Our fellow from Nandurbar, Maharashtra Darshana Avinash Vasave

belongs to the Bhil tribal community.

She is a very good student and has won many scholarships to pursue her education outside of her district.
However she recollects “I was always taunted and verbally abused for belonging to a ‘reserved category’ especially when I went to pursue my Master's in Sociology. I faced partiality and biases perpetrated by her fellow students and even teachers. I belong to a tribal majority district where I had never faced such discrimination before.”

When she came across the Indira Fellowship she wanted to join it because her family follows the Congress Party ideology.
She believes that the fellowship has helped her beyond her expectations to get an identity of her own.
“It is very rare that a woman from a simple household like mine get opportunity to engage in politics”
Darshana’s Father and brother supported her decision to join the fellowship.

However Darshana herself was never keen on politics, however certain issues influenced her to join a political fellowship.

She says “Since I am myself a Tribal woman and come from a tribal district I was appalled by the condition and violence perpetrated against tribal women in Manipur so I decided to look for platforms where I could raise the tribal issues and bring about a political change.”

Her district is a place where the tribal community have lived harmoniously since time immemorial but recently RSS has been actively instigating religious divides within the tribes. “They are mixing politics with religion and creating divides by creating categories of ‘Hindu bhils’ or ‘Muslim bhils’.
She wants to tackle such problems by being a representative of tribal communities at national level.

She wants to use this platform for highlighting issues of Adivasi women and make them aware of policies and schemes that benefit tribal women.

Darshana understands the importance of education and is pursuing MPhil herself, however she wants to use the Indira Fellowship platform to help women who are school dropouts to continue education.