NEW DELHI: Deepika Deshwal wears many hats. By profession, the 26-year-old is a law officer at the Supreme Court, but by passion, she is a social activist. Not just that, she is also a champion in wrestling and judo.
Deshwal is now on a mission to guide the inmates of Tihar Jail to a better life, and for that she is conducting moral ethics seminars for around 2,800 prisoners. The first seminar was held on the jail premises on February 25 and she wants to conduct more such events in the future. Held under the aegis of a non-governmental organisation Jan Jagran Abhiyan, the event was given a green light by Delhi's Police Commissioner Alok Verma, who was then the DG of Tihar Jail.
“There is no shortcut to success. You took the wrong avenue to reach your goal, and that’s why you are here. Your future can be different,” she told the inmates during an event last month.
Along with her, a few students and teachers from Delhi University took part in the event, and gave lectures on Buddhism and Morality, to influence the prisoners to follow the righteous path. But what forced her to organise such seminars? Deshwal says that it is important to make the inmates believe that all is not lost.
“We try to keep the lectures in the form of short stories so that the inmates understand it. We try to keep the stories close to reality so that the inmates can relate to it,” Deshwal told The Sunday Standard. Deshwal was a Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) secretary in 2010, and is currently perusing a master’s degree in philosophy from DU.