Lighting the Path of Inclusion: Punit Asthana and the Quiet Power of Grassroots Change

SMPL
Agra (Uttar Pradesh) [India], October 10: For over two decades, Punit Asthana has worked with India's most marginalised communities--especially Dalit and backward groups--helping build schools, toilets, libraries, and livelihoods in places long left behind. This October, that journey was recognised when he received the Mahatma Award 2025 for Social Good and Impact, supported by the UNDP and the Aditya Birla Group.
Asthana's path began far from the halls of policy. Raised in Agra by a single mother, he learned early what resilience looks like. What started as a modest effort to support neighbourhood children has grown into a movement reaching more than 50,000 people across Uttar Pradesh. His guiding belief is simple: development only lasts when the people who benefit also lead.
Building Dignity Through Education
In the schools Asthana partners with, classrooms are cleaner, libraries are fuller, and dropout rates--especially among girls--have fallen sharply. Each project is locally owned. Residents decide what matters and drive the change themselves. "Accountability doesn't come from outside," he often says. "It comes when people see a school as theirs."

Leading from the Margins
Asthana's leadership is rooted in listening rather than directing. His deep engagement with Dalit and backward communities isn't limited to advocacy--it's about co-creation. By sharing meals, learning local histories, and standing with people in moments of protest and celebration alike, he helps dismantle caste barriers not through rhetoric but through relationship.
Those who once hesitated to speak now lead local councils and school committees. His model of leadership shows that inclusion grows strongest where power is shared--and equality stops being an idea and starts becoming a habit.
Empowering Women Beyond Welfare
For Punit Asthana, helping women and girls has never been about charity. It's about voice--the quiet confidence to act and decide for themselves.
Across years of community work, he has led hundreds of workshops on menstrual and reproductive health, often in places where such conversations were once unthinkable. Alongside awareness came access: affordable, eco-friendly sanitary pads and the simple dignity of choice.
What began as health education grew into something larger. Thousands of women have since gone on to form collectives, launch small businesses, and stand their ground against early marriage and financial dependence.
When Asthana received the Mahatma Award, he called it a salute to the girls who kept studying and the women who found their courage out loud.

Rethinking How Change Happens
Recently, as a panelist at We Serve India--an initiative by Forbes India, Lions International, and TV18--Asthana urged a shift from charity to collaboration. His long-term vision, he explained, rests on Antyodaya: uplifting the last person first. For him, inclusion isn't a slogan or a policy--it's a compass guiding every decision.
As India imagines its future under the vision of Viksit Bharat 2047, Asthana's story stands as a reminder that transformation rarely begins in boardrooms. It begins in villages, communities , classrooms, and quiet acts of belief--in people, and in their power to lift one another.
Media Contact:
Punit Asthana
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