- Janaagraha, a link forever
I had set out to get my voters' id done. And in this process, trying to find the most optimised way out, I came across the Jaago Re!! campaign by Janaagraha.The Jaago Re! campaign had already created quite a stir amongst Indian voters. I was not immune to this either. So in search of the most optimised way of registering with the voters roll, I found that filling the form online with Janaagraha & submitting it was definitely the easiest way. This is how my association with Janaagraha started.
- Political angle
My interest in politics has its origins in my family and childhood. Hailing from Calcutta, the hotbed of communism in India, I have been exposed to the communism versus capitalism debate from an early age. With different individuals in my family having different idealisms, this was a hotly debated topic in almost all family gatherings. So my interest in politics is literally hereditary.
- Why Voters of all things?
Filing for the electoral registration was definitely not as painless as I had anticipated. While I had submitted the forms multiple times, both through Janaagraha and going physically to submit at the "Citizens' Centre", the result was 'nought'. My name never appeared in the rolls. Quite disappointed with the outcome and being the subject of numerous jokes because of my persistence with this consistently failing cause, I set out to understand WHY?
A few facts here regarding my status. I was living at Bangalore, the IT capital of India, where a large % of the urban population is migrant. I figured that all these people would be facing the same challenges as I am in trying to vote, a constitutional right and duty of every citizen, over 18 years of age.
I started talking to my friends and colleagues regarding this. What I found out was pure frustration at the system and their apparent helplessness in being able to vote. It was not that they did not want to vote. They definitely wanted to!! I found that the major reasons, as specified by them, were the following:
- Lack of awareness of the process. How to go about moving their names from their home-town electoral rolls to those in Bangalore. Since in most cases, this involved multiple states, it became more complicated.
- Frustration at the political situation. Everyone had their opinion on the system and more often than not, it was "Indian politics was a totally corrupt area, beyond salvation". So they just did not care about it with the feeling "my vote will not make any difference".
- The ease of application. For those willing & aware of the process, it was a hurdle to submit the applications. Since one had to submit this on a weekday, in office hours.
- Lack of adequate advertising by the Election Commission of India, on a consistent basis, encouraging citizens to register.
I was searching for a platform to address these concerns. At this time, Janaagraha was doing a campaign, Jaagte Raho!, to mobilise the urban voters. This was the perfect platform I had been waiting for. This resulted in the formation of the Jaagte Raho! Club at Subex, the organisation I was working for at that time (late 2009).
- Jaagte Raho! @ Subex
This endeavour would not have been possible without the amazing amount of help and support received from Subex & Subexians, My interface with Janaagraha was a fantastic, energetic person, Prashant Nanaware (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/prashant-nanaware/20/563/67a).
- Launch Presentation: as the ambassador of Janaagraha, Prashant gave a brief overview of the organisation, its motto and their past and current campaigns. Since I had initiated the whole thi`ng at Subex, I got some publicity as well. We announced the plan to launch the Jaagte Raho! Club at Subex, urging employees to volunteer for the cause.
- Club Launch: as the founder of the club, I got quite a few applications for enrolment. Our core committee was formed with 5 enthusiants - Dyutimoy Sarkar, Syed Afroz, Rakesh, Hari, Srinidhi Achar & me, of course. The Jaagte Raho! Club was launched at Subex on 15-Jan-2010.
- Assessment: our first task was number crunching. The idea was to gather enough statistics to understand where Subexians stand in terms of electorate. We floated an online campaign, urging the employees to fill in details regarding their electoral registration. The data was sent across to Janaagraha to feed their stats campaign. The results were not surprising. Almost 50% Subexians were migrants from other states and very few of them had their names in the local electoral register
- Awareness: with the above data in hand, we set out to correct this. In the meantime we also spoke to different people to understand the challenges they had faced while trying to register. The result was the 4 points listed above.
The first step was to create awareness amongst everyone.
Signature Campaign: On 5-Feb-2010, we set up a massive poster at our canteen with the words "I WILL VOTE!" and urged everyone to sign it, as a pledge to vote in the forthcoming elections.
One-Stop shop: our team became the enquiry counters for all questions related to election.
- Enabling: We set up kiosks to distribute the forms required to register. This also served as an advisory centre for people's doubts.
- Impact: our activities had created quite a stir amongst the employees in the organisation.
- Awareness: A lot of people showed genuine interest in understanding the process and working with us to enable more people go ahead and register to vote. The important part was that our campaign generated enthusiasm amongst our colleagues to vote.
- Connecting: a section of our colleagues had been pondering on similar lines, waiting to join such a cause. Our campaign provided the platform for such like-minded people to get together and create an impact on the society.
- Food for Thought: the campaign created a sense of social responsibility, however small, amongst us.
- Personal impact: apart from the impacts listed above, there were quite a few impacts on me, personally.
- Encouragement: In this endeavour, I received a lot of support from my family, specifically, my wife. She was a constant source of encouragement for me. We received an amazing amount of support from Subex and Subexians. Their support added fuel to our fledgling ideas.
- Satisfaction at Contributing to society: there was a sense of satisfaction on being able to serve my colleagues, in turn our society. I believe, low electoral turnout is one of the reasons of choosing poor leaders in India. I am sure that our campaign will reduce the probability of this in future.
- Joy: The most satisfying part was feedback we received from one and all. I received a lot of "pat on the back" mails from my colleagues, congratulating me on my initiatives. I was receiving several mails of solidarity & support from people I didn’t even know. But the best was when our COO, Mr Sudeesh Yezhuvath, sent me a note commending my initiatives.
It was a great experience and I would have loved to extend the run. But that was not to be. Soon I moved out of Bangalore and moved to London. But I am confident that our endeavours will bear fruit.
Keep watching this space for more of such blogs.
