Posts
(Originally written in Nov. 2006 on behalf of JUHU CITIZEN'S WELFARE GROUP).
1. What is this VOTE JUHU thing? Is it a new method to persuade citizens to go and vote? An outing on the long holiday is just what I need, and so does my family. We are not interested in politics. Nothing changes here, the same old wine in new bottles! The whole system is corrupt and I alone can do nothing, except protect my turf.
All claim India is a democracy. Yet we have no real chance to choose our leaders. They are foisted on us and we are expected to rubber stamp one or the other. Even telling the election official: 'none of the above' makes no difference and in some areas of India, one out of the thirty candidate-alleged criminals gets elected. There is also no 'right to recall'. The political parties have a self-perpetuating agenda of placating the ‘lowest common denominator' and ‘vote bank politics’. We have also learnt to only take...take...take. Can we not spare some thought, time and effort to make our society and locality safe and better for the coming generation?
Vote Juhu is adopted from Vote Mumbai, which is a plan to bring democracy down to mohalla-nukad-street level. This is sanctioned by our Constitution's 74th Amendment (June 1993), but not yet implemented. Each mohalla (represented by one polling booth of about 1,200 registered voters), elects an ‘area sabha representative’ (ASR). These representatives together form a democratically elected Electoral ‘Ward Committee’ (WC) in the Electoral Ward of about 50,000 registered voters. There would be 35 to 45 such Members in the Electoral ‘Ward Committee’ some reserved for women and backward classes. This is the basic unit of city governance and would be empowered with funds, planning, co-ordinating and monitoring activities and development in the Electoral Ward. This Committee will be chaired by the City Councillor-Corporator and may also nominate experts / NGOs. Ideally it could even put up a candidate from among themselves for the City Councillor-Corporator, so that the candidate is a true representative at street level - a 'Citizen’s Consensus Candidate' (CCC). Such candidates will together form the 227 councillors-corporators who will govern the city. In addition, the citizens should get to directly elect a City Mayor – a mass leader, who will head the Councillors. The officers and municipal staff would be answerable to the Councillors and Mayor, just as your employees are answerable to you – the owners and managers of your homes, offices and industry. This among other things is the ‘systemic reform’ for bringing good municipal governance to Mumbai. In this manner each registered voter will find true democratic representation through his ASR to the Electoral WC and there on to the City Government. Please click the ‘research’ button at http://votemumbai.org for the ‘concept note’ (an 84 A4-page pdf document).
Also, you have the duty and right to vote. Your failure to vote for a truly representative candidate means you have forfeited the right to ever complain for a better quality of life. Any number of episodic holidays or picnics will not substitute good local governance. With the latter you will perpetually be on a holiday from anxiety and misery arising due to poor governance. Our expectation is that this ‘systemic reform’ will be shortly ‘notified’ by the Maharashtra State Government. With VOTE JUHU, we plan to be ready with a sample system in Municipal Electoral Ward-63.
2. Who is promoting the VOTE MUMBAI agenda and who are behind it in our Juhu area?
The Vote Mumbai agenda has been developed by LOKSATTA … a national level NGO with a Mumbai Chapter (http://www.loksatta.org/default.asp). Guidance has been taken from JANAAGRAH-Bangalore (http://www.janaagraha.org/). At a more local level, it is called VOTE JUHU since in the Juhu area, the Electoral Ward-63 has been redefined for the coming Municipal Elections in January 2007. It is supported by AGNI (http://agnimumbai.org/). At the micro level, JUHU CITIZENS WELFARE GROUP (http://juhucitizen.org), GULMOHUR AREA SOCIETIES FEDERATION, the numerous ALMs from Juhu Vile Parle and nearby areas, all support this plan-agenda. Day by day, more are joining in the chorus for ‘a better agenda’ than the one being followed for the past 133 years (http://www.mcgm.gov.in/forms/grindex1.aspx).
3. What is the use of having ONE 'Citizen’s Consensus Candidate’? What can ONE ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE in Ward-63, do at local government level?
