Aristotle famously said the purpose of knowledge is action, not knowledge. And in the words of Perumal Murugan, “There are many who speak, but very few who act.” Aruna Roy has spent her entire lifetime engaged in constructive action.
Joining the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1968, she soon realised that the civil service, which still retained colonial vestiges, was not the place for her: “The possibility of change was continually shrinking. The primary function was to maintain the status quo.” She resigned in 1975 and joined her husband Bunker Roy at the Barefoot College Social Work and Research Centre (SWRC) in Tilonia, Rajasthan.
Aruna Roy during the early days of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, in Devdungri, Rajasthan. | Photo Credit: The Hindu archives
The birth of RTI
Motivated by interactions with the rural poor, Roy and likeminded activists Shankar Singh and Nikhil Dey founded the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS). From the mud hut in the Rajasthani village of Devdungri where it was founded with a view to strengthen participatory democratic processes, this non-partisan people’s organisation has been at the forefront of transformative national campaigns for transparency, accountability, and an employment guarantee for the poor. It is in significant measure due to Roy, the MKSS, and likeminded activists that India now has a Right to Information (RTI) Act and a Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
Women of Chilakalagedda village in Andhra Pradesh, levelling land under MGNREGA. | Photo Credit: V. Raju
During their training period at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy in Mussoorie, young IAS trainees are invariably told about Gandhi’s talisman: when in doubt over a difficult decision, to think of the face of the poorest person one has encountered, and ask whether this decision will restore them to a control over their own life and destiny.
However, as the years pass, Gandhi’s words sometimes slip away. In the quest for efficiency, equity can get left by the wayside. Which is why the poor are sometimes invisible to policy. Such as Mangi, the migrant Dalit worker who lost six children because of lack of access to medical care.
Ragpickers scavenge recyclable materials from a dumpyard, in Malda, West Bengal. | Photo Credit: PTI
Call for empathy
In this deeply thoughtful and clear-sighted memoir, The Personal is Political, Roy reminds us that the poor are all around us: “The poor work. They build our homes but live under the flyovers, in railway stations, under plastic sheets, in cement pipes; they clean our toilets but have none they can use. They clean our mess, wasteful plastic and rubbish we strew, and we call them ‘rag pickers’. They grow our food, they craft to make our homes look chic, but we grumble at their subsidies and are angry when they die by suicide.... The complete illogic of the popular discourse which labels them a ‘burden’ remains unchallenged.”
Bhanwari Devi addressing a gathering at Somaiya Ground, Mumbai. | Photo Credit: Supreet Sapkal
Those who are truly great know that personal ambition comes in the way of good work. Referring to Gandhi’s categories of public action as seva (service), nirman (create), and sangharsh (struggle), Roy acknowledges the contributions of others: such as Naurti’s struggle for minimum wages; Bhanwari Devi’s fight against rape; Dr. Anandalakshmy’s work on ‘Thinking with the heart’; and Lal Singh, who sacrificed his job as a constable by joining a protest against the oppression of the lower constabulary.
Most of all, Roy acknowledges the voices of ordinary people without which there can be no sustainable change. Without participation and deliberation, policy can be disconnected and even meaningless. “Participatory policymaking in a democracy is a sound principle, value, and process. To place people in the centre of the discussion and to consult them as equals is the way to real development. Those preoccupied with efficiency and implementation should understand that planning done without reference to the conditions of people begins with a false premise.”
Indian students during a training at Women Barefoot Solar Engineers Training Centre, Barefoot College, Tilonia, nearly 110km from Jaipur, Rajasthan. | Photo Credit: Sandeep Saxena
Standing up for women
The title of Roy’s memoir comes from the 1960s feminist slogan: the personal is political. As a privileged Indian woman, she left the centres of power to participate, on the ground, in the Indian women’s movement. Reflecting on women’s struggles, Roy recalls the words of Maya Angelou: “Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.”
Aruna Roy at a rural programme. | Photo Credit: Gauri Gill
For me, the most powerful section of the memoir is about the great Mahila Mela that brought together a thousand women at Barefoot College, Tilonia in 1985: “Mele mein kain hoosi? Hivdari bataan.” (“What will happen at the mela? We will discuss matters of the heart.”) The women held ‘prabhat pheris (a morning walk, singing songs)’ to celebrate women’s solidarity; they also had serious conversations which recognised the deep post-traumatic stress associated with the aftermath of rape. A man from Ajmer had brought his 11-year-old daughter, a survivor of rape, to the Mahila Mela for justice. Discussion on the subject ended with a silent public rally in which local Rajasthani women also participated. They covered their faces, but carried placards. The women tied their black armbands on a thorny babul tree outside the court. A powerful message.
Aruna Roy | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
The Personal is Political: An Activist’s Memoir; Aruna Roy, HarperCollins, ₹599.
The writer is in the IAS.
