the neighbouring state of Maharashtra.

3. Moral policing furthers discrimination

Archaic laws continue to keep women out of various types of jobs that are considered incompatible with the gendered expectations that society has of them, such as working in liquor establishments. The prohibitions are based on the belief that it is morally inappropriate for women to serve liquor in public. For example, according to the Punjab Excise Act, 1914, this restriction is necessary as it prevents “the woman folk from becoming addicted to the intoxicants and avert and avoid any conflict between sexes and chances of foreseen sexual offences”.

Among India’s 10 most populous states, West Bengal does not allow women to participate in the alcohol serving/selling industry at all. Even in the states where women are allowed to participate in the alcohol service industry, their involvement depends on the type of alcohol being served, a rather arbitrary criterion. India divides the alcohol industry into two classes—country and foreign liquor. Some states allow women to participate in one while barring them from the other. Women in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra can serve/sell foreign liquor, but not country liquor; on the other hand, women in Andhra Pradesh can serve/sell country liquor, but not foreign liquor. In other states such as Telangana, women can secure a licence to sell foreign liquor, but cannot work in establishments serving foreign liquor.

There have been a number of court judgements that have upheld women’s right to work at liquor shops. However, these interventions haven’t led to a change in state laws and women’s employment in such establishments continues to be penalised. 

How can women’s workforce participation be improved?

The situation on the ground won’t become better without a change in the perceptions and laws preventing women’s employment. The government and policymakers can enable this by: 

1. Addressing gender stereotypes in legislation

Gender differences should not be used as a basis for greater disparity through legislation. Many Indian laws continue to be influenced by stereotypes and promote discrimination rather than eliminating it. It is high time that such antiquated laws are amended to align with international frameworks put forth by Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Several states and courts are beginning to question and overturn discriminatory laws based on outdated stereotypes and their harmful impact on women’s economic roles. Regions such as Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, and Punjab are issuing exemptions to factories through government orders informed by landmark decisions, such as Vasantha R vs Union of India. In the Vasantha R decision, Madras High Court struck down the law forbidding women’s employment at night as unconstitutional and laid down model conditions subject to which they could be engaged in night-time work. State governments have used these models as templates to set conditions within their respective jurisdictions.

2. Providing clarity on the implementation of laws

Currently, laws can be changed by the state government through three different legal instruments: amendments in acts, amendments in rules, and by issuing government orders. Additionally, laws can be pronounced—wholly or partly—unenforceable by court judgments.

When acts are amended but rules are not revised in keeping with the law, it can create confusion. Take, for instance, the Uttar Pradesh Factories Act and Rules, 1950. While a 2017 amendment in the act removed the restrictions on the employment of women in night shifts, the Uttar Pradesh Factories Rules, 1950, which continues to be valid, states, “No woman shall in any circumstances be employed in any factory more than 9 hours in any day or between the hours of 7 pm and 6 am.”

A more streamlined approach to the implementation of laws and amendments would ensure that the progressive measures taken by states actually benefit the working women.

3. Ensuring safety at the workplace

Prohibitions on women’s work were first adopted based on a paternalistic approach toward women’s safety. However, these laws continue to exist in our statute books because government functionaries are risk-averse. They worry about opening up industries to women because they may be blamed for mishaps that some women may experience. The solution to the problem may involve greater public awareness and acceptance of risks and planning for their mitigation. Instead of making it overly expensive or operationally difficult to employ women, state governments can make sure that companies deploy safety measures such as CCTV and GPS-enabled transportation to ensure women’s safety.

It is important to consider that restricting women’s work creates greater poverty for women, which has its own health and safety implications. 

Suyog Dandekar and Eknoor Kaur contributed to this article.

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Know more

• Listen to this podcast to understand how gender norms shape women’s access to the workforce.
• Read this article to learn more about women’s employment in India’s factories.

The findings, which were collected from 35,000 children across 28 districts in 26 Indian states, were based on these four domains. Additionally, the study included a series of qualitative interviews conducted in Sitapur (Uttar Pradesh), Solan (Himachal Pradesh), and Dhamtari (Chhattisgarh), which delved deeper into the aspirations of the youth.

Education doesn’t automatically translate into increased ability

The report shows that overall, approximately 87 percent of the surveyed youth are enrolled in some kind of educational institution. The ratio of school and college dropouts has reduced over the years, with more young people completing senior secondary school than ever before. But when those who are not enrolled were asked why they discontinued their studies, the most commonly cited reason at 18.9 percent was ‘lack of interest’. Financial concerns, family constraints, failing to pass exams, and other challenges fell lower on the scale. Interestingly, 26 percent of those not enrolled in any educational institution reported that they used their smartphones regularly for some educational activity, such as watching online videos, exchanging notes, and resolving doubts.

“We can learn how to manage a household, how to talk to others, how to present ourselves, and how to respect the people around us,” a girl in class 10 from Sitapur responded when asked about the benefits of education.

For an age group that is expected to learn trigonometry and calculus as per the curriculum, only 43 percent could solve basic division problems.

However, it appears that years of schooling do not necessarily translate into proportional levels of learning. Approximately 75 percent could read a class 2 level text in their regional language and 57 percent could read simple texts in English. For an age group that is expected to learn trigonometry and calculus as per the curriculum, only 43 percent could solve basic division problems, and 10 percent could calculate simple interest on loans.

The current system doesn’t appear to account for the socio-economic background of a learner. Many of the youngsters reported that they have to work while pursuing education. Approximately 77 percent of the youth surveyed do some form of household work. Of the 34 percent who reported engaging in some form of paid work for more than 15 days in a month, 85 percent participate in agricultural work. The education system doesn’t reward children who work—rather, there’s a higher probability that their performance at school declines due to the increased workload that comes in secondary school.

Most of these findings align with those observed in ASER 2017. However, since digital access was increasingly incorporated in education during and post the pandemic, ASER 2023 added a digital skills assessment component, wherein youth were asked to attempt basic tasks using a smartphone. The test offers a clearer insight into the way technology has fundamentally changed the way youth are learning and thinking about their future.

Digital literacy is not the problem

Over the past few years, there has been a steady increase in smartphone penetration in India. True to this trend, ASER 2023 observed that 90 percent of the adolescents surveyed had access to a smartphone and 67.1 percent of the total sample were able to produce a smartphone during the survey itself (others indicated that the smartphone was with a parent/sibling who wasn’t present at home during the survey). Approximately 92 percent of those who were able to produce a smartphone during the survey were able to complete the digital tasks successfully on the following aspects.  

1. Ease of usability

Approximately 80 percent of young people who possess smartphones are capable of locating a particular video on YouTube, and of this group, 90 percent know how to share it with a friend. In addition, 70 percent can navigate the internet to seek answers to inquiries, while close to two-thirds are able to set an alarm for specific times. A little more than one-third can use Google Maps to ascertain the duration of travel between two destinations.