Yes, there are 227 elected Councillors-Corporators and we are trying to get ONE NON-PARTISAN CITIZENS CANDIDATE elected in Electoral Ward-63. All journeys start with one small step. Our journey is to change the system democratically. There will be no supermen doing superhuman jobs, only ordinary persons doing ordinary jobs in a superb fashion, because we have a superb plan of practical local governance. Maybe this one CCC will do little, but the fact that s-he has come from the actual grass roots level and has support (as well as monitoring) of a team of ASRs who constitute the Electoral WC, will cause other city wards and other cities to try to copy this method, and then we will have many more such 'citizens representatives'. This is NOT new policy. It is being done at the gram panchayat level by virtue of the 73rd Amendment (April 1993), where there is one representative for about 425 voters. The urban areas have somehow been missing this simple democratic method; where there is one representative for about 50,000 voters. So this is the power of ONE, many will follow. Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come. In any case, the citizens will at least be better informed about the policy and budgets through the Electoral WC and ASRs. Protests will certainly follow any fool hardy scheme. Possibly, citizens will not then be wasting resources in morchas and by visiting the Courts with PILs, for each and every administrative matter.
In the current scenario, the Councillor-Corporator has negligible powers over the system. S-he also has to beg for effecting change. The existing and past Councillors-Corporators were not all bad people, they had to work in a bad system and found that being compliant was beneficial. In our democratic system, we have to step by step bring about changes and transparency. The power to spend will come to the grass roots level with the systemic reforms that the Vote Mumbai plan envisages. The corruption will reduce and results will follow. The CCC and the ASRs will not allow the same job to be done every year just to spend money on contracts which allow leakage to rent seekers. The reason is simple; you elected the CCC and the ASR and would therefore object. Thus, acceptable and useful change for the better will come about.
4. How can we be certain that this ONE NON-PARTISAN CITIZENS CONSENSUS CANDIDATE will not turn rogue? Anyway, who has the time or inclination to be an ‘area sabha representative’ or an ‘electoral ward committee’ representative? Are the NGOs now going political to also grab the ‘loaves and fishes of office’?
There will be checks and balances, an executable bond signed and witnessed, accountability, redress procedures, independent audit unit, citizen’s charter, disclosure norms, Ombudsman and above all the sovereign power of the State Government. In any case, this person will be from amongst you, so he has to face you daily. You will choose a person who has grass roots experience, a person you know for long. So chances of his turning rogue are low. If push comes to shove, you would have right to recall. At worst there will be one or few bad apples in the Ward Committee and can be out-voted. Kindly let us know who runs your homes, offices, and housing complexes? Have you invited politicians or do you find one among yourselves to do these routine things? Don’t you eject bad apples? There are many in our ‘silent majority’ who have the skills, talent, resources, expertise and time for selfless service. They will come forward only if they feel they have a superb system of governance in place. In any case, the fact that you all find time to come for the meets to discuss better governance shows that some have the inclination to raise the performance benchmark. In all our meets we have had fifty or more interested persons with various skill sets who are eager to volunteer without office or profit. Why is this so? The NGOs, JCWGs, AGNIs, ALMs are NOT interested in becoming political parties or promoting political parties, this is for sure. If the later did their jobs then NGOs would be free to pursue other activities like health, education and training.
5. Why not right away, choose a popular prominent personality, who is certain to win? Why waste time with 'agenda', plan, method, etc.? We could persuade this prominent person about our requirements and go ahead.
Consider this … a bad street map with a good car driver and great car will still NOT get you to your destination; however, a good street map with an ordinary driver and an old car will certainly get you to your destination rather quickly. Think about the plan-agenda … not the person. We need to give up 'idol worship'. Let’s get real for a change. Prominent persons have their own prominent agendas. They think they are above the plan / agenda and have little time for common folk. We have a great plan; it will drive the change in the system and get us democratization of local governance. Any person will do, provided s-he has some grass roots experience, has worked in the area, considers the new agenda as sacrosanct and is willing to be humble and listen, instead of talk down to citizens. The plan is greater than the person; this is not to be forgotten. Idols are great in cinema, fantasy and in sports; not in local governance. The risks are too great for mid-term failure. We have a long term goal of bring about a change in the entire city and the entire country. We cannot afford failure due to personality, time restraints and ego problems.
6. Established national political parties are well setup, they have efficient networking, national presence, large resources, excellent contacts and great reach from lowest to highest rung. How can one fight against the established national parties?
