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Interviews | Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey, Right to Information activists interviewed by Bincy Mathew
Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey, Right to Information activists interviewed by Bincy Mathew

Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey, Right to Information activists interviewed by Bincy Mathew

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published Published on May 31, 2015   modified Modified on May 31, 2015
-The Hindu

Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey speak about the MKSS experience and their campaign for citizen-centric accountability.

The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan was founded in Bhim on May 1, 1990 with the aim of organising people at the grassroots. By addressing issues of minimum wage and land and reading out official records, thereby exposing the enormous corruption in the system, it mobilised peasants and workers in rural Rajasthan. A dharna held in Beawar in 1996 demanding access to government records culminated in a nation-wide movement that led to the enactment of the historic Right to Information Act a decade later. In this interview, Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey, two founder-members of the MKSS, talk about what the MKSS is all about and 25 years of the movement. Excerpts from an interview:

* Which are the main campaigns the MKSS is NOW involved with?

The MKSS has come to understand that even the enactment of landmark legislations like the RTI and MGNREGA is only half the battle won. In India, implementation remains a huge challenge. That is why we are focusing on generic citizen-centric accountability frameworks like a grievance redress law, and social audits. However, we have come to realise our marginalisation would be complete without the democratic space to organise, mobilise, and express dissent. Ironically, groups like ours are struggling to protect our constitutional democracy at a time the ruling establishment is using “growth” as an excuse to undermine plurality, free speech, and people’s basic rights.

* What is the contribution of peasants and workers to the MKSS' campaigns?

From the conception of ideas to the shaping of policy and legislation, peasants and workers clearly have the greater sustainability and commitment required to make landmark concepts like the RTI or employment guarantee credible. It is their time and effort for days and years on the street, and in the field that shaped the contours of these movements, and have deepened our concepts of development and democracy.

* Have government schemes introduced in the last one year been useful in addressing problems at the grassroots?

The social sector initiatives of the last year have been symbolic and devoid of imagination. There has been a significant weakening of the rights-based entitlements in monetary and administrative terms. The attempt to replace universal health and pension entitlements with contributory schemes is going to be a non-starter. Unorganised sector, workers with their multiple vulnerabilities (of income, employment, and organisation) cannot make regular contributions, and they do not have the power to negotiate their claims. The only potentially meaningful initiative is the Jan Dhan Yojana for financial inclusion. However, it has so far largely created inactive accounts as people do not have the money to operate them. We still need to put financial inclusion into a rights based framework that gives the poor real access to money and credit.

* With no Planning Commission, what are the avenues available for civil society organisations to engage with the government?

There are orders of the Government of India (Law Ministry) making it compulsory to have a pre-legislative consultative process for any law or subordinate legislation. (http://lawmin.nic.in/ld/plcp.pdf). This requirement is not being followed for new laws or amendments. Nor does action match the rhetoric that the NEETI Aayog has replaced the Planning Commission so that policy can be planned bottom up. Courts and public protests are the two ways left of putting ones point of view across.

The promulgation of ordinances has been an undemocratic use of an emergency measure. It has got worse with this government repeatedly re-promulgating extremely unpopular ordinances. The Rajasthan ordinance on minimum qualifications for panchayat elections was so timed that even the courts could not review its constitutionality before the electoral process began. Finally, people will have to relentlessly struggle to open up democratic decision making to public participation, and protect democratic spaces for even the weakest communities.

* How can the RTI be effectively used?

Every single RTI threatens the concentration of power in a small or big way. When you get the information out, it is the first success. There are cases in which the information that is brought out would have to be made part of a larger political campaign. For instance, one single application was not enough to campaign against Bt. brinjal. When campaigns use the RTI, then its applicability extends far beyond accessing that information. It is information in the context of a big issue. In some cases, individuals find it difficult to extract information. That is why RTI groups support each other and help out people who have come into conflict with vested interests.

* How effective is Jantar Mantar as a platform for protest? How is a movement sustained?