During these digital assessments, boys tended to perform better than girls in most tasks. However, the primary factor in this case appeared to be smartphone ownership. Among those who knew how to use smartphones, 43.7 percent boys and 19.8 percent girls actually owned the smartphone. When the differences in ownership disappear, so does the difference in digital skills between boys and girls. Computer ownership was found to be far lower than smartphones (less than 10 percent), but there were similar trends in digital skill patterns. Digital literacy is directly proportional to increased access to devices.

2. Tech for creativity and life skills

The survey clearly indicated that young people look at technology as a pathway for creative expression. Approximately 78 percent use their smartphones for entertainment-related activities such as watching movies or listening to music, 57 percent play games regularly, and 90 percent had used some form of social media in the previous week.

“With a phone in our hands, we can learn anything without having to spend money or ask anyone [for permission],” Shristhi Sandhil, an 18-year-old from Jharkhand, said as she talked about how she uses YouTube for learning new creative skills. This sentiment was echoed by many, who highlighted that it was the freedom afforded by the smartphone that made them turn to it.

The smartphone has enabled wider skill acquisition by cutting across barriers of access and opportunity. More than 35 percent of the youth reported using their smartphone to engage in dance, music, photography, and other hobbies.

Given the increased use of technology, including for creative expression, it is important to acknowledge that what was once an extra-curricular might have to become a part of the core of the curriculum. While creativity has a significant place in the cultural context of Indian communities and despite its recognition as a key twenty-first century skill, it is yet to be brought to life in a tangible manner by the education system. Through games, projects, activities, and other forms of interactive learning approaches enabled by technology, creativity needs to become a core facet of academic learning.

Young peoples’ aspirations tell a story

When asked about their aspirations, there were clear patterns across states and genders. For instance, in terms of career aspirations, while ‘nursing’ was the top voted choice in Kerala for girls, it was ‘teaching’ in Rajasthan, ‘doctor’ in Jammu and Kashmir, and ‘police’ in Maharashtra. Similarly, boys in Assam chose ‘army’, those in Tamil Nadu chose ‘engineering’, and in Chhattisgarh it was ‘agriculture’. While girls indicate a stronger aspiration for higher education, boys appeared to prioritise income generation as they plan their careers.

A boy studying in class 10 in Dhamtari told us, “I will become famous and gain respect in the community—there’s a boy from the village went into the army. My father had failed high school, but because of this [his son joining the army] he will also gain recognition. I will get money as well. And I will be able to protect the country.”

Both boys and girls indicated that social responsibilities would ultimately shape their decisions.

But what was concerning is that approximately 1 in 5 youth surveyed said that they did not know what they wished to pursue. Of the ones who indicated preference for a particular kind of work, 45 percent indicated that they didn’t know anyone engaged in that line of work. While more than 40 percent reported using a smartphone to search for information related to their future career, the availability of a role model in their community appears to play a strong role in determining if youth are able to make choices related to their career.

Both boys and girls also indicated how social responsibilities would ultimately shape their decisions. A class 10 girl from Sitapur said to the survey team, “My father says he will let me complete my BA  before I am to be married, although my brother says that they can arrange my married once I get admitted. I can’t say anything in such matters; it is up to them.” This experience was similar for many girls, who indicated that marriage will play a strong role in determining their future, while boys felt they were expected to earn enough to pay for all household expenses. These reasons also lead to a lack of aspirations around vocational work and agriculture, as they are not seen as socially acceptable or lucrative futures.

The influence of socio-economic contexts on career choices is undeniable. This underscores the need to establish a system that recognises the role that social milestones play in determining the career choices of young people. At the same time, the education system should provide pathways that enable youth to overcome the barriers imposed by these conventions.

What next?

Rather than inspiring lifelong learning, it appears that the consequence of the current model is burnout before adulthood. When the education system acts as sieve, and we see masses of youth who are unskilled and unemployable, we must ask ourselves: Why are we still trying to filter our adolescents based on their ability to clear exams that might not be relevant for the current job market? There are some clear learnings from ASER 2023 that educators need to apply:

• As access to smart devices increases, it is probable that digital literacy will automatically grow. This needs to be leveraged to help youth acquire skills that are going to be relevant for the future of work.
• Increased access to smartphones offers us the opportunity to develop open learning models that includes focus on twenty-first century skills like creativity without worrying about the restrictions typically faced by the school system.
• Young people need accessible role models in order to be able to break social conventions and make meaningful decisions to pursue their dreams.

We need to shift towards a model that incentivises learners to learn more, well after they leave the confines of a formal system.

—

Know more

• Read this article to learn potential ways of solving India’s digital divide.
• Learn more about empowering the youth to build sustainable futures.
• Read this article to learn why reliable data on learning outcomes is crucial.

India ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2007. To bring the disability law in line with this treaty, the 1995 act was replaced with the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016.

This law seeks to promote the inclusion of persons with disabilities by expanding the legal definition of disability. According to the 1995 act, disability refers to “blindness, low vision, leprosy-cured, hearing impairment, locomotor disability, mental retardation, and mental illness”. The 2016 act recognises 21 disabilities, including those listed in the older law.  In addition to this, it recognises acid attack victims as persons with locomotor disabilities. It also displays a more nuanced understanding of intellectual disabilities, a category that now includes learning disabilities and autism spectrum disorder. Moreover, the law specifies disability due to chronic conditions—neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s and blood disorders such as hemophilia, thalassemia, and sickle cell disease. Finally, the act also acknowledges individuals with multiple disabilities, such as Deafblind people.

Certain entitlements under the RPwD Act apply only to persons with benchmark disabilities, which refers to those “with not less than 40 per cent of a specified disability”. Persons with disabilities can qualify as persons with benchmark disabilities by a certifying authority, which is usually a hospital or a state- or district-level medical board.    

What is guaranteed by the RPwD Act?

Here are some provisions made by the act with respect to education, skill development and employment, healthcare and allowances, and recreation and cultural life.

Education

According to chapter 3, educational institutions funded by the government are supposed to make their campus accessible and provide the facilities that persons with disabilities require. This is in keeping with the aim of offering support “to maximise academic and social development consistent with the goal of full inclusion”. The act also mandates detecting learning disabilities in children at the earliest and taking appropriate steps to include children with learning and developmental disabilities into the classroom.

According to the act,  the local government—the panchayat or the municipality—should conduct a survey every five years to identify children with disabilities. Having this data set would help set up an adequate number of teacher training institutes. To make the classroom a more inclusive space, the act also instructs hiring teachers who are trained to work with children with intellectual disabilities; teachers with disabilities; and teachers qualified in Braille and sign language. In addition, it encourages the use of alternative forms of communication, such as sign language and Braille, so that those with speech, communication, or language-related disabilities are able to participate.