How can David fight Goliath? How can one MKG fight the might of an Empire? What can one M.Teresa do against overwhelming disease and apathy? How can one poor black woman in a city bus in Chicago-USA, fight for civil rights? How can poor, largely illiterate Indians, unseat the great and powerful Indira Gandhi? We all know the answers to the above. It is the POWER OF ONE. When the time of an idea has come, there is no power that can stop it.
National and local political parties, though important and essential, have their own agenda, not necessarily the same as what you need in your locality-mohalla. Your life is improved or made miserable because of the candidate foisted on you in your area. The political party candidate is selected by the party, not elected by you. You and your neighbours are never consulted, where is the democracy we boast about? There are no ‘american style primaries’ to select candidates. In fact till recently, some political parties did not hold internal elections or file tax returns. This political party candidate is answerable to the political bosses, not you; at best, the vote bank politics will rule. Where is the opportunity for you to put in your demands and requests? Who wants to meet you, listen to you, and make your hard life more liveable? The CCC is from among you. The ASRs will themselves constitute the Electoral WC. This Committee will control the selected Councillor-Corporator, and you will control the ASR. Your true representative is in place. You will have right to recall your representative. This is full and transparent democracy. The network of citizens and representatives and elected official is the best networking possible, it beats the political party networking any day. We often hear of this or that local party leader waiting for days on end to meet the ‘great leader’ in Delhi, of having conflicts with party bosses and often running to headquarters for every little local issue. These changes in system, will simultaneously improve the functioning of the political parties too.
Again, why imagine that only the political parties have resources? Do the citizens among themselves lack talent, experts, money, time, effort? Who is running the industries, factories, shops, homes, offices, certainly not the politicians or their parties? Who is paying all kinds of taxes and yet getting no replies or consultation on how they are spent? Have the current lot of ALMs not proven what they can do in spite of negligible support.
When this plan-agenda catches on in the city, imagine the progress and satisfaction of a true democratic process. See how some gram panchayat work. All are not good, but some are doing well; however all city governments are uniformly doing badly with the current system. It’s time for a change. You can bring it about. Let the national or state political parties form working committees, consult the experts in society, work out policy, make laws, force the implementation of laws, etc. This is their job, they should work at it. We can see how they have been working so far, by viewing the Loksabha-TV, Rajyasabha-TV and various TV-News networks.
7. How will this affect the economically challenged, the poor and the backward?
In one line … they will not be lapping up to the slum / political overlords anymore. They will not be paying protection monies from their hard earned incomes. They can hope to get out of the poverty cycle wherein they are doomed for life. Their area sabha representatives will insist on better civic amenities from the municipal ward development funds. They will not let their monies go to waste through poor quality of work. They are not stupid, they work extra hard just to keep running in the same place. They lack the talent, skills, education, money and power. This plan will allow them to try to access all these. During the catastrophes in Mumbai in the last two years, it was shown on TV that the politicians were using their own branded coupons, flags and banners and spending public money as though it were their own. It is easy for them to be generous with citizens and tax payer’s money. They were busy giving away tax money without accurate accounting or long term benefits and worse, skimming from it. You would not allow such in your home or office. In the recent past some of our ALMs have hard evidence how the poor were misguided and looted in the name of floods and disease. Public sab jaanti hai. So the poor have a better chance for redress and new life, if citizen representatives have power in their own hands.
8. Why should citizens back or support this experiment? What are the chances of success? The established political parties and their machinery are too powerful. What if this ONE NON-PARTISAN CCC loses? Can anyone guarantee a win? Failure might bring a negative backlash.
No, there is no magic wand for winning. There is no guarantee for success. We all can only try. What if we lose? We have been losing for the past fifty years; we are used to it now. Now we got a superb plan which is working in the gram panchayat. Why not try to make it work in the urban areas? It is part of our Constitution’s 74th Amendment. The ancients have said:
Karmanye Vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana
Ma Karma Phala Hetur Bhurmatey Sangostva Akarmani
(You are entitled to the effort, not to the fruit of the effort. Work ceaselessly for a cause and worry not of the result.)
