Down To
                     Earth

We profile the two Indians who won this year’s Magsayay Awards. RAJESH SINHA in Jaipur meets Aruna Roy president of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathana and who won the award for Community Leadership. In Mumbai, ARUNA CHAKRAVARTY catches up with the indefatigable Jockin Arputham, president of the National Slumdwellers’ Federation, who won his award for International Understanding

‘‘YOU want to meet Arunaji?’’ asked the men at the dhaba we accosted, feeling a bit lost, still over 50 kilometers from our destination. We were given precise directions to reach her: ‘turn left, after a few kilometres there’ll be an atta chakki (flour mill), a well nearby and a track between them, going up hill, that would lead you to her.’ For someone who works tirelessly for the people but chooses to keep a low profile, Aruna Roy seems rather well known.

On our way back to Jaipur after completing an assignment in Rajsamand, we decided to pay the lady a visit at her headquarters in Devdoongri village under Bhim tehsil in the district. Dressed in an ordinary, village woman’s attire, Aruna greeted us outside a nondescript hut. We sat on a cot while the petromax was lit and hot tea prepared for us. Her associates, Nikhil De and Shanker, unlocked the hut that housed both the MKSS office and the library. This was the place from which a people’s movement was being led. There was no electricity at the time, there was no telephone or fax for miles around. An extraordinary choice for someone who had lived in Delhi almost all her life and been a bureaucrat in the creamiest of All India Services.

Born on June 26, 1946, at Chennai, Aruna spent most of her initial life in Delhi. ‘‘Except for two years in Kalakshetra and two years of probation period in IAS, I have been in North India,’’ she said. She said she owed her motivation and drive to her parents from whom she imbibed the quality of fearlessness.

She joined the IAS in 1968 and married classmate Bunker Roy in 1970 — ‘‘who had joined college only to play games’’— she recalls with a twinkle in the eye. Bunker had set up a Social Work and Research Centre (SWRC) at Tilonia, where she joined him after resigning in 1974. She said she found the service too restrictive and stifling. Can she cite any specific instance or incident that put her off? She obliges: ‘‘There were several. I just hated the way people were kept waiting while little was being done,’’ she said. How come she chose to give up the power and position of an officer when there were so many trying to get the stamp whichever way they could? ‘‘What kind of power ? If a structure imposes restrictions on what you can do or say or think, how can you do what you want to do?’’ she countered.

She worked at SWRC till 1983. ‘‘These were very educative nine years. Earlier I had did know what a village was nor did I have any idea of politics,’’ she said. She then worked with other groups from 1983 till 1987, and then from 1987 till 1990 during which she moved to Devdoongri and set up the MKSS in 1990. She has lived thus for 25 years. Roy does not list any quantifiable victory or achievement in all her years of work among the people. She said, ‘‘The achievement was that we taught ourselves many things. That if one works with honesty and sincerity, one finds many people who join you in your endeavour. We have observed total transparency and have been able to put forth and share our ideas with people.’’

The people have been her greatest resource. The MKSS does not accept any funding from anywhere. It runs three shops, one each at Surajpura, Jawaja and Bhim where items of daily use are sold at a net profit of one per cent. They started with one shop and even the nominal margin from selling items of guaranteed purity gave enough returns to enable the MKSS to set up two more. They have been the bane of the local shopkeepers who charged much more for goods that were often impure or adulterated.

The shop was just a beginning. Then came the movement for Right to Information. Not for mere intellectual pursuits but as a means to obtain the basic rights and satisfy the basic needs of the common man in the village. Where was the money meant for development going? How was it being spent? What works had the money been sanctioned for?

Beginning from 1994, the MKSS held public hearings at various places. Projects approved for the area, money sanctioned for the projects, the money spent, the work done, the number of labour hired, all were examined. Everywhere the exercise revealed a colossal bungling of public money by the local clique of vested interests. In 1995, then chief minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat announced in the State Assembly that the government intended to give the people the right to information.

There was no follow-up action, though. The MKSS would not let it pass, however. An agitation for law to guarantee the Right to Information was started, demanding that it be made obligatory for officials to provide all information relating to public works and projects to anyone who demanded it. Dharnas were held, seminars and workshops organised and a campaign built up. After a particularly long dharna and much embarrassment for the establishment in 1997 June, the government suddenly revealed that it had already granted the right through a Gazette notification six months ago. The order and its provisions, however were rejected.

The new government, committed to bring a law guaranteeing the Right to Information, brought a Bill for the purpose early this year. ‘‘It is a small but significant step in the right direction,’’ said Roy about the Bill, adding that there was still a long way to go before the right became meaningful.
The fight was still on and has to go on. ‘There are shortcomings. If you do something, there would be shortcomings which need to be taken care of,’’ she said, stressing the ‘‘need to do’’.

She conceded there were several moments when she felt she was fighting a losing battle, that she would not succeed. ‘‘But I never felt that I should give up simply because of this,’’ she added. She recalled a particularly long dharna when some people remarked, ‘‘Jab bade bade neta kuchh nahin kar paye to yeh tatpoon jiye kya kar lenge (when big leaders have failed, what can these riff-raff do)?’’ The people won, however. ‘‘It was a victory of the tatpoonjiyas’, the ordinary people,’’ she said.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award to Roy is a recognition of the extraordinary heights she has attained through her assiduous efforts to remain ‘‘ordinary’’, work for the ordinary people and fight for their ordinary needs and basic rights. As she put it, ‘‘A perception of the extraordinary in the ordinary is critical to bring about value based change today. Leadership also has to be redefined to include the collectiveness of ordinary people and the ideas they generate.’’

While treating it as ‘‘a matter of great honour’’, she said she felt ‘‘very humble’’ when she learnt she had got the award. ‘‘There are several others like me; it is just that they do not get recognition,’’ she said. She wanted the award to be given to MKSS but was told it was given only to individuals. ‘‘My colleagues decided that I should accept the award,’’ she said, adding ‘‘The money provided by this award will be put into a trust to be managed by a collective people to support process of democratic struggle.’’

Her acknowledgements for recognition of her work reveal a rare sincerity, ‘‘I owe my ideas to the clarity of others; my courage to being with people who confront injustice with fearlessness and equanimity; my hope to the persistence and resilience of men and women struggling to get themselves heard; my generosity to the poor family that shared its last roti with me, and my sense of well being to the many who have supported me in difficult moments of my life. However of greatest importance to all of us have been the processes, values and issues that the struggles of the poor have given birth to and brought alive.’’

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