The only session in the night was talk by Aruna Roy and Shankar Singh from MKSS.
Aruna Roy and Shankar ‘s Presentation
May 25, 2002 (~
7:30-10:00 p.m.)
A.I.D. Conference
Aruna Roy:
We had trouble getting here with problems with Shankar’s visa and also with what is going on in Gujarat, it was difficult to leave India.
Democracy is an essential institution. Democracy has saved many poor people today. Its our ability to protest and speak out and gives us equality to voice opinions. It is important for the minorities. Its amply been demonstrated in Gujarat where no democracy (an inactive government is the death of democracy, death of equality and justice). It is important that democratic systems be understand (not England & America) but a sound Indian system.
The principal problem for democracy has been Corruption. Corruption in electoral process is no reason to “throw the baby out with the bath water”. If you want corruption and the arbitrary use of power, being banned from public places or voicing our opinions on options of development to stop then you have to speak out. Shankar and I have come. We have to believe that change is possible. We have come with a candle of hope to you. This kind of struggle for India with a lot of plurality
Majdoor Kishan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) - Formed in 1990 (located close to Bheem in Rajasthan). We live in a small village in Dadori. Shankar, I and Nikhil moved Dadoori. A lot of friends thought it was a great romantic dream. We went to form a democratic political movement. We have come to realize that the real change will come with the change of power or through politics. As a feminist and as a woman, every act I do has to do something with the way I think.
We survived a lot of violence, being beaten and threatened but being in Rajasthan we survived death. Others watched what will happen and eventually formed an organization with Rawats community. We decided not to take any funds through any institutions, lived a simple live. We lived in a hut and had a goat.
Translated: Does everyone know English? If not, I will speak in Hindi. If I speak in English, it sounds learned and memorized. I am BA pass. “Respectfully I regret to say that I am suffering of fever.” When I started I was only looking for a job and settle down. I had never thought about doing this kind of work.
Shankar:
When I met Aruna, I wondered what her dream was. Here I was looking for a job and here she is someone who has quit her I.A.S. job. And also I noticed the world listens more to her because she has a link to that world. Here you are giving visa so easily to someone who can get a job and stay and here I am who can’t even speak English – why aren’t they letting me go. Then I thought why am I going so far, when its day in one place, its night in another place.
Development will take place but at the cost of some gulami or slavery. You work for some and then work for some more, etc. etc. I have come from a place where they have to spend their energies thinking where they will find money for food or food for the next day.
Sang a song: Composed by Mohanji (an illiterate) on the minimum wage struggle in Marhwari.. Hanre jamani chora ko…
……
Before the thieves used to live in a jungle
Now they live in homes
Before the thieves used to steal in the middle of the night
Now the thieves steal in bright daylight
The earlier thief had a gun
Now they hurt with a pen
Aruna Roy again….
Minimum wage struggle in 1990. 17 people fasted for 7 days. The collector in Udaipur said you get up, 500 workers will get minimum wage. We got up but nothing changed.
In 1991 we sat on a hunger strike during lok sabha elections and more strategy and the right situations and peaceful protest. We wailed during the night and beat in the drums. We got the minimum wage but nothing changed.
Then the villagers said that the paperwork and the registers must be made public. The law “Official Secrets Act” that they brought in 1955 to keep information from public. But it is available to people for the right price. Even the BPL list - below poverty line list. We went to a place called (Okidana??) in Pali district in Rajasthan where they agreed to show us the paperwork. Shankar went and copied by hand a muster rolls (huge document). The muster rolls had list people who were either dead, had moved or were in no position to work. When we raised issues for a public hearing on the issues. We read the reports, where they had billed for buildings, stones, windows, doors etc. that didn’t exist. Under duress and threat of getting beaten, false cases filled, public hearing was still held. Kot ki dana public hearing caused much stir as people came forward (the poor local people). Right of information with the help of some journalists, activists. For the poor the right to know is the right to live. Because it denies the right to health care, transportation, right to live. With a lot of protest and to explain to everyone why a mere piece of paper is so important.
