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HomePoliticsAmitabh Bachchan-starrer 'Satyagraha' now playing in Rajasthan elections

Amitabh Bachchan-starrer ‘Satyagraha’ now playing in Rajasthan elections

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The BJP is facing a real challenge from NGOs across Rajasthan as activists target the government over promises and accountability.

New Delhi:Tees din, mantriji, tees din,” Daduji, a common man played by actor Amitabh Bachchan in Prakash Jha’s Satyagraha, gives an ultimatum to a crooked minister (Manoj Bajpayee) to clear all pending applications and complaints of the people in his district.

The 2013 film, inspired by Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement, is playing out in the Rajasthan poll theatre now.

À la Daduji and his team comprising Manav (the reel version of Arvind Kejriwal) and others, social activists in Rajasthan are mobilising the people to force politicians to commit themselves to implementing their Jan Ghoshana Patra or people’s manifesto, an initiative by a conglomerate of scores of NGOs from across the state.

‘We question’

In reel life, Daduji, or Dwarka Anand, is a retired teacher who goes on fast-unto-death to get his demands implemented.

In real life in Rajasthan, the movement is being led by an array of well-known social activists — Aruna Roy, the Ramon Magsaysay awardee who was part of Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council during the UPA regime, Kavita Srivastava of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and Right To Information and employment guarantee law campaigner Nikhil Dey, among others.

These activists invite candidates or their representatives from different parties to Jan Manch, a public platform, where a sort of presidential debate takes place, with active participation of the audience who often grill them. The candidates are then compelled to commit themselves to implementing the people’s manifesto over the next five years.

About a dozen such programmes have been organised in various parts of Rajasthan over the past fortnight.

“We have come together for all kinds of democratic rights. We call the candidates and ask them what they intend to do if they win,” Roy told ThePrint.

“They are also questioned on many issues and they have answered, which we will remember even if they don’t and we will be at their door step,” said Roy.

Trouble for BJP

In Satyagraha, Manav (Ajay Devgn) doesn’t mind taking help from a Right-wing party (read Bharatiya Janata Party for all practical purposes) ostensibly to “save” Daduji.

In the Rajasthan electoral theatre, the BJP is at the receiving end. On the face of it, it’s a politically neutral initiative to hold public representatives accountable. But look closely at the proceedings and it’s clear that the ruling party is at the receiving end.

At the Jan Manch in Jaipur Monday, Srivastava, an activist known for her frequent run-ins with the government, quoted a study done by a team of researchers from Azim Premji University, saying that unemployment rate in Rajasthan that was 3.2 per cent in 2012 has gone up to “7.7 per cent today”.

“What has happened in the past 4-5 years? If 100 women go out for work, only 29 get a job…. The state is in deep crisis,” she told the gathering, comprising mostly students. The nods and grunts from the crowd at the mention of the BJP’s promise of 15 lakh jobs in 2013 manifesto didn’t sounded ominous.


Also read: ‘Goliath’ Vasundhara will likely win Jhalrapatan, but ‘David’ Manvendra has made his point


‘Bigger than they are’

Roy dismissed any suggestions of a parallel between how social activists in Rajasthan had gone after the Bhairon Singh Shekhawat government in 1990s and how they are targeting another BJP government now.

“We have to assert the rights of the people… the democratic rights to be heard by our politicians who are our representatives. We are bigger than they are,” said Roy.

“We haven’t got a single meeting with the chief minister despite the fact that Shankar (a theatre activist) was beaten up in her constituency by her MLA. If our representative refuses to meet us, we are in a state of electoral democratic emergency… This is not how a democracy should run,” she added.

Roy’s assertion about the people being “bigger than they (MLAs) are” echoed Daduji who “instructed” the government to follow his deadline in Satyagraha.

Reach

Like in the film in which Manav and his team collect lakhs of complaints from people for the government to redress in 30 days, the Suchana Evam Rozgar Abhiyan (SR Abhiyan) launched a 100-day yatra across 33 districts of the state to collect grievances from the people and “submit them to the state”.

According to the SR Abhiyan website, it submitted 7,914 complaints to the government, of which 1,551 have been disposed of so far.

The numbers don’t necessarily reflect the actual reach and depth of the NGOs in Rajasthan — Daduji got lakhs of them in Prakash Jha’s fictional Ambikapur.

Shekhawat used to harbour a grudge against these NGOs — and he shared it with this correspondent not long before he quit politics to become the vice-president of India — for discrediting his government in the 1990s.

Ashok Gehlot reaped the benefits in 1998 and eagerly engaged them during his two stints — 1998-2003 & 2008-2013. Not that they spared them. They went after even the Congress government when there were reports of “starvation deaths” in Baran, suicide by farmers in Sikar and Jhunjhunu, atrocities against Dalits, or any other incident when the state was found wanting.

But Gehlot constantly engaged them in a dialogue, a trait Vasundhara Raje failed to display.

Real challenge

So when one travels across Rajasthan today, one comes across NGOs — a sector particularly targeted by the NDA government at the Centre that has cancelled the foreign funding licences of over 20,000 NGOs so far — proactively involved in election campaigns.

Kailash Meena, a social activist from Neem ka Thana in Sikar district, is focused on “defeating the mining mafia” in his area. In today’s context in Rajasthan, such “mafias” happen to be linked with the ruling party, more often than not.

It’s not just prominent names such as Roy and Srivastava. You will come across many Kailash Meenas in villages, small towns and cities in Rajasthan, who have expanded the ambit of their social work to influence public opinion during elections. And most of them echo Roy and Srivastava.


Also read: Rajasthan polls: How Vasundhara Raje managed to have the final say in ticket allotment


 

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