Author: John Mary
Publication: Outlook
Date: January 30, 2006
URL: http://www.outlookindia.com/mad.asp?fodname=20060130&fname=Making&sid=1
Introduction: Armed with his camera and an
indomitable spirit, this citizen activist readies to take on injustice
Amid high-profile media sting operations targeting
politicians, there is a one-man army in a southern Kerala town of Kollam district
by the name of Sathyavan Kottarakkara. With a still camera slung on his shoulders,
he's on the job-exposing civic rights violations and providing modes of redressal
at minimal cost. The 69-year-old citizen activist has brought more relief
to Kerala society than many NGOs put together.
His modus operandi is simple. He photographs
civic problems as and when he encounters them. And then petitions Lok Ayukt
adalats held every second and fourth Saturdays. Telltale pictures on official
callousness invariably move the courts to issue orders. No legal sophistry
here to delay justice since the petitioner himself argues the case. If the
authorities delay implementing
the adalat order, he moves contempt notices and holds dharnas compelling the
media to put the issue in focus. "Most of us do not realise that adalats
are forums for the public to argue their cases and get quick justice,"
reminds Sathyavan.
One of his recent interventions before the
adalat led the magistrate to decree the setting up of toilets in the main
market in Kottarakkara town. Says Aysha Potti, the former president of Kollam
district panchayat: "We've sanctioned more than Rs 2 lakh and set up
pay-and-use toilets. It was a need voiced by women vendors all these years."
Sathyavan did his bit to force the authorities to act.
Sathyavan's grassroots, micro-level campaigns
have been inspired by his own experience. "I'd watched helplessly as
an arts teacher at the Government High School, Barton Hills in Thiruvananthapuram
when student unionists forced fellow students into joining agitations. The
silent majority were led to the streets. It was this experience that made
me take up the campaign for depoliticisation of campuses which ultimately
led to the court ban on party-based elections in schools," says Sathyavan.
Says Lida Jacob, former director of public instruction: "The relative
peace in Kerala schools today owes a great deal to this humble pensioner.
Posterity will recall with gratitude his Vidyabhasa Suraksha Samiti's contribution
to the improvement of board exam results following lesser strikes and more
working days." The CPI(M) filed an appeal against the ban but the court
declined the prayer. Politicians had to grudgingly accept defeat at the hands
of Sathyavan.
His energies are focused on citizen empowerment.
His current campaign is to press village councils to publish their audited
accounts at gram sabhas within two months of the financial year ending, as
per law. He rues that the gram panchayat in his own home town had spent Rs
5 crore in the past five years but was yet to account for it. Noting that
thinly-attended gram sabhas make a mockery of the spirit of the Constitution,
Sathyavan has done his bit to get opinion makers to convince the public to
attend the gram sabhas.
Another area Sathyavan has focused on has
been eye donations. He has distributed hundreds of consent forms for prospective
donors. His residence at Kottarakkara is now a recognised centre to facilitate
eye donations. He even took on the tobacco lobby when he wrote to all 140
legislators in Kerala to ban pan masala. Sathyavan backed his demand with
impressive statistics-the annual tax revenue from the sale of tobacco and
its products is Rs 2,000 crore and the outflow on treating oral illnesses
caused by tobacco consumption is Rs 2,500 crore.
And where does Sathyavan get the funds to
carry on the fight? Voluntary donations and occasional awards. One of his
supporters, poet and novelist Kamala Das aka Kamala Soraiya, had presented
him with a Lok Seva puraskar of Rs 25,000 a few years ago. However, more often
than not, he forks out from his monthly pension of Rs 5,000. His name is actually
T.K.Mathai Kunju but his mother called him Sathyavan (the honest one). "Now
I have to live up to my name lest it becomes an embarrassing misnomer,"
jokes the solitary crusader.
Contact: SM House, Market Junction, Kottarakkara,
Kollam, Kerala-691506. Tel: 0474 2452726