Jantar Mantar is a vital space for protest. It must be protected because people in distress from all over the country come to Delhi to try to have their voice heard by policy makers. But, Jantar Mantar is only a small part of our overall work, and it is not the only place where people mobilise.

People’s movements have primarily been engaged with marginalised communities in villages, and in slums reaching out to people, talking to them on the streets, on worksites, in their homes. The reason why Jantar Mantar dominates people’s mind space is because that’s the only time decision makers in Delhi acknowledge us. Groups are active on the ground, with efforts of sangharsh, seva, and nirman, but the government rarely responds as it should.

This is why the MKSS story of 25 years is important. Even when you are pushed back, you find ways and means to sustain your struggle among the people, keep the discourse going, and amplify the voices of the marginalized. The MKSS experience also shows that while social media can strengthen a movement, it cannot be the movement.

* How can the middle class take up issues it feels strongly about?

The middle class needs to leave its comfort zone, and go out to experience the condition of the less fortunate, in a compassionate way. One problem with the middle class is that it has a strong sense of entitlement primarily for itself. It gets angry when its own interests are hurt. If the middle class had to lead one day like the poor, it would realise that it’s not about “me”; that there are people facing far more drastic conditions. Its perception would change.

A lot of good people have shown that when they come face to face with certain issues, they make an effort, and get passionately involved. The alliance between sensitive middle class and working class people is of great value in helping highlight issues of justice and equality in our hierarchical and stratified society.

“They gave us the RTI”

The mass movement for demanding the RTI Act traces its origin to a small village. In 1996, the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), a grassroots organisation based in rural Rajasthan, was in its third year of holding Jun Sunwais, a form of public hearing pioneered by the organisation, in which government records read out in front of villagers served as a powerful mode for strengthening citizen monitoring, and empowerment.

“This was the first time villagers were familiarised with the scale of corruption that was exposed in fake employment rolls having names of workers long dead and in fudged bills on public works,” says Lal Singh, a local farmer who has been with the organisation for nearly three decades.

With no law in place that allowed access to government records, attempts at procuring them typically met with resistance from the officials. “It was the resistance displayed by the officials that showed to us the power of the right to information,” says Vijay Nagaraj who joined the organization on his inclination to engage in a social movement.

Until 1996, the organisation had been reluctant to involve the middle class in its campaigns. Nagaraj was the third person after the founders of the MKSS — Nikhil Dey and Aruna Roy, to join the organisation.

This approach stemmed from the experience of Roy and Dey in the late 1980s when they initially came to Devdungri. Workers and peasants were at first wary of their intent. “By adopting a rural lifestyle in a mud home in Devdungri, Aruna, Nikhil and I were able to associate and engage with the poor more closely,” says Shanker Singh another founder-member who helped identify the Bhim area as the site to start their grassroots' work.

The MKSS had decided at the outset it would never work on a defined project or predetermined agenda. “Rather, by getting a grasp of a specific problem in the village, we analysed the issue in the larger context of how it is plaguing the system as a whole, and then channelised it into a movement for bringing in a policy change,” says Singh.

In an initial campaign that focussed on minimum wage for work, the organisation realised its fight would have no meaning unless it understood the significance of living on a minimum wage. The decision to give MKSS members a minimum wage, same as the statutory minimum wage paid to a worker was taken on this principle.

The villagers did not limit their commitment to the MKSS by participating in its protests. As stakeholders in an organisation that had no funding, they donated grains, oil, vegetables for the members’ day-to-day living. “Ranjeet, a schoolboy who worked in the evenings at a medical store, gave us Rs.2 from his daily earning of Rs.8, during the Beawar dharna,” says Lal Singh. He went on to become one of the earliest RTI applicants in the country when the RTI was notified on the October 13, 2005.
 
 
Image Courtesy: The Hindu

The Hindu, 30 May, 2015, http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/only-half-the-battle-is-won/article7264573.ece?homepage=true


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