ASHA Workers

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi was delivering an election speech in Madhubani, Bihar on April 24 (just two days after a terrorist attack on tourists in Pahalgam, Kashmir, when the entire nation was in mourning) and shedding crocodile tears, ASHA workers and facilitators in the state were expressing their anger on the streets of Bihar. ASHA workers in the state have been struggling for the past six months to receive their rightful remuneration.

Politically, 2024 saw the BJP government face a significant setback in the national elections. At the same time, the year saw a number of workers’ struggles from various sectors, protesting the anti-worker policies of not only the BJP as prime perpetrator, but also various other oppositional governments and private establishments who share the same crony corporate capitalist mores.

When the ASHA workers of Uttar Pradesh tried to submit their memorandum of demands to the CM Yogi Adityanath when he came for a program in Shahjahanpur on 9th November, the police not only stopped them from submitting the memorandum, but also brutally attacked them. One of the ASHA workers, Punam Pandey’s hand was broken, was stamped under the boot and was also attacked in the genitals. After physically assaulting the workers, the police filed cases against ASHA workers themselves.

ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activists) workers are part of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) launched in 2005 to provide rural areas access to better healthcare facilities. ASHA workers form the backbone of this scheme. The scheme was initially designed to make sure that there is ‘doorstep delivery’ of health services to rural communities, and ASHA workers became the veritable foot soldiers of this scheme. The burden of reaching the homes of people in rural areas fell on the shoulders of ASHA workers.