ALL INDIA HUMAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION

INTERNSHIP TASK (3)

ROLE OF STUDENTS IN GUARANTEEING THE PROTECTION

OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Submitted By

S.Sadhana

BA.LLB (Hons) First year

Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab

As a young law student whose day is mostly spent making lengthy

projects, preparing for moots, attending lectures and frantically revising for
exams, I spend precious little time in thinking about my role and place in the
world. But my internship with AIHRA requires me to think about the big
picture, particularly my role as a student in guaranteeing the protection of
human rights. When I did contemplate on my role, I thought about all the
things I could and should have done, and the things I didn’t do. Now I use this
task as an opportunity to show what the student community, which will
produce the leaders of tomorrow, can do to guarantee the protection of human
rights in this often depraved world.

1. Educate Yourself, Sensitize others

If one hopes to solve a problem, they must be ready to spend a great deal of
time in trying to understand it. Just being aware of the fact that Tamils are still
deprived of their rights in Sri Lanka isn’t enough. Knowing the history of the
civil war, genocide of Tamils, reading and analyzing existing literature and
keeping up with the current news is essential. A root cause analysis towards
ethnic cleansing and hyper nationalism and their consequence on human
rights should be adopted.

Armed with analytical knowledge, we students must take the next step,
sensitizing others. Discussing and debating social issues can never be an
exercise in futility. Talking about issues paves the path towards solving those
issues.

2. Carpe Diem for the future

I would interpret the Latin phrase Carpe Diem as to seize the day for a better
tomorrow. At the risk of sounding pessimistic, the students of this generation
must come to terms with the fact that as we grow up our world would be
ravaged by climate change, more pandemics, scarcity of resources and possible
wars. So we must seize every opportunity that we have today to create a better
tomorrow for us to live in. It can be helping the marginalized in your locality to
beginning a movement to seek justice for the oppressed. We do not have the
luxury to just live in the present movement and give little thought about the
future.

Students, through internships, volunteering, writings and sensitizing can

guarantee the protection of human rights.

3. Overcome Personal Prejudices

If we want to create an egalitarian society in which human rights of all is

guaranteed and enforced, we must overcome our personal biases. Our
prejudice may be towards a religious community or towards people with
different gender identities. We must learn to look past petty differences and
focus on the common link between all of us, our humanity.

4. Being an Active Citizen

We students must be active citizens first. It can be speaking up against

discrimination, organizing a cleanup or a pride march, mobilizing people and
resources in your locality, reporting your grievances to the government while
working to solve it. We must not end up being a passive, mildly concerned
citizen who forwards messages on social media without thinking twice and pats
themselves on the back.

5. Practice Compassion

Humans have an enormous potential for compassion. But in many cases, it

merely means sympathizing with the sufferings of others. When we see videos
on the ongoing war in Syria, or about the starving children in Madagascar, we
spend few minutes expressing our disdain towards the state of things and
blame different governments. That is the extent of our compassion. We must
look inwards, practice compassion in our daily lives. We must practice active
compassion towards animals, the environment and fellow humans. Entwine
compassion in your daily routine. Only when we have compassion in our
hearts can we guarantee the protection of human rights.

The world we live in is an enigmatic conundrum. While the majority of the

population spends their entire lives trying to navigate their way through it, few
brave individuals try to solve it. Madan Mohan Malavya, Gandhi, Martin Luther
King Jr, Wangari Maathai were such people. Now it is time for us students to
rise to the occasion and help create a better world for ourselves and ourselves
and the future generations.