Meet The Caseworkers: Episode 8, Manju Soni

Who is a caseworker? What was that one case that stayed with them? How do they deal with violence, both as a survivor and as a caseworker? What pushes them to step out everyday and work on cases of violence? In this episode, meet Manju Soni from Banda, Uttar Pradesh. Manju has been working with Vanangana NGO since 2000 and for the past five years has been working as a caseworker in the organisation, focused on gender-based violence cases. She says, “When a woman comes and tells her story, I find it very interesting to listen to her. I am able to get her to speak freely. You could say it is my skill or something else. The women take me in their confidence and share the whole story. I also like the legal aspect of it. Filing an FIR, and ensuring that wrongdoers are sent to jail. Even if I couldn’t achieve it in my own case, I can bring justice to this person”

In 2022, we started working with 12 caseworkers across Uttar Pradesh, locating them as creators of knowledge around violence. With them, we created a vocabulary around gender-based violence (GBV) emerging from the grassroots, which is now live as the Caseworker’s Dictionary of Violence. The lexicographers for this dictionary are from Lalitpur, Lucknow, and Banda, with days, nights and decades of working cases that may have disappeared from history, if it wasn’t for them.

The 12 caseworkers who have co-authored this Dictionary, intervene in situations of murder, rape, abduction, child sexual abuse, dowry deaths and domestic violence. The caseworkers have emerged from the communities they work with, and have experienced violence in their own lives. They have learnt to be caseworkers by showing up, by doing, and by the occasional legal training and input.

In our series, Meet the Caseworkers, we spoke individually to these 12 caseworkers. They trace back their lives and times, their epiphanies, their regrets. They also share tools and strategies for other grassroot workers working with violence.

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The Third Eye is being written and developed by a team of educators, documentary filmmakers, storytellers; people with extensive experience of gathering narratives, oral histories and developing contextual pedagogies for the rural and the marginalised.