On Wednesday 10th June, we were in Madurai, in the state of Tamil Nadu in the southeast of India. We had a meeting with Henri Tiphagne, who is the founder and executive director of People’s Watch. People’s Watch is an organisation that works to promote Human Rights in India..

Henri Tiphagne explained to us the origin of his commitment by paying tribute to his adoptive mother. This woman born in Normandy came to India in order to devote her life to treating people suffering from leprosy. She passed her sense of moral values and action on to him.

            Henri Tiphagne in his office in Madurai

During his studies in Chennai (Madras), Henri Tiphagne joined a students’ movement where he reflected with other young people about the origin of inequalities and about the way to fight against it. When devastating floods hit the south of the Tamil Nadu in 1977, words were no longer enough. The group went to Madurai to take action with the disaster victims. This experience left its mark on him in the long-term: he saw that despite the extreme conditions the population was facing, discrimination between castes persisted at the heart of the disaster.

He decided to take action against this discrimination and specialised in law studies. He became a lawyer and got involved in the defence of victims of Human Rights violations within the PUCL (People’s Union for Civil Liberties). During this experience, he faced the lack of goodwill from the Indian judiciary administration to apply the law.

A turning point occurred in 1993 when he went for the first time to an international conference about the Human Rights in Vienna. There, he met participants from other continents (Africa and Latin America in particular) who were taking action in different ways to defend the case of the Human Rights. Instead of only dedicating themselves to the defence of victims, they performed the rigorous work of collection and analysis of the recorded violations. This was then used to confront the State to its responsibilities and to force it to modify its functioning.

Henri Tiphagne came back to Madurai with the firm intention to develop a similar program of Human Rights monitoring in India, and People’s Watch was born in 1996.

            People’s Watch office in Madurai

At the start, the action of People’s Watch was focused on the state of the Tamil Nadu region. Henri Tiphagne put his victims defence work on hold in order to focus entirely on the organisation of his monitoring work: he needed a new way to grasp the question of the Human Rights. This work consists in connecting together isolated facts in order to bring out repeated cases of elementary rights violations and to make institutions react at a national or international level. In this way, People’s Watch brought the attention of international organisations to the discriminations against the dalits (formerly called untouchables) in India. In 2000, the UN added the discrimination on the grounds of ascendance or profession on the list of violations of human rights.

When Henri Tiphagne resumed his victims’ defence work in 1999, he understood that the refusal of the judges and authorities to act came partly from their insensitivity to victims’ suffering. He launched a big campaign for the rehabilitation of people and also applied this idea within People’s Watch: the appearance in court and even the compensation obtained are not enough, life must return to normal. Henri Tiphagne created two reception centres where teams of doctors and psychologists give support to the victims in order to help them go beyond their traumas and regain their place in society. Help is also granted to assist victims’ orphan children with their studies. His biggest hopes were born when he saw these men and women recovering, and themselves becoming defenders of Human rights. Today, four former victims work within People’s Watch. Some others are training and ready to join the team.

The ideal would be to avoid all these violations: discrimination between castes, domestic violence, torture, bad treatment in schools, etc. For this, People’s Watch put its effort into a long-term prospect: promoting a Human rights culture in India, guaranteeing for peace and freedom, of which all the citizens would be actors. In accordance with this principle, People’s Watch initiated a Civilian Human Right Movement (the CHRM) that today counts committees in hundreds of villages in the Tamil Nadu and nearly 25,000 members. These volunteers are the intermediaries of People’s Watch in the field.

The Human Rights culture must also build itself through the education of the youngest. From its early stages, in 1997, People’s Watch launched a program of Human Rights education. First limited to a few experimental schools, the system spread quickly across the state, and then started its development in the rest of India from 2005. The figures speak for themselves: 3,786 schools participate in the program across 13 states in India, more than 5,000 teachers were trained, and more than 300,000 children between 11 and 14 followed the program. Henri Tiphagne believes in the ability of young people to make things change. He recalled the courage of this little boy who confronted an old woman and made her promise in front of the other villagers not to kill her newly born granddaughter. This little boy reported the events to his teacher, and the whole classroom worked out a watch program for pregnant women in order to prevent infanticides of girls, which are numerous in India because of the weight of tradition. The teachers who teach Human Rights have become referents that the children trust, the message communicates well!

After all these years, and despite the threats and intimidations People’s Watch have to face, Henri Tiphagne is still determined to pursue his fight.

He explained to us how the respect of Human Rights is essential to establish the social peace and democracy, which is its political expression. Conversely, its absence leads to violence and disorder. He gave us the example of the elections in India, where the dice are often loaded: the lack of respect for democracy leads the political opposition to express itself through violence and terrorism (which themselves also constitute Human Rights violations).

In a more general way, Human Rights are the rights for all mankind to live decently, freely, and in peace. Countries must unite to promote these rights together as a system of universal values, both within international organisations and with their citizens. The destinies of the different populations are becoming more and more connected, and Human Rights represent the common legal basis on which they will be able to agree to face the challenges of today.

Comment aider ?

En tant que structure indépendante, People’s Watch n’est pas soutenue par l’Etat. L’association dépend des dons financiers pour son fonctionnement et la poursuite de son action. L’échange est une des valeurs de People’s Watch et les volontaires, les stagiaires sont bienvenus pour partager un bout d’aventure avec Henri Tiphagne et son équipe.

How to help

People’s Watch
6A, Vallabhai Road, Chokkikulam
Madurai – 625002
India

Website : www.pwtn.org
Telephone : +91 (0) 452 – 2539520
Fax : +91 (0) 452 – 2531874

Gabrielle and François
(Translation: Yolene Dabreteau)