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Great 35, MKSS

It's been 35 years , (1990 to 2025), since we assembled at Bhim, in Rajsamand District to launch the MKSS.  The early years were tumultuous but the path to equality and justice was clear, and the impediments many. 

The minimum wages battles led to the RTI and MGNREGA and later to the Rights based laws. The years have passed packed with the million issues of denial of basic rights to survive, yet the struggle continues,  despite usympathetic structures and governments. 

Work and workers  now operate in  a different paradigm. The laws have changed and work is contract work, without guarantees. The Gig Workers law, a law for old age pension and an urban employment scheme amongst otgers have seen the light of day. 

The few windows of opportunities we  see, have been relentlessly pursued. 

We celebrate today's Mazdoor Mela in Bhim, in the spirit of a celebration of ourselves and our struggles - the right to survive with dignity and joy.

Aruna, Nikhil and Shankar and the MKSS.

https://www.freedominfo.org/2004/06/the-right-to-know-is-the-right-to-live-3/ 

https://youtu.be/-TXSb2ofJLM  Shankar : Hum Kya Mange

Nikhil De On 15 years of RTI  https://youtu.be/1Q_XUnNfHaQ

 

 

 

I am not your Apology _ farahdeen

And I must speak, not softly but starkly:
I am no confessor for a stranger’s sins.
No tribunal sits above my brow.
I owe no one the hippodrome of guilt.
The sun rises without my bidding,
and so too do the madmen fall—without my nod.

I am Indian. Not as an addendum.

https://www.farahdeen.com/2025/04/i-am-not-your-apology.html

Sanjay Singhvi - His indomitable Spirit of Activism lives on

Sanjay Singhvi was a signatory to the registration of doccentre as Centre for Education & Documentation in 1978.  Barely out of the Xaverian Union Agitation, where he finally went on a fast unto death for 9 days, he spent hours on the typewriter and cyclostyling machine preparing handouts on the issues of the day.    It is too much to ask him to Rest. We therefore wish him "Amar Rahe"

Indira Jaisingh's tribute https://theleaflet.in/miscellaneous/an-ode-to-sanjay-singhvi-for-whom-life-was-an-unwavering-commitment-to-labour-justice   Sanjay, too, belonged to a disappearing class of labour lawyers who did not represent management for ideological reasons. Today it is fashionable to say: “I will take any case that comes my way.”  It is the cab rank rule but some of us make choices and he made his choices regarding which side of the line he wanted to be on. A friend, who is also a lawyer for management, told me, “He made life hell for employers, but that is what is needed. These people will never change when it comes to the rights of workers.“