- Home
- Program
- Networking
- One Day Civil Society Consultation on Social Justice and Equity – Tiruchirappalli
One Day Civil Society Consultation on Social Justice and Equity – Tiruchirappalli
A one-day Civil Society Consultation was organized by Centre for Social Justice and Equity, (MSSW) at Sree Bharani Hotel, Tirunelveli on the topic Social Justice on 23-01-2024. The consultations were attended by 12 members from NGOs, Local Government members, academicians of four districts (Tirunelveli, Thenkasi, Thoothukudi, Kanniyakumari).
Ms. R. Revathi, Special Districts Revenue Officer We need to monitor children in health education etc. In 2011, the number of child marriages was 400. I was shocked by this. Only educated people supported the system of child marriage. A woman died at the age of 28 while giving birth to her 6th child, so we found out that she had a child marriage. So, we took steps to prevent child marriages. Maternal deaths have decreased due to continuous monitoring. And the number of child marriages has decreased due to the save girl child mission. A girl is 17 years old. She is a commercial sex worker, and when she was rescued, she said she got into this sex work at the age of 11. We were all shocked to hear that. As she came to sex work at the age of 11, she faced many trauma in the society.
Mr. M.A. Britto Director Vanmugil Organizations that act very fast, even with a small number of participants in this discussion. I am thankful to the college for conducting this program. Professors working in colleges are not socially conscious, but only 5% of teachers are socially conscious. Ambedkar said “The only danger to the world is the educated.”
There are two types of intelligent beings
- Traditional Intellectual
- Organic Intellectual
20 years ago, UGC was started in the name of Social Justice and Equality. But there is no output. The Annual Status of Education, Report released its 2023 report last week. It says that the children do not know Tamil, English and Mathematics. There are very few people who do this type of research.
Now unorganized workers are getting wages of 8000 to 10000. But there is no study about them. We say government for social justice but not so at lower level. Caste determines everything.
In India,
- No Social Democracy
- No Political Democracy
- No Economical Democracy
Marx says that caste and land ownership are intertwined. So, caste cannot be abolished. That’s why I say caste determines everything. IIT Chennai is the number one place in the world and 67% of the people using its resources are Brahmins. The Constitution says that “the resources in India shall be distributed and utilized equally by all.” But not so in this country. The number of rich people in India rise from 102 to 120 during the Covid period, but at the same time the number of poor people also increased. How is that possible? Disasters and floods affect everyone but not everyone is equally affected. There is no social justice. The impact and loss of natural disasters varies from person to person. We should talk about equity, not equality.
The incident at Tirunelveli Nanguneri still scares us and makes us lose hope. As far as India is concerned, caste and patriarchy are intertwined. So, we need to work faster. We don’t have many studies, for example, there are no studies on women’s labour, women’s well-being, women’s health, young women, menstruation and sanitation workers. Caste and patriarchy are the reasons why even though many studies have not received attention. We have to think about what we can do to restore the rights of marginalized people and what is our mission.
They have been fighting for social justice and equality in this land for many years, and we are working in continuation of that. We need social justice in times of dire crisis. Social change does not happen in 4,5 towns or villages, it has to happen all over the world. Let’s work together.
