taemin taemin again forces you to
navigate through your personal
ideological goals and that you choose to
achieve them I had experienced weakness
and lack of power early on in my life
hence I wanted to be powerful strong and
successful let me explain
while growing up my father used to tell
me stories of him going to swim in a
village River that made me want to learn
how to swim I started going to an
hour-long class right after school while
I loved to swim I was weary of the coach
I had seen him act inappropriately
before he would make comments at a
swimsuit and make passes at us but this
was something which was really not
talked about he had tried to grab me a
few times but I managed to escape one
day when he decided to come inside the
pool to teach us new techniques
I saw him touch inappropriately a girl
in our class I saw it but I did not know
what to do all I could get myself to do
that day was sit next to her quietly to
comfort her there was really no space
within the community or in my family to
talk to talk about these issues so even
if it bothered me a lot I kept it to
myself and somehow keeping it to myself
made me feel like it never happened
I made it easier to move on or so that I
thought a few years later the memory
came back to haunt me at a mass tuition
class it was raining that day has very
few students
showed up for the class teacher gave us
few problems to solve
being an enthusiastic student I finished
it first and as I turned around I saw
teacher standing to a neck a girl in my
class he must have thought nobody was
looking and he grabbed her breasts I was
right there but again I did not know
what to do I thought to myself should I
get up and scream should I get up and
leave or should I just look the other
way I decided to look the other way
while somebody was being abused in my
presence I went home that day with my
head hanging down and all I could think
about is how unjust unfair this world
was I had to share this with someone
hoping that it would make even a small
difference I told it to my mother but
she simply brush it under the rug in
defiance I stopped going to the maths
class and I had to promise myself that
never ever again I will get caught up in
dilemmas whether to act or not in
situations which warranted action I had
to become strong powerful to ensure that
I stand up for justice these instances
of abuse eventually faded in my memory
but they did leave a scar and I can say
it with certainty that almost all of us
have had such experiences the gravity
may differ but all of us have been made
to confront our dilemmas maybe you had
come across someone lying on the street
after an accident and while you are
driving past them you thought to
yourself maybe I should stop maybe to
satisfy the dilemma you thought that Oh
someone will someone else will stop to
help we are not only quick to brush
aside the feeling of failure to other
human being but we come up with clever
arguments to justify our
who would have dealt with the police who
would have gone to court to testify oh I
was already running late instances like
this warrant at least a reflection if
not reaction these are genuine concerns
but they are defining moments in our
making and we have to ask ourselves a
question as to how long can we afford to
be indifferent while the world falls
apart in front of our eyes while I was
grappling with this life questions and
ignored maps
I failed my exams not once not twice but
three times while I’d failed my family’s
expectations the thought of failing my
own expectations again made it
unbearable
what chance was there for me becoming
anything anyone let alone strong
powerful and successful little did I
know there was an opportunity in this
failure too now that the expectations
were all-time low from me I was free to
decide for myself I could have become a
mountaineer seeker healer traveler but
of all thing I decided to become a human
rights lawyer I know being a lawyer
might sound mundane but if you think of
it law is a very powerful tool in the
democracy and a lawyer is a powerful
medium through which justice is ensured
to be delivered and a compassionate
lawyer can be instrumental to bring
about positive change not only inside
but outside the courtrooms with the
lowest resistance court can uphold
rights of hundreds of people and hold
abuses to accountability if you think of
it Court has made several interventions
of behalf of citizens of this country
right to safe motherhood right to
livelihood right to food right to
privacy
to give you an example in 2009 26
families from indigenous communities
were illegally evicted by the government
these families were staying in Central
Delhi for about 70 years with utter
disregard to human life these families
were evicted to build an underpass
between two sports stadiums just so that
the athletes could move conveniently a
woman who used to drive past the slums
every day to drop her kids to school
notice people being evicted and she
decided to do something she contacted us
and I along with my colleagues filed a
petition before the Delhi High Court in
a landmark decision the Delhi High Court
recognized my clients right to housing
the court directed the government to
provide meaningful rehabilitation to the
Ewa Keys within four months meaningful
rehabilitation would mean that the
communities is not pushed to the edges
of the city and left to fend for
themselves but to have the conversation
with them this decision not only helped
lawyers across India to stop number of
other illegal evictions but was also
