Association for India’s development (AID), MIT and Boston Chapters along with Alliance for Secular & Democratic South Asia, TwoCircles.Net and Massachusetts Global Action organized a talk on the topic, “Organizing Workers for a Democratic and Secular India : Challenging Power Structures in Rural Bihar” by social activists, Kamayani Swami who is also an AID Fellow and Ashish Ranjan on Sunday, Jun 19, 2016 at MIT.

Husband-wife team Kamayani and Ashish left the United States several years from and now work full time in Bihar on labor issues such as temporary/seasonal migration, minimum wage, employment guarantee & pensions for the elderly with their organization Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan(JJSS), a registered trade union of unorganized sector workers. JJSS grew from an National Rural Employee Guarantee Act (NREGA) survey in Kaimur and Araria districts of Bihar where the community got interested in social change and putting in safeguards to check corruption. JJSS currently focuses on NREGA, Right to Information (RTI) and issues of justice.

Both speakers spoke eloquently about the work they are doing with the marginalized communities in Bihar and the issues and challenged faced by the rural poor in getting entitlements provided by the state. They narrated various stories to bring some light to highlight the issues and intervensions by the group. They discussed the current polarization that is happening along communal lines which worries them and hopes that simple act of bringing people of different social backgrounds will help in bringing down some of these barriers.

Using "sangharsh"(struggle) and "nirmam" (constructive activities), JJSS mobilizes the rural poor to attain entitlements that are due to them from the state. They organize various campaign activities to ascertain if transparency safeguards are applied to check for corruption and document irregularities via social audits. They also organize summer camps, youth programs and internships for local students to have them become more involved with positive change in their communities.

The talk was well received and AID meets every weekend in MIT to discuss such projects and other developmental topics and asked to volunteer with them at www.aidboston.org.

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