Mudasir Ali
We often come across with the term*Social Activism* or *Social Activist*, what does social activism entail? As the word itself indicates, Social Activist is a person whose main concern is society. A Social Activist fights for many issues such as Child labor, Universal right to education and Child abuse etc. A Social activist essentially engages in advocacy, confronting the dynamic social challenges through constitutional means. But for successful advocacy or social activism a lot will depend on the socio-political environment within which a social activist must operate. Activism literally means an effort or action with the intention to address issues and basic demands for the society under the Socio-Political System. It primarily involves advocacy of an activist which enhances the functionality mechanism so that the activist would advocate much beyond his/her services. In contrast to volunteer he is by far helping poor by supplying basic essentials to meet their demands during any contingency. But Social Activist has divergent areas to perform in the same domain. They both are not at par in approaches and roles. So activist plays an efficient and unparalleled role in bringing about social change while articulating genuine demands for Social and Political development. In addition, He/she also aims at fighting against all kinds of social disparities in the society with actual realization and understanding in compliance with the social principles and norms. He/ She maneuvers to address social issues on a wide platform thereby it covers wide range of attention for concerning which ultimately compels the government to have a look for final judgments. However, his/her role lies in the diversified system to serve the society on humanitarian grounds. Social Activist appeals state’s government to implement peace loving policies where everyone can have equal rights and opportunities. So activist is born to live for the betterment of society. As a matter of fact, society can do progress in every aspect when it would give birth of such active members who have societal feelings, kindness, integrity and living mind for the positive change. One can not to be a Social Activist until and unless He/She has such a humanistic and developmental approach for the society. He/ She should be having adequate understanding of social and political system of a state so that he/ she could plausibly express issues in a best possible way. Those who are quite familiar with the existing social and political system of a state could play a significant in this field. Activist lives with the sprit, love and having humane attributes for the people without interfering in belief, religion, caste, and creed that makes him/her globally worthwhile. In fact, he/she has to be moderate and rationale to articulate genuine concerns for issues. Acknowledging and representing of issues is the main valuable character of the Activist. Social issues are inevitable in a society and they will remain to occur. Such issues are very difficult for the common people to represent perfectly in order to get them resolved. Therefore, Social Activist could help people to listen their prolonged issues to the government for final approval. He/She is likely to be a good professional having profound knowledge in regarding to various issues of society which steadily lingering on. He/ She can be Lawyer, Sociologist, Anthropologist and rest among can be from other fields but should have deep perception of racism, untouchability, casteism, and Marginalization .He/She works for the development of society with having better and clear representations for addressing issues to higher levels. His/ Her intention is to awakening the government to grant for necessary developmental initiatives in all walks of society which are fundamentals for developing the prosperity of one’s state.
A social activist is highly active and much knowing in addressing social issues in accordance with the constitutional norms to higher levels who can take cognizance in time for finding out solutions.
Social Activist often works to disclose the inner realities of the social system. Many issues in the society are still under cover and unaddressed but social activist makes a way to unveil the actual history with facts and figures for streamlining the systematic identifications and analyzing process. From the sociological perspective a society is categorized by many socio-economic factors like Wealth, Income, Education, Gender, Occupation and Social status that is referred to as Social Stratification. These stratifications have sent its roots down and later divided the society on the basis of these factors. It creates social disparities and many problems in which the lower class have no access to power, wealth and prestige. This unjust system gives monopoly only to upper classes as they have such standards of living to take everything under control. Lower classes in such cases feel oppressed to speak against in the face of persistent prejudice and humiliations by the upper class. They consider themselves inferiors in this diversified system. Though upper class also gets a chance to avail large benefits through getting higher levels of Administrative jobs which always leads a way for them to achieve higher status. A social activist is highly active and much knowing in addressing social issues in accordance with the constitutional norms to higher levels who can take cognizance in time for finding out solutions. There are numerous issues in the society which are growing at an alarming rate; in this way a Social Activist could strive to highlight issues prior to bring any social disaster. He/She is highly inquisitive in representing issues with full knowledge and practice so that issues would not be delayed further due to incessant negligence of the government. He/ She plays a multi-pronged role in disseminating messages through use of literary works, Social media, and print media for positive concern and acknowledgment. Sometimes a government formulates new policies for the state which may be having bad results over the people in upcoming years. He/ She shall have to intervene timely in that matter by giving genuine opinions to government for reconsideration of the policies. As much as Social Activist works in view of social development by putting relentless efforts in order to carry out ground work for societal changes, he/ she raises domestic issues and demands social justice for the victims by approaching to the judiciary. Indeed, his /her intermediate part has matchless representation from which issues are getting addressed and approved. His/ Her magnificent efforts are remarkable as he/she represents society at each level in order to help them out from problems .Activist obviously has a deep empathy for people’s dwellings and necessities for living. He/She intentionally partakes in reconciliation process in the government policies and making them aware of ground realities of the society. He/ she comes up with genuine demands on the behalf of society regarding racial discriminations, Human rights violations and political turmoil. In the current times we may be having lesser information of social issues, what is happening around us and what new issues have been evolved in the society by now. But the Activist has a good information and researched documentary of all the issues. Who can raise various issues against the ruling government under constitutional means? Only and only activist can raise them and give a clear format for possible concerns. So an act of articulation of issues by a Social Activist is an arduous task to accomplish. It vividly describes to have deep thinking and reflections about social concerns but not arbitrarily to address them without having sophisticated fact findings. Activist lives with the courage and have a positive vision for the society. He/ she have no futile approach to misguide the members of society rather having a moral sense for uplifting them.
(The author is a freelancer and writes regularly for “ Kashmir Horizon”. Views are his own) [email protected]
