There are people who DO care

During the small, but beautiful, experience of life that I have had so far, I've seen people who see problems around them but pretend to ignore them, there are those who see problems around them but only talk about them, and there are some, however small in number they might be, who take that small step ahead and actually DO something about the problems that they see around them. Though I feel that it's perfectly alright not to act or to simply talk, but the ones who make a difference are the ones who choose to take that small step ahead.

I can't offer anything here but narrate the stories of such people, people who have taken that one extra step of doing something, and hope that their stories inspire you too.

01. Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) and Parivartan

I chose to write about these two organizations and their founders, Aruna Roy and Arvind Kejriwal respectively, because I think they go well together; they have so much in common.

Aruna Roy, a Chennai born IAS officer, quit her civil service career in 1975 to work full-time on social reform in the villages of Rajasthan and started MKSS in 1990.
Arvind, a civil servant in the Indian Revenue Service, also quit his job to start a 'people's movement for reinforcement of democratic values' - called Parivartan - in the urban quarters of Delhi.

Both went on to win the Ramon Magsaysay Award for their efforts in bringing about social change.

Both MKSS and Parivartan chose to be people-centric and work within the community rather than from outside.

MKSS started off as a grassroots organization with the aim of changing the lives of the villagers of Rajasthan who had to spend most of their days worrying about how to earn the next day's living - stuck in between frequent droughts on one side and exploitative government officials on the other. Their first project took up the issue of re-distribution of land and minimum wages - "the two basic issues of the rural landless and the poor of the area." It was then that they realized how important the 'Right To Information (RTI)' was for the survival of the villagers and that it was a fundamental right of every Indian citizen under 'the right to life and liberty' (Article 21 of the Constitution).

The Parivartan movement had its humble beginning in an activity where in their volunteers would urge the taxpayers of Delhi and the consumers of Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB) not to resort to paying bribes but approach them for getting their grievances resolved.
"In a unique experiment, Parivartan workers used to sit at the entrance of 3 DVB offices everyday during public dealing hours and would exhort every consumer going in not to pay bribes inside. This had a salutary effect on the working of these offices."

MKSS and Parivartan played leading roles in getting the national Right To Information Act of 2005 into force. The RTI act touches the lives of each one of us by giving us an instrument to question our civil servants.

MKSS and Aruna Roy continue to work for social change by organizing 'social audits' and 'public hearings' and using the RTI act for the very purpose. Arvind and Parivartan have grown into a nation wide movement for people's rights using RTI as an effective tool.

The stories of MKSS and Parivartan have so much in common, the only difference being - while Parivartan is based in the urban jungle of Delhi, MKSS functions in the deserts of Rajasthan. Whether you have lived your entire life in a city or you are one of the millions who live in the villages, our destinies are intertwined; because on the 26th of January 1950 we took a bold step, a step towards creating our destinies together. We resolved together to secure for ourselves equality, fraternity and liberty and the only way we can do it is by marching ahead together.

The stories of Aruna Roy and Arvind Kejriwal also tell us something else - that we can choose to live inside our comfort zones forever; or we can take that little step ahead and create a change, solve that very problem that we've so far chosen either to ignore or to talk about.