Ashif Shaikh

Personal life

Born in Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, Ashif completed his post graduate education in Political Science from Vikram University, Ujjain. He faced discrimination and exclusion on the basis of caste and religion in his early life.

Social activism

With friends, in 1999, the student membership union Sahasi Ekta Group was formed in order to increase student's participation in social development and problem solving. This group tried to solve problems of students and to helped the hundreds of children not included in the mainstream formal education process, especially empowering the students from the Dalit.

He got a fellowship from the Youth for Voluntary Action (YUVA), a Mumbai based organisation to develop a cadre based organisation of the Dalit. During the fellowship period he educated Dalit youth on human rights issues particularly focusing on Dalit rights. These youth in turn have formed mandals, and they are still working on human/dalit rights and social developmental issues.

Under the fellowship of Center for Education and Documentation, Mumbai he completed documentation of the struggle undertaken by the dalit community in Malwa region and movement of Kabir Bhajan mandalies.

On 13 December 1999, a child laborer along with two adult labors died in a firecracker factory accident at Ujjain. Of the 19 workers in the factory, 7 were child laborers. This issue was raised in order to compensate the dependents of the workers. The prevention of child labour exploitation was addressed to the government to implement a scheme under the National Child Labour Eradication Program. The Government launched NCLP in Ujjain district.

After this incident, efforts were undertaken to identify child labours in the district. Around 1400 children were identified and successfully released from exploitative and hazardous work places and 5400 out-of-school children were mainstreamed into formal education.

In order to empower the Dalit and protect the Human Rights of other socially excluded communities in the district, he and his activist friends formed in 2000 Jan Sahas, a human rights organisation. Over the years, Jan Sahas has emerged as one of the leading organisation advocating for Human Rights.

A campaign was launched in 120 districts of India for abolishing the practice of manual scavenging; more than 29,000 women were liberated from this practice. He was the part of PIL, filed in Supreme Court for abolition and rehabilitation of all manual scavengers in India.

When in 2005 Ashif raised the issue of the 'Muslim-Dalit' in Madhya Pradesh, he was opposed by many individuals and Muslim organisations. After a long time struggle, this issue is now recognised within the Muslim community. Now they are organising for dignity, equality, and rights efforts.

He has participated in various campaigns for fighting violation of Human Rights at the state, national and international level.

Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan started Nationwide March for Total Eradication of Inhuman Slavery of Manual Scavenging ("Maila Mukti Yatra") from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh on 30 November 2012. This is a 10,000 km yatra which will reach New Delhi on 31 January 2013. The yatra covering 200 districts of 18 states India. More than 10000 liberated women and around 50,000 manual scavengers will participate in events during the yatra.

Awards

1. Sadbhavana Award 2005 – Youth Welfare Association
2. On behalf of Jan Sahas received the M.A. Thomas National Human Right Award 2012
3. Social Breviary Award 2013 by Sony TV
4. On behalf of Jan Sahas received Jio Dil Se Award 2014
5. Nominated for the Human Rights Tulip Award 2014, Netherlands
6. On behalf of received Star Impact Award 2014, United Kingdom by the president Bill Clinton (42nd President of United State of America)
7. Times of India Social Impact Awards 2015

Memberships

1. Member of the Central Monitoring Committee for Implementation of manual scavenging act 2013 (Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment Government of India)
2. Member in the Task Force for survey of manual scavengers (Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment Government of India)
3. Member in the committee on the amendment to Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993. (Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India)
4. Member in the Committee for recommending modalities for conducting a Survey of Manual Scavengers and their dependents, in the light of Census, 2011 and Socio-Economic and Caste Census, currently underway (Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment and Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation Government of India)
5. Member in District Child Welfare Committee Government of Madhya Pradesh
6. General Body Member in National Center for Advocacy Studies (NCAS), Pune, Maharashtra
7. Member of FIAN international as a state representative
8. Member in National Advisory Board of Maila Mukti Gatbandhan (Network)
9. Governing board member in Spandan Samaj Sevi Sanstha, Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh
10. Governing board member of the Community Communication Network (CCN)