Hindus for Human Rights and the International Commission for Dalit Rights present the
2026 Civil Rights Scholarship Contest
This contest centers on migration as a constant in human history, inviting emerging writers and artists in high school and college to reflect on movement, borders, and belonging through personal, historical, and creative lenses.
At a moment when migration is increasingly politicized, criminalized, and misrepresented, the contest seeks to uplift nuanced work by South Asian students that grapples seriously with questions of justice across borders.
Ideas, Culture, and Movement Across Borders
The contest is fully funded by Hindus for Human Rights, in collaboration with the International Commission for Dalit Rights, and will award 4–5 scholarships of $1,500 each.
Winners of the essay section will collaborate with editors from the Polis Project for publication. Winners of the art section will be published in Skipping Stones Magazine.
Contest Topic
Migration is not an exception in human history, it is a constant. People have always moved in search of safety, dignity, opportunity, love, and survival. In a time when migration and immigration is being debated, restricted, and blamed for social problems, write an essay that connects your own migration story to another whose migration story is different from yours.
What do these stories reveal about who is allowed to move freely and who is not?
How do race, caste, class, gender, religion, nationality, or colonial history shape the meaning and consequences of migration?
What privileges, protections, or violences are attached to different kinds of movement?
Finally, reflect on the present moment. In a world marked by hardened borders, surveillance, climate displacement, and rising nationalism:
What does justice across borders demand of us now?
What responsibilities do those with relative safety, citizenship, or mobility hold toward those without it?
You are encouraged to draw on history, personal or collective memory, and media. You may engage with family stories, archival material, oral histories, and mythology. Essays should be non-fictional but can engage with storytelling and media in the piece. Through this entrypoint, consider exploring any or a combination of the questions above.
Writing Guidelines:
1000-1500 word count
Provide files in word document or pdf.
Non-fictional writing or media criticism format pieces only.
Art Guidelines:
Must be physical art scanned or photographed.
For alternative mediums contact info@hindusforhumanrights.org
200-300 word artist statement about the piece.
Deadline to submit pieces is June 1st, 2026. Winners will be announced in July 2026.