By Lissy Maruthanakuzhy
Secunderabad, Feb 24, 2025: Montfort Brother Varghese Theckanath is on a journey to make the voice of the voiceless heard in the main stream society.
“Many interesting things happen among them, but only when a misfortune happens, their stories are reported,” bemoans Brother Theckanath, a grassroots activist promoting the rights of the urban poor.
As a solution, the 67-year-old Brother has set up a sound and visual studio at Montfort Social Institute (MSI) at Ramanathapuram, Secunderabad, the twin city of Hyderabad, capital of the southern Indian state of Telangana.
The institute, affiliated to the Earth Charter Initiative, is a resource and training center for the promotion of Human Rights Education and Sustainable Development Education.
“I want to train about 100 youth from the families of migrants, domestic workers, street dwellers so that they can express their achievements and grievances first hand,” Brother Theckanath, who had served as the Central India provincial of the Montfort Brothers of St Gabriel for six years, told Matters India .
At present, he and his team from MSI work with urban poor: domestic workers, waste collectors, transgender community, children in the slums.
“We also have a trade union of garbage collectors. So, the idea behind this studio is to get the voice of the voiceless heard, in the mainstream media,” said Brother Theckanath, who has lived in the slums of Pune and Old City of Hyderabad for more than several years.
He has also founded the People’s Initiative Network in Hyderabad and directed it for 11 years until 2001, launched in 1997 the Campaign for Housing and Tenurial Rights in Hyderabad, both organizations working for the promotion and protection of the rights of the urban poor.
Brother Theckanath says the urban poor build the cities, provide the services necessary to make the lives of middle class and upper class at comfortable and extremely subsidised price.
“So, we want to create a media network from the bottom. Then they become reporters of the good news and bad news they experience in their life. So that their contribution to society is recognised and heard,” explained the Brother who has led the MSI as its director for the past 15 years.
Reflecting on “what is the future of religious life,” he says, “The current forms of religious life and mission we have inherited in the past 300 to400 years is on the decline. Soon it might disappear. New forms of committed religious life are emerging. I also want to explore their direction and communicate the finding through the media,” he added.
The social activist religious holds Master’s degrees in Philosophy from Hyderabad’s Osmania University and in International Law and Human Rights (United Nations University for Peace, San Jose, Costa Rica) and an M. Phil in Development Studies from Hyderabad.
He is a member of the Task Force of the federal Ministry of Labor on Domestic Workers. He is also the co-convener of the National Forum for Housing Rights, an umbrella organization of the housing rights movements in different cities in India.
All this has convinced him to use the studio also as a means to listen to people. “There are people who have made their spiritual journeys within. They may be from different religions, may be those who do not believe in any religions, but have dared to make their spiritual journeys within and made a difference in society. We want to tell their stories too.”
Brother Theckanath has presented papers in international conferences, was a delegate from India to the 99th International Labor Conference of the ILO, Geneva, in 2010.
He was conferred the ‘Jewell of India Award’ and ‘Rashtriya Vidya Gaurav Gold Medal’ for outstanding contribution to national integration and education, on April 6, 2016, at the Indian Society for International Law, New Delhi.
He is a native of Chengamanad, a small town on the banks of the river Periyar in Aluva, Ernakulam district in Kerala, another southern India state.