Name of Fellow: Amit Mishra
Genre: Social and Economic Justice
Area of Work: Lucknow
Amit Kumar Mishra is an advocate devoted to social change through law and advocacy. He started is work in the social sector early in 2003 in his village in Banaras. His earliest struggle was against feudalism existing in his village. At that time, United Nations and European Union were running a campaign against feudalism in which he became associated.
Coming from small area called Kuwaritala near Varanasi, Amit devoted his career to the social movements against communalism. Belonging to peasant family, he was aware of the farmers’ issues since his early years. For this attachment to farmers, he has also been working for the rights of farmers. As his elder brother was involved in social work at his native place, Amit also felt that he should contribute towards the society as a social worker.
His work on researching about the atrocities committed against Muslim minorities with Eauropean Union’s Peoples’ Watch and documenting the incidents of communal incidents with NPPT, brought him closer to the issue of minority rights violation. This experience while working with social movements exposed him to issues of Dalits, mill workers, gender injustice as well. This stint with the campaign continued till 2009 when it was stopped.
Following this, he has been working independently based out of Lucknow.
He has formed two social change groups named Initiative Foundation and Human Rights Monitoring Forum working on legal awareness, Dalit and minority human rights issues since 2009. He is also behind forming Bhartiya Nirman Mazdoor Union (BNMU)— an organization which works for the rights of migrant construction labourers who migrate nationally and internationally.
He developed his ideals while working with various people from the social sector and observing the discrimination that exist in society.
For him, most of the issues would end up to legal proceedings and hence he did his law graduation. While studying law, he saw that the law was prescribing something else while on ground things were against acts. Then he decided to pursue other youths to study law to fight for their and their communities’ rights.
Exposure to various international conventions made him understand what the international norms were for gender justice, and justice to marginal communities and he compared these with the situation in India.
Since 2014 hate speeches and vilifying of particular community became rampant on social media. However, he opines that the hate does not necessarily transcend to physical space. To sensitise the community member on the ground, he began to spread message of communal harmony on ground along with volunteers.
His work against framing fake charges and fake encounters by Uttar Pradesh police brought the wrath on him. He was charged with narcotics case and subsequently was acquitted in 2021 as the police had no evidence against him. His investigation on fake encounters got a police officer arrested eventually.
He intends create a pool of young paralegal volunteers in rural areas of Uttar Pradesh. His campaign also encompasses gender justice, and environmental issues, and protection of child rights.
To ensure community participation in his ideas of Constitutional values, he is organizing discussion forums with children, rural women and villagers. His paralegal volunteers are also taught the Constitutional values.