Chapter 6 lays down certain provisions for children with benchmark disabilities: free education in any government school or special school till the age of 18, free-of-cost learning materials, and scholarships. In government-run institutions for higher education, at least 5 percent of the seats are to be reserved for students with benchmark disabilities, along with a five-year relaxation on upper age limit. The act also recommends giving scholarships to students with disabilities.

Skill development and employment

Chapter 4 of the act mandates the maintenance of data on how persons with disabilities are faring in terms of skill development and employment. It states that exclusive skill training programmes with active links to the market should be developed for those with multiple disabilities or intellectual and developmental disabilities. Moreover, it notes that loans should be made available so that those with disabilities can take up vocational courses or self-employment. For example, a state sector scheme in Goa provides monthly financial assistance to those engaged in traditional occupations and businesses.

Just as in education, much of what the act directs as far as employment is concerned applies to government employment. Section 20 asks for non-discrimination in employment, and government offices are supposed to provide reasonable accommodations and a barrier-free environment so that persons with disabilities may carry out their responsibilities effectively. If a government employee becomes disabled before their tenure has expired, they need not be demoted or removed but can be shifted to another role on the same pay scale.

Section 21 states that every government establishment shall have an equal opportunity policy. To ensure greater accountability, section 22 mandates recordkeeping in all employment-related matters, including documenting information regarding those with disabilities seeking employment. These records may be inspected at any time.

As per section 33 in chapter 6, up to 4 percent of positions for any government posts are to be reserved for applicants with benchmark disabilities. While the act mentions that there should be incentives for private companies, it doesn’t explicitly lay out what these should be.

Additionally, plans for government buildings are supposed to be approved only if they are disability-friendly. The act also specifies a time period of five years within which all existing government buildings are to be retrofitted with disability-friendly infrastructure.

Healthcare and allowances

Some of the healthcare-related specifications listed in chapter 5 include the provision of free healthcare in the vicinity of persons with disabilities, barrier-free access in all parts of government and private hospitals/health centres, and priority attendance and treatment. It mentions that there should be schemes to promote healthcare and prevent the occurrence of disabilities. A relevant example is the nationwide Disease Eradication Programme that the Government of India launched in 2021 to eliminate malaria, elephantiasis (lymphatic filariasis), and kala-azar.

Other measures for prevention of disabilities are also recommended—conducting surveys, investigations, and research regarding the occurrence of disabilities and organising annual screenings for children to identify at-risk cases. The act instructs healthcare centres, primary schools, anganwadis, etc. to undertake concerted public awareness campaigns as well.

The act specifies that aids and appliances and corrective surgery may be offered for free to persons within a given income bracket. Certain states, such as Delhi and Punjab, have launched schemes that enable persons with benchmark disabilities to receive assistive devices. Disability pensions and caregiver allowance for those with high support needs are also mentioned. Recognising the extra costs that living with disabilities might entail, persons with disabilities are entitled to a 25 percent higher allowance than others under social security schemes.

Recreation and cultural life

Recognising that persons with disabilities have the right to an adequate standard of living and a cultural life, section 29 of chapter 5 states that recreational activities should be made available to them. It lays out a few provisions, such as having a disability history museum, grants and sponsorships for artists with disabilities, making art accessible to people with disabilities, the use of assistive tech, and redesigning the arts curriculum so that persons with disabilities can also participate.

What are the duties of the government?

1. Collecting information on persons with disabilities

The act has a data-oriented approach to disability, as is evidenced by the stipulations on data collection by many different agencies. For example, other than the data collection by local governments, government offices, and healthcare authorities, the act directs the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to maintain a record of persons with disabilities so that their access to safety measures during emergencies can be guaranteed. The NDMA is also expected to circulate information in forms that are accessible to persons with disabilities, and their needs are to be taken care of when planning for reconstruction activities as well.

2. Enabling accessibility and inclusion

The act prescribes that all public spaces—including schools, government offices, primary healthcare centres, and public transport—be made accessible to all. It also mandates ensuring the accessibility of polling stations and any government papers or publications as well as improved access to justice, which includes facilitating the recording of testimonies of persons with disabilities.

3. Appointing officials, advisory bodies, and special courts

The act asks for the establishment of a number of government positions to ensure adherence to it. Every public institution is required to have a grievance redressal officer, for instance, and any person who feels discriminated against when applying for a position may seek redressal through this office. If this also proves unsatisfactory, they may complain to the district-level committee on disability.

A Central Advisory Board on Disability and State Advisory Boards on Disability have also been set up under the act. The members of these boards are from the ministries and departments concerned with disabilities at the central and state levels, joint secretaries from a number of departments including health and education, and disability experts—a proportion of whom must be disabled, women, and belonging to SC or ST communities. These bodies meet every six months to take stock of how far the spirit of the disability law is being preserved in different policies.

The act prescribes the appointment of a chief commissioner and state commissioners (whom the grievance redressal officers report to) for persons with disabilities. These commissioners are accorded powers similar to that of a civil court. They must promote research and see to it that the existing laws and provisions are useful for persons with disabilities, and make recommendations if they’re not. Any suggestions made by the chief or state commissioner should be acted upon within three months.

The act also instructs that a special court be established to try offences against persons with disabilities and calls for the appointment of special public prosecutors for the same.

How is the 2016 act different?

Both the 1995 and 2016 acts have provisions for data collection and recordkeeping, accessible education, healthcare, and employment, reservation, and special government offices to see to the implementation of disability law. Both acts also require regular screenings to be conducted and certain measures to be taken to prevent disabilities.

However, the 2016 act is different in a few respects.

1. Rights-based focus

The act not only guarantees inclusion and accessibility rights to persons with disabilities, but also looks at the right to enjoy art and culture and recreational activities, to live independently or with a community, and to choose one’s caregivers. These provisions are in place to give more agency to persons with disabilities.

There is also an acknowledgement of the diversity within the disability community, on grounds of gender, age, and socio-economic background. Moreover, while there is a lot of emphasis on research and data collection to promote understanding and make appropriate policies on disability, the act explicitly states that no person with disability shall be subjected to research without informed consent.

2. Tangible provisions and grievance redressal mechanisms

While the 1995 act had clauses on accessibility and inclusion, including making government buildings barrier-free and conducting regular screenings, the 2016 act makes more concrete provisions by specifying a time period within which such activities are to be undertaken.

While the 1995 act did not have explicit penalties for any offences under it and left these to the discretion of the judicial authority overseeing a particular case, the 2016 act clearly specifies what manner of fines and imprisonment should follow offences. For instance, an offender will be fined INR 10,000 for their first offence under the act, and subsequent offences will merit a fine of INR 50,000–5 lakh. Fraudulently availing benefits under the act could result in fines as well as imprisonment.

