Recognition for empowering poorest to fight corruption

New Delhi: 'No RTI. No vote.' That was the movement doing the rounds in the country a few weeks ago.

Ironically, it was happening at a time when 38-year-old anti-corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal had been chosen for the 2006 Ramon Magsaysay Award under the category of 'Emergent Leadership' for his contribution to the Right to Information Act (RTI) movement empowering the citizens to fight corruption.

On receiving the award recently in Manila, Kejriwal said modestly, "It does not belong to me alone, but to the RTI movement and to every individual who participated in this movement."

Ever since the introduction of RTI Act, 2005, thousands of people have benefited across the country. But the parliamentarians have been set to bring about amendments in the Act, which would include keeping the notings outside the purview of the Act.

The government proposed to keep key information of a particular decision-making process away from the reach of the common man. However, decision on the same has been put on hold for now.

Being in government service for many years, Kejriwal realises the importance of these notings as all information of any decision-making process has a link with the notings. Disapproving it, he says, "The government should leave the RTI Act unchanged otherwise the results are going to be very damaging.

"It should understand that the battle lines are clearly drawn and protests will be planned all over the country once again. It's a fight between the people, the honest politicians and bureaucrats, who want the country to improve versus the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, who are out to make money," Kejriwal adds.

His fight for the rights has been a long drawn one. As an Indian Revenue Officer, Ministry of Finance in 1995, Kejriwal was against the entire process where a common man had to pay bribes in his day-to-day life to get his legitimate due from the government.

"A lot of churning was going on in the mind of my colleagues also. We could see how corruption was affecting the national psyche," he informs. Finally, in 2000, it was a very ad hoc reaction to it that a group of friends together started an NGO, Parivartan (Change). Thus began a tryst fighting bureaucratic resistance to public accountability.

"The drive against bribe campaign started in association with some media houses in 2002 and Parivartan was a facilitator. More than 700 organisations across the country participated in this campaign and in 55 cities 1,500 volunteers were trained on how to file RTI applications," Kejriwal says.

"About 42,000 visitors came in these camps for passports, income tax refunds, electricity connections and water problems. And 21,000 applications were filed. In addition, we received almost 30,000 phone calls during the campaign," he adds.

Initially, the teams sat at the entrance of the three offices of Delhi Vidyut Board in Nehru Place, Nand Nagri and Laxmi Nagar during the public dealing hours (11 am 1 pm). They would tell people going inside not to pay bribes and if they had a problem, they could come to Parivartan and get the work done free of cost.

"That had an impact on the staff inside. Work started getting done very fast. But suddenly we realised that we were acting like middlemen although our purpose was to empower people. Even while we were struggling with all this, the Delhi government passed the RTI Act," he informed.

Subsequently, Parivartan changed its working style. Reveals Kejriwal, "A gentleman approached us with his grievance about a new electricity connection. He had applied two years ago. But the officials were asking him for Rs 5,000 (Dh400) as bribe. Since he refused to pay, work was stuck. We drafted an application and told him to deposit it himself. Within 10 days he got the connection."

In the next three months, 200 people got their electricity works solved. This paved the way for getting things regularised in other government departments also.

Kejriwal is happy that a lot of people are becoming aware of their rights. "Even several politicians and bureaucrats support us, but are unable to speak out in the open.

RTI has definitely strengthened the hands of the honest bureaucrats. But the real recognition will come when instead of talking about it, a majority will start using its right to information," he says.