Arvind Kejriwal’s battle against corruption

So young and so brave. The opposite of that now-famous line that once aptly described a Filipino bureaucrat-turned politician: So young and so corrupt.

Arvind Kejrawal of India is this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Emergent Leadership. Only 38 years old, Kejrawal has spent six years now fighting corruption that is so ingrained in India’s bureaucracy. It has not been a desperate, useless battle though. His efforts have yielded results and benefited the simple and the lowly whose concerns might not have merited the attention of the high and the mighty.

I caught up with Kejrawal the other day during the launching of RM Award Foundation’s (RMAF) 3rd, 4th and 5th volumes of “Great Men and Women of Asia” (Anvil Publishing)—must-haves for school libraries. Kejrawal battles must indeed soon be part of the inspiring stories in these books (for which I have written a number of stories) that should inspire the young and confound the wise and, uh, wily.

(RMAF formal awarding ceremonies will be held tonight at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Inquirer founding chair Eugenia “Eggie” Apostol is this year’s awardee for Journalism, Literature and Creative Comm
unication Arts.)

Kejrawal finished engineering but landed in the Indian Revenue Service early on. It’s most everyone’s dream to work in the civil service, Kejrawal explained. As a deputy commissioner for income tax, he saw bribe-taking as a matter of course. He saw how this affected ordinary citizens. In the beginning, Kejrawal’s appeals to tax officials were for naught so he and several kindred spirits initiated a Public Interest Litigation directing the department to implement a transparency plan. This was followed by a non-violent protest and a warning that the media would be around.

Kejrawal took a leave from his job and with his group, Parivartan (meaning “change”), first zeroed in on the government-run electricity department where paying of bribes was the order of the day. Any transaction made by consumers—electrical installation, complaints on bills, and the like—meant grease money.

Parivartan pushed and popularized its “Don’t pay bribes!” campaign. It offered consumers a hand by facilitating their dealings with the electricity department. In no time Parivartan was able to demand action on thousands of cases without a cent being handed over to bribe takers.

Kejrawal explained that there are two types of bribery—the extortional and the mutual. The first is common in government offices where people go to get things done. But, you can’t have it if you don’t pay bribe. The second happens between the bribe-taker and the briber. Your tax due could be lowered in your favor if you give the taxman something. Both profit from the deal.

This is not something new. But discovering innovative and successful means to curb it is always a challenge.

Because of what Parivartan started, the Delhi Right to Information Act of 2001 was soon passed, giving citizens the right to inspect government documents, follow up and demand to know what government agencies are doing or have done.

Kejrawal and Parivartan first put this law to use in a New Delhi slum area by monitoring a public works project. Not long after, residents did a “social audit” of 68 more projects. They held meetings and street plays, conducted public hearings and revealed their findings of misappropriations and embezzlement in 64 projects in the amount of seven million rupees.

The residents of that area learned how to monitor projects block by block and examine contracts before projects are started.

Another case involved wheat and rice rations for the poor. Parivartan discovered and exposed how 90 percent was being skimmed off by government officials in collusion with traders.

But boldness and alacrity on the part of the bribe-busters had a price. One Parivartan member was brutally attacked but luckily survived. (He is here with Kejrawal.) Some 5,000 residents staged protests and a “rations fast” to demand a clean-up. The government acted.

Kejrawal pointed out that not every one in the bureaucracy is corrupt. “But honesty may not get you the best post,” he said. There is a chain from the bottom to the top and the honest one who becomes a “block in the chain” could be relegated to the sidelines, he said.

And what about the work they had started by helping people do “no-bribe” transactions? Yes, they were worried about dependency, Kejrawal admitted, and they could not always be there to watch over everything.

And so the next step was to draft a citizen’s “Right to Information” form that contained the citizens’ rights as well as their demand to know the status of their complaint, request or transaction. It is a weapon, a strong way of saying to officials concerned: “I expect service from you.”

Within three months 200 people who used this method were able to get the service they needed.

Now on its seventh year, Parivartan has only 10 full-time members but it has trained 1,700 volunteers from about 700 organizations. Paarivartan, Kejrawal explains, is more of a movement rather an institution. As such, it is not registered and operates without institutional funding. It gets its support from ordinary citizens who want to see it continue. It has linked up with NGOs across India so more ordinary citizens, the poor especially, would be empowered and the government would be accountable to them.

Kejrawal always reminds that services should be delivered honestly and conscientiously because the citizens, the poor especially, are entitled to them.