The current status

While the act requires buildings to be updated, the most recent Central Advisory Board meeting concluded that progress was slow on some fronts, such as the retrofitting of existing buildings. Budgetary allocations remain low as well. Similarly, being recognised as disabled does not always equal access to government schemes. For instance, although acid attack victims are recognised as persons with disabilities by the act, there are gaps in access to disability certificates, employment, disability support, and subsidies. Government officials are also not always sensitised to the needs of persons with disabilities, and disability pensions fall short of truly addressing the needs of those targeted by such schemes.

However, covering a greater number of disabilities is a necessary first step towards inclusion. And while mass education and sensitisation will take sustained efforts, recent judgements and guidelines by the chief commissioner, the Election Commission, and the Bombay High Court show that the concerns of persons with disabilities are being regarded with greater seriousness.

—

Know more

• Read India’s national policy on persons with disabilities here.
• Read this article to learn how benevolent ableism harms persons with disabilities.
• Read this article to learn how building accessibility norms laid down by the 2016 disability law are faring.
• Read this article to learn how attitudinal barriers faced by persons with disability.

India has a diverse coastline stretching over approximately 7,500 km, encompassing 75 fishing zones. The marine fisheries sector, sustaining the livelihoods of around four million people, plays a pivotal role in this coastal landscape.

What are coastal commons?

Coasts are the interfaces between the land and the sea. They involve close and complex interactions and outcomes between social and ecological subsystems, involving plant-animal-environmental relationships.

Coastal commons comprise diverse, interacting resource systems – mangroves, water, pastures, beaches, estuaries, reefs and fish. They may include sandy shores, placid backwaters, laterite cliffs, granite rocks, mangroves, mudflats, sand dunes and pebble bays.

These spaces serve important economic, ecological, social, cultural and
recreational functions in coastal and fishing communities. They are used for fishing activities such as fish landing, fish drying, docking, parking boats but also for recreation, relaxation, religious celebrations and cultural expressions.

Social scientists often include people living on the coasts within the scope of commons, along with their relationship with local natural resources and the rules they come up with. In that sense, commons include the local community, the values and norms of those who practise commons, the “commoners.”

How do local communities use coastal commons?

In traditional fishing villages of south India, people often live right on the coast, park their boats and keep their gear right on the shores. “Others such as the Waghers in Gujarat and West Bengal’s Sagar Islanders maintain permanent residences inland and alternate occupations as cultivators and daily-wage labourers. During the fishing season, these communities relocate their entire households, livestock and all, to temporary shore-side settlements and devote their labours primarily to fishing,” notes a booklet published by Dakshin Foundation, a Bengaluru-based conservation group.

The men of the community often launch and land rafts, canoes and small boats from these shores. They operate shore seine units that engage 20-50 fishers, including elderly fishermen and those who are unable to join a boat’s crew. The shores are used as boat yards and people make and mend nets and lines there. Women dry, smoke and salt fish here.

Fishers often use cliffs and rocks as high points to get a clear view of the sea and the sky around to assess the weather conditions. They also serve as way markers clearly visible offshore. Granite rocks such as the ones on the shores of Kovalam and the laterite ones near Varkala in Thiruvananthapuram act as rich habitats of mussels, bivalves and crustaceans such as lobsters supporting livelihoods of free divers and shoreline fishers.

In the unique, brackish waters of estuaries, fishes breed, plants and animals thrive, mudflats housing oysters and clams. These places are natural harbours where fishers can safely dock or park on the banks of the rivers and lagoons.

What are some of the ecological benefits of coastal commons?

Coasts support bursts of biodiversity or a variety of life forms. “Diverse fauna such as lizards, snakes, beetles, mice, hares, foxes and antelope such as the blackbuck thrive in coastal sand dunes, while bivalve, octopi and crustaceans are plentiful in rocky shores,” Dakshin Foundation marine biologists note.

Mangroves, coral reefs, seaweed forests, mudflats, salt marshes and seagrass meadows and green belts of forests or plantations protect the coasts from waves, surges, high tides, tsunamis, sea level rise, and subsequent flooding and erosion. During the 2004 Asian tsunami, mangroves famously saved many lives across South and Southeast Asia.

Coastal wetlands are carbon sinks that absorb excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They accumulate 15 to 50 times more carbon per unit area than forests on land. Therefore, they are considered immensely valuable nature-based solutions to global warming.

How are coastal commons governed?

Community ownership and control of local resources for the “common good” is the norm promoted by the Indian Constitution. The Forest Rights Act 2006 also protects community rights over commons. The Environmental Impact Assessment Notification 2006 provides opportunities for community participation in decision-making for development projects. The Coastal Regulation Zone Notification 2011 defines coastal conservation and governance frameworks.

Communities often use these laws and international norms to protect the commons. There are also traditional ways that coastal commons are managed and conserved.

In South India and elsewhere, fishers deploy creative and equitable resource-sharing practices to use coastal commons. The ooru panchayats (village councils) in Tamil Nadu and Dheevara karayogam, Jamaats and Christian parish committees of Kerala are some of the socio-religious bodies that regulate the use of commons amongst fishers. In Kerala, a system called padu defines rights over fish stock and boundaries of fishing grounds.

The dynamic nature of coastal commons makes governance challenging.

However, the area of the commons keeps shifting. Unlike the built, solid, stable urban spaces, marine and coastal areas are fluid, moving masses that change size, shape and texture continually. For instance, a sandy shore may lose parts during the monsoon season when the waves carve out its parts. After the rains when the wind, currents and wave movements shift, they may transport back the sediment taken away and build back the beach. A paper published in the International Journal of the Commons in January 2024 underlines the dynamic character of the coastal areas by saying, “Water use and control in one place may have significant repercussions elsewhere. For example, currents and tides transport nutrients, pollution, salt, sediments and other substances, having ecological consequences over a wide area and affecting and often dispossessing other potential and existing uses.”

“The dynamic nature of coastal commons makes governance challenging,” says Nandakumar D., Professor of Geography (adjunct) at Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady, Kerala. “Mapping, territoriality, fluidity of the sea-land relations — all these can be complex. This complexity can make claims for space difficult,” Nandakumar says, based on his experience in community mapping of Coastal Regulation Zone violations.

What are the pressures on coastal commons?

Rights over coastal commons are often contested. Complex and simultaneous challenges due to the over-capacity of the fishing fleet, over-fishing, climate change, marine pollution and coastline erosion due to infrastructure development projects make them increasingly vulnerable. This trend is pronounced on the southwestern Indian coast, one of the densest habitats of artisanal fishers. Fishers are often driven out of these places for roads, ports, disaster risk reduction measures and tourism, as news reports show.

Coastal ecosystems are fragile, complex, and often poorly understood.

