HRLD

HRLD, this is the name of the NGO me and Graham were placed at. Asim is the head of this NGO, or at least we assume so, since he was the one who first introduced us to the organisation, and who told us what it was expected of us. An inspirational, and charismatic person, Asim first started by telling us that he used to have 6 lawyers working for him, but now only has one along with some other social workers. This statement begs the question: “what happened to the other lawyers?” Apparently they wanted different things: “I believe that the courts are designed for there to be justice, not for lawyers to make money”. According to him, the lawyers who were working with him were quite happy to ask for money from the poor people who were seeking some kind of help in HRLD.

When someone introduces himself in such a strong way, you can’t but have a strong admiration for that person from day one. His phone does not stop ringing during our conversation, and from what we could get (since none of us speaks Marathi), he kept saying he would call them back. This organisation works will various issues within Human Rights Law, giving the impression that they work “for the poor people”, meeting the demands of the general public.

We don’t know yet how useful we will be to such an organisation. I have only just finished my second year in English Law, and Graham has recently graduated from International Relations. None of us knows a lot from the Indian Reality (apart from the constant information, and reality slaps that we have been getting for the past two weeks), and we are still unsure as to how we can actually help.

Feeling pretty ignorant and useless, Asim told us that we might be useful in helping him do some research, as he intends to draft a bill in Victim and Witness Protection. This is our project: to research the Victim and Witness protection schemes in the UK and US, and then see how they could eventually adapt to the Indian Reality. Seems like a lot of work, let’s hope it all works out...
First impressions are confusing: we like the place, we like the people, but it is hard living and working in a world where no one understands you, and vice-versa. Marathi is far too complicated to be learned within a month, and smiles and gestures aren’t getting us very far! As Sarah would say, this is “a true Indian experience”!

...and without us noticing, 2 months have now gone by...