Another Song – Shankar joins in: Mai nahi manga (I didn’t ask)
What is the minimum wage today? 60 rupees a day – cost of a banana in the us
Video
The bill on right on information. A documentary film has won numerous wards
We had 4 demands
MKKS – small organization (only 10 paid volunteers). We sat in the market place for 40 days. This platoon of women, drum party, why are they asking for information (not houses, money) – such academic thing. Medha Patkar, Nikhil Chakravarty (journalist – many years ago we fought the British and now you must fight our brethren for our survival) and Kuldeep Nair and great activists to join the fight.
Hum janenge, hum jeeange: The right to know, there fore the right to live. All dharamshala were open to us. Vegetable vendors sent vegetables. A quintal of wheat. The sweepers and flower/vegetable vendors gave 5 rupees everyday. A boy gave 2 rupees everyday. Poets came and others came. Bhajan mandals came and sang everyday.
A lawyer told us its a good cause but you will never win, because you asking this rotten system to hand their heart to us.
Government in TN passed the first bill, but a terrible bill.
We don’t want a representative democracy but a participatory democracy. They can neither swallow, nor can they spit.
There is no vital difference between a micro or a macro. In democracy, all small issues have a component of the large issue and every large issue is a sum of the small issues. Everyone who joins the struggle understand that a small demand for minimum wage requires larger question of where money is being directed.
We have laws in 6 states, TN, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Goa, ??. All these laws have one problem – no penalty cause. Anyone who is questioned, the guilty can disappear. That is an important omission. Also, all private org (NGO, political parties, etc.. anyone who comes under public funding) is covered. Third, the right to see the file used for decision-making is not there. Fourth, ??
It is important that if you ask for transparency, that you be transparent yourself. So, you can ask us any questions.
Another song about corruption:
Shankar & Aruna Roy:
When government has to make a law about something they don’t want to make a law about, then the law is made that is contradictory (answers both side) Joke
Never stop speaking. No matter where you live, where you stay. Some Sarpanch said that if you sit in our position, you will see how difficult our job is. So MKKS members ran under conditions that they must stand by the manifesto and spend less than Rs. 1000 (Tej Singh won in Taudgarh against a rich industrialists – Tej Singh won votes across caste lines on the platform that all spending is open).
Candidates are not chosen because they are competent, but because they have money and feel that the corruption is due to them because of the money spent to win – becomes important.
Asked for record for a Panchayat in Komalgarh Block. Rs. 70 Lakhs were embezzled and 79 works were only in paper. Vet hospital wasn’t built, then they decided to build it on top of the Panchayat building. When asked how the animals will climb stairs, they had to turn the panchayat office into the hospital and had meetings upstairs.
The most important thing about the campaign of right on information. Government will give you the large numbers but not the details. The devil is in the details. It is in the fine print that we can catch the government’s contradictions. In exposing these contractions, we have . The rural middle class corruption is an issue because they take aware the cream for the poor, it takes away their life. This is a campaign where these two classes have come together, even though the middle class won’t speak out in the open (the 80% silent majority).
Many people won’t join us in public hearings but they are becoming very popular. We have had a public hearing on pavement children. There has been an extraordinary realize
It’s our money, it’s our accounts.
This money is ours, not your fathers’ (yeah pase apke, nahi kisi ke bap ke)
This government is ours
Lal Singh, passed only higher secondary, villager who is dismissed, “ I don’t need three minutes, I can tell you in one minute. I think if we don’t get right to information, I wonder if I will survive or not survive. You think if we get the right to information, will your power survive or not survive. What we must do collectivity, is think, will this country will exist or not exist.”
Middleclass – Bhagat Singh janme magar kisi aur ke ghar me janme… “not our own backyard”
Puppet Show by Shankar – spoke & sang against dowry
In all battles, we should look at what we can do to change. Middle class has this problem.
I got married when I was 8. If you cannot improve the situation you are in, how can you expect us stupid, illiterate people to do it. All revolutions begin within ourselves, with our own family
Corruption is Casteism, Communalism, Sexism, Injustice, Violence and Inequality.
Update from Gujarat:
Aruna Roy served on a tribunal with Balasubramaniam and several Justices. I can’t reveal the information until the June report. Extremely sorry for Godhra and the law and police should have adequately dealt with. Not spontaneous. Well-planned killings after Godhra. Mobs have gone with mobile phones, killers /rapists, viewers. Women when raped have always first been stripped naked in public, raped, cut into pieces and then burned. This was organized.
