A hearing for India’s rural tehelkas
A hearing for India’s rural tehelkas
Extracted from The Indian Express, New
Delhi, April 12, 2001
By Ajit Bhattacharjea
Director, Press Institute of India
A right to
information movement in a small corner of Rajasthan, unveils a mind-boggling
scale of corruption
TRAVELLING through
the arid, undulating land around Beawar in south Rajasthan is like traversing a
campaign map marked with historic revolutionary battles. The names of villages
and small towns huddled in the folds of the Aravallis recalls scenes of a very
different kind of engagement, but which will equally go down in history. Here
local villagers have successfully confronted and exposed misrule non-violently;
the only weapon they have used is information.
It all started when
a small band of social activists joined hands in the late 80s to form the
Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS). They soon won confidence by living in
the area and identifying themselves with local causes. Like the town of Bhim,
where the MKSS set up a fair price shop to bring down prices. Or Lutyana where
Shankar Singh, the bard of the campaign, was born. Or Devdoongri, where former
IAS officer Aruna Roy lives in a mud hut and from where she and her small team
has charted the course of the movement.
The scale of
corruption unearthed, even in a small corner of Rajasthan, is mind-boggling. It
shows why rural India remains poverty-stricken despite the thousands of crores
supposed to be spent on development. The cutting edge of the right to
information movement is the jan sunwai (public hearing) where villagers
assemble to testify whether the public works detailed in official bills and
vouchers secured by them actually exist. The occasion itself is an impressive
demonstration of direct local democracy, with officials invited to be present.
At the latest jan
sunwai in Janawad (Rajsamand district) on April 3, an audience of about 3,000,
most of them women, sat through the day while panchayat records were examined.
Villager after villager got up to testify about roads and buildings paid for
that had not been built, a non-existent school, or one building that was paid
for more than once. Among the witnesses was the new woman sarpanch, who sat
veiled through the day after confessing that she signed whatever was put before
her.
Securing access to
the records had taken more than a year and to prevent some being copied,some
being copied, the local gram sewak had secured a stay from the Jodhpur High
Court. Yet the outcome of the examination was astounding. Out of the bills and
vouchers detailing expenditure of Rs 65 lakh, no less than Rs 45 lakh was found
to be isappropriated. The dirt could no longer be hidden.
Less than a week
later, three local officials involved were arrested. For the first time, a jan
sunwai had forced the administration to take action against erring officials.
The scandal had been substantiated not by hidden cameras but in full public
view. The amount isappropriated in one panchayat
provided an insight
into the extent of corruption in development, exceeding the scope for
corruption in defence. The Tehelka revelations pale into insignificance.
Kot Kirana
(December 1994), in Pali district, may be considered as the first jan sunwai.
This was before the State Government was forced to authorise access to
panchayat records, but documents like muster rolls and payments for an
unfinished patwar ghar were available. And the familiar
spectacle