In 2012, when I joined Amnesty India, Manmohan Singh was prime minister, Barack Obama was US President and Sachin Tendulkar was still playing cricket.
On a leafy avenue in Bengaluru, in an office smelling of fresh paint, a dozen of us debated the issues the organisation would work on. Some of them were already the stuff of newspaper headlines: The crackdown on anti-nuclear protesters in Koodankulam, the violence against civilians by Maoist groups and security forces in Chhattisgarh.
But we were also eager to expose human rights violations that were too mundane or unpopular for mainstream media: How big mining companies were gobbling up Adivasi land in central India, why so many undertrials languished in India’s jails, the everyday atrocities that people faced in Kashmir.
Amnesty International had worked on human rights in India for decades, and had even earlier set up offices in the country. Where we would be different, we thought, was that our work would eventually be funded by ordinary Indians who cared about their country.