There are moments in the history of a grassroots organisation that appear ordinary when they happen, but acquire deeper meaning with the passage of time.
The inauguration of the PVCHR office in Varanasi was one such moment.
The archival photographs preserved by PVCHR capture an early chapter in the organisation’s journey: a modest office, a gathering of activists and community members, and the presence of eminent members of the Indian judiciary. The photographs remind us that institutions working for human rights are often built not from large infrastructure, but from relationships, conviction, documentation and the courage to stand with people whose voices are rarely heard.
An office as a space for justice
The photographs show the inauguration and early activities at the PVCHR office in Varanasi. One handwritten archival note identifies the presence of Justice M. N. Venkatachaliah and Justice V. S. Malimath.
Justice M. N. Venkatachaliah later served as the 25th Chief Justice of India and was Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission from 1996 to 1999. The Supreme Court of India records his judicial career, including his appointment to the Supreme Court in 1987 and his tenure as Chief Justice of India from February 1993 to October 1994.
Justice V. S. Malimath was also an important figure in India's legal and criminal-justice discourse. He chaired the Government of India's Committee on Reforms of Criminal Justice System, whose report was submitted in 2003. The Ministry of Home Affairs records that the committee made 158 recommendations concerning criminal procedure, criminal law and related aspects of the justice system.
The significance of their presence in the PVCHR archival photographs lies not simply in the stature of the individuals pictured, but in what such encounters represented for a young grassroots human-rights organisation in Varanasi.
From documentation to institutional memory
PVCHR's work has historically placed considerable importance on testimony, documentation and the experiences of survivors.
For people facing caste discrimination, custodial violence, bonded labour, exclusion and other forms of abuse, documentation can be the first step in transforming an individual experience of suffering into a matter of public accountability.
An office therefore becomes much more than a physical workplace.
It becomes a place where:
- survivors can tell their stories;
- testimonies can be documented;
- activists can organise;
- legal and human-rights interventions can be prepared;
- communities can meet;
- evidence can be preserved; and
- local experiences can enter wider conversations about justice and human dignity.
The photographs convey precisely this character. We see people gathered closely together, listening, discussing and participating in the life of the organisation.
The importance of an archival photograph
One of the most valuable features of these photographs is their ordinariness.
There is no grand conference hall. There is no elaborate institutional setting. Instead, we see a small room in Varanasi and a gathering of people around a shared concern.
This is important for understanding the history of civil society in India.
Human-rights institutions are often remembered through awards, reports, court interventions and international recognition. But behind those later milestones are years of meetings in modest rooms, conversations with survivors, visits to affected communities and painstaking documentation.
The PVCHR office was part of that foundation.
Justice, human rights and the common citizen
The presence of Justice Venkatachaliah is particularly significant when viewed against his later association with India's institutional human-rights framework. During his tenure as Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission, the Commission addressed issues including the protection of vulnerable groups and the responsibilities of public authorities.
Justice Malimath's later work on criminal-justice reform similarly reflected a national debate about how the justice system could respond more effectively to crime, victims, witnesses and the administration of justice.
For a grassroots organisation such as PVCHR, engagement with senior members of the legal and judicial community created an important bridge between community-level human-rights documentation and wider conversations about justice and institutional reform.
The early history of PVCHR deserves preservation
Today, PVCHR's work has extended across decades and has connected local struggles in eastern Uttar Pradesh with national and international human-rights networks.
But the photographs remind us that this journey had a beginning.
The early office in Varanasi was one of the physical spaces from which that journey developed.
The people gathered there represented different parts of the emerging human-rights ecosystem: activists, community members, legal professionals, supporters and visitors. Their presence illustrates how grassroots institutions are created collectively.
The photographs should therefore be understood not merely as photographs of dignitaries visiting an office. They are historical documents of the evolution of grassroots human-rights work in Varanasi.
Preserving the memory of a movement
PVCHR's archival photographs, testimonies, documents and institutional records form an important part of the social history of contemporary Varanasi.
They document a period when questions of caste, dignity, custodial violence, bonded labour and access to justice were being brought into public conversation through grassroots mobilisation and human-rights documentation.
Preserving these materials is therefore important not only for PVCHR itself but also for researchers studying:
human rights • social movements • Dalit rights • access to justice • criminal-justice reform • civil society • grassroots democracy • Varanasi's contemporary history
An old photograph can sometimes tell us something that an institutional report cannot.
It can show us who was present, where people gathered, how an organisation began and what kinds of relationships made its work possible.
From Varanasi to the world
Looking back from the present, these photographs acquire another significance.
The modest PVCHR office became one of the early spaces in a journey that eventually connected Varanasi with national and international human-rights institutions and networks.
The later recognition received by PVCHR and its work—including the Gwangju Human Rights Award, the International Human Rights Prize of the City of Weimar, and international human-rights engagement—can be understood as part of a much longer journey whose foundations were laid through everyday grassroots work.
The lesson of the archive is therefore simple:
Movements for human dignity do not begin with awards. They begin with people coming together.
The photographs of the PVCHR office inauguration preserve one of those beginnings.
They are a reminder that history is often made in small rooms—through conversation, testimony, solidarity and the determination to ensure that the experience of the most marginalised becomes part of the public record.
Published by: People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR), Varanasi
Suggested captions for the photographs
Photo 1: Justice M. N. Venkatachaliah inaugurating the PVCHR office in Varanasi, surrounded by activists and community members. Archival photograph.
Photo 2: An early gathering at the PVCHR office in Varanasi, documenting the organisation's community-centred approach to human-rights work.
Photo 3: Justice M. N. Venkatachaliah during the inauguration ceremony at the PVCHR office in Varanasi.
Photo 4: Justice V. S. Malimath and Justice M. N. Venkatachaliah at the PVCHR office, Varanasi. The archival handwritten annotation identifies both judges.
Photo 5: Justice M. N. Venkatachaliah participating in the PVCHR office inauguration ceremony.
In 1997, the PVCHR office in Varanasi was inaugurated by Justice Shri M. N. Venkatachaliah, former Chief Justice of India, and Justice Shri V. S. Malimath, former Chief Justice of the Karnataka and Kerala High Courts.
Justice M. N. Venkatachaliah (born 25 October 1929) served as the 25th Chief Justice of India from 1993 to 1994. He had earlier served as a Judge of the Karnataka High Court and as a Judge of the Supreme Court of India. He subsequently served as Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission of India from 1996 to 1998 and headed the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution in 2000. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 2004.
Justice V. S. Malimath (1929–2015) was a distinguished Indian jurist who served as Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court and subsequently as Chief Justice of the Kerala High Court. He also served as Chairperson of the Central Administrative Tribunal and as a member of the National Human Rights Commission of India. He later chaired the Committee on Reform of the Criminal Justice System in India and contributed to several national and international initiatives concerning justice and human rights.
The inauguration by these two eminent jurists reflected the importance attached to human rights, access to justice and institutional accountability at the formative stage of PVCHR's work.
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