Citizens have got fed up of great progress on economic front with zero results on the social and civic fronts. They are desperate for a change. We are offering a plan, give it your whole hearted effort and success is ours. Have not the Whistleblowers, local NGOs and ALMs dealt with obstruction, physical threats, abuse and pressure from various sources? Are we to hide like fugitives in our own city and run from shadows like criminals? Is this the example we want to set for our next generation? In any case, the risk takers have taken a stand, the citizens are only required to support and vote for them. The risk takers will become the area sabha representatives and leaders, the others will sit in the side lines. At least vote with your conscience.
On the Election Day, a representative of the CCC will sit in each Polling Booth. It will be the job of the representative to monitor who all vote from each area and so know which ‘idiots’ do not vote. The non-voters need to fear the ridicule of the voting neighbours, not the threats of the political parties. Our current information tells us that the better political parties are slowly veering towards our point of view in any case. Time will show.
9. Have the promoters of this VOTE JUHU any experience with politics, have they consulted experts and why not talk to the established political parties to adopt the new plan and agenda? Why re-invent fire, so to speak?
Right! We have already had invites from major parties to understand our agenda and plan. Our activists using back channel are in touch with leading politicians in the city. Our experience in politics is nil, we do not wish to enter politics, we are planners and thinkers, we wish to set the system right and make this great nation developed. Improvements in the system will enable the politicians do a good job. All help in this area is welcome.
10. How is this plan for VOTE JUHU propagated in the Juhu area? What are the means and modalities for selecting the ASRs and CCC right now? How will this be all inclusive if all citizens in Juhu area do not know about this?
Currently, Juhu Citizens Welfare Group prints and distributes, free of cost, 15,000 copies of the monthly bulletin called Juhu Citizen. It also has its own weblink: http://juhucitizen.org Selfless activists, representing fifteen ALMs meet every Thursday evening, for the past five years. Workshops, seminars, meets, joint meets with other NGOs are routine. Currently, activists are meeting with interested persons in all the sections of Electoral Ward-63. Leaflets are being circulated, in various local languages. Each such activist has an arm long record of active selfless work; they are Mumbiakars in every sense of the term. As of this date, over 30 activists have been chosen as ASRs by their local area citizens. They met in a public session and selected one from among themselves to run for office as a CCC. All details will be placed before you thru our publications, emails and weblink. Already the mainline city newspapers have published details of our experiment with truth. Please help us help you and your family have a better quality of life. Help make India developed and civilized. Please circulate this plan.
11. How can one help or volunteer for VOTE JUHU? Which area does the Ward-63 cover?
We need more volunteers for various simple tasks, like telephoning, distributing, coordinating, data entry, etc. Please sign on and do your bit. Kindly contact any of the following:
Hansel D’Souza 98 2000 0006 / 2445 6131
Anand Desai 98 2060 2715 / 2673 2645
Praful Vora 2623 9739
Anil Desai 98 2012 2451 /
Vimal Thakor 98 93 2289 8474 / 2614 9798
The map showing the area with approximate location of various Electoral Parts is appended on page-7. An abridged database for same is also appended on page-8.
12. How is the VOTE JUHU agenda and plan funded? How can an individual or organization sponsor or donate?
Currently we are taking donations from our Volunteers and help in kind from the participating NGOs. Obviously, this is not enough. Please visit the weblink: http://juhucitizen.org and see the tax exemption details at the bottom of the ‘About Us’ page. Please send in your cheques. We are in the process of asking all the ALMs in the area for contributions for this cause. Citizens may want to sponsor some sensitization events or expenses for same. It may be noted that we do not expect the 2007-Councillor-Election campaign to cost anywhere near what the political parties spend. We expect to keep funding the petty expenses of the WC and the ASRs for three to five years more. For this we plan fund collection projects once the elections are behind us and our CCC is in the chair.
13. Who should one approach for more information or clarification?
If the web links mentioned above are not sufficient, please feel free to talk to any of the following:
Hansel D’Souza 98 2000 0006 / 2445 6131
Anand Desai 98 2060 2715 / 2673 2645
Praful Vora 2623 9739
Anil Desai 98 2012 2451
Vimal Thakor 98 93 2289 8474 / 2614 9798
Mayank Gandhi 98 6703 6880
Maybe you can spare time to attend one of our citizen’s meets in some area of Ward-63.
