By Matters India Reporter
Bhubaneswar: Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has been selected for the first Kandhamal Award for Human Rights/
The individual award has gone posthumously to Paul Pradhan, who had worked for women’s empowerment and the rights of Tribals and Dalits in the eastern Indian state of Odisha.
The National Solidarity Forum (NSF) on August 21 announced the name of PUCL for the Kandhamal Award for Human Rights for its sustained work in safeguarding Constitutional guarantees and human rights of peoples and groups across the country.
PUCL is a human rights body formed in 1976 by Jayaprakash Narayan, a Gandhian and proponent of Total Revolution. Initially it was called the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and Democratic Rights.
The Delhi-based PUCL has worked tirelessly over the past 30 years to protect the powerless and help create a truly democratic and a just society, NSF said in a press release.
The Individual award for Human Rights is given to Pradhan, a towering Adivasi leader of Odisha, for his lifetime, work in uniting and mobilizing the Adivasi, Dalit and farmworkers of Kandhamal district against exploitation and targeted violence. He died July 10 this year. He was 72.
He is from Bareguda village under Sacred Heart Padangi parish of Kandhamal district of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Archdiocese.
Pradhan had launched a social service association that focused on health, education, women empowerment, and the rights of Dalit and Adivasi communities, especially after 2008 anti-Christian violence battered Kandhamal district.
NSF convener Ram Puniyani said the awards will be presented by Justice A P Shah, former chief justice of Delhi High Court and a former chairman of the Law Commission of India, at a webinar on August 25, which is commemorated every year as the Kandhamal Day.
It was on this day in 2008 that the Christian Adivasi and Dalit communities of Odisha’s Kandhamal district were ravaged in a mass violence that claimed more than 100 lives and displaced around 56,000 people. Many women were sexually molested, 5,600 homes destroyed, and damaged 360 big and small churches.
The victims are yet to be fully compensated and those responsible for the violence were not brought to book. A study conducted by Supreme Court Advocate Vrinda Grover and Law Professor Saumya Uma found the conviction rate to be as low as 5.13 percent of the cases brought to court. It was a mere 1 percent of the reports made to the police by the victims and survivors.
The NSF was constituted by more than 70 organizations and groups which came together in the wake of the violence of 2008 and worked on various issues relating to trauma, counseling, rehabilitation and advocacy for justice.
NSF commemorates the annual Kandhamal Day on August 25 with mass meetings in Kandhamal, Bhubaneswar, New Delhi and other places.
Justice Shah, former Chief Election Commissioner S Y Qureshi, and noted film and literature personality Javed Akhtar, will be the chief guest and lead speaker at the webinar and awards presentation this year.
The webinar will address the theme, “In Defence of Human Rights and Democratic Freedoms.”
“Kandhamal violence is a unique case of multiple violations of basic human rights and the dignity of the most vulnerable groups. Justice is yet to be done and rights to be restored,” said the statement.