UNITY
AMONG RIGHTS-BASED NGOs:
NEED OF THE HOUR
The present
government is pushing the poor, particularly the rural poor, to the margin. The Modi government has reduced the budget
allocation for health care and education.
It shows its dislike to MGNREGA, calling it a “living
monument” of the previous governments’ failures, condemning millions of impoverished
people to survive by ‘digging ditches’.
Modi does not spare precious little time to go deeper to see the reports
which speak loud and clear about the magnificent outcome of MGNREGA where ever
it is implemented well.
The poor are being
edged out from the economic development and the political space. They are seen as indirect goals of
development, as trickle down effects of the economy. Commenting on trickle down effect Pope
Francis says “the present neoliberal economic ideology tells us that at present
the glass of development is half full.
When it is completely full it will overflow and then the poor will get the
benefits of development. But as time
goes on the glass miraculously become bigger and bigger not allowing it to over
flow.”
Marginalization of
the poor is accompanied by removing the space of the civil society organization
working for the cause of the poor and for the protection of environment. The government has resorted to stop the flow
of funds to the civil society organizations.
There have been more than 9000 NGOs whose FCRA registration has been
cancelled. If any NGO wishes to receive
foreign donations they should give an undertaking that their activities will
not go against the national interest, national security and development. The
Green Peace has been penalised under the excuse that their work is against the
national interests of development.
The government’s view
on the national interests, national security and development should be
acceptable to all in the civil society.
This is a denial of democratic rights of the people. The foreign funds that freely flow into the
country in the form of foreign investment are per se seen as for the national
interests and development. The foreign
funds (investment) that caused Bhopal gas tragedy is not evaluated as against the
national security and national interests.
The foreign funds that destroys environment, displaces people from their
habitat is not considered as against national interests and security.
In the name of
national security the security forces can arrest anyone on suspicion and put
his/her in jail without trial. More 6000
adivasi youths are languishing in jails
for several months and even years without trial.
Civil society is an
important component of the socio, economic and political fabric of the
society. Civil society’s independence
and freedom of speech is essential component of a democratic society. Preventing
civil society organization from voluntary social action is like obliterating
democracy. The essence of democracy is
not just casting vote once in five years to elect the government. Democracy is civil society participating in
the debate on development policies, making development process as relevant to
the people.
In the name of
development the state is becoming increasingly repressive. It is not just the BJP government that is so
repressive. Even the UPA has been
equally repressive. The military, the
judiciary has been showing repressive face of the state. These are no signs of a healthy democracy.
Defending the rights
of the poor is a beginning of the defence of the democracy. Anybody working to defend the civil rights of
the society will have to start their struggle with defending the rights of the
poor.
Today the state is governed
by the logic of neoliberal capitalist ideology.
It defends the rights of the corporate houses, industrialists and multinational
companies. The country is governed to
make it easy for them to do their business.
But when our nation
was founded the founding fathers adopted the constitution to guide the governance
of our nation. What should govern our nation is not the logic
of neo liberal capitalist ideology but the spirit and letter of the founding
document, the constitution of our country. All the politicians take oath on the
constitution of India. They promise to
defend, uphold and implement the constitution of India. This constitution guarantees to its citizens
democracy, socialism and secularism. It
gives all its citizens right to life and livelihood, right to work. It gives its citizens the right to free and
compulsory education, health care, and free speech.
There is a need to
bring the goal of the governance and development back to its place. This is a process of struggle by the civil
society and civil society organizations.
This struggle must begin with fighting for the rights of the poor.
Praxis and Young India
Project started the struggle for people’s rights. In 1983 took up land struggles and freeing
bonded labours under the bonded labour abolition Act. In 1986 we started our campaign
for right to work. In 2005 this was finally legislated. From the 4th of April 2006 it came into
effect and began to be implemented. Our work for the last 35 years has been to
enable the poor to gain their rights.