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1. What is this VOTE JUHU thing? Is it a new method to persuade citizens to go and vote? An outing on the long holiday is just what I need, and so does my family. We are not interested in politics. Nothing changes here, the same old wine in new bottles! The whole system is corrupt and I alone can do nothing, except protect my turf.
All claim India is a democracy. Yet we have no real chance to choose our leaders. They are foisted on us and we are expected to rubber stamp one or the other. Even telling the election official: 'none of the above' makes no difference and in some areas of India, one out of the thirty candidate-alleged criminals gets elected. There is also no 'right to recall'. The political parties have a self-perpetuating agenda of placating the ‘lowest common denominator' and ‘vote bank politics’. We have also learnt to only take...take...take. Can we not spare some thought, time and effort to make our society and locality safe and better for the coming generation?
Vote Juhu is adopted from Vote Mumbai, which is a plan to bring democracy down to mohalla-nukad-street level. This is sanctioned by our Constitution's 74th Amendment (June 1993), but not yet implemented. Each mohalla (represented by one polling booth of about 1,200 registered voters), elects an ‘area sabha representative’ (ASR). These representatives together form a democratically elected Electoral ‘Ward Committee’ (WC) in the Electoral Ward of about 50,000 registered voters. There would be 35 to 45 such Members in the Electoral ‘Ward Committee’ some reserved for women and backward classes. This is the basic unit of city governance and would be empowered with funds, planning, co-ordinating and monitoring activities and development in the Electoral Ward. This Committee will be chaired by the City Councillor-Corporator and may also nominate experts / NGOs. Ideally it could even put up a candidate from among themselves for the City Councillor-Corporator, so that the candidate is a true representative at street level - a 'Citizen’s Consensus Candidate' (CCC). Such candidates will together form the 227 councillors-corporators who will govern the city. In addition, the citizens should get to directly elect a City Mayor – a mass leader, who will head the Councillors. The officers and municipal staff would be answerable to the Councillors and Mayor, just as your employees are answerable to you – the owners and managers of your homes, offices and industry. This among other things is the ‘systemic reform’ for bringing good municipal governance to Mumbai. In this manner each registered voter will find true democratic representation through his ASR to the Electoral WC and there on to the City Government. Please click the ‘research’ button at http://votemumbai.org for the ‘concept note’ (an 84 A4-page pdf document).
Also, you have the duty and right to vote. Your failure to vote for a truly representative candidate means you have forfeited the right to ever complain for a better quality of life. Any number of episodic holidays or picnics will not substitute good local governance. With the latter you will perpetually be on a holiday from anxiety and misery arising due to poor governance. Our expectation is that this ‘systemic reform’ will be shortly ‘notified’ by the Maharashtra State Government. With VOTE JUHU, we plan to be ready with a sample system in Municipal Electoral Ward-63.
2. Who is promoting the VOTE MUMBAI agenda and who are behind it in our Juhu area?
The Vote Mumbai agenda has been developed by LOKSATTA … a national level NGO with a Mumbai Chapter (http://www.loksatta.org/default.asp). Guidance has been taken from JANAAGRAH-Bangalore (http://www.janaagraha.org/). At a more local level, it is called VOTE JUHU since in the Juhu area, the Electoral Ward-63 has been redefined for the coming Municipal Elections in January 2007. It is supported by AGNI (http://agnimumbai.org/). At the micro level, JUHU CITIZENS WELFARE GROUP (http://juhucitizen.org), GULMOHUR AREA SOCIETIES FEDERATION, the numerous ALMs from Juhu Vile Parle and nearby areas, all support this plan-agenda. Day by day, more are joining in the chorus for ‘a better agenda’ than the one being followed for the past 133 years (http://www.mcgm.gov.in/forms/grindex1.aspx).
3. What is the use of having ONE 'Citizen’s Consensus Candidate’? What can ONE ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE in Ward-63, do at local government level?
