Free Press Kashmir: Srinagar: Sunday, December
02, 2018.
Working tirelessly for a better tomorrow,
some 12 Gujjar-Bakherwal social warriors have used RTI as their ‘weapon of
change’ in one of the most restive regions of the world. Undeterred and
undaunted by the bleakness of today, their story is of the silver lining in
Kashmir today.
The meadows of Dodhpathri, nestled in the
Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas, have emerged as an ubiquitous tourist
destination. But unbeknownst to all, the serenity of this place hides behind it
a constant struggle of a few who are fighting against under-development and
unaccountability on their own.
Dodhpathri, the land of RTI activists,
has some quite inspiring and motivated people from the Gujjar community who
after being ‘betrayed’ multiple times by the authorities have taken matters in
to their own hands.
Inhabitants of the area have made RTI a
weapon against fighting corruption and inefficiency in governance.
As result, the process of filing an RTI
application has become an important part of curriculum to even school students.
Instead of engaging in violent confrontation, the RTI warriors have
demonstrated their courage in stepping-up to the authorities through their
constitutional rights.
According to them, the most important
aspects for a social revolution are courage and composure. These RTI warriors
seem to have mastered both of these traits.
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| Dodhpathri. |
In a region where their community has
always been on the margins, these RTI warriors are being the change they want
to see in the lives of their peers.
Their journey on holding the state
accountable and fighting for transparency started when they were on the path of
searching for an alternative livelihood. It had come to a point when the only
viable path for livelihood for them was to engage in timber smuggling. A local
resident sums up the community’s dilemma, “There was, and still is immense
poverty and the wood around was the easiest option we could see.”
At that time, a former government medical
officer, Dr. Sheikh Ghulam Rasool, founder of Jammu and Kashmir RTI Movement,
who had served in Mujpather, the village where Gujjars and Bakherwals live in
during the winter season, saw the degrading condition of the forests around.
From the year 2006, he started taking up
the cause of sensitising the people about the importance of a healthy ecosystem
and sustainable livelihood.
“We hardly respected our forests and
environment, but after having conversations with Dr. Sahab we understood that
these trees are the only asset we have,” says Nazir Ahmed, a Taxi Driver,
residing in Dodhpathri.
“And when we started calculating the
amount that we earned after bribing the police, forest officers etc, we came to
a conclusion that timber smuggling was not even providing us with any
extraordinary level of income.”
At this point, the community members
started opening up shops in the meadows of Dodpathri. But, even that did not
last long. Their shops were taken over by the authorities promising them new
shops in the coming years.
“It has been almost 10 years since then
and we are still waiting for those shops,” a local RTI activist says. “This is
when our fight with the unjust state and establishment started.”
The first instance where Dr. Sheikh
guided the community to file an RTI application was in the year 2008 against
the teachers of the mobile school where the local Gujjar kids studied.
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| Dr. Sheikh Ghulam Rasool. |
With the status of Scheduled Tribes, the
children of Gujjars and Bakherwals receive a fixed amount of scholarship from
the government. For two years, a number of children had not received their
scholarship as per the policy. After being questioned by Nazir, the teachers
responded that for these years money hadn’t come from the education department
itself.
However, Nazir filed an RTI application
to see if the teacher was telling the truth. “None of the children were my own,
but I was and will always work for my community,” he said.
Within two weeks of filing the
application, the teacher, who also happened to be his maternal uncle, came to
Nazir’s house to ‘reconcile’ but the RTI activist refused to budge.
The RTI response had revealed that the
scholarship money of the 5-6 kids was being pocketed by the teacher himself.
The teacher, rather brazenly, justified
this blatant theft saying that the kids couldn’t have handled so much money.
After he was exposed, he promptly handed the money to the kids in the presence
of Nazir.
Having learned about the corruption and
inefficiency through his first RTI query, Nazir soon filed a second application
seeking the names of beneficiaries of the Public Distribution Scheme (PDS).
To his shock, his deceased grandfather
and his brother were in the list!
“I quickly understood how corrupt these
food officers were, usurping the food that came on the name of my dead
relatives,” Nazir recounted his surprise at the revelation.
“After the information came in,” he
continued, “these food officers came to my house offering me bribes in exchange
of dropping the case. But did I? No. How could I? I was fighting for the rights
of my community, of the people who can’t voice their opinions. I, instead,
asked them to take the money back, and give the villagers what is rightfully
theirs.”
Another activist, Abdul Rashid Sheikh,
filed an RTI asking for the rates of food items in this distribution scheme.
The RTI response revealed corruption in the pricing model as well. While the
sugar was being sold to people at Rs 40/kg, it was supposed to cost only Rs
25/kg.
“I felt quite satisfied and content that
in this small way only I could help my peers,” Sheikh said.
However, the corruption was not limited
to only education or food but was rampant everywhere. The houses in the area
were receiving dirty water which clearly meant that there was something wrong
with the water pipelines.
Rashid filed an RTI to the PHE department
asking for the information on repair and replacement of pipelines. The RTI
response revealed that funds were regularly released for the reparation and
replacement of the water pipelines but no work had been done on that front by
the local authorities.
Already the immense satisfaction and
sense of community service that this activism has provided to the community in
general and these activists in particular goes beyond exposing instances of
corruption.
Rashid perfectly sums up this sense of
pride, “Since we have started exercising this right, even the BDO treats us
with respect, the same person who never permitted us to enter his office and
insulted us on our dirty clothes.”
Explaining the importance of this social
activism, Nazir says, “RTI, we now understand, is the most important tool to
get the work done. We are a bunch of illiterate people, who never saw a school
building during our childhood, but RTI has given us the power that even
transcends that of administrative officers.”
This group, under the guidance of Dr.
Sheikh Ghulam Rasool, is fighting administrative inefficiency and governmental
apathy through their constitutional rights. As is evident, this has not only
instilled a sense of civic responsibility among the community but has also
bolstered their confidence as the leaders of social change.
These RTI warriors have overcome the
hurdles of their surroundings and have become agents of change, a model of
social activism that is worthy of replication everywhere, especially by the
socially and economically backward communities.
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