Right to Know

Common people have generally been denied access to basic information through successive governments. But the fight to guarantee the right to information was taken up by illiterate villagers in the state of Rajasthan.

Noted social activist Aruna Roy united the voice of these people under the organisation called the Empowerment of Workers and Peasants (MKSS) on May 1, 1990. She along with MKSS mastermind Nikhil Dey and Shankar Singh laid the foundation for a national RTI movement in India.

Other states also joined in and there were separate but simultaneous movement of a similar kind in Maharashtra and Meghalaya. All these combined with leading voices like that of bureaucrat-turned social activist Arvind Kejriwal bore fruit when the RTI Act came into being in 2005.

Administration today is more transparent, accessible and accountable to the common man than ever before. Any citizen of India can put in a request to see government files affecting his life.

Both Arvind Kejriwal and Aruna Roy were conferred with the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for their contribution in strengthening the voice of common people who were hitherto unheard and unnoticed.

Raju Narayanan

Kovalamkuppam, tucked away from the East Coast Road that connects Chennai to Pondicherry, has become one of the first villages in post-Independence India to implement rainwater harvesting in the whole village. It had been years since Raju Narayanan, founder of Coastal and Rural Development Trust (CRDT), showed an active interest in rainwater harvesting (RWH) but never got the support from agencies specialised in managing water resource. A notification by the State government finally woke up the villagers.

They are now willing to listen to Narayanan. Where village welfare is concerned, these fishermen sink their differences and work together for the overall good of everyone. The village has done a lot. Long before the State government launched its scheme of rotating loans from a corpus fund to be managed by women, Kovalam had its own scheme going. Such and many other villagers who may be illiterate but understand the significance of community initiatives when it comes to the availability of basics are the true heroes of a changing India.

Rajendra Singh

Bringing water within reach for everyone is Rajendra Singh’s mission and full-time occupation. After his early lessons with the Minhas, he realized this is what he had to do – find water for the thirsty villages of Rajasthan. The real beauty of the work that the Tarun Bharat Sangh (the voluntary organization that Singh created) is now doing lies in the simplicity of the tools they use. Involve the local people, explain everything to them, and get them to build small earthen storages near water sources. The toil of the last 16 years has indeed paid off. The construction of over 4500 check dams bringing water to and rejuvenating more than 1200 villages is living testimony of this man’s accomplishment.

The Magsaysay award in 2001 was a recognition of his efforts.