Still Navigating Justice (Systems) ...as Dhwani Legal Trust Turns Seven

Adv Ashwini Obulesh

Seven years ago, on May 23, I started Dhwani Legal Trust. It also happens to be my birthday (Now, this seems a bit too narcissistic, but anyway). Over the years, the day has stopped feeling like just a personal milestone. It has become deeply tied to Dhwani and everything this journey has brought into my life. Sometimes I feel like I measure phases of my adulthood through Dhwani - the risks I took, the people I met, the losses, the lessons, the exhaustion, the joy, and the person I have become.

Like many law graduates, and especially those who have gone to the ‘best Law School of India’, I began my career in Corporate Law in Bombay. It was secure, structured, and everything that looked ‘successful’ on paper. I was also living my Bollywood dream, having visited Mannat a couple of times and looking forward to ecstatic meeting(s) with Shah Rukh. But I remember constantly feeling the need to be back in Bangalore, and doing something different. I then moved away from law for a while and prepared for the UPSC examinations. Looking back now, I think that phase was important because it forced me to sit with difficult questions about what kind of work I wanted to do and what kind of life I wanted to build for myself.

Eventually, I returned to Law through litigation, and that decision changed everything for me. My litigation journey began under the guidance of Prof. Ravivarma Kumar. Working with him shaped me in ways I probably did not fully understand at the time. He influenced not only my approach to Constitutional Law and High Court practice, but also the way I thought about Justice, Caste, Power, and Dignity. Watching him work made me realise that the Law cannot be separated from the realities people live through every day… Courts and legal systems are not abstract spaces… They affect real people carrying real fear, grief, discrimination, and vulnerability.

As I spent more time in litigation and legal aid work - I was involved in legal aid work since 2008, since when I was a student - I began to notice a pattern that deeply disturbed me. So many people, especially women, Dalit communities, workers, and people from vulnerable backgrounds, approached the legal system, already exhausted. The systems seem to victimise the already crushed victims. Many had spent years being unheard at home, at work, or within society, before they ever entered a lawyer’s office. By the time they sought help, they were carrying not only legal problems, but also fear, shame, trauma, confusion, and hopelessness.

That discomfort stayed with me for a long time. Somewhere along the way, I realised that I wanted to create a space where legal support felt more humane and accessible. I did not start Dhwani with a detailed business plan or a clear roadmap. In many ways, Dhwani began with instinct. I simply knew there was a gap between people and justice, and I wanted to bridge that gap in whatever small way I could.

The last seven years have been the most meaningful, and most difficult years of my life. There is immense satisfaction in this work because you directly witness the impact it has on people’s lives. There are clients who still call me years later just to say thank you. There are women who walked into Dhwani feeling completely defeated and later found the confidence to speak for themselves. There are moments where someone simply says “thank you” with eyes filled with gratitude, and you realise how rare it is for many people to be treated with patience and dignity. Those moments stay with me more than any academic or professional achievement ever could.

At the same time, this work comes with a kind of emotional weight that is difficult to explain unless you have sat across people whose lives depend on legal outcomes. There are days when the system leaves you deeply frustrated. I have had cases where women facing severe domestic violence walked away with maintenance orders of Rs. 1,000 per month, amounts that cannot realistically sustain even survival, let alone a good life. There have been cases where we placed before the court detailed instances of violence, including situations where husbands had threatened wives with knives, and yet we failed to secure protection orders. Those days are hard because clients look at you with hope, and you fail, despite doing everything you could.

There are also areas of law where the jurisprudence itself often feels disconnected from the lived realities of women. In several promise-to-marry cases, I have seen how easily women’s experiences are doubted or reduced to narrow legal interpretations that do not fully account for emotional manipulation, social consequences, or power imbalance. Sometimes the Law is progressive. Sometimes, the Law progresses slower than the lives it affects.

There are also clients we could not serve as well as we wanted to. Sometimes we simply did not have enough time, enough people, or enough emotional capacity within the team. Sometimes expectations did not match what was realistically possible within an already overburdened legal system. Those moments have always haunted me, because I know people often come to us during the most vulnerable periods of their lives. I have had to slowly learn that caring deeply about people and still not always being able to help them fully is one of the hardest parts of this work. It, indeed, is a thankless job.

And just like that, over time, Dhwani grew from being just an idea into a team of 12 people. Managing a team has taught me lessons no classroom or courtroom ever could. It is challenging because every person carries different emotions, pressures, ambitions, strengths, and struggles. There are difficult days, stressful days, and days where everything feels overwhelming. But there is also something deeply comforting about building something alongside people who genuinely care about the work. I feel grateful every single day for the commitment and sincerity our team brings into Dhwani. The work we do is emotionally demanding, and yet they continue to show up with compassion and dedication. I also carry a lot of gratitude for the many people who have contributed to Dhwani over the years, including former colleagues, and our interns, who became part of this journey at different stages.

I also feel immense gratitude towards our funders and trustees who believed in Dhwani and its vision, especially during phases when the work felt uncertain and fragile. In the social sector, trust is everything. The support we received was not just financial support, but also encouragement, patience, and faith in the importance of accessible and empathetic legal aid. Our trustees have stood by Dhwani through difficult decisions, growing pains, and ambitious ideas, constantly reminding us of the larger purpose behind the work. Their belief in what we are building has allowed us to continue showing up for communities with sincerity and commitment.

Running Dhwani would not have been possible without the support system I have had around me. My family has stood by me through every uncertain phase of this journey. They supported me when I left safer career paths, when the future looked unclear, when the workload became too much, when the money did not come in, and when self-doubt crept in. And then there is Srikara. He is my partner in life, but he is also one of the strongest pillars of Dhwani. While I am often associated with the visible side of the work, he quietly and meticulously manages the countless things that keep the organisation functioning every single day - operations, schedules, administration, logistics, leaves, timings, coordination, and all the invisible labour that people rarely notice. You need someone who can hold things together consistently, and strictly. For Dhwani, and me, that person has been Srikara.

Seven years later, Dhwani is still growing, still learning, and still evolving. There are days of exhaustion and days of uncertainty, but there is also still so much hope! We do not forget to do a shout-out for every little win, for every person impacted. But there is so much more left to do, so many more people to reach, so many conversations still waiting to happen, and so many systems that still need more empathy and accountability.

I do not know exactly what the next few years will look like. But I know that despite everything, I will still deeply believe in this work. I will still believe people deserve to be heard and treated with dignity. And I will still believe legal systems can become more humane.

Till then, Dhwani Legal Trust, and I, will continue to show up every day, and do our best to navigate Justice (systems) with honesty, empathy, and hope.