Swaraj Vidwan is an Indian social worker and activist for the underrepresented. She is a former member of the

National Commission for Scheduled Castes The National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) is a constitutional body under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India, established in 2004. It is responsible for the protection, welfare, development, and advanc ...

. She was awarded the

Nari Shakti Puraskar The Nari Shakti Puraskar () is an annual award given by the Ministry of Women and Child Development of the Government of India to individual women or to institutions that work towards the cause of women empowerment. It is presented by the presi ...

by the government of India for her work with vulnerable and marginalised groups. She is currently affiliated with the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; , ) is a political party in India and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP emerged out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's ...

(BJP) and serves as a General Secretary in the BJP Scheduled Caste Morcha, the party's Scheduled Caste wing.

Life

She works with vulnerable and marginalised groups. Around 2000 she started her work looking after people in

Uttarkashi Uttarkashi is a town and the headquarters of Uttarkashi district in Uttarakhand, India. Geography Uttarkashi is located at . It has an average elevation of . Demographics India census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is t ...

. She set up over 100 self help groups to empower the members and also arranged funding allowing 160 poor women to marry. She arranged for 1200 women to find a pension and for another 500 women to arrange finance to become self employed. 800 girls who had difficulty attending school were found money to cover their school books and their school uniform.

Gomukh Gomukh, also known as "Gaumukh" or "Gomukhi" (Hindi: गौमुख or गौमुखी ; Assamese and Bengali: গোমুখ or গোমুখী), is the terminus or snout of the Gangotri Glacier and the source of the Bhagirathi Rive ...

is a glacier and Vidwan arranged for 120 people to clean it up and improve the environment. More urgently she helped organise assistance after the

2013 North India floods In June 2013, a mid-day cloudburst centered on the North Indian state of Uttarakhand caused devastating floods and landslides, becoming the country's worst natural disaster since the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, 2004 tsunami. The r ...

. On

International Women's Day International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on 8 March, commemorating women's fight for equality and liberation along with the women's rights movement. International Women's Day gives focus to issues such as gender equality, reproductive righ ...

in 2015 she received the

. She was one of the first eight Nari Shakti Awards for her leadership and achievement the year before. The award was made by the then Indian President

Pranab Mukherjee Pranab Kumar Mukherjee ( ; born, 11 December 1935 – 31 August 2020) was an Indian statesman who served as the president of India from 2012 until 2017. He was the first person from West Bengal to hold the post of President of India. In a pol ...

. Vidwan helps rape victims, particularly where she suspects that the police are ignoring cases where the victim is from a lower caste. In 2018 she and the

were interceding on behalf of a 16 year old rape victim. The man the police accused of the crime died in custody. Vidwan wanted the police person charged with murder as she suspected that the man's convenient death may be hiding the real rapists.

Politics

Vidwan is affiliated with the

serves as General Secretary of the BJP Scheduled Caste Morcha.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vidwan, Swaraj Living people People from Uttarakhand Indian women activists Indian human rights activists Year of birth missing (living people)