From Turning A Blind Eye To Learning To Dissect: Gaurav's Relationship With Polarizing Narratives

"Iss desh ka kuchh nahi ho sakta, Yahaan Sab Kuchh Hi Galat Hai"

Gaurav comes from a community that has been deeply divided due to the effects of rising polarization in the country. He recalls a group of people distributing lathis and weapons in a tense environment following the several riots that broke out in parts of Delhi last year. In a highly polarized community, Gaurav chose to shut down and keep away from people who were enabling the hate and division. He felt utterly helpless.

Gaurav (19), is pursuing Bachelor's of Science from the Open University in Delhi. He has actively worked on education and learning loss of students who dropped out of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. With years of work in the social sector as a volunteer, he now aspires to be a scientist, who he believes are the real social workers.

Gaurav is a dreamer who envisions a world that is better despite having faced many hardships in his life. He comes from Sawda, a colony that was established in 2006 to relocate slum dwellers from across Delhi to facilitate the requirements of 2010 Commonwealth games. Sawda is gradually becoming a semi developed cluster, hosting people who are mainly daily wage earners. While the infrastructure of the colony is well established, with easy access to transportation, the community lacks ownership towards working on collective local issues like communal divide and violence.

Overlooking the exclusionary and divisive narratives around him was easy for Gaurav, until they started affecting him. He shares how one of his Muslim friends' parent was not allowed to park his rickshaw at a particular spot. It was then that he started disassociating from groups around him that were causing such social disruption on the grounds of religions. The problem at hand seemed so daunting to Gaurav, that looking away felt like the only possible solution. He started to lose friends because of their association with polarized groups that were attacking harmony in their community.

While working on a project on COVID relief in his community, Gaurav came across the youth development organization, Pravah, that was creating safe spaces for young people to dialogue. Here, Gaurav could interact with peers who were experiencing the same confusion and helplessness as he was.

He started his journey with the national program, Samjho Toh: Samvidhan LIVE! Dialogues and Fraternity Labs in March 2022. During the journey, he dialogued with people from different backgrounds with varying experiences, carrying different ideologies and belief systems. Together they developed an understanding of the Constitutional values of Fraternity, Liberty, Equality and Justice; and learnt to dissect divisive narratives by digging deeper and empathizing with the 'other'.

With this Gaurav started to practice bringing the constitution alive in his everyday life.

In one of his social action tasks during the Samjho Toh journey, he spoke to a community leader who had different ideologies than he did. With strong judgments against the leader and his beliefs, Gaurav was at first resistant to the idea of interacting with him.

However, he took the leap. With an openness and respect for diverse beliefs, he reached out to the community leader. And was amazed by his experience of the conversation.

"In the beginning I thought he didn't know a thing. But with time, I started to understand what he was saying. I was able to understand that the person I don't agree with, is not necessarily wholly wrong in their views, or fully correct. Views and perspectives are built over time with experiences and situations. I have now started to respect other people's opinions and try to understand where they are coming from. I cannot judge a person to be in the wrong on the basis of a mere one time experience. I think that we should move away from the right and wrong trap and start finding common grounds and gray areas."

The world seemed a little less divided when Gaurav viewed people as individuals and not as proponents of ideologies.

By creating spaces that enable experiences like these, Samjho Toh aspires to bring forth change, from within and without, by enabling a mindset shift, and bringing alive the Constitutional Values. Co-designed by Pravah, ComMutiny and vartaLeap, Samjho Toh is currently being run across the country with 660 young people towards strengthening social harmony and inclusion in the country.

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