Yes, there are 227 elected Councillors-Corporators and we are trying to get ONE NON-PARTISAN CITIZENS CANDIDATE elected in Electoral Ward-63. All journeys start with one small step. Our journey is to change the system democratically. There will be no supermen doing superhuman jobs, only ordinary persons doing ordinary jobs in a superb fashion, because we have a superb plan of practical local governance. Maybe this one CCC will do little, but the fact that s-he has come from the actual grass roots level and has support (as well as monitoring) of a team of ASRs who constitute the Electoral WC, will cause other city wards and other cities to try to copy this method, and then we will have many more such 'citizens representatives'. This is NOT new policy. It is being done at the gram panchayat level by virtue of the 73rd Amendment (April 1993), where there is one representative for about 425 voters. The urban areas have somehow been missing this simple democratic method; where there is one representative for about 50,000 voters. So this is the power of ONE, many will follow. Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come. In any case, the citizens will at least be better informed about the policy and budgets through the Electoral WC and ASRs. Protests will certainly follow any fool hardy scheme. Possibly, citizens will not then be wasting resources in morchas and by visiting the Courts with PILs, for each and every administrative matter.
In the current scenario, the Councillor-Corporator has negligible powers over the system. S-he also has to beg for effecting change. The existing and past Councillors-Corporators were not all bad people, they had to work in a bad system and found that being compliant was beneficial. In our democratic system, we have to step by step bring about changes and transparency. The power to spend will come to the grass roots level with the systemic reforms that the Vote Mumbai plan envisages. The corruption will reduce and results will follow. The CCC and the ASRs will not allow the same job to be done every year just to spend money on contracts which allow leakage to rent seekers. The reason is simple; you elected the CCC and the ASR and would therefore object. Thus, acceptable and useful change for the better will come about.
4. How can we be certain that this ONE NON-PARTISAN CITIZENS CONSENSUS CANDIDATE will not turn rogue? Anyway, who has the time or inclination to be an ‘area sabha representative’ or an ‘electoral ward committee’ representative? Are the NGOs now going political to also grab the ‘loaves and fishes of office’?
There will be checks and balances, an executable bond signed and witnessed, accountability, redress procedures, independent audit unit, citizen’s charter, disclosure norms, Ombudsman and above all the sovereign power of the State Government. In any case, this person will be from amongst you, so he has to face you daily. You will choose a person who has grass roots experience, a person you know for long. So chances of his turning rogue are low. If push comes to shove, you would have right to recall. At worst there will be one or few bad apples in the Ward Committee and can be out-voted. Kindly let us know who runs your homes, offices, and housing complexes? Have you invited politicians or do you find one among yourselves to do these routine things? Don’t you eject bad apples? There are many in our ‘silent majority’ who have the skills, talent, resources, expertise and time for selfless service. They will come forward only if they feel they have a superb system of governance in place. In any case, the fact that you all find time to come for the meets to discuss better governance shows that some have the inclination to raise the performance benchmark. In all our meets we have had fifty or more interested persons with various skill sets who are eager to volunteer without office or profit. Why is this so? The NGOs, JCWGs, AGNIs, ALMs are NOT interested in becoming political parties or promoting political parties, this is for sure. If the later did their jobs then NGOs would be free to pursue other activities like health, education and training.
5. Why not right away, choose a popular prominent personality, who is certain to win? Why waste time with 'agenda', plan, method, etc.? We could persuade this prominent person about our requirements and go ahead.
Consider this … a bad street map with a good car driver and great car will still NOT get you to your destination; however, a good street map with an ordinary driver and an old car will certainly get you to your destination rather quickly. Think about the plan-agenda … not the person. We need to give up 'idol worship'. Let’s get real for a change. Prominent persons have their own prominent agendas. They think they are above the plan / agenda and have little time for common folk. We have a great plan; it will drive the change in the system and get us democratization of local governance. Any person will do, provided s-he has some grass roots experience, has worked in the area, considers the new agenda as sacrosanct and is willing to be humble and listen, instead of talk down to citizens. The plan is greater than the person; this is not to be forgotten. Idols are great in cinema, fantasy and in sports; not in local governance. The risks are too great for mid-term failure. We have a long term goal of bring about a change in the entire city and the entire country. We cannot afford failure due to personality, time restraints and ego problems.
6. Established national political parties are well setup, they have efficient networking, national presence, large resources, excellent contacts and great reach from lowest to highest rung. How can one fight against the established national parties?
