Ajay Kumar: A Fierce Champion of Rights, Equity, and Collective Power

In Memoriam | Hindus for Human Rights

Ajay Kumar, Founder of RIGHTS and Director of the Equitives Foundation and Global Convenor of the Alliance of Climate Front-line Communities, passed away in August 2025 after a short illness. We mourn the loss of a brilliant strategist, tireless advocate, and beloved friend.

Ajay Kumar, Founder of RIGHTS and Director of the Equitives Foundation, passed away in August 2025 after a short illness. We mourn the loss of a brilliant strategist, tireless advocate, and beloved friend.

Ajay Kumar’s passing is not just the loss of a movement leader—it is the loss of a comrade, a teacher, and a fierce ally in the fight for justice. At Hindus for Human Rights, we were fortunate to know him closely. His wisdom, fire, and deep humility shaped our work and touched our hearts.

As a young man, Ajay joined the Narmada Bachao Andolan, working alongside Medha Patkar to resist mass displacement. That formative experience grounded his politics in environmental justice and grassroots resistance, and set the tone for a lifetime of principled action.

Ajay Kumar as ED of the Equitives Foundation speaking at the Special Congressional Briefing on Democratic backslide in India on July 19, 2023

Returning to Kerala, he turned his attention to the quiet crisis of school dropouts among Dalit children. In village after village, he built relationships with families, created programs to keep children in school, and soon expanded his work to include women’s financial empowerment. He saw clearly that when women are socially, economically, and politically empowered, entire communities begin to shift.

In 2008, Ajay founded RIGHTS, an organization dedicated to transforming education, disaster response, and economic self-reliance. From the outset, he made a vow that RIGHTS would be women-led—not in name only, but in structure and leadership. He trained, mentored, and eventually handed over leadership of the organization to a powerful team of women, including the dynamic Lekshmi.

Ajay Kumar holding a bamboo rainstick made by Dalit women served by RIGHTS (photo Sunita Viswanath)

Among its many initiatives, RIGHTS launched a bamboo-based women’s entrepreneurship program. Women were trained to design and market bamboo products—a strategy that provided income, dignity, and protection against the floods that regularly struck Kerala’s most vulnerable villages. Ajay’s genius was always in these layered solutions: smart, intersectional, and grounded in community strength.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Ajay mobilized fast. Under his leadership, RIGHTS organized community mask-making groups, installed water stations in underserved villages, and distributed food and medicines to Dalit and Adivasi communities hit hardest by the lockdowns. But Ajay was also deeply concerned about the growing digital divide. As Indian schools moved online, he saw firsthand how Dalit and Adivasi children were being excluded from education simply because they lacked access to devices, electricity, and broadband.

Ajay thanking RISE supporters and updating them on the impact of their giving during the pandemic

In response, he launched the Bhim Online Classroom — a revolutionary educational model that brought digital learning directly into marginalized villages. RIGHTS established socially distanced classrooms across Kerala, each outfitted with smart TVs, internet access, and one volunteer teacher per site. More than 50 volunteers, including retired educators and tech workers, created a digital curriculum for these centers. By the second month, there were 24 classrooms across the state, and the online platform had over 250,000 subscribers.

Ajay understood that the digital divide mirrored other inequalities—of caste, class, and gender. For him, Bhim Online wasn’t a temporary fix. It was a structural intervention. Students in the program could rate their teachers, breaking down caste-based barriers to authority. Ajay called it a “revolution”—and it was.

In a 2023 interview with Hindus for Human Rights, Ajay said:

“The pandemic didn’t create inequality—it exposed it. RIGHTS wasn’t doing charity—we were doing justice.”

After handing over RIGHTS to its women leaders, Ajay turned his focus to budget justice. He founded the Equitives Foundation, which helped grassroots communities analyze state and national budgets, track public spending, and advocate for equitable allocations. It was a natural continuation of his belief that rights without resources are meaningless—and that those most impacted must shape the policies that govern their lives.

Ajay also co-founded the Alliance of Climate Frontline Communities—a coalition that brought together marginalized groups across South Asia to advocate in international climate forums and elevated frontline voices in global climate conversations—calling for reparations, traditional knowledge recognition, and climate justice rooted in caste and class analysis.

Ajay and Sunita at the Modi demonstration in 2019

Ajay’s activism extended beyond India. In 2019, he joined a protest against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi outside the United Nations headquarters in New York. It was his first public appearance with Hindus for Human Rights. HfHR Executive Director Sunita Viswanath remembers that moment clearly:

“What was remarkable was how fearless he was. It was a high-stakes protest, and he didn’t hold back. He spoke straight from the heart—about caste, about democracy, about India’s future. No fear. That was the day I met him.”

What made Ajay so beloved wasn’t just the causes he championed, but the way he lived them. He rejected saviorism. He refused to hoard power. He built capacity, passed on leadership, and always asked how others could grow. For him, reports were only meaningful if they led to action. Action only mattered if it restored dignity.

In one of our last visits with him, over a simple lunch, he was still thinking ahead—about remote villages with no electricity, about alternative learning models, about long-term advocacy. He smiled often, asked questions, and continued to dream boldly.

Ajay Kumar leaves behind not only institutions, but generations of movement leaders who carry forward his legacy. His life was a masterclass in principled leadership, grassroots imagination, and transformative solidarity.

May we honor him not just with words, but with action.
May his memory move us forward.

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Ajay Kumar as part of the Desh Videsh Conversation Series - this episode discussing anti-caste legislation in California