noted in number of national and
international journals I could say
proudly that this was the case I worked
on but six months later I came across
decline from the same case begging on
the street
and that field felt my heart with sense
of failure as the most celebrated
decision on the housing rights was
reduced to mayor and intellectual
victory there are several such instances
where the court decisions have failed to
trickle down to people
and has failed to become reality
yes law is powerful and lawyers hold the
key to that power because they know how
to interpret simplify and apply the law
but when we fail to transfer that power
that knowledge to people the very system
built to protect and safeguard rights of
the people becomes exploitative codes
are often inaccessible to people who
need this protection the most people
find its grandeur structure at least
language complicated procedure and death
of empathy unnerving even in spite of
all all the people get a favorable
decision its non-implementation Vicks
become the entire process futile in
spite of being a largest democracy why
are we failing to protect marginalized
and vulnerable why are we further
victimizing the victims and why are our
biases against minority becoming even
more stronger I found myself grappling
with these fundamental questions again
but one thing I knew that the top-down
approach I was using was not working was
not working for me was not working for
my clients and I realized it was because
that people do not possess the agency to
put these decisions to use these
victories to use and I found this as a
major gap in my work and a roadblock in
access to delivering of justice I knew
something that I wanted to be the medium
through which the information flows and
not be a barrier sure it was going to be
difficult but when I met two inspiring
women who were also facing similar die
in their work the journey became little
easier we realized that the meaningful
meaningful sustainable change could only
come about from ground up that would
mean sharing information with
communities on their rights and
entitlements and sharing the knowledge
to hold government accountable for
failure in delivering those based on
this premised in 2013 we co-founded nas
D and we have successfully fused
grassroots legal education monitoring
and advocacy to bring access to justice
closer to marginalize in there in Assam
Assam estate which ensure that we have a
cup of chai is also state where tea
plantation workers are living in abject
poverty it’s also the state where most
women die during childbirth due to
anemia and lack of services with the
vision to bring about change we had
decided to Train women living in this
context to share the knowledge of laws
and entitlements which which government
is supposed to provide them and the
knowledge to hold them accountable I had
seen empowerment in action in during one
of our trainings we had shared a phone
number and the women who we were
training had used that number and the
rights based language to file several
complaints on the issues which they were
grappling with seeing the positive
outcome they decided to share this
number with hundreds of people
annotation workers and knowledge how to
file complaints for better delivery of
services within their community it
amazed me to see how
the sharing of one phone number and to
fuse it with rights language gave this
largely illiterate and disappeared
community and Avenue to demand demand
accountability experiences like this
made me realize how important for
skilled professional is to work from the
bottom up how important it is for
lawyers doctors ingenious architect
researchers to contribute in work from
bottom up but I have seen this happen
very rarely and that got me thinking why
why was it like that maybe our families
our society and even our education
system has over the time narrowed the
scope of word success before we know it
we are pushed into lucrative spaces we
like it or not and we get caught up in
in the rut of it and we forget to pause
to think to question to give you an
example Law School’s
requires their first-year interns to go
and work with NGOs and as they mature in
their thinking in their studies their
options trickle down to intern with the
corporate firms legal aid clinics are
either non-existent or defunct in most
of this Institute’s why is the option of
working on the social justice issues is
been systematically taken away why are
the students given an illusion of choice
at the critical stages of this career
and when did this shift in our thinking
happen and big that shift happen
naturally or we have been fed day in and
we need to reclaim the space we need to
reclaim the space
to define success for ourselves and not
being bullied by the rhetoric which has
been fed to us our entire lives I’m here
to put that option back of working with
people on the table as that matters the
most I wanted to be successful powerful
and strong but meaning of these words
have changed for me over the time power
do not mean to me to have several people
at my back in my call but it means to
stand up with them at the time of the
need strength do not mean that I
monopolize knowledge but it means to
share and to build collaborations and
success means to be able to give back to
contribute in building ground up
empowerment I did not do anything which
was conventionally considered successful
but I find myself happy strong and
powerful and I wonder how would you
define success for yourself and how consciously would you do that