How can David fight Goliath? How can one MKG fight the might of an Empire? What can one M.Teresa do against overwhelming disease and apathy? How can one poor black woman in a city bus in Chicago-USA, fight for civil rights? How can poor, largely illiterate Indians, unseat the great and powerful Indira Gandhi? We all know the answers to the above. It is the POWER OF ONE. When the time of an idea has come, there is no power that can stop it.
National and local political parties, though important and essential, have their own agenda, not necessarily the same as what you need in your locality-mohalla. Your life is improved or made miserable because of the candidate foisted on you in your area. The political party candidate is selected by the party, not elected by you. You and your neighbours are never consulted, where is the democracy we boast about? There are no ‘american style primaries’ to select candidates. In fact till recently, some political parties did not hold internal elections or file tax returns. This political party candidate is answerable to the political bosses, not you; at best, the vote bank politics will rule. Where is the opportunity for you to put in your demands and requests? Who wants to meet you, listen to you, and make your hard life more liveable? The CCC is from among you. The ASRs will themselves constitute the Electoral WC. This Committee will control the selected Councillor-Corporator, and you will control the ASR. Your true representative is in place. You will have right to recall your representative. This is full and transparent democracy. The network of citizens and representatives and elected official is the best networking possible, it beats the political party networking any day. We often hear of this or that local party leader waiting for days on end to meet the ‘great leader’ in Delhi, of having conflicts with party bosses and often running to headquarters for every little local issue. These changes in system, will simultaneously improve the functioning of the political parties too.
Again, why imagine that only the political parties have resources? Do the citizens among themselves lack talent, experts, money, time, effort? Who is running the industries, factories, shops, homes, offices, certainly not the politicians or their parties? Who is paying all kinds of taxes and yet getting no replies or consultation on how they are spent? Have the current lot of ALMs not proven what they can do in spite of negligible support.
When this plan-agenda catches on in the city, imagine the progress and satisfaction of a true democratic process. See how some gram panchayat work. All are not good, but some are doing well; however all city governments are uniformly doing badly with the current system. It’s time for a change. You can bring it about. Let the national or state political parties form working committees, consult the experts in society, work out policy, make laws, force the implementation of laws, etc. This is their job, they should work at it. We can see how they have been working so far, by viewing the Loksabha-TV, Rajyasabha-TV and various TV-News networks.
7. How will this affect the economically challenged, the poor and the backward?
In one line … they will not be lapping up to the slum / political overlords anymore. They will not be paying protection monies from their hard earned incomes. They can hope to get out of the poverty cycle wherein they are doomed for life. Their area sabha representatives will insist on better civic amenities from the municipal ward development funds. They will not let their monies go to waste through poor quality of work. They are not stupid, they work extra hard just to keep running in the same place. They lack the talent, skills, education, money and power. This plan will allow them to try to access all these. During the catastrophes in Mumbai in the last two years, it was shown on TV that the politicians were using their own branded coupons, flags and banners and spending public money as though it were their own. It is easy for them to be generous with citizens and tax payer’s money. They were busy giving away tax money without accurate accounting or long term benefits and worse, skimming from it. You would not allow such in your home or office. In the recent past some of our ALMs have hard evidence how the poor were misguided and looted in the name of floods and disease. Public sab jaanti hai. So the poor have a better chance for redress and new life, if citizen representatives have power in their own hands.
8. Why should citizens back or support this experiment? What are the chances of success? The established political parties and their machinery are too powerful. What if this ONE NON-PARTISAN CCC loses? Can anyone guarantee a win? Failure might bring a negative backlash.
No, there is no magic wand for winning. There is no guarantee for success. We all can only try. What if we lose? We have been losing for the past fifty years; we are used to it now. Now we got a superb plan which is working in the gram panchayat. Why not try to make it work in the urban areas? It is part of our Constitution’s 74th Amendment. The ancients have said:
Karmanye Vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana
Ma Karma Phala Hetur Bhurmatey Sangostva Akarmani
(You are entitled to the effort, not to the fruit of the effort. Work ceaselessly for a cause and worry not of the result.)
