Ankita Sengupta is no ordinary woman. On the outside, this 24-year-old resident of Kolkata who works at Prantakatha, a youth NGO, may appear like the girl next door. But there’s more to her than that.
Passionate about working with people, Ankita participated in the first edition ofSamvidhan LIVE! The Jagrik Project, a public initiative started by ComMutiny - The Youth Collective. As a participant in this project, Ankita became a Jagrik (active citizen) and undertook a 5-week learning journey to understand the values of the Indian Constitution. She played areal-life interactive game, played by 500 other Jagriks across the country, who brought alive the Constitution in their neighbourhood by doing 1500 social and self-action tasks in a matter of 5 weeks. As a result, they fared way better on a test on constitutional awareness as compared to 18,000 respondents from different parts of the country, who flunked the test!
This year, the second edition of Samvidhan LIVE! The Jagrik Project is back again. We recently chatted with Ankita about how she spent a night under a busy flyover and how she managed to persuade the local authorities to make a women’s toilet in the area.
What motivated you to participate in the Jagrik journey?
My organisation Prantakatha asked me if I’d like to participate in the Samvidhan LIVE! The Jagrik Project and introduced the concept to me. Before that, I had learnt different aspects of the Indian Constitution but that was only through textbooks. I’m passionate about learning and I wanted to understand the Constitution in a fun way. This is what motivated me to participate in Samvidhan LIVE!.
What was your understanding of the Indian Constitution, before you undertook the Jagrik journey?
Before the Jagrik journey, I knew simple facts like Dr. B.R Ambedkar played an important role in forming the Constitution. I knew that all the rights of a citizen are mentioned in the Constitution. But I was missing its in-depth understanding. I had never discussed its importance with anybody in my life, ever before. At a personal level, the Constitution was not ‘alive’ for me.
Did you find any of the tasks challenging because you’re a woman?
I come from a very conservative family where my parents insist on making the choices about my education and career. I had to struggle a lot to study social work and I’m still struggling. When I told my parents that I was going to do the tasks from The Jagrik Project, they got furious and asked me not to participate. They reminded me that I was a girl and I would face a lot of problems.
One of the tasks I did, along with my partner, was to stay overnight under a flyover, which was a task under the Right Against Exploitation. The task was to go to a slum cluster, spend some time there and identify the exploitation happening there.
We went to the Gariahat flyover in Kolkata. There was a community of about 50-60 people, including 15 children, living under the flyover. The community is a mix of Hindu and Muslim people belonging to marginalised communities from West Bengal.
After going there a couple of times in the mornings, I could only see things happening on the surface. I knew something was happening but I wasn’t able to put my finger on it. Being a woman, it was a big challenge for me to sleep on the pavement next to an open busy road. I found out that there was no toilet around and the women and young girls who live there have to go to the ‘pay and use’ toilet very early in the morning. At night, they can’t use a toilet, so they have to hold it. They even have to change their clothes in the open!
My partner, who was a man, had it easy - he could urinate next to the roadside. Society doesn’t approve of women urinating by the roadside. As a woman, it was very difficult for me to relieve myself. This situation made me empathise with women and young girls who have no access to safe and clean toilets for long periods of time.
It was very painful for me to see how homeless people have no safety, let alone access to a toilet. Despite all these sad realisations, this task was my favourite and I did enjoy the good parts of it.
What was the reaction of the community under the flyover towards you? How were they being exploited?
Though the community under the Gariahat flyover is very poor, they were generous and welcomed us. They even brought two kinds of dinner for us - treating us like guests!