“In particular, the discourses of ‘blue economy’ and ‘blue growth’ have become powerful buzzwords,” writes Synn Movik of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in a recent research article on contested coastal commons. A blue economy involves sustainable development defined differently and involves diverse activities such as fishing and aquaculture, shipping, mining, renewable energy, and marine biotechnology. Currently estimated at $1.5 trillion per year globally, the blue economy is set to double by 2030.

“There is a lack of consensus on what the ‘blue economy’ encompasses as there are multiple perspectives, including viewing oceans as ‘natural capital,’ as ‘good business,’ but also as important for ‘small-scale fisher livelihoods,’” Movik points out.

“Moreover, coastal ecosystems are fragile, complex, and often poorly understood. The pressures on them are increasing, not only from climate change but also from economic development interests, causing,” Movik and colleagues noted in a study published last year, on Mumbai’s Koli fishers. They critique the city planners’ age-old practice of reclaiming the sea and turning it into profitable real estate. Such acts threaten to undermine the city’s ecological integrity and its coastal communities, the authors caution.

A recent study that reviewed a major port project in Vizhinjam village of Thiruvananthapuram documented details of the local coastal commons – rocky reefs and rich and diverse fish stock threatened by the venture. For centuries, the local fishers exercised shared rights and responsibilities here. The report noted that there are clear norms about when, where, and under what conditions different user groups can fish in the local waters. The study team called the coastal commons “lifelines of our coexistence with nature” and urged to “cherish and protect” these treasures.

Dakshin Foundation scientists caution, “Restricted and altered access to coastal commons creates widespread livelihood loss and displacement among fisher communities that also adds to the burden of poverty in urban areas where these groups migrate in search of alternative opportunities.”

Movik calls attention to spatial dimensions of social struggles for rights and access in marine and coastal areas, or the ‘blue commons’. Such systems question the notion that resource users selfishly overuse commons. While some policies and practices lead to resource destruction, some resource users invest time and energy to sustain environmental resources, as political thinker Elinor Ostrom argued.

This article was originally published on Mongabay.

Hailing from Rajasthan’s Rajsamand district, Shankar Singh is a social and political activist, musician, lyricist, theatre artist, and storyteller. He co-founded the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) alongside prominent activists Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey. MKSS is known for its role in advocating for and implementing the Right to Information Act (RTI) in the country.

Shankar Singh has employed a variety of creative strategies to champion the rights of marginalised labourers and farmers, focusing on issues such as wages, employment, and other government social entitlements. His approach is marked by a unique blend of entertainment, music, and sharp wit and satire. He has led many successful movements and campaigns, both at the grassroots and national level. Notably, he has contributed to the implementation of landmark schemes like MGNREGA and government processes such as social audits.

In this conversation with IDR, which is the first of two episodes, Shankar Singh delves into the complexities of building a movement, shedding light on how the journey of a movement is charted and the concerted efforts required for it to succeed. He also offers valuable perspectives on identifying grassroots issues and building effective communication channels for collaboration between the government and the people.

Here are some highlights from the conversation:

00:22 | On early life and influences

After finishing school, parents insist that their kids take up some or the other job. I don’t have any brothers or sisters. My father died early on, so my mother became a widow at a very young age. She told me to think about getting a job since she wouldn’t be able to educate me any further. So, I moved to the city.

While doing all these jobs, I ended up at a place where there was a nonprofit organisation nearby. Chance, it was all chance. I asked [the people there], “What is going on here?” and someone responded, “This is an organisation.” “What do they do?” I asked. “This is a nonprofit,” they said. I told them I had never understood what nonprofits do. “They talk about why the condition of the poor is what it is, why there is poverty, how to face it—they talk about that.” I asked about money (salary). They said that people are paid for their work.

“So you get paid for talking?” I asked. Then I said that for money, even I would talk.

As soon as I entered that nonprofit, I felt that there were many types of people there. Some had started working and then left their jobs, and some had MBBS degrees, some had done engineering, some had done a law course. And among them was Aruna, who had left the IAS. I thought, why do they come here, [what do they hope] to achieve by leaving everything? This curiosity gave me many opportunities. The nonprofit took away my fervour of being a teacher, and working there for a year changed my mindset.

08.29 | On the formation of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS)

[When we started working in Devdungri, people] knew that I was a local from this area, and would call me Shankar mama because my sister-in-law’s house is here. People started asking, “What do you want to do?” You know, when you set out to find out something about people, before that they want to know about you. “Who are you, why are you doing this, what do you get, how much money are you paid, and what’s in it for you?”

Then they thought that we had come here to earn more. People started asking, what they will earn in this house? How? Will they plant mines or do something else? We started talking to them. I said that we want people to think about what they need and how we can help them.

The first person who came to us was [a local named] Lal Singh. Lal Singh ji had come to our place to work as a mason, to do some kitchen repairs. He also asked us what we wanted to do here. We told him that we will do this…even I was not very clear. He said, “We have a big issue [in our village]. We have a jagirdar (feudal landlord)—a thakur—and he is very cruel. He beats whoever he wants and no one can file a complaint against him with the police because he is a jagirdar.”

The villagers kept trying to figure out how to confront that jagirdar, but were beaten up every time. We said that we will talk in your village, and so we got a chance.

It took a year for the village to gradually unite, and that was because of Lal Singh ji. Some families were still in favour of the jagirdar. Some land was collectively allotted to the village. The organisation (MKSS) had not been formed till then.

When we went to measure the land, the thakur attacked us. He attacked the villagers as well. This news reached Sohangadh village and, the following day, at least 50–60 people from there arrived here on foot. They said that they would go and fight [the jagirdar]. We said no and decided to go to the village and have a talk. The next day we held a meeting in the village. That was the first time we had a choice [between violence and non-violence]. We could have taken the path of violence since we had been beaten up. Those villagers could have gone and beaten up the thakur, and there would have been no solution to what would have followed. Each party would be violent to the other and take turns. So we said no, we do not want to take that route. The entire village—children, women, everyone—walked 11 km to Bhim. At that time, just one village was involved in this. We walked through the village telling people about the thakur and ended up outside the office of the tehsil Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM). We sat there all day long. The thakur was arrested in the evening, and the news spread in the entire area. People started speculating about how much influence ‘these people from Devdungri’ (referring to Aruna, Nikhil, and me) wielded since they got that thakur arrested. “He is a jagirdar, but he was arrested. There is something very special about them.” After that we started working in this area. This incident is from 1987. In 1990, the organisation (MKSS) was set up.

17.02 | On agitating for the Right to Information

When this movement started, what was the first question we asked? We did not say that you (the government) should improve our education system, that you do all these things for us, make our health systems equal. We had asked a question. The people in the villages where we went and held meetings had said that they (government works) do not pay us the full amount. They do not pay full wages. We said to them that this is the question we should be asking the government. I told them thatwe will not go, you all come along, and together we will ask why you aren’t paid the full amount you’re owed.