IPS Muslim officers can only stay in ghettos. This I never thought my India will come to this. Every single man and woman who has gone to Gujarat has returned extremely shocked. I have felt that I live in India but I have friends all over the world (humanity). My father was an atheist but we were taught about every religion to avoid the fear of the human.
What are we afraid of? Even shops with 10% Muslim shares have been destroyed. Middle class was looting shops before burned. Women went in cars. I don’t want to live in an India that is like this. Children have witnessed their mothers stripped naked and raped, fathers cut to pieces and watched their teachers perpetuate this. Religion and politics should never combine. Secularism has become an abusive term. Mixed marriages are being targeted.
Geeta was in love with a Muslim guy. A mob of 10,000 stopped. At 11:00 a.m. in the morning, she asked her lover to run away, since she was a Hindu, she said she will manage. She was stripped, raped and killed in broad daylight. Everyone who is religious should now speak now. Jaisa karm, jaisa dharm, waisa ??.
It’s been a failure of governance. Instructions were given to authority not to do anything. Police controls were manned by RSS and VHP. Why were the IAS and IPS officers doing? You can say no to Chief Minister to Minister and you can only be transferred or loose privileges but they did nothing. Why were they paralyzed? Some of them are good people, some of them now unable to sleep. This is a complete misnomer to say that Gujarat today is government. The crimes haven’t just taken place in Ahmedabad but other parts. In Godhra, there are Muslims who haven’t been touched but in other places Muslims (even Bora Muslims ) have been killed. Some Gandhian came out, not enough protest. Sabarmati shut down. Every peace meeting was closed. One famous one, Medha Patkar was roughed up and journalist and NDTV cameramen were hospitalized.
They cannot deny us right to speak. They condemn the acts in Godhra. What happened with the Muslims was systematic? All killings were similar. Most cases the bodies were burned without recognition and so no post mortem and no compensation. What would you like us to do?
Tell us you care for us. Tell us we have a place in India. As members who belong to the majority , this is not what Shastras say, what Gandhi said. Save Gujarat from itself, save Hinduism from this.
The fear psychosis that Gujarat has been able to bring is a failure of democracy. To live after guilt, it will be difficult. Shouldn’t I have gone out there?
Women of Gujarat have been involved in this actively. They have made bombs at home, packed lunch for the rioters. Durga Vamani got into a bus with naked sword checking for Muslims. At one point, violence has its own logic. Once you perpetuate this violence, you cannot control this (e.g. Naxal movement).
Insecurity has come over Muslims all over India. Can we ethnic cleanse them? Now look at rehabilitation. Entire homes are gone, entire families have gone. 13,000 are staying in the karbristran under a thin shamiyana. For me and most of my friends in India, it’s a stark realization, I don’t accept that the party of the r
Secularism. Define. We are anti-muslim, pro-muslim. No, we are pro-human. We also have ask ourselves, what is our religion and our faith? What are thrishuls are being distributed? Money from US coming for Swaminarayan temples for this. Inciting Hindu youths. If this is Hinduism, than I am not Hindu. And If I am Hindu than they are not. It’s mutually exclusive. Some body say out loud. This is what the Gita say. This is not the Veda say. This is not what Upanishad say.
Caste Politics and religious politics at play here. For all these years, faith was a private business. Now it is a public business. Why do you call us kefirs? It’s one way to interpret the Koran.
There is a great need for 3 kinds of activities in India:
Seva
Sangharsh
Aur Nirman
Not all of us have to do Seva, not all of us have to do sangharsh or aur nirman but we have to consider all three.
Seva is also politics, builds relationship.
Onions and Shoes (Story)
There was a king who thought he was a fair man. When either eat a 1000 onions or beaten by slippers 1000 times. After eating 8 onions, his mouth burned and he said I would rather be beaten by slippers, after 8 times, his head was swollen and he said he would rather eat the onions and so it went on. This is the state of India today.
State terrorism. If we don’t do anything now, we will have no one else to blame.
Song: Sung by Vinay mahajan
You have distributed (banto) the earth, the ocean, but don’t do it to a human
Garv se kaho, hum insaan hain
Hindu, muslim, sikh , issai, hum sab hai bahan -bhai
Hum sab ek hai
Shashan wale sun lo aaj, hamere desh mein me humara raaj
Reference: Notes
and Translation by Alka Roy