What it’s like for a 20-year-old DU girl to live on Rs 32 a day

Youngsters from across the country participate in Samvidhan LIVE — The Jagrik Project, to understand the Constitution of India. They participate in different tasks and activities to know the rights and duties of a citizen better.

Next Monday, for 24 hours, 20-year-old Delhi University student Anukriti Garg will live the life of a person below poverty line in India, and will try to survive on Rs 32. “This is the amount decided and I wonder how I will be able to fulfil the challenge, considering just my every day travel expense from home to college is Rs 150. And I use public transport! Maybe I’ll walk to college and survive on a banana,” says Garg, who is a final year undergraduate student of business studies in Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College.

Like her, many youngsters are engaged in different tasks and activities as part of Samvidhan LIVE — The Jagrik Project, an initiative conducted by more than 25 civil society organisations. In the run up to the Republic Day, this project has involved adolescents and youth from different parts of the country and helps understand the Indian constitution and its various articles. The endeavour is to impart practical knowledge about the rights and duties in the constitution. After experiencing a change in mindset, as part of the project, the jagriks i.e. jagruk nagrik (aware citizens) share their experiences on the project’s Facebook page.

“I dressed up in a salwar-suit for a day,” says Abhishek Mishra, a second year student of Hindi (Hons) in Ramanujan College, DU. He slipped into a woman’s attire while participating in a cross-dressing task, among the many other activities that he experienced. “I purposely chose to be part of this task because I wanted to know why women in our country face discrimination on the basis of their dress. When I wore a salwar-suit, the locals asked so many questions. So I can understand why girls have to face weird onlookers when they wear western clothes. How does it matter to others about what one chooses to wear? Where is our right of equality then? We need to put ourselves in other’s shoes to realise the plight of others,” says Mishra.

Two youngsters participate in the cross-dressing task.