The Panchayat Andolan in Karnataka

I've mentioned this topic in a previous note, but I've always wanted to write in more detail about it, since it seems to be such a non issue in the public domain. I guess I'm really irritated about it being a non issue as much as i'm concerned with the Andolan itself...
Anyway, I work for a media advocacy group, which is quite specific in its interventions and as it happened, my organization was not in a position to participate in this Andolan.
So I decided to do it outside working hours...and in partnership with my girlfriend who was already involved with the Andolan.
I hate to make my life public, but at the same time, I want to make public some the things i'm working on, and its really irritating when these two overlap...so i'm not going to be too specific but more like a record of what we did just for memory and documentation.
Basically, E was already in touch with the one of the co-organizers of the Andolan, and was in charge of preparing audio and video material for the Andolan. Now before this, I need to explain what the Andolan is about. In short, I quote, Nandana Reddy, " the hurried passage of amendments to the Panchayat Raj Act by both houses of the legislature. The amendment gives MLAs powers over grama sabhas and panchayats - the separate tier of local goverment into which citizens directly elect representatives"
For a more detailed write up on the issue, one can go here

Anyway, this is more about what E and I did in this Andolan, which is also fascinating from a mediaperson's point of view, and not so much directly involved in this activism. Another thing which i think is irritating is that a media person is always watching these amazing events unfold and yet this burden of objectivity forces the media to sit on the fence...its strange that i choose to call it a burden...anyway getting back to the point;

Now for a simple explanation of the Andolan itself: Basically a few NGOs in Bangalore got together and managed to get about 1500 (at best) Panchayat members and villagers to come to Bangalore to protest against this Amendment to the Panchayati Raj Act. Of course, the people who came were quite politically conscious and had come to Bangalore on their own, without taking money for accommodation, travel, food, or any other cost. Usually these NGO programmes are such that the community participates only if costs are taken care of...reminds me of how elections are conducted!
So it was quite remarkable that even 1500 people turned up...although at this point, i must admit that it was so funny and ironic to see that about 3000 people from only Bangalore, turned up the following week to protest against some obscure VSNL policy!!!!

So, these 1500 people who assembled in Bangalore on the 5th of July, were coming in from almost all parts of rural Karnataka, and this meant that they would be quite tired. So to energize them again and to fire them up, to remind them about why they are in Bangalore, the plan was that we would play an amalgamation of patriotic songs, speeches by national leaders talking about democracy etc...
So when we met this senior freedom fighter for an audio byte, he said that it would be better to get audio bytes from the ordinary people themselves as they are the Gandhis of tomorrow..which we thought was a good idea..and that's when, we both sat in front of a speaker phone, called these people from various districts of Karnataka, and my god, were they eloquent!
they all spoke about the role of the Gram Panchayat and more importantly the role of the Gram Sabha, which is perhaps one of the most democratic mechanisms in India, allowing people to directly and physically interface, interact and participate in decision making along with the local government body. What makes this issue particularly political, is the fact that one of the decision making powers being taken away, or at least the threat of it being taken away, is that of housing, and anybody who has worked in a village for some time will know just how much money is there to be made in these housing schemes. Of course, most of the people were genuinely concerned about the blow to decentralization and democracy if Gram Sabha becomes ineffective but I'm quite sure that not all Panchayats were protesting only for the sake of democratizing the political process.

So we got the bytes, mixed in some really patriotic songs, and burned a CD for the Andolan..came the 5th of July, CD was used, protest went off peacefully, and followed up by a series of protests...in the coming days where each district individually protested...
the upshot of the matter is that the proposed amendments went to the Governor, who took his time,