Indiatimes.com: National: Friday, May 19, 2017.
Chelsea
Canning, one of the biggest whistleblowers of our times along with Julian
Assange and Edward Snowden, who unearthed the US atrocities in Iraq and
Afghanistan was set free today.
Former
President Barrack Obama used his constitutional power to set Manning free from
the prison. Manning was sentenced to 35 years in military prison in 2013 after
it was proved that in 2009, she leaked more than 700,000 documents, videos,
diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to WikiLeaks. It was seen as the
biggest breach of classified material in US history.
Though it’s
hard to define who actually a whistle-blower is, but clearly it’s the one,
solitary warrior whose conscience is alive and doesn’t allow him to turn a
blind eye to the evil of any sort. Whistleblowing isn’t an easy task as it put
one right against the system, a system in which even those who are supposed keep
it in check often have hand in glove with those who corrupt it.
Therefore,
the whistle-blowers are perhaps the most daring people we can come across in
our daily lives. An employee, a
candidate, a security guard, an IAS, and you name it- a whistle-blower can be
anybody. All it requires a conscience
that doesn’t give up against the evil practice of any sort.
Lately, we
have seen many whistle-blowers who stood their ground all alone against all
odds. Some of them even lost their lives in their crusade against the corrupt
system.
Here
are some of the whistle-blowers who have made different in lives of not only
themselves but all of us in last few years.
1. Three
whistle-blowers who unravelled Vyapam Scam
Though the
malpractice in Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB) known as
Vyapam in Hindi has been happening for decades as the first complaint came in
1995 and in 2000 first FIR was filed.
Vyapam
conducts large-scale competitive tests for admission to various professional
courses and for recruitment to government jobs. The Vyapam scam involved
collusion among exam candidates, government officials and middlemen who helped
undeserving candidates get high marks and secure government jobs.
In 2013,
three men, Prashant Pandey, 36, a
digital forensic engineer with a two-year experience working with enforcement
agencies in Madhya Pradesh, Dr Anand Rai
a medical officer with a government hospital in Indore and 26-year old
Ashish Chaturvedi, a student of social work in Gwalior broke a massive
scam in
July 2013 in which 20 people were
arrested from different city hotels.
Over 30
people who were somehow related to the scam have died in suspected
circumstances and three activists who broke the scam have also faced various
threats and have been given security.
2. Sanjeev
Chaturvedi
A 2002 Indian
Forest Service (IFS) officer, Sanjeev Chaturvedi has the knack of opening
Pandora’s boxes where he goes.
Currently, he is serving in Uttrakhand, but even since his appointment in 2002,
he broke many scams and irregularities in his home cadre Haryana.
The Raman
Magsaysay award winner in his very first posting registered a FIR against
contractors involved in the construction of Hansi Butana canal. He accused the
contractors of illegal tree felling and poaching hog deer in the nearby
Saraswati Wildlife Sanctuary.
As a result,
he was transferred to various districts of the state before the Centre decided
to take him out. No ministry wanted him because of his habit of not kowtowing
with the system. But the centre made in Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) at AIIMS.
Within months
of his posting, he unearthed scams going on at AIIMS which exposed many
high-level officers of the government, Chaturvedi took action against the
doctors who were making unauthorised foreign trips. During his tenure, the
police seized banned drugs worth ₹6 crores from a vehicle supplying drugs to an
on-campus pharmacy owned by Congress MLA.
Chaturvedi
had many alleged bogus cases registered against him including a dowry cases
from in-laws and case of suicide abetment. But Chaturvedi is determined to
grapple corruption wherever he goes.
3. Ratna Ala,
a visionary with no eyes
Ratna Ala is
the 36-year-old son of a shepherd from Rangpar village in the Wankaner taluka
of Morvi district in western Gujarat. Ala is blind since birth, but Braille
makes him an able. When RTI act came in 2005 and Ala got to learn about it via
radio, he filled an RTI seeking information about a two-kilometre stretch of
the road that connected his village to the highway.
