Taking Charge...

Raveesh Kumar, on receiving the Magsaysay award for excellence in journalism, spoke at length on citizen journalism, the essence of which is, when the system fails the public, the public takes matter in its own hand. Of course, in Raveesh's specific case, the system directly translates into 'mainstream media', which stands at a deplorable low, serving mainly as a concubine to the government,  easy to tempt, and easier to please.

With a mobile in/at hand, while some citizens are performing the duel role of being both the cameramen and reporters, others are doing their bit to fill in the gap for the amnesia of the administrative authorities. For example, some have turned into environmental activists, trying to save their own backyard from the heaps of amassed garbage, and rampant dumping, cleaning up neighbourhood waterways and gullys, in an effort to prevent the pollutants from seeping into the ground water supply.

Rajendra Singh, the famous Waterman of India, in as far back as 1975, founded an NGO, called, Tarun Bharat Sangh, with the sole objective of solving the intensifying water shortage problem in his state of Rajasthan. Over the years, his organisation has been credited with building over 8,600 johads and other water conservation structures to harvest rainwater.

In the same vein, 33-year-old Arun Krishnamurthy, with the help of his colleagues from Environmentalist Foundation of India, an NGO, he founded in 2011,  has spearheaded the clean up of 39 lakes across the country, and several backyards. 

The classic example of Dashrath Manjhi, (made famous by the movie, 'Manjhi'), comes to mind, who, on losing his pregnant wife to a pathless mountain, single-handedly,  armed with  nothing but a hammer and a chisel, drilled through the mountain to build a road in his village. This road, which took him 22 years to complete, shortened the distance from his hometown to the nearest hospital by forty kilometres.

 Over the years, Manjhi has come to encapsulate the invincible determination of one man,  fighting against a system riddled with corruption and apathy towards the woes of the poor. 

Fast forward thirty six years, to 2018. In a small village in Bihar's Banka district, a group of women decided to build a road since the government failed to do so despite their persistent demand. After 10 years of waiting,130 women working from sunrise to sunset, completed the 2km-long stretch in three days, connecting, in the process, the village to the nearby hospital, which was their main objective. 

Examples abound.  Mumbai's notoriously dirty Versova beach,  covered in three feet of waste, was returned to its pristine state by the initiative of Arfoz Shah, a young lawyer,  and his 84-year-old friend Harbansh Mathur. 

Yes, it always needs just one individual to skip the pebble across the ocean of possibilities. So, in a country like ours, with 1.2 billion people, imagine the kind of storms we could be brewing!

'Power of the people, for the people, and by the people' is the cornerstone of every workable democracy. Yet, why do I get the feeling that while the citizens work and pay taxes, the centre 'rules'. While citizens raise money for projects to ensure continuity of life itself,  some million dollar companies declare bankruptcy, while citizens donate money to organisations so that another child could get decent education, someone along the way  embezzles the money assigned for midday meal scheme and children  die of malnutrition... Now, the question is why should we, the citizens of this country, who could be labelled illigal overnight, carry the additional burden of having a government, whose many an official flaunt expensive foreign cars while  advocating  'Make in India' products to its citizens;  sponsor their many trips abroad, while being advised to champion home-grown tourism;  pay for their fine fleet of security personnel, while they ask us to trudge on bravely, and bite the bullet?