So when I went to [the government official] and asked him why he does not pay people the full amount, he said that they do not do the full work. [Then the people said,] “But even when we did the full work, you didn’t give full wages.” He said that there must be some other reason for this. I asked, “What is that reason? Show us the documents. Show me that paper in which you noted down how much work someone has done and how much they were paid for it.” [The government official replied,] “How can I show you these documents? They are government documents.”

When he refused to show us the papers, we contemplated what to do next. I suggested, “Hold a protest in front of their place, sit in front of the tehsil, sit in front of the BDO’s office.”

The following day the SDM invited a couple of representatives from the protest. “Those of you who are the main people, come here. I will show you the muster roll because collector sir said so,” he stated. I was very happy that this victory happened on the first day itself. As soon as I went inside, he ‘showed’ us the paper [by quickly opening and closing it]. We said, “Not like this, give us a photocopy of it.” He replied, “How can I give you a photocopy? That is not possible.”

The collector said, “Tell them they won’t be given photocopies. As if we can give just anybody photocopies! There is no law like this. Do one thing: Tell them to copy it by hand. Write it down. But no photocopies.”

We felt that all right, we got one victory. We manually took down the muster roll, and they insisted we use pencils instead of pens.

As soon as we reached the village, we began reading it aloud. The villagers inquired, “What are you reading?” I replied, “This patwar ghar (land records office) was constructed here. These individuals had been employed here.” [The villagers replied,] “But how is his name on it? He died a while back.” “She also had passed away before the construction of this.” “She was not present at the time.”

One of them (a government official) walked over to me, peered over my shoulder at the paper, and said, “Oh, this paper is fake.” I asked, “Why?” [He replied,] “It is written in pencil, you will write anything and bring it, is this a government paper? Government paper is printed, not written in pencil. These people are lying!”

We came to the conclusion that there is no other way. We will have to sit in protest again, so we mobilised people. Leave everything else, we should have the right to see these documents. The slogan was raised: Leke rahenge hum iss baar, soochna ka adhikaar. (This time we will win the right to information.)

We persevered for as long as we could because we wanted to have that law. We did not get tired…it was the government that eventually relented, leading to the implementation of the Right to Information Act.

24.18 | On building and sustaining mass movements

I understood that there isn’t some book where it’s written what you need to do to sustain a movement. When you go among people and actually work, that is when one gets to learn, and one’s own values are determined. 

This work is such that it is not possible to do it alone. Hundreds of people have contributed in this. No one can carry any movement alone. I am the one telling you all this, but it was a movement that depended a lot on what people believed, and the methodology was also determined.

In the movement, people came from one place to another, paying their own fare to sit in the protest. In their minds, they realised how important this is. At that time perhaps people might not have thought how the Right to Information [Act] would help them, because at that time they were thinking about wages. Their wages were stuck. As soon as people demanded information, they didn’t receive the information but they received their wages due to the fear that if the information was released, it would lead to bigger revelations.

26.23 | On mobilising for the right to information in a politically charged environment

Today… corruption has reached a level where there is complete complicity in corruption. This includes [government] employees, leaders, and some common people too. There is severe corruption due to the nexus of all three. That corruption will come out only because of your RTI.

Today, the matter is an electronic one—the computer has arrived. Everything is here, but what are you (the government) trying to show? You are showing what you want to show. What you don’t want to show, we all know that you won’t. Suo moto, we say in the RTI Act’s Section 4. Information has to be shown to citizens suo moto. In Rajasthan, there is the Jan Soochna Portal. You can see all the information in that portal. Where is my pension stuck? What is the reason for it being stuck?

In a way, this era of RTI will continue only if there is a movement today. In places where people are fighting and struggling together, they get the information they need and there is no murder. Those who are fighting alone are being murdered. We used it (the RTI) the most in the organisation (MKSS). [We] got public hearings done, got everything done, but they know that this is a group that is fighting for a cause together. It is not that we have never been beaten up or assaulted, but when a group is formed, it has its own strength.

30.45 | On keeping the democratic spirit alive

Look, no matter who wins, this is a democracy; whoever wins, that government is ours. We cannot say that this government is not ours, and we will not talk to it. Because our dialogue will be with whoever is in power. There will be no dialogue with the one who loses. But we will have to have a dialogue with the one who won. This is democracy, if you are sitting on that chair then we will communicate with you. We also raise the same slogans: Sarkaar humare aap ki, nahin kisi ke baap ki (the government is ours, not one person’s property) or Yeh desh hamare aap ka, nahin kisi ke baap ka (this country is ours, not someone’s father’s).

Read the full transcript here, and watch the second part of the Shankar Singh interview where he speaks about the role of music and theatre in driving social movements.

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Know more

• Watch this TEDx Talk by Shankar Singh to learn more about how the RTI Act came to be.
• Read more about why we need more accountability laws with rising attacks on RTI activists.
• Read about a day in the life of an eMitra who enables citizens to access their rights digitally.

In the process, we run rough-shod over local communities, Indigenous peoples and the environment. The current system is clearly unfair and relates to a deeply moral issue: what kind of planet and society are we leaving our children and future generations?

Anti-extractivism and resource nationalism

Almost everyone finds some mining objectionable, be it the mine in our village or all coal mines in the world; mining from the oceans or extracting in protected areas. 

Yet almost no-one demands a complete stop to all extraction planet-wide. Because it would mean no more phones or cars, no iron or gold, and everyone would be living in houses made from plants. This is quite unimaginable, and many peoples’ living conditions still need to improve.

In minerals-rich countries, two visions exist simultaneously. At the local level, anti-extractivist communities rightly object to mines in their areas, while at the national level, there is hope that selling minerals would help eliminate poverty and bring prosperity (“resource nationalism”). How can we reconcile these perspectives?

Natural resources as a shared inheritance

Where extraction does go ahead, all stakeholders must be treated fairly: extractors, employees and contractors, governments, local communities, the environment, etc. But a key stakeholder is usually forgotten: the owner of the minerals before extraction.

Nation states have permanent sovereignty over their natural resources. Ownership of minerals is usually assigned to some level of government representing a collective (state/province, tribe, etc.). In effect, minerals are held on behalf of the people that constitute the collective. And since the collective is a perpetual, multi-generational entity, the natural resources are the right of all future generations as well.

If we see natural resources as a shared inheritance, from the mineral owner’s perspective, extraction is the conversion of mineral wealth into other forms of wealth. Intergenerational equity and sustainability require us to ensure that future generations inherit at least as much as we did. 

We then have two choices. 

Either the anti-extractivist way: leaving the minerals where they are, our children will inherit them like we did, this is the only way to achieve intergenerational equity.

Or the resource nationalist way: extracting and investing to ensure our children inherit total assets that are at least as valuable as the extracted minerals.

