A street-fighter's democracy

Magsaysay awardee Aruna Roy tells Sreelatha Menon that she is ready to chase a new dream, a School for Democracy.

At 63, she is the same age as Sonia Gandhi, but while the Congress President is symbolic of political power, Aruna Roy insists she, too, wields political power which may not be electoral but is every bit as capable of making changes in society and government policies.

It is a role she created when she quit the civil services to join her husband, Bunker Roy, in his adopted village of Tilonia in Rajasthan with the seemingly small but significant issue of a woman's right to earn more than just one rupee for working 12 hours. "She was a fighter and got justice which, in fact, paved the way for the implementation of the Minimum Wages Act," recalls close friend, and Comptroller and Auditor General member, Niranjan Pant.

For a decade she worked along with Bunker Roy, watching him build his school for his "barefoot engineers", before striking out on her own as an activist who insisted on sweeping systemic changes.

The thought led to the birth of Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Samiti (MKSS) which was founded in 1990 and its first battle was for access to information. While struggling for the implementation of minimum wages for women, she had realised that getting information from the government was next to impossible. And with that began her fight with the bureaucracy's "oath of secrecy", adds Pant.

Ironically, Roy admits that she had, in fact, abandoned the fight for the right to information from the government, not because she was disillusioned but because she never had any illusions about it.

Her father, Jayaraman, an alumnus of Santiniketan, was a government employee in Delhi and so she grew up seeing the workings of the bureaucracy from close quarters. Her mother, a brilliant student of physics, helped her set goals for herself. Not many know that Roy, who graduated in English literature from Delhi University's Indraprastha College for Women, was a student of music and dance too.

She, in fact, remembers her two years as a student of Bharatanatyam and Carnatic music at Kalakshetra, near Chennai, with tremendous nostalgia. "Those years were very important," she recalls, admitting that the life of an activist was certainly not one that her parents had in mind for her. "They were never happy with my choice," she says sadly.

Roy's father died before she began Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Samiti even though she had begun to work towards it. Ironically, both her parents died by the time she was honoured with the Magsaysay award for landmark legislations such as the Right to Information and National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

Over the years, Roy's activism has seen her carve out a space for civil society in the corridors of government, whether as a member of the National Advisory Council under the last government or as a member of the Employment Guarantee Council. She also supported Medha Patkar and together they carried out a nationwide social audit drive so as to expose the gains and losses made by the Special Economic Zones in the country.

We're on a journey with Roy in her car en route to Mayo College, Ajmer, where the activist is to deliver a talk to students. Our conversation is continuously interrupted by the mobile as colleagues from the Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Samiti call her to discuss the developments of the day.

Along with Nikhil Dey and Bhanwar Singh, Roy is in the middle of organising the concluding session of a fortnight-long social audit campaign on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in Bhilwara. "List out problems along with solutions in your speeches," she tells them. "... We are not there just to criticise but to resolve issues," she adds.

I'm observing her and listening intently while the car winds its way into the main gates of Mayo College.

"It's a mad life that I lead," she says.  The next sentence, in fact, is a glimpse into how fatigued Roy really is. "I'm torn into pieces. I want to wean myself away from MKSS," she adds wearily. You can't want to quit, I tell her. "Look at me," she challenges, "I am already weaned out. MKSS can go on without me. Ten years ago they would not have let me go away on the final day of such an important campaign. Today, they just want to ensure that I come back by the time the Union minister arrives," she confesses. She pauses, takes a deep breath and adds softly, "One day, they won't even realise that I am not there."

But if she's weary on one hand, she's already indicating the dreams that she has for Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Samiti 20 years from now. "I have been trying to break free to do what I really want to do," she says of her dream venture. And what is that? "A School for Democracy," Roy says excitedly. It'll be set up at Bhim in Ajmer district, close to the rural abode of the Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Samiti at Devdungri, also in Ajmer district.

"The school will symbolise what I stand for," she says proudly. In fact, the school stems from Roy's own hunger to learn more. "There is a need for formalised learning on many things that no one teaches. Today, I want to know about Maoism, about human rights in India," she says. It's a departure from formalised education in India, so what will the curriculum be? That's a reason why, she adds with a smile, "a lot of people will come together on it". The school, for the record, will be funded by the entire prize money that Roy received with the Magsaysay award and will be supplemented by donations too.

If there's one thing that has remained unchanged since the inception of Roy's activism, it is the organisation's preoccupation with morality. The RTI campaign, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, she adds, were
about social justice but "... also about ethics". "Having a law is great, but what's an even greater achievement is to have systems in place which ensure that the law is complied with," she says. "We need transparency,
for the devil is in the details," she laughs.

A little later, Prince Andrew, who is also present at Mayo College, chides Roy that the "Right to Information will return to bite you, it will make governance impossible". Roy, I observe, argues gently and ensures that he finally accepts an invitation to spend time with her, to understand what makes RTI so relevant, so good. "If you are in a room with no light in it, the first thing you do is ask where the switch is or when the electricity supply will be restored or whether there is a candle. That is what RTI is all about," she will later tell the assembled students.

She refers to herself as a "street fighter" and describes to the students how she and her supporters carried out months of agitation in Beawar even as they sought the RTI law to be implemented. "Beawar," she tells them lightheartedly, "was derived from two words written on its gates by a former British officer: Be Aware."

The applause in Mayo hasn't died out by the time we're on our way back to Bhilwara. "It seems like forever when we started our journey," she tells me, adding, "We achieved so much more than I had ever hoped to dream of. Many others felt it was not achievable in a lifetime," she says. She sighs while I continue to observe her. "I feel vindicated," she smiles.