Arvind Kejariwal - Hero of modern India.

NOTE: My Blog was based on what i learnt about Arvind Kejriwal Ji till 2007, much before starting AAP. My blog to be considered to be stopped there. Not interested in AAP.

Arvind Kejriwal, The man fighting to enlighten citizens of India to know RTI(Right to Information) Act. Spreading awareness and training ordinary, poor to fight against corruption to secure transparency and accountability at all levels of government.

Some mile stones from Arvind’s life in brief :

* Born to an Engineer's family in 1968Hissar , Haryana .
* Graduate in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur in 1989.
* worked for TATA steel for 3 years after graduation.
* joined IRS(Indian Revenue Services) as Joint-Commissioner in 1992 was posted at Income-Tax commissioner’s office at Delhi.
* Quit job in 2000 to start people’s movement PARIVARTAN along with Kailash Bhoruka and colnel Pandey.
* Awards :
Ashoka Fellow in 2004
Satyendra Dubey Award in 2005
Ramon megsaysay award in 2006

Aravin'd Mission : Make RTI available to all the citizens.

" Some people feel that if we had good politicians and bureaucrats, India would be a better place to live in. The real change would come when the people start demanding accountability and the government is forced to respond. Then it would not be easy for the governments to go astray. and there stands the RTI ,People's right to information . . Arvind Kejriwal "
How it started :

In 1992 when kejriwal joined in Indian Revenue Service [IRS] in office of Income-tax Commissioner's Office in Delhi. Within months, he began to be aware of the silent, collective extortionist machine that his department was running. Citizens were being denied the services that were their right. By withholding information, the department kept the public in darkness as to where their cases stood.

Rights existed on paper. But the process to access them was muddied by the civil servants. It is this that led to corruption, dependencies and backwardness. The malaise is not poverty of incomes but that of information. He now recalled the paradox of Haryana and the North East and understood what was common between them. What he discovered was not some great, subtle truth. It is obvious to anyone who thinks things through. The difference that Arvin Kejriwal, IRS made, was that he decided to do something to fight back the system he himself was a part of. He turned a mole.

Same time he met two co-conspirators with same ideas and thinking, The Kailash Bhoruka (A chartered accountant) and Colonel Pandey ( retd. Army). Arvind shared with them the ways of departments and procedures, several discussions in secret led to a evolved strategy, thus began the movement PARIVATHAN (The Change) in 2000.

First steps :

They decided to focus on five small doable areas. They also distinguished between mutual corruption and extortionist corruption. "When two people agree and indulge in give and take corruption it is very difficult to fight it. On the other hand, most people are routinely extorted for small, important services like getting the refunds that are their due, getting a PAN number allotted, getting authorities to act on appeals won etc. We decided to begin here. Says Arvind".

With Kejriwal prompting from the wings, a Parivartan team called on the Chief Commissioner of Income Tax. They presented a couple of simple suggestions to bring in transparency: for each application for a service, let there be a serial number, let applications be processed only in a strict queue and let the queue be published. In other words, remove the power of random picking. The Commissioner seemed open to the suggestions. Parivartan then publicised all over Delhi asking citizens not to pay bribes but to approach Parivartan with their applications which will be processed transparently in a queue. They collected 400 such applications and went back to the Commissioner.

They found he had turned hostile. He berated them for putting up banners and slogans that implied that his department was corrupt. He then asked the Parivartan team to leave. They did, but not to disappear. Instead, they petitioned the Public Accounts Committee, the Vigilance Commissioner and Manmohan Singh, a politician of renowned honesty. Under pressure, the department cleared the 400 applications- and promptly went back to its old ways.

Arvind muses: "The bureaucracy succeeds by tiring you, hoping that you will give up. Often we do. If at first we don't succeed, we wilt and blame the system. We must learn to fight in the courts, the offices and streets". Parivartan filed a public interest litigation seeking direction to the department that it implement a 5-point transparency programme.

