Struggle for Equality - Everywhere in the world, we find individuals or communities who fought for equality for all. These people are respected for their struggle for equality. In South Africa, for example, we had Nelson Mandela who became famous for his struggle against the whites in the form of the civil rights movement. His contribution to the movement is noteworthy.

As in South Africa and elsewhere, people in India have also come together to fight for issues that concern them and are important to them. For example, women as you saw came together to address their grievances. This gave rise to the women�s movement. Similarly, there have been movements among the other downtrodden sections of the society like tribal, fishermen, agricultural laborers, slum dwellers, etc.

Each group is struggling for some basic rights. In the effort for equality, collective methods like the establishment of cooperatives have also been encouraged. In this blog, we would read about the coming together of a group of people in Madhya Pradesh in the form of Tawa Matsya Sangh.

Struggle for Equality: Fighting for the displaced people

Whenever the government undertakes the task of building dams or bringing a forest area under its control for building a sanctuary, there are thousands of people who become displaced. In making such projects a success, thousands of villages are cleaned out and people are forced to shift somewhere else with promises by the government to rehabilitate them.

These people are extremely poor as they often comprise tribal or agricultural laborers who have existed for centuries on the natural resources of the forests or rivers. Such displacement wreaks havoc in the life of these villagers as they are forced to live in areas unknown to them. Their means of livelihood and their children�s education suffer. In recent years, thanks to the agitation, the attention of the country has been focused on the rehabilitation of the people, particularly Dalits and tribals.

There have been numerous villages that have been submerged by reservoirs created for the purpose of irrigation, government neglect in rehabilitating displaced people has been a century-old problem.

Read More: Striving for Equality - Class 7 Social Science Notes