The right to know, the right to live: grassroots struggle for information and work in India
Year: 2014
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This study attempts to develop an understanding of the iterative and multi-scaled \nprocess involved in transforming the state from below by examining the relationship \nbetween two of the most politicised rights-based legislations in India: the Right to \nInformation Act (RTI) and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee \nAct (NREGA). Based on one and a half years of ethnographic and interview based \nresearch, and five years of working with the RTI campaign, I examine the reciprocal \nrelationship between the rights to information and work, and the multi-scaled activism \nnecessary to instantiate both. First, I trace different phases of the struggle for the right to \ninformation, beginning with the creation of alternative public spheres, Jan sunwais (or \nrural public hearings) that responded to demands for the right to work in rural \nRajasthan. Second, as this demand culminated in a broad-based advocacy network, I \nexamine the role of actors from diverse institutional arenas that succeeded in passing the \nnational RTI legislation. I also look at how the same national network of activists \nintroduced the public accountability mechanism of social audits, inspired by the Jan \nsunwai, into the new right to work law or NREGA. Finally, bringing the process full \ncircle, I look at the ongoing efforts of the MKKS and the Suchna Evum Rozgar Adhikar \nAbhiyan (The Right to Information and Work Campaign) to implement the right to \nwork on the ground in rural Rajasthan. In contrast to existing studies, I provide a more \ncomprehensive analysis of the interdependent struggle for rights to information and \nwork as one long iterative process to transform the state from below. I conclude with \nsome reflections on the different vision of “transparency” and “accountability” \nemerging from rural grassroots struggles and what the RTI and NREGA experiences \nteach us about the possibilities for their realisation.
Author: Suchi Pande
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W169387183