The road was
in shambles, but the reply that he got shocked him. In reply, he learnt that on
paper, the road had been repaired twice in the last two years. He handed over
the reply to media and soon the road of repair and relaid. Since then, Ala
became an RTI activist and unearthed many scams.
For example,
in 2007, he prevented officials who were giving 281 acres of the village
grazing land to a clock factory without permissions from the state government.
In 2011, he exposed 154 bogus names in voting of Sarpanch election in his
village whereas, in 2014, he busted a fledgeling illegal mining racket,
withstanding threats to life and refusing bribes.
4. Vishwanath
Chaturvedi
Though
Chaturvedi had a political affiliation from Congress, but he fought against all
odd to expose Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav’s colossal wealth
amassed with the help of corruption.
In 2005, he
had filed a case against Mulayam Singh Yadav, his son Akhilesh Yadav, his wife
Dimple Yadav, and his stepbrother Prateek Yadav, for allegedly amassing illegal
wealth. Chaturvedi collected information through RTI, and simple back to back
calculation of the assets based on the declaration of the assets Yadavs filled
for different elections.
Taking
cognizance of his allegations, the Supreme Court called in the CBI in 2007. A
hearing has been completed but the judgment has been lying reserved since 2009.
Chaturvedi faced many threats that were real in nature as he was in UP, after
all, the bastion of the Yadavs. Therefore, he had to leave UP and started
living in Delhi.
5. Ashok
Khemka
Who doesn’t
know him? The man who dared the cancel the land deal between DLF and Robert
Vadra, the son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi and that too in 2012 when there was a
Congress government at centre as well as the state concerned Haryana.
This wasn’t
the first time when Khemka refused to bow before the corruption. As the
sub-divisional magistrate in Sohana in August 1994, he had refused to pay heed to the orders of
his deputy commissioner when he asked Khemka to arrangement buses and trucks
for the rally of then PM Narasimha Rao and then CM Bhajan Lal. In 2004, he
again refused to swallow the pill of corruption when he refused to order the
mid-session transfers of schoolteachers and blocked the transfer of 20 acres in
Badshahpur, Gurgaon to a private realty firm for a paltry Rs 4 crore.
Khemka has
arguably got more transfer letters than any other bureaucrat in India. But
bureaucrats like him, Sanjeev Chaturvedi, Amitabh Thakur and Pradeep Kasni are
examples which prove that bureaucracy in India still has some hopes left.
6. Lalit
Mehta
A civil
engineer by qualification, Lalit, 36, blew the lid off widespread corruption in
MGNREGA in Palamu, Jharkhand. He had become a threat to contractors and corrupt
government officials. He undertook social audit of NREGA with the help of
economist and before he could unearth the scam he was murdered.
THE PUBLIC
AGENDA
The
Chhatarpur Police found his body at Kandaghati in Chhatarpur on May 15, 2008.
His mutilated body and a belt around his neck suggested he was strangled and
his face smashed to deform it beyond recognition. The police buried the body as
unidentified the same day.
7. Shanmugam
Manjunath
Shanmugam
Manjunath was a marketing manager (grade A officer) for the Indian Oil
Corporation (IOC) posted at Lakhimpur Kheri in UP. He in order to curb the
malpractices of petrol pump owners sealed a petrol pump in his jurisdiction
area. Hence, he was murdered.
Later several
students from institutes like IIM, IIT and other formed set up the ‘Manjunath Shanmugam Trust’.
8. IPS
Narender Kumar Singh
An IPS
officer of the batch 2009, Narender
Kumar was assigned to work at Morena District located in Madhya Pradesh. The
district is famous for the good quality of sand ideal for construction.
Narender found out the sand mafia was mining sand illegally not only in Morena
district but other parts of Madhya Pradesh as well.
Kumar
launched an offensive against the mining mafia and despite threats, he kept
acting against them with an iron hand. In 2012, he received information about
mining and when he reached the spot, a tractor carrying the mined sand ran over
him. He died on the spot.