Citizens have got fed up of great progress on economic front with zero results on the social and civic fronts. They are desperate for a change. We are offering a plan, give it your whole hearted effort and success is ours. Have not the Whistleblowers, local NGOs and ALMs dealt with obstruction, physical threats, abuse and pressure from various sources? Are we to hide like fugitives in our own city and run from shadows like criminals? Is this the example we want to set for our next generation? In any case, the risk takers have taken a stand, the citizens are only required to support and vote for them. The risk takers will become the area sabha representatives and leaders, the others will sit in the side lines. At least vote with your conscience.
On the Election Day, a representative of the CCC will sit in each Polling Booth. It will be the job of the representative to monitor who all vote from each area and so know which ‘idiots’ do not vote. The non-voters need to fear the ridicule of the voting neighbours, not the threats of the political parties. Our current information tells us that the better political parties are slowly veering towards our point of view in any case. Time will show.
9. Have the promoters of this VOTE JUHU any experience with politics, have they consulted experts and why not talk to the established political parties to adopt the new plan and agenda? Why re-invent fire, so to speak?
Right! We have already had invites from major parties to understand our agenda and plan. Our activists using back channel are in touch with leading politicians in the city. Our experience in politics is nil, we do not wish to enter politics, we are planners and thinkers, we wish to set the system right and make this great nation developed. Improvements in the system will enable the politicians do a good job. All help in this area is welcome.
10. How is this plan for VOTE JUHU propagated in the Juhu area? What are the means and modalities for selecting the ASRs and CCC right now? How will this be all inclusive if all citizens in Juhu area do not know about this?
Currently, Juhu Citizens Welfare Group prints and distributes, free of cost, 15,000 copies of the monthly bulletin called Juhu Citizen. It also has its own weblink: http://juhucitizen.org Selfless activists, representing fifteen ALMs meet every Thursday evening, for the past five years. Workshops, seminars, meets, joint meets with other NGOs are routine. Currently, activists are meeting with interested persons in all the sections of Electoral Ward-63. Leaflets are being circulated, in various local languages. Each such activist has an arm long record of active selfless work; they are Mumbiakars in every sense of the term. As of this date, over 30 activists have been chosen as ASRs by their local area citizens. They met in a public session and selected one from among themselves to run for office as a CCC. All details will be placed before you thru our publications, emails and weblink. Already the mainline city newspapers have published details of our experiment with truth. Please help us help you and your family have a better quality of life. Help make India developed and civilized. Please circulate this plan.
11. How can one help or volunteer for VOTE JUHU? Which area does the Ward-63 cover?
We need more volunteers for various simple tasks, like telephoning, distributing, coordinating, data entry, etc. Please sign on and do your bit. Kindly contact any of the following:
Hansel D’Souza 98 2000 0006 / 2445 6131
Anand Desai 98 2060 2715 / 2673 2645
Praful Vora 2623 9739
Anil Desai 98 2012 2451 /
Vimal Thakor 98 93 2289 8474 / 2614 9798
The map showing the area with approximate location of various Electoral Parts is appended on page-7. An abridged database for same is also appended on page-8.
12. How is the VOTE JUHU agenda and plan funded? How can an individual or organization sponsor or donate?
Currently we are taking donations from our Volunteers and help in kind from the participating NGOs. Obviously, this is not enough. Please visit the weblink: http://juhucitizen.org and see the tax exemption details at the bottom of the ‘About Us’ page. Please send in your cheques. We are in the process of asking all the ALMs in the area for contributions for this cause. Citizens may want to sponsor some sensitization events or expenses for same. It may be noted that we do not expect the 2007-Councillor-Election campaign to cost anywhere near what the political parties spend. We expect to keep funding the petty expenses of the WC and the ASRs for three to five years more. For this we plan fund collection projects once the elections are behind us and our CCC is in the chair.
13. Who should one approach for more information or clarification?
If the web links mentioned above are not sufficient, please feel free to talk to any of the following:
Hansel D’Souza 98 2000 0006 / 2445 6131
Anand Desai 98 2060 2715 / 2673 2645
Praful Vora 2623 9739
Anil Desai 98 2012 2451
Vimal Thakor 98 93 2289 8474 / 2614 9798
Mayank Gandhi 98 6703 6880
Maybe you can spare time to attend one of our citizen’s meets in some area of Ward-63.
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