Indu Choudhary is an assistant professor at the department of English in the Banaras Hindu University, in Uttar Pradesh. She has been an active participant in the Bahujan movement, across several districts of Uttar Pradesh, for a long time. Choudhary is a self-avowed follower of Kanshi Ram, the founder of the Bahujan Samaj Party and a former chief minister of the state. In August 2022, Choudhary established her own organisation called the Bahujan Shakti Mission, with the aim of taking forward and implementing Kanshi Ram’s ideals.
Speaking to Sunil Kashyap, a staff writer at The Caravan, on 21 August 2022, Choudhary said that, “Today, organisation is the biggest challenge in front of the Bahujan movement.” Choudhary told Kashyap that her organisation is focussed on building an ideologically committed cadre because, “Till the time you don’t work on the ground, you cannot make any social movement a political movement.”
Sunil Kashyap: What is the Bahujan Shakti Mission? What kind of work is it doing and what is its significance?
Indu Choudhary: The name is self-explanatory. Kanshi Ram taught us the word “Bahujan.” Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, and minorities are about eighty five percent of the population, if they come together and realise their power, they will be unstoppable, like a giant elephant. This is what Kanshi Ram tried to do. Taking inspiration from that, we have named the organisation Bahujan Shakti Mission. This is a mission to make the common man aware of their power again, to remind them of the ideologies of great men, the power of their vote, and to make the youth economically, educationally and socially prosperous. This was needed because after the lockdown and demonetisation, a large section of us have become even poorer. Demonetisation and lockdown have had an adverse impact on the education of the children in our classes.
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