Power to People

Revolutionary Vigilance Committees

The health of a democracy depends on the participation of its citizens, with this in mind Nishan has begun to organize groups of concerned citizens in rural villages who are motivated to make a difference.  The first Village Revolutionary Vigilance Committee has been set up in the village of Bairsal, in the state of Haryana, by a group of motivated young men.

These committees elect a representative or group of representatives who will be responsible for the recording of incidents of corruption in their community brought to their attention by their friends, neighbours and co-workers.  Considering the level of literacy in some of the villages targeted by this project, the presence of a community member willing to document the concerns of the uneducated is of paramount importance to the empowerment of rural populations. 

To further broaden the scope of the project, Nishan has also drafted a survey to be distributed by these committees that will evaluate both incidents of corruption and the attitudes of the public towards what is happening in their specific localities.  Nishan will remain in frequent contact with the committees to provide logistical support and general guidance; however the design of this project is such that the positive outcomes will eventually become self-sustainable.  Nishan's main role after the primary phase of thoroughly explaining the details and goals of the Power to the People campaign to those involved will be the realization of the public hearings where the evidence that has been gathered by the participants will be made public.  Nishan's contacts with serving police officers, public officials and politicians will ensure that the concerns of these communities will not fall on deaf ears during the public hearings.  We also intend to fully involve the media during this phase of the project in order to further inspire like-minded individuals to carry on the momentum of public empowerment.

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Unsung Heroes

"Unsung Heroes" as it is evident from its name it is dedicated to the dependants of the martyrs of the community, those who went before us and made supreme sacrifice to protect our way of life and to ensure that we are able to live with dignity and freedom but on having embarked upon this journey we discovered that the real life battle on day to day basis is fought by the dependants of these martyrs, these brave women and children face so many challenges with severe emotional and financial disadvantages. 

To begin with we started with the families of the fallen heroes of armed forces of union of India, that includes Border Security Force, Central Reserve Police Force, Indo Tibetan Border Police. Objective is to gradually include the woman and children of those fallen heroes who become victims of unprofessional conduct of the police organizations in this world's largest democracy and loose their life. These unsung heroes leave behind woman and children who are not entitled for any pensionary benefits or ex gratia payments but exposed to harsh realities of becoming vulnerable to the society that has given social acceptance to corruption that is at the root of all the injustices being perpetrated on the poor and hapless, where they face extreme challenges of being exploited at every step for extreme financial and emotional hardships. The society can never be at peace and prosper if these brave women and children don't get their due honour.

Under this campaign we organize Annual adventure and leadership Camp at Manali in Himalayan Mountains and provide these families with a dignified space to ensure these young children get once in life time opportunity to have a break from the monotonus life and develop the spirit of adventure to face the challenge of life. These camps are dedicated to the activities of empowerement and creating of a social support network for these  brave women and children. 

 (Please visit our News & Updates section to know the latest activity on Campaigns)

Police Reforms 

Among Nishan projects is an initiative to spur on reforms of the existing state of the Indian police.  The present state of Indian policing system is testimony to the complete leadership failure of Indian Police Service. It provides an Assured Career Progression for Police officers without any accountablity. The Politics of Police reforms has swept through the country without addressing the real issues and challenges for the lack of understanding of the grassroot realities. There is a wide chasm that divides the policy makers and the grass root realities. The complacent Indian Police Service leadership has not been able to keep abreast with the fast changing security scenario and societal developments of allegedly maturing democracy. On the pretext of police reforms it has further tried to insulate itself from accountabilty mechanisms and completely ignored the structural changes in rank highacrchy of supervisory police leadership,empowerement and career progression of front line police officers, relevant training to constabulary and subordinate police officers that make up 90% of the police force,restrciting of top echelon from interference into field working, prohibit them from acting as media managers and confining them to administrative and policy formulation for improvements in policing.

The current state of Indian Policing System doesn't need reforms but radical changes in recruitment policies to start with complete stoppage of lateral entries from the rank of  above constable and discontinuation of IPS entry, training and career progression that calls for completely distancing itself from the militarisation of policing. The failure of Indian Police leadership is demonstratively visible from the copy cat formulas being borrowed from army and paramilitary forces fraternity, whether it is question of changes in uniforms of police personnel or procurement of arms or housing policy or posting and transfer policies, every policy is result of copying it from armed forces and that makes the policing completely retrograde. therefore Nishan has undertaken to ensure that the necessary democratic reforms of the Indian police service are kept in the public's consciousness. We know all above changes are beyond the perception and not acceptable to Indian Police service leadership due to lack of professionalsim and that makes this journey more difficult and lenghty but we also know these changes are going to take place like other democracies in the world. 

Since the 1980's there has been a global movement within most democratic countries to increase the efficiency of their police forces via the establishment of civilian oversight committees and special investigation units.  Currently there exists no such organisation in India, a gaping hole in the credibility of Indian democracy.  Nishan's police reforms take an active approach via interviews and data collection from the public and field officials with the ambition of making a public call to action once the first hand evidence has been thoroughly compiled.  By identifying the specific failures and making comparisons to similar situations in the florishing democracies to raise the public spirit so that belief in change becomes unwavering.

(Please visit our News & Updates section to know the latest activity on Campaigns)