Claiming Rights through Writing : A story of Sunita Devi

Sunita Devi’s journey is not just a story of working with systems - it is a story of how one

woman learned to use her rights, live them, and teach others to claim theirs.

From Datokhurd village in Jharkhand, a rural area marked by poverty, unemployment, and

limited access to basic services, Sunita gets recognised as a person in the community who

gets things done. Whether it is ration not reaching a household, a pension stuck for months,

a broken handpump, or a missing name in a government list - people now see her as the

person who can turn complaints into action. At the center of this change is her consistent

use of one tool: application writing.

Sunita often says,

“Where the Constitution does not reach, I want to connect people

there.

” For her, this connection happens through writing, turning lived problems into formal

claims that the system cannot ignore.

Before this identity took shape, Sunita was already deeply involved in community work. She

started working with the Public Welfare Development Center in 2009, supported initiatives

like E-Shakti and Gali Gali Sim Sim, and served as an Udyog Mitra under JSLPS. She

helped form self-help groups, supported women in opening bank accounts, and facilitated

access to loans. Over time, she built and strengthened nearly 100 SHGs. As a Jalsahiya,

she also worked on water, sanitation, and hygiene awareness in her village.

But at that stage, her work was driven more by effort than by rights. She was helping people,

but did not yet have a clear understanding of how constitutional rights could be used as

tools.

That changed after the We The People Abhiyan training in collaboration with Ambedkar

Foundation.

In the training, she came across Fundamental Rights and understood what they truly meant

in practise. Along with this, she learned the skill of effective applications. After that, she

started using both - understanding rights and writing applications, to solve issues in her own

life and in the community.

She recalls one such case where she visited a remote village in Datokhurd, where people

did not even have the basic facilities like water and road. Families drank water sourced from

a river and the lack of a road made access to nearby areas extremely difficult. Sunita wrote

an application highlighting the issue, and soon after, a borewell was installed.

However, when no action was taken on the road and the monsoon was approaching, she

decided not to wait any longer. She began mobilising the villagers, and together they built

the road themselves. She later did the same in another nearby village, bringing people

together to build a road through collective effort. Remembering that moment, she smiles and says,

“We even made up a song -

“Yeh road kaun banaya - sarkar nahi, main banaya”

“Who build this road - not the government, we did"

That song, in a way, stays with her. Not just as a memory, but as a reminder of what people

can do when they stop waiting.explaining that domestic violence, exclusion, or silence in the

face of injustice is not “normal,” but a violation of Fundamental Rights. She began to live

equality in her own life too, refusing to internalize criticism or social judgment.

Her leadership also transformed mobility for women. In a context where women rarely

traveled independently, Sunita learned to ride a scooter and encouraged other women to do the same. Today, many women in her block have mobility because she normalized it through her example. She also sits in Gram Sabha meetings, raises issues, and people listen to her seriously.

Sunita Devi’s story, at its core, is about a woman who learned that rights are not to be read,

they are to be practiced. And once she learned that, she did not just claim them for herself;

she made sure hundreds of others could claim them too.

The above story has been written and published with the explicit consent of the individual involved. All facts presented are based on WTPA's direct interaction with the individual, ensuring accuracy and integrity in our reporting.