By now their ranks had swelled. They had a rudimentary office with a phone. Manish Sisodia, a journalist with Zee News got the media to cover Parivartan's campaign. The Commissioner finally, reluctantly filed an affidavit in the court saying that an internal order had been passed along the suggested lines.

Kejriwal the mole, knew it was a lie. There was no such order. On 3rd July 2001, thirty volunteers of Parivartan sat in a peaceful satyagraha in the corridor outside the Chief Commissioner's office, seeking a copy of the order he had sworn to have issued. Pressured, he met them, made vague promises and sought a little more time. Finally, under threat of a larger group of volunteers offering satayagraha with full media in attendance, the Chief Commissioner was broken.

Hard times and lessons :

On the July 13, orders were issued to departmental heads. By Jan 18,2002 most of the suggestions had been implemented. Parivartan had scored a success, albeit a small one for which so much time and energy had to be expended. But that's the Indian reality. Out of such small battles are systems in a democracy reformed, inch by inch.

By now the Arvind Kejriwal had unmasked himself. He has since used every provision of the service rules to go on long leaves in order to work openly for Parivartan. He has been without a salary for three years now, running his family on his wife's earnings.

Parivartan has a free-wheeling structure. It is not an NGO nor a body registered with any authority. It is a mere Association of Persons, the loosest form permitted by law. It does not accept corporate funds, let alone foreign ones. Kejriwal says there are private donors for their costs.

It has a small core team of four modestly paid workers, most of them residents of Sundernagari and Seemapuri slums. Rekha Kohli, 26 is the publicist. Chander is the original phone boy, now looking after the office. Rajiv Sharma, 30 is a master strategist plotting campaigns. And finally there is 21 year old Santosh, a product of the slums, a great street organizer and campaigner for rights. They decide on the salaries they will take, beneath a ceiling of Rs 6000 per month.

The team realised how hard and long battles can be and the results so minuscule. Unless there was a campaign for fundamental, systemic change to make the bureaucracy more easily accountable, citizens will always weary and give up.

Parivartan never stepped back in fighting for the cause, Volunteers of parivartan attacked many a times, One of them even had her throat cut says, Arvind.

Motivator :

Aruna Roy, Also a ramon megsaysay award winner for community leadership for the ordinary people in rajasthan, with whom she worked for more than a quarter of century.

She too quit her job at civil services. Says, "the biggest crisis we face today is dwindling participation of people in the democratic framework and a system of governance cloaked in secrecy and devoid of accountability to the people. The right to information would give big leverage to the people." Which motivated Arvind much and made her his Hero.

Parivartan adopted the Jansunwai(Public hearing) model of Aruna roy expose cover-ups by contractors and collusion by elected officials in Sundernagari's streets. This was the first such implementation of use of RTI law by parivartan.

The Team :

The parivartan team has seven volunteers, Suchi, Manish Sisodia, Santosh, Ritu, Rajesh Rajiv and founder Arvind him self.

" There are no plans of expanding the team, but we want to encourage people to start their own NGS's . So far all of us used to feel helpless , we only criticized the governments and leaders but lets start questioning the government, Whn you give 10 rupees to your kid , you ask him what did he do with it similarly ask about your own colony, please try this out " adds Arvind.

Contacts :

Parivartan,
G-3/17, Sundernagari,
Nandnagari Extn.,
Delhi-110093
India.
Tele : +91-11-55254077, +91-11-20033988
E-mail : parivartan@parivartan.com, parivartan_india@rediffmail.com
Web : www.parivartan.com

Conclusion :
I was really impressed when i learnt about Mr. Arvind kejriwal, but when i think about similar steps for my own place where i grew up, where i live, I question my self Can I?? But Arvind 's story and successes are like adrenaline for every one to start working for brighter and better future of New India. saluting Arvind Kejriwal . . . .

Note : Thanks to goodnewsindia.com, parivartan.com
Apologies for improper editing and spelling mistakes.