Civil Society, Governance and Human Rights (CSGHR) evolved as a separate portfolio with a pan-India focus as an outcome of the Strategic Planning exercise that was undertaken. At the outset 22 projects slotted under the Social Development Initiatives portfolio until 2006 were brought under the CSGHR portfolio as per the strategic planning exercise.

The thrust areas identified within CSGHR portfolio as outlined in the strategic plan are:

The portfolio will specifically focus on improving the implementation of the 73rd Amendment of the Indian Constitution and Panchayati Raj Extension to Schedule Areas (PESA) to ensure functional democracy.   

Support would be provided towards creating an institutional environment in which basic human rights are protected for the most marginalized communities.

Most of the backward areas are not only characterized by poor outreach of basic services, but also a lack of presence of civil society organizations. The portfolio recognizes this need and will support initiatives that will build the capacities of civil society organizations to respond to the complexities of poverty and promote rights of the people.  

The portfolio will in a variety of ways seek to professionalize rights-based work through, research, advocacy, documentation and dissemination of relevant materials and also engage with government as well as non-governmental organizations, community-based organizations and the institutional actors such as the police and judiciary.

The program team translated these guidelines and identified various innovative interventions across the country. The projects that are supported in the three main thrust areas focus on -

The focus remained on the grassroots governance in the remote areas of India with emphasis on principles of accountability, transparency and participation of the most marginalized communities in governance.

Several field organizations provide training to the vast number of men and women elected to the Gram Panchayats, in order that they may better understand how to use the legitimate power that they have gained out of an electoral process to ensure better governance at the village level.

The portfolio of CSGHR also focuses on securing rights of marginalized communities in the most deprived areas of the poorer states of India. The portfolio would respond to appeals that seek to restore and protect the rights of women, Dalits, tribals, homeless, prisoners and basic entitlements of the vulnerable communities. It is found that human rights violations are most rampant among the relatively poorer states.  Food insecurity among the poor despite overall economic growth of the country remains a serious problem for the country. In the past few years, a public interest litigation filed by a few organizations have yielded very good orders by the Supreme Court that have strengthened the hands of the rural poor and the civil society organizations working in these areas. These orders have played a significant role in streamlining the Public Distribution System – the major source of grain for the poor. Armed with these orders, the poor and civil society organizations are working towards ensuring the basic right to food.

One of the interesting things about rights is that when its denial becomes apparent only then would you seek justice for the denial. Thus the important thing while working on human rights is to be able to track the violations such as in the case of housing and land rights. For the poor a house is not just a shelter, it also doubles up as an important component of their livelihood strategy. Improper records of land and poor updating of inheritance records on death of the land holder create the conditions for taking away land rights.

Violence against women is a wide spread phenomenon despite legislation protecting women against it. The Trusts’ work in this area continues to be ground breaking.

In addition, the Trusts have supported pioneering work in the criminal justice system that looks at securing prisoners’ rights and the rights of the undertrails. This unique model – a field action project by TISS – has nurtured several smaller programs across Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

In order to sustain social development initiatives, strengthening civil society is one of the main requirements of this sector and hence is a focus area of this portfolio.  While there is an increase in the number of formal institutions offering degree courses in social work, the need far outnumbers the supply. There is a need to promote organizations that do both meaningful , good quality work in areas of need as well as to promote activists and professionals who will develop strategies to deal with complex phenomenon such as poverty. Thus this portfolio looks at strengthening small civil society organizations, promoting fellows to work on specific themes to promote basic rights of the poor and marginalized and towards improving governance within civil society. Supporting fellowship programs has emerged as a useful approach to reach out to marginalized communities as well as contribute to the civil society

While CSGHR has been defined as a separate portfolio and has a pan-India focus, it will be working towards broad basing its work on protection and promotion of basic human rights and strengthening governance within civil society.