“APNA :
Andhra job scheme :
Andhra Pradesh NGOs alliance
has made the Government to work in partnership with NGOs. This arrangement gave the NGOs the
responsibilities of organizing and training MGNREGA workers on their rights and
enabling them to access their rights. Today there are 235 NGOs working in 425
out of 625 mandals. Generally government
would be extremely averse to the idea of organizing the people, particularly
the working people. But we have claimed
this right. The government has decided
that we organize the rural poor. In
every Panchayat we have organied MGNREGA workers at the Gram Panchayat Samakhyas
(GPS). The NGOs of Andhra conduct monthly meetings of Gram Panchayat Samakhyas
(GPS)
APNA works for making
MGNREGA workers to understand their rights, accessing these rights and improving
their quality of life.
When Sridevi, an
MGNREGA worker who received 80 days of work from Chinna Kotha Palli Mandal, was
asked about the rights she accesses under the MGNREGA Act, she replied, “We
don’t allow contractors or machineries to be used for MGNREGA work. We receive travel when the work is located
over 5 Kms away; we have first aid medical kit, drinking water.” Ramakrishnaiah,
another MGNREGA worker from CKPalli mandal, who was able to work for 100 days, narrated
how MGNREGA has changed the life of his family, “Before we did not have enough
work and the wages were low. Now apart from agricultural and other works we
have guaranteed 100 days of work at higher wages. We were travelling to distant
places to seek work, we don’t do that anymore. Our children are going to high
school, we are buying them new clothes, weekly once we are eating meat and we
have bought a mobile phone.” We wish that all MGNREGA workers throughout the
country could say what these two workers have said.
At a meeting with
Commissioner Rural Development (CRD) Andhra, the CRD expressed tremendous
satisfaction with the APNA NGOs. As a result it was decided that the wokers’
organizations (GPSs) should be created in all 625 mandals of Andhra. Through the creation Samakhyas and the work
done by NGOs with each GPS, the working poor are able to access all the rights
given under the MGNREGA Act. This partnership has helped put Andhra on the map
as the best State in implementing MGNREGA, and the only State in which job card
holders have been organised into GPSs in order to demand their rights.
Under the APNA the
NGOs appoint two Community Resource Persons (CRPs) per Mandal to support the
work. Ramakrishtaiah, the MGNREGA worker
from CKPalli mandal, said, “the CRPs, identify the problems of each Shramik Shakti
Sanghatana group in the monthly meetings conducted by them and represent our
problems to the Assistant Project Officer . We are very happy with them. We need them to motivate our Samakhya.”
We would like to go a step further through
the GPSs formed by NGOs, by making each GPS responsible for enabling the rural
poor to access all the pro-poor rights and benefits, such as right to food
security, right to education and health care. Furthermore, we are proposing
that the salaries of the two mandal workers (CRPs)appointed by the NGO be paid
by the right holders. This will also ensure that the NGOs are fully accountable
to the working poor. The majority NGOs
support this idea. We would like to ask
the government to pass a Government Order (GO) to officially start the
implementation of the new system.
On 30th
and 31st of May 2015 we had called for a meeting of 20 rights based
NGOs: 8 from Andhra, 8 from Telengana, and 4 from Karnataka to discuss the
experience of APNA. The meeting resulted in a path breaking decision to promote
this movement of helping MGNREGA worker access all rights legislated for them
through the GPSs formed across all the three States. The next step towards this
is a meeting of over 35 APNA NGOs from Andhra with the purpose of building
unity of rights based NGOs, which will take place on the 4th and 5th
of July in Kadapa. At this meeting we will initiate a signature campaign
demanding a GO on the two proposals.
If we want to change the
society through the unity of the rural poor, the voluntary organizations (NGOs)must
first unite themselves. Rights-based NGOs of Andhra, Karnataka, and Telengana
have learnt this. There is need to for all the rights based NGOs of the North
and South India to unite, first to defend the MGNREGA from being diluted and to
organise the poor who need work under MGNREGA and enable them to get work. The unity of the NGOs will prevent
contractors form depriving the workers of their work and prevent all forms of
corruptions. It is the NGOs and the organizations of the
rural poor which will make possible for the poor to get all rights legislated
for them.
WRITTEN BY PRAXIS AND
YIP
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