Retracing footprints
It was the summer of 1987 in Devdungri, a village near Bhim in Rajasamand district of Rajasthan. Aruna Roy who had worked with a social work organisation in Tilonia after resigning from the Indian Administrative Service, Nikhil Dey and Kavita Srivastava, social activists, and Shankar Singh, both resident of a nearby village accompanied by his family, teamed up to build an organisation for the rural poor. It was not long before the locals were drawn in as partners, and the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (mkss), a non-party political formation was born.
Their first triumph came when the organisation held its own in the struggle to take effective possession of 1,000 bighas of government land, now under a forest development project, which had been under illegal occupation of an oppressive feudal lord of the village Sohangarh. In the period of December 1994-April 1996, the mkss organised five hearings in a radius of 50 sq km, spilling over four districts of Rajasthan. The hearings, interspersed with citizens meetings in the neighbouring cities, had the impact of a campaign.
Transparency has now gained a grassroots constituency. In this, Rajasthan has surely led the way. On April 5, 1995, under immense pressure from the prolonged campaign of the mkss, and facing the general elections, the chief minister ( cm ) of Rajasthan, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, made a statement in the State Assembly accepting the villagers' right to information about developmental problems. The announcement contained some vital elements to ensure effective monitoring and participation of citizens in development works. It was, however, a partial victory. Attempts to get orders issued on the basis of cm 's announcement proved unsuccessful. The mkss gave notice to the government on April 2, 1996, that it was sitting on a dharna (strike) from April 6, 1996, to demand that orders implementing the announcement be issued with immediate effect. The government reacted with speed, issuing a truncated order on April 6 itself. The order gave inspection rights