Inlaks Shivdasani Fellows for Social Engagement 2023: Dipesh Agarwala, Fakirappa. S. Harijan, Raju Kendre and Rucha Satoor
This is the last of a three part series introducing the 2023 fellows.
In this week’s post we have, Dipesh Agarwala, Fakirappa Harijan, Raju Kendre and Rucha Satoor.
Dipesh Agarwala
Dipesh Agarwala is a lawyer based in Guwahati, Assam. He is currently working with Parichay, a legal aid clinic at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU). His area of work includes citizenship and refugee law. Through this fellowship, he will provide legal aid to indigent persons, create training modules and resource handbooks for lawyers practicing in this area.
Fakkirappa. S. Harijan
Fakkirappa. S. Harijan hails from a family of traditional musicians. His father, along with other family members, performed Doddaata, a form of folk drama. His grandfather played the harmonium, halagi (folk drum), and the tabla. Like him, his mother and brother are also folk singers. Under the fellowship, he proposes to initiate and sustain a community folk-music project that empowers musicians specifically from Dalit communities of North Karnataka region and nurture their traditional art practices through research, production, archiving and education. He hopes to create a platform for musicians who have been the invisible protectors of such art and heritage to reclaim ownership of their own folk practices and attempt at sustaining and augmenting the folk economy of the musicians who otherwise rely on daily labour for sustenance.
The project will be executed along with young people and musicians from these communities creating space for building technical skills as well as interactions between different artists.
Raju Kendre is member of the Nomadic Tribe community and a first-generation learner hailing from Central India's Vidarbha region. He founded the Eklavya India Foundation with a mission to uplift marginalized youth and grant them access to higher education and enable grassroots leadership. Raju is also a columnist for the Marathi newspaper Loksatta and a contributing writer for The Print. Through this fellowship, he will open pathways to higher education and upwards social mobility for these youth with the primary objective being to enhance access to quality higher education among tribal students.
Rucha Satoor is a development communicator, documenter and writer with over 8 years of experience working with non-governmental and governmental organizations. She currently works with Saryajani Mahila Utkarsh Sanstha as a Media and Documentation Specialist for a UNICEF India project on Child Rights in Maharashtra. She is also the co-founder of Bola, one of India’s first peer support group for adult survivors of child sexual abuse. Through her fellowship, she will document and archive though film histories of the Dalit- Bahujan migrant labour in Pune.
