“People are building the pressure”
By Paromita Ukil


What started off as a spontaneous spark is now well on its way to becoming a
full-fledged movement—a movement to ensure Right to Information and Right to
Food. The dharna in January (Asha Ashram – Article No. 10) was a struggle to
exercise that right. The people of Bharawan had sought the details of three
years’ accounts in January; eventually the panchayat furnished the information
they wanted. 


The dharna was an isolated case, with not much advance planning or spadework.
In hindsight it now seems it was even foolhardy to go to the extent of a dharna
right at the outset. Despite all odds the dharna clicked. It clicked well and
created a strong support base for Asha Ashram and its efforts to make the local
administration more transparent and more accountable. That alone will ensure a
somewhat better life for the poor and oppressed people of the area. In one of
his speeches in Bharawan recently Sandeep even said: “We don’t mind if the
officials embezzle a modest amount in matters like road-building, etc, but when
it comes schemes meant to benefit the poor, like, say, distribution of Below
Poverty Line (BPL) ration cards, stipends for Dalit students or old age and
widow pension meant for extremely poor women, we take serious objection to
that. We will go all the way in righting such wrongs.”


After the dharna (Jan. 11-22), one thing became clear. A movement of much
greater dimension was waiting to be launched. There was much that was wrong at
the block and panchayat level administration. Of course, these are just the
bottom rungs of a well-entrenched and systematized ladder of corruption that
spans from the Prime Minister’s Office in Delhi right down to the gram pradhan
in the village. 


A beginning was made on the 20th of February with a two-day workshop on Right
to Information and Right to Food (Soochna ka adhikar evam Bhookh se Mukti).
Invitations were sent to officials at the district level and the panchayat
level as well. All the 51 pradhans of the Bharawan gram panchayat were
specially invited for the two days. It was not going to be a confrontation they
were assured. It was going to be a dialogue—between the people and their
elected representatives. 


It did not turn out quite that way because none of the officials came. But we
decided to carry on nonetheless. On the second day, however, the District
Panchayati Raj Officer, Mr H.D. Mishra, came. He came at the fag end of the
workshop and said all the right things. Let’s see how well his words match with
his actions. 


On Day One of the workshop, people had begun to trickle in from around 11 in
the morning and by the afternoon there were more than 500 people gathered under
the multi-hued shamiana outside the school premises of a prominent Bharawan
school. People were curious. People wanted to hope. They wanted to trust this
new brand of educated youth who listened to their woes and even wanted to do
something about them.


The two-day workshop was quite rich in content. The workshop’s focal point was
firebrand activist Kavita Srivastava. She is a phenomenon by herself. In her
early Forties, Kavita, as secretary (Rajasthan) of People’s Union For Civil
Liberties (PUCL) was the person to bring the historic Bhawnri Devi gangrape
case to light. She was with us in Bharawan to steer the local movement and also
link it with the larger Right to Information and Right to Food Movement of
which she is a part.


Another prominent participant of the workshop was the renowned economist, Prof.
Jean Dreze. He is part of a support group called Right to Food
(www.righttofood.com, http://geocities.com/righttofood). A Belgian by birth and
now an Indian citizen, he charmed us all with his chaste Hindi and familiarity
with the grassroots reality. In his speeches and in his suggestions on how to
tackle official inertia and corruption at the village level, this
activist-economist smoothly glided through the labyrinth of issues that are
behind the widespread hunger in rural India. “If you put all the grain sacks,
that are with the government, one on top of another the pile will go as far as
the moon and beyond,” said the professor. Much of this grain is either rotting
or they are being fed to rats for lack of proper warehousing. “Under these
circumstances it is indeed a scandal to have people in large parts of India who
have no access to that grain and are starving as a result.”


Another prominent guest was Kamayani from Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan
(MKSS). Formed in 1990 under the leadership of Aruna Roy, MKSS has been
spearheading the movement for Right to Information since 1994-95. It was a
culmination of their efforts in partnership with the PUCL that we today have a
law giving Indian citizens the right to information. Kamayini gave examples
from the history of the MKSS movement in Rajasthan and made it clear to
Bharawan activists how to go about seeking information. For example, if it was
some construction work, like say, road or school, etc, the thing to ask for was
the measurement book, which should have all the relevant information that would
highlight the exact degree of corruption. 


Other than the above there were representatives from NGOs working in related
fields: there was Gram Vikas Parishad from Mau, Arthik Anusandhan Kendra from
Mirzapur, Urmul from Bikaner, Lokmitra from Rae Bareli, Jeevan Daan Samiti from
Ghazipur. Then there were also two groups from Delhi—Parivartan and Prasar.


The guests, prominent and renowned as they were, were nevertheless overshadowed
by the overwhelming presence of the masses. There were old people and young
people, there were men and there were women. There were old women and there
were young women who with great difficulty had to cull out the time from their
packed routine to be at the workshop. The first day was spent in introductions
and introduction to issues dominating the region our guests had come from.
Suresh Shukla and Munna Shukla presented a brief sketch of the Bharawan dharna
and its fallout.


