Lenin Raghuvanshi

Lenin Raghuvanshi is an Indian Dalit rights activist, political thinker and social entrepreneur.

He is one of the founding members of People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR), which works for the upliftment of the marginalised sections of the society.

Lenin Raghuvanshi was born in a higher caste Hindu family, to Surendra Nath Singh and Shrimati Savitri Devi, on 18 May 1970.

His grandfather Shanti Kumar Singh, was a Gandhian freedom fighter.

He was appointed as a member of the District Vigilance Committee on Bonded Labour under Bonded Labour abolition Act 1976 by the Governor of UP in 2002.

He filed an FIR (First Information Report) against Rajendar Thripathi, the village head of Belwa in the Badagaon block of Varanasi administrative district in his capacity as a member of the District Vigilance Committee.

However, Rajendar escaped arrest, and Lenin has been reported to be receiving death threats since then.

In revenge, the head of Belwa village filed a case against Raghuvanshi and two PVCHR staff members for "statements conducing to public mischief" and "anti-state activities"; the latter proceeding of case was stayed by High Court.

Lenin married Shruti Nagvanshi,a famous social activist on 22 February 1992 and has a son, Kabeer Karunik, who is national level snooker player.

Both he and Shruti are converts to Buddhism.

From the beginning, Raghuvanshi was averse to the caste system.

He refers to his higher caste Hindu upbringing as "feudal".

This sprung the seed of social activism in him.

He became the president of the Uttar Pradesh chapter of United Nations Youth Organisation at the age of 23 (1993).

With his exposure into the mainstream society, he realised that casteism is present in all walks of life.

With the Indian Government tackling the issue with its reservation policies and making it perennial, Raghuvanshi chose the path of uplifting them by making their voices heard.

He did his bachelor's course in Ayurveda, Modern Medicine and Surgery from the State Ayurvedic Medical College, Gurukul Kangari, Haridwar in 1994.

He founded the People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR) in 1996, along with his life partner Shruti Nagvanshi, historian Mahendra Pratap, musician Vikash Maharaj, and poet Gyanedra Pati.

In 1999, Raghuvanshi founded a community-based organisation, Jan Mitra Nyas (People-friendly Association), which was backed by ActionAid.

The movement adopted three villages near Varanasi and an urban slum, with an objective of providing better education to the children there.

He was elected in 2001 into the executive council of Voice of People, supported by Child Rights and You (CRY), an organisation active in 15 districts of Uttar Pradesh, which works for the rights of the children.

Raghuvanshi is a 2001 Ashoka Fellow.

In 2004, he conceptualised the 'Jan Mitra Gaon' (People-friendly villages) project, under which three villages and an urban slum were adopted with the motives of eradicating child labour, providing education to girls, reintroducing non-traditional education and improving the state of educational institutions.

Raghuvanshi represented the Bunkar Dastkar Adhikar Manch in the People's Tribunal on Human Rights, chaired by Sayeda Hameed, a member of the Planning Commission of India, briefing on the reportedly poor situation of the Varanasi weavers.

Bunkar Dastkar Adhikar Manch is a Varanasi-based outfit, founded by Siddiq Hassan, in 2004, that lobbies for the weaver community.

Varanasi Weavers Trust was conceptualised in 2004 by the Sri Lankan economist Darin Gunasekara and Raguvansi, with the objective of easy accessibility of the capital and market to the poor in a democratised way.

The demand was then put forth to the Indian Government for the establishment of the trust.

On 15 January 2005, human rights groups from India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, PVCHR (India), INSEC (Nepal), People's Forum for Human Rights (Bhutan), Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, LOKOJ (Bangladesh) and Wiros Lokh Institute (Sri Lanka), met with an objective of a united South Asia, working for the common good, in Kathmandu.

This convention was named People's SAARC, leading to the formation of a South Asian People's Forum, with Raghuvanshi as its coordinator.

Afghanistan was later added to this SAARC.

This was indeed an excellent effort to build human rights mechanism in SARRC countries where the discourse of human rights is still in its nascent stage.

Raghuvanshi has called for the establishment of a neo-Dalit movement to eliminate the caste system and overthrow feudalism, thereby establishing a society based on equal dignity for all humankind.

The neo-Dalit movement – combining Shudras and ati-Shudras (dalits of all kinds) from all regions – would formulate a popular movement against the ‘culture of impunity’ and the existing caste system.

He was appointed as the state director for the European Union funded National Project on Prevention of Torture in 2006, in recognition of the reports published by PVCHR on torture incidents in the state.

He drafted a Testimonial model for India along with Dr. Inger Agger, working further on dealing with torture.

His work has been recognized with awards like Gwangju Human Rights Award (2007), the ACHA Star Peace award (2008), the International Human Rights Prize of the city of Weimar (2010), Special Mentions Prize of Human Rights of The French Republic (2018), Public Peace Prize(2018) and Karmaveer Maharatna Award (2019).

He nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to combat masculinity driven militarist traditions, for his contribution to bettering conditions for peace in world and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of masculinity driven militarist traditions as a weapon of war and conflict.

He was awarded the Gwangju Human Rights Award in 2007, along with Irom Sharmila.

In 2008, he received ACHA Star Peace award from Association for Communal Harmony in Asia USA along with B. M. Kutty, Karamat Ali and Mubashir Mirza from Pakistan.

His childhood learning on hegemonic masculinity has been acknowledged by film actor Aamir Khan and he has been invited to participate in Satyamev Jayate TV series, a TV show hosted by Aamir Khan that discussed issue of violence and hegemonic masculinity that went on air in 2014.