How can the people benefit from their natural resources, now and in the future?

If extraction is essentially the conversion of wealth, then the extractor is merely an outsourced wealth management service provider, who should be managed, regulated and paid accordingly. 

The goal of the mineral-owning representative government should be zero loss in value in the conversion process. Unfortunately, huge losses are common place, and what is received is treated as income and consumed. 

Between the extractor, the politicians and their cronies, the desire for wealth and retaining power drives most of the human rights and environmental abuses that accompany extraction. 

Present and future generations are being cheated, and in a cruel twist, the wealth that is being stolen from them is being used to sustain the corrupt system. 

In order to achieve fair mining, beyond zero loss when selling mineral wealth, the entire mineral sale proceeds must be invested in assets that retain value over generations. Traditionally, this was land, precious metals and stones. Today, Norway’s oil fund, as an endowment fund with inflation-proofing, is rightly considered a best practice in saving for future generations. 

And the income from the fund should be distributed equally to the general population as a commons dividend. Future generations will inherit the fund and benefit from it. 

Crucially, the dividend creates a link between the entire population and their fund and mineral inheritances, which then makes zero loss more likely in practice.

From an economic standpoint, it is easy to show that this is superior to current best practice. And most of all, it is fair.

But this is not enough. Extraction impacts other inheritances and fair mining requires them to be properly addressed as well:

1. To protect the environment and local communities, under the Precautionary Principle, we must create no-go areas. We must guarantee local communities’ Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), ensure strong environmental regulations, and prohibit potentially high-risk practices. We must cap extraction across multiple projects to limit cumulative damage. Under the Polluter Pays Principle, we must require the Mitigation Hierarchy–avoid, restore, offset, compensate. We should leave future generations with more forests, clear streams, etc. than we have. Mining projects should improve the environment and leave the community better off, not simply avoid harming them. Some minerals like fossil fuels have trans-national impacts, and this again requires both capping extraction globally as well as compensating for loss and damages.

2. The jobs and income that extraction creates are also inherited opportunities that deplete with extraction. This understanding drives the widespread demands for local content, local procurement and local employment. Mineral owners must have the first right to these opportunities. Further, extraction must be capped to ensure future generations can also benefit from the income from extraction. 

3. Similarly, the opportunity to use the mineral for useful things (swords or ploughshares) is a valuable one-time inheritance. This understanding drives some countries to designate some of their minerals as strategic reserves for future generations to use while importing minerals for their current needs. 

4. Another inheritance is the opportunity to use extraction to develop other aspects of the society. Some countries have deliberately used a new mine to create shared-use infrastructure at low incremental cost. Other countries insist on domestic value addition, with the eventual goal to create core competencies. As these are one-time opportunities, it is essential to capitalize on them.

What could this mean for civil society?

Protecting great inherited wealth against theft, loss or waste requires a mindset of stewardship to ensure we fulfil our duty to ensure future generations inherit at least as much as we did. This suggests potential global campaigns for the civil society:

1. In order to prevent theft during the extraction process, the trustee/manager must implement a first-rate control system. This includes a high security mineral supply chain system, best practices from outsourcing contracts, system auditors, a whistleblower reward and protection scheme, etc.

2. Thieves should not be entrusted with humankind’s wealth. Further, minerals are a regular part of money laundering/terrorism finance. Fit and Proper Person Tests (and Integrity Due Diligence more generally) are essential for all involved in handling our wealth.

3. We each have a duty to future generations to ensure that our shared inheritance is intact. Therefore, the people, as the real owners, should be empowered to verify that their duty to future generations has been fulfilled. This requires Radical Transparency including open access to the public to all data in real time at no cost. Extractors should be required by law to disclose all extraction information without exception. This goes far beyond the EITI standard.

Only if ALL of this takes place would we truly achieve intergenerational equity and sustainability. Anything less cheats our future generations of their inheritance–they would prefer we leave the minerals in the ground. We hope more in civil society will join with us to advocate for the shared inheritance approach to mineral wealth and extractives. Together, we can make great changes!

This article has been lightly edited by the authors for IDR. This article was originally published on Publish What You Pay.

In 2008, the National Commission for Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes roughly estimated the NT-DNT population in India as 10–12 crore, that is, approximately 10 percent of the country’s population. And yet they are not counted in the census conducted by the government. Most of them do not have any land in their name, which prevents them from accessing several social welfare schemes.

Public services are usually not planned keeping NT-DNTs in mind. Their needs are different because they are constantly moving. They typically reside in kaccha tent houses or pakka rented rooms and struggle to access basic amenities such as water, sanitation, and electricity. The kaccha tent houses are built on any available piece of land and cannot have toilets inside them, so they have to resort to open defecation or visit paid or communal toilets.

In order to highlight the sanitation needs of NT-DNTs, Anubhuti Trust—a nonprofit that works with marginalised communities for the recognition of their rights—conducted an audit of the sanitation facilities for NT-DNTs in Thane district, Maharashtra. Based on our findings, we prepared a list of recommendations in our report Toilet for Tents. The entire process from conceptualisation to execution was led by youth and women from NT-DNT and Bahujan communities. The findings are from 209 interviews conducted with individuals from 11 NT-DNT communities residing in 22 pockets, 14 bastis (slums), and 6 municipal corporations of Thane. Twenty-eight toilets, of which 20 were community toilets and eight were pay-and-use ones, were audited. The conditions described below are applicable to both types of toilets. While pay-and-use toilets had better facilities, they remain inaccessible to NT-DNTs as they cannot afford to pay for them.  

Here are the main findings and recommendations from the report.

1. Recognise nomadic and denotified tribes and their patterns

Among those surveyed, 58.8 percent were living in kaccha tent houses and the rest in pakka rented rooms. These communities move from one place to another throughout the year. However, their migration route is planned and they stay at fixed or nearby spots every year for the same amount of time. Currently, the NT-DNT population is neither counted nor taken into consideration while planning for the provision of sanitation services. Therefore, it is important for the administration to recognise their migratory patterns (which are based on work opportunities), count them officially, and provide sanitation facilities accordingly. These can be constructed or mobile toilets in the locations where families set up their tent homes.

This is also how the audit was conducted—the community members that led the process took the community leaders’ help to identify where families were staying. Twenty-two pockets within the 14 bastis surveyed were home to approximately 6,880 families, but this data isn’t recorded anywhere.

2. Include NT-DNTs in government schemes

Certain social welfare schemes require households to provide proof of ownership of a house or of land to avail the benefits they offer. An example is the Swachh Bharat Mission, which aimed to make India open-defecation free by 2019 by providing access to toilets to all rural households. However, such schemes exclude nomadic populations and don’t have any provisions for the homeless who don’t own land or a permanent home. This is evident from the survey as eight out of 10 NT-DNT community members did not have a toilet at home.