Jayshankar, an Asha Ashram volunteer, gave an analysis of a survey conducted on
the occasion of the workshop. Its purpose was to gauge the extent to which the
local administration flouted the welfare schemes and deprived the extremely
poor. For example, in the 12 villages of Bharawan gram panchayat where there
should be at least 120 Annapoorna ration cards only 4 cards existed. This
scheme provides 10 kg of wheat free of cost to the cardholder.


Similarly, the old and the widowed rarely get the pension to which they were
entitled. It is not uncommon to find the gram pradhan taking the initiative to
get forms filled at a price—sometimes at Rs 100 per form, sometimes even more.
The pradhan then goes to the bank with the people and gets them to open a bank
account. The initial deposit is Rs 500; the sum is often borrowed from the
moneylender @ Rs 10 per month for every Rs 100. The pradhan then, on his own
initiative, gets the form processed. This itself is a rather convoluted process
involving the pradhan at the panchayat level and a doctor to certify that the
candidate is above 60 in case of old age pensions. Then the form passes via the
BDO at the block level, the welfare department at the district level and
finally the SDO at the tehsil level. 


And keeping with the culture of Indian babudom, the attitude at every step of
this serpentine circuit is far from helpful. For the unlettered and meek
villager it is next to impossible to get things done by him. That is why he so
often falls prey to sharks who for a fee promise to get things done and after
pocketing the money disappear altogether. The pradhan is somewhat better in
comparison; he extracts his pound of flesh in instalments. Once the form has
been processed and the Rs 1500 annual pension has reached the pensioner’s
account, the pradhan takes the candidates with him to the bank. The pensioner
takes the money from the cashier. As soon as he or she walks out of the doors
of the bank, the pradhan, who has been waiting in wings, pounces on the
innocent villager and take his cut. It is Rs 500 the first time. The following
year the pradhan will take Rs 1000 from him. 


This is how the pradhan, an elected representative of the people, extracts his
Rs 1500 fees for services rendered. Often it has been seen after a spate of
form filling and pension procuring the pradhan builds a new house. 


All this and more emerged during the two-day workshop. People spontaneously
took the microphone to recount tales of injustice and exploitation. They
pledged their support and with vigour participated in the working groups.
Working groups were formed to chalk out action plans to tackle mainly issues of
pension, ration cards and labour payment. Though the official government rate
is Rs 58 per day nobody ever gets more that Rs 35 to Rs 40. This is one issue
the Ashram volunteers have been working on seriously. Labourers have been
getting organized to pressurize the contractor for full and legitimate payment. 


After the workshop the Ashram’s area of influence has increased manifold. Its
impact on the surrounding panchayats has also intensified. Jayshankar recently
went to Gotaiya village, which is 16 kms from the ashram. He found a
full-ledged Asha Ashram Kendra there which villagers had created on their own.
They had bought our publications with their own money and they were on sale at
this Kendra. People of Gotaiya now meet every Monday to decide on their next
course of action. 


The workshop has been an eye-opener us too. The workshop led us to explore and
probe the wheels within the wheels, which regulated the lives of villagers. It
provided us with insight and motivated us to fan out and get in touch. As a
result there is a strong bonding now between the ashram and the people of at
least 60 villages in the area. The vulnerable and forever exploited dalits of
the region know the ashram people are on their side. Even pradhans now want to
make a show of whatever little they deliver to the people. 


The other day the pradhan of Mulehkhera village, Ashok Singh, announced he
would distribute the wheat marked under the Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana
(SGRY) only if somebody from the ashram was present while he did so. Of course,
it was the Right to Food people who enlightened us about this food for work
scheme, under which the labourer is paid Rs 28 in cash and 6 kg of wheat per
day. The workers in this village, who had built the road connecting the village
to the tehsil town, had got the money. The pradhan, was however, dilly-dallying
over payment of wheat. It was only after ashram volunteer Guddu intervened the
people got their share of the foodgrains.


On another occasion Mahesh met a pradhan, who on learning he was from the
ashram started shaking vigorously. He vowed he had “not stolen much” and that
henceforth he would not “steal anymore”.


During another village meeting Mahesh and Jayshankar went to the pradhan
admitted he had embezzled funds, but he was helpless he said. The pradhan said
he was under pressure from his seniors at the block, tehsil and even district
levels. But after the andolan started by Asha Ashram he has said no shuffling
of funds.


In many ways therefore the movement is far-reaching. Often, we ourselves do not
understand in what way the ashram is making an impact. But that it is making a
dent, of that there is no doubt. The movement has unleashed a force and that is
what is doing much of the work. With Sandeep’s astute guidance ashram
volunteers now ensure the momentum is sustained. It is laborious and
painstaking work, but spirits are high at Asha’s Ashram in Lalpur.