We The People: Anthology Of Hope

바카라�Our business here is to be Utopian, to make vivid and credible, if we can, first this facet and then that, of an imaginary whole and happy world.바카라�

바카라�H. G. Wells, A Modern Utopia

In a remote part of Bihar바카라�s Gaya district whe­re hillocks jut out of the ground like shr­apnel, an old man dug a canal all by himself to get water to his village. It took him over three decades. In Kothilwa, the villagers had long dismissed Laungi Bhuiyan as a madman. But in 2020, his story바카라�of a poor man바카라�s stru­ggle against all odds바카라�was reported by the media. He had dared to dream of stopping migration from his vill­age, where around 750 families, mostly Dalits, live. The State had failed them, he said. But his spirit hadn바카라�t failed him. He had aspi­red to create Utopia.

Utopia is a fanciful concept, and yet it sust­a­ins us, gives us hope and makes us believe in the mag­ic of freedom. This issue is an ode to the many stories of such people who struggled aga­i­nst all odds to free themselves of whate­ver binds them바카라�caste, gender, class and disability.

In a dystopian world where freedom itself is at stake, such stories give us courage. Of people who are shunned otherwise바카라�like this artist from Bihar who wrote 바카라�is home is world바카라� on a rolling board for making rotis in circles, to depict her own dilemmas of gender and caste. Her mother would tell her that wom­en바카라�s worlds were contained within their homes, while her father would talk abo­ut the Russian Revolution and freedom. That바카라�s how Ranjeeta Kumari sta­r­ted her own journey towards freedom. She cho­se to go out into the world. Others who saw her works and the trajectory of her journey, learned to draw their dreams and their resistance.

Or a village near Puducherry, where a temple stands as a repository of the wishes of the people and where statues of people are everywhere. These belong to common men and women who­se wishes were fulfilled and even as offerings to god, these statues are a repre­s­e­ntation of common people casting themsel­ves in stone and clay; an act that was always reserved for deities or for dignitaries.

We have curated the stories of common people, of those who thought Utopia was on the horizon and kept walking towards it. They chose hope. They saw what was possible and they weren바카라�t deterred by the impracticality of things. They aren바카라�t famous. They are not those who smile at us from giant billboards. They are not the people selling us things. They are people who are out there initiating, endeavouring, overcoming and giving us all hope, selling us that one idea바카라�of em­powering ourselves and others. As we celebrate 75 years of independence, we bring 75 such stories of people who say to us that utopias are for us to build and for us to believe in. They say to us that hope is the only thing that survives. And to be hopeful is to be brave.

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