Lenin Raghuvanshi

Founder

Founder of People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR)

Photo: Wikimedia (CC BY-SA)

Lenin Raghuvanshi is the founder of People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR) (1996)[1], an Indian non-profit working on human rights from Varanasi.

Lenin Raghuvanshi (born 18 May 1970) is an Indian human rights activist and social entrepreneur based in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. In 1996 he co-founded the People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR), which works against caste discrimination, bonded labour, torture and violence against women and children in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

PVCHR combines community organising in Dalit and Adivasi villages with legal intervention and documentation of torture and custodial violence. Raghuvanshi has served as the organisation's chief executive and has written and spoken widely on caste, patriarchy and what he describes as a neo-Dalit movement.

Early life and education

Raghuvanshi was born in Varanasi to Surendra Nath Singh and Savitri Devi, in an upper-caste Hindu family; his grandfather had been a Gandhian freedom fighter. He studied Ayurveda and modern medicine at the State College for Ayurveda and Medicine, Gurukul Kangari, Haridwar, graduating in 1994.

In 1992 he married the social activist Shruti Nagvanshi, who is also a co-founder of PVCHR. The couple later converted to Buddhism.

Career

PVCHR was founded in 1996 by Raghuvanshi together with Shruti Nagvanshi, the historian Mahendra Pratap, the musician Vikash Maharaj and the poet Gyanendra Pati. The organisation began by building village-level committees in communities of Dalits, Adivasis and other marginalised groups around Varanasi.

Its work has included campaigns against bonded labour and child labour, action on hunger and malnutrition in weaver and Musahar communities, the establishment of what it calls model or 'Jan Mitra' villages, and the rehabilitation of survivors of torture and organised violence, in which it uses a testimonial therapy method developed with Danish partners. PVCHR is a member of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims.

Raghuvanshi's work was featured in the Indian television series Satyamev Jayate in 2014.

Recognition

Raghuvanshi was elected an Ashoka Fellow in 2001. In 2007 he received the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights, awarded by the May 18 Memorial Foundation in South Korea, sharing it that year with Irom Sharmila. In 2010 he was given the International Human Rights Award of the city of Weimar, Germany. He received the M. A. Thomas National Human Rights Award in 2016 and the Karmaveer Maharatna Award in 2019.[2][3][4][5][6]

People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR)

PVCHR was founded in Varanasi in 1996 by Dr. Lenin Raghuvanshi and Shruti Nagvanshi as a membership-based human rights movement. It works against police torture, bonded labour, hunger and caste discrimination, pioneering testimonial therapy for torture survivors and organising marginalised Musahar and Dalit communities across Uttar Pradesh and beyond.

People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR) reports the following, on its own site:

Membership 72000 as neo-Dalit communities comprising progressive people from upper caste, OBC, tribal and minorities.
Through networking, working in 16 states of India with the involvement of 99 organisations.