These are the communities that provide the essential services of building, cleaning, and maintaining villages and cities. But they are denied basic amenities and have to use paid public toilets or are forced to defecate in the open, which poses a threat to their dignity, privacy, and safety. So, it is even more important that provisions be made for allocation of housing and land to NT-DNT communities and for their active inclusion in social welfare schemes and planning.

3. Build better toilets and improve existing ones

Seventy-four percent of those who were surveyed reported that they have a public toilet in the area they reside in, but that these are too far away from their homes since they live on the outskirts of the bastis. Eighty percent stated that they have to defecate in the open. This is due to several reasons. One of them is that when they try to access public toilets, the attendants and security guards often ill-treat them.

Some toilets didn’t have basic facilities such as basins and dustbins; only four out of 10 toilets had a window. While 67.8 percent toilets were open 24 hours (the rest were closed at night), it was difficult to use them because, along with the cleanliness issues and discrimination faced by the community members, 88 interviewees reported that the toilets near them did not have lighting. The water supply was also inconsistent in 16 toilets; six of these did have water but remained closed at night. This is why 62.3 percent respondents said that they have no option but to go out in the open at night.

The basic facilities provided at existing toilets must be improved immediately and new toilets must be built near NT-DNT settlements. In 78 percent of the areas surveyed, respondents said that officials from the municipal corporation or nagar parishad never inspected the public toilets. The new toilets should be public, free, government-owned, and inspected regularly.

4. Make toilets safer for women and transpersons

Women and transpersons reported feeling unsafe—some toilets didn’t have locks or even doors, in addition to being unclean and not lit properly. These conditions force them to defecate in the open, but the security guards nearby shout at them and women and transpersons are harassed by men.

The survey also found that six out of 10 toilets did not have any attendants. For the safety of women and transpersons, attendants should be allotted to all the toilets and be sensitised to their needs. CCTV cameras must be installed in the vicinity of the toilets to prevent harassment. Separate toilets for men and women and at least one gender-neutral toilet should be built in each area to make it more comfortable for transpersons to use these facilities.

5. Make toilets accessible for persons with disabilities

Out of the 28 toilets audited, only one had a support railing. There were no other facilities available for persons with disabilities. The one toilet that had been built for them was run-down, and its path was blocked by rocks and debris.

These sanitation facilities can only be accessible if every toilet has a ramp, support railing, appropriate basin height, and at least one separate toilet stall that is disability-friendly.

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Know more

• Read this report on community-youth-led research on NT-DNTs’ access to toilets at MSRTC bus depots.
• Read this article to understand the social exclusion suffered by the nomadic and denotified tribes in urban India.
• Read this article to learn about the mental well-being of denotified tribes in India.

Since India has a diverse geography and many social systems, the approaches taken vary from one region to the next. This photo essay documents the efforts of five nonprofits from across the country.

Osmanabad is an aspirational district in Marathwada, a drought-prone region in Maharashtra. Rainfall is irregular, which makes agriculture challenging and directly impacts both income and food security. The pervasive cultivation of cash crops in the area further depletes groundwater levels.

Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP) works with women farmers to help them practise an innovative model called one-acre farming. It started with six women who used 0.5–1 acre of their family land to grow food crops such as vegetables, millets, and pulses—the cultivation of which ensured food security for their families. The women relied on bio-inputs and therefore did not have to spend large amounts on chemical inputs. In addition, they sowed crops that require less water and used sustainable techniques such as drip irrigation and sprinklers. The success of this approach has led to its adoption by thousands of women, who demonstrated the model’s benefits to their families and started practising it on larger plots of land. Eventually, SSP helped women farmers widen their market by setting up a farmer producer organisation.  

Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN)’s work in the plateau regions of West Bengal faced a different challenge. These areas have an undulating topography, and high rainfall and deforestation in the region have led to heavy soil erosion. This has impacted the lives and livelihoods of the tribal communities that live here. While the state government made efforts towards watershed development, there was an urgent need to include locals in designing the solutions meant for them.

PRADAN worked with women’s self-help groups (SHGs), village-level organisations, and cluster-level federations to engage the community in the process. They gathered and discussed their challenges—from food security to water scarcity—and gradually came up with the solutions that worked for them. PRADAN also set up a project management unit to coordinate between grassroots civil society organisations and gram panchayats to develop detailed plans for water conservation. This has helped in the creation of natural water harvesting solutions such as tanks and ponds in villages.  

The Gujarat-based nonprofit Vikram Sarabhai Centre for Development Interaction (VIKSAT) works in the northern districts of the state, such as Banaskantha and Sabarkantha, that have limited groundwater potential due to years of the overuse of chemicals in agriculture, among other reasons. These districts are largely populated by tribal people who have small plots of land and limited means to invest in expensive irrigational measures. 

VIKSAT, which actively involves women farmers in its programmes, has designed a water budgeting exercise; as part of this, the communities maintain a scorecard to keep track of water use in the fields. This has enabled the farmers to leverage data to make collective decisions about farming and has also encouraged them to adopt water conservation techniques such as building field bunds and check dams. Over time, they have also shifted to water-efficient wheat varieties and have started using bio-fertilisers such as cow dung that enrich the soil.

Agriculture is a critical driver of Punjab’s economy, with paddy and wheat—both water-intensive crops—grown extensively in the state. Over the years, this has contributed to depleting groundwater levels: 117 of 150 blocks in the state are overexploited.

Centers for International Projects Trust (CIPT) works with farmer cooperatives in Punjab to promote solutions for the water-efficient cultivation of paddy and wheat, including the use of new technologies. They have, for instance, introduced IoT-based soil moisture sensors that estimate the amount of water needed. When the fields require water, the sensors send advisory text messages to farmers who then irrigate their fields based on these inputs. This helps conserve both water and electricity.

In Balrampur, an aspirational district in eastern Uttar Pradesh, agriculture is increasingly becoming an unviable form of livelihood for small and marginal farmers due to rising input costs and poor yields. People’s Action for National Integration (PANI) has trained an all-women cadre of agri-water professionals. The cadre supports these farmers to adopt simple yet innovative agricultural practices that use resources more efficiently and improve farmers’ yields and incomes. Farmers are encouraged to shift away from entrenched behaviours through a range of approaches—video dissemination sessions where they learn about new irrigation methods, field demonstrations that visualise these techniques, providing access to high-quality seeds, bio-inputs, market linkages, and more.

In an earlier version of this photo essay, the location of the second photograph was incorrectly captured as Binpur village, Jhargram district, West Bengal . This was updated on March 27, 2024, to reflect the accurate location.

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Know more

• Read more about how nonprofits are making agriculture viable for small and marginal farmers.
• Learn about the right to water and how it applies to different groups.
• Learn more about groundwater in India.