First of all, what made you take the drastic step of holding a fast-unto-death?
Our goal is to eliminate corruption from the country. We started our protest at the local level as corruption is rife from Village Development Committees (VDCs) to CIAA. We formally started this campaign in 2007 by forming a committee. Informally, it goes even further back. In 1999, when local bodies were still functional, as a member of my village council of Danauli-Banauli VDC in Mahottari, I had been invited to a meeting. When I reached there, they said the meeting was only a formality and decisions had been made. They asked me to put my signature on the paper. I refused. I was astonished when Raghavendra Jha (then a local-level leader and now a regional chairman of NC) took off his shoes, pressed his right toe on the stamp pad and put down the ‘thumb-print’ on my behalf. I snatched the register off his hands and tore it. I have been fighting against this scourge ever since.
What are your main demands?
Accountability and transparency. Government allots billions of rupees for local development. But there is no transparency. Nobody knows where the money goes. The local level office bearers are not answerable to the people. We believe the government should also protect people’s right to information (RTI). If we all exercise RTI, it could help minimize corruption to some extent.
What sorts of irregularities are common at the local level?
It is mainly misuse of government funds but there are other things as well. For example, the VDC secretary does not reach office on time, nor does he deliver timely service to the people. He arbitrarily charges fees for documentation works such as providing recommendation letters for citizenship cards, registering births, deaths, marriages and migration, collecting 250 to 500 rupees in return. When it comes to certifying someone as a landless squatter, he can charge as much as 2,000 rupees. Seldom does he give you any receipt. Party representatives and VDC secretaries hold meetings in expensive hotels and collude to misappropriate funds. The local leaders who had nothing in the past now have big buildings in Janakpur, luxury cars and impressive bank balance. If they had not misused VDC fund how would they afford all these? On the back of such wealth, they develop good connections with district officers such as SP, CDO and LDO. But VDC secretaries and local party representatives misuse fund in a planned and careful manner.
How so?
If you check the audit and other reports, you will see many development works have been carried out. But out in the field, there is nothing. If you check the document, you will see that my VDC has bought a computer and hired a woman computer operator. You see participation of women members in decision making as well. But not a single woman is ever consulted. They forge the signatures of all such women. A lady named Rima Kumari has been appointed computer operator and receives Rs 10,000 in monthly salary. But she does not have to attend the office nor does she have to work on a computer, as there is none. She is entitled to this benefit because she is the wife of a central committee member of NC’s student wing, Nepal Students Union. I have proof of all such irregularities.
The level of corruption is believed to be even higher at the center. How will your initiative focused at the local level help anti-corruption efforts at the center?
Let us not forget, these VDC secretaries and local party representatives I am talking about are connected with district and central authorities. They have a nexus with government ministers and high level politicians. And then there are unions affiliated to various political parties which get protection from the center. The worst thing is there are unions even in the CIAA. This nexus starts from the local level and permeates the center. The goal is to break the bottom rung of this ladder.
You have spoken out against the threats and abuses you have received. Can you elaborate?
When I started the campaign against corrupt VDC secretaries and local party representatives, they beat me up and tried to strip me in front of CDO and LDO, who simply looked on. I received threats from these people during the nine-day hunger strike as well. They abused me with foul language on the telephone. On Tuesday night, UCPN (Maoist) Mahottari District Committee Member Sunil Thakur threatened me over the phone that they would break my legs, cut off my tongue and fingers and render me incapable to walk, speak and write. But even in this situation, CIAA has been acting very irresponsibly. Last year when I started my hunger strike against VDC secretary Satrudhan Mishra, CIAA’s investigation officer Ram Gopal Shrestha suspended him in two days. Later the same Ram Gopal Shrestha went to the district to look into the case. But his team did nothing. Instead they ate and drank with the corrupt people and returned to Kathmandu. Following this, the VDC secretary was reinstated. The reinstated VDC secretary’s son telephoned me and said he had paid 0.9 million rupees in cash to Shrestha to reinstate his father. He said he would kill me. I asked the CIAA on what basis he had been reinstated, but got no response.
Did any high level political leader show any support for your campaign?
Not at all. I submitted a memorandum on January 27 to all concerned authorities before I began my hunger-unto-death. A few days later I inquired if anything was being done. I learnt that all of the memos and complaint letters had been sent to Home Ministry’s Peace and Security Division. Then I decided that they would not listen to me easily. Then, on February 14, I submitted my 11-point charter of demands. On February 13, CIAA secretary Bharatraj Joshi had asked me not to go on a strike. He said it would defame CIAA nationally and internationally. I told him on his face that there is corruption from VDC to the CIAA, there are 84,000 cases pending at his office. This was not a matter of shame for him. And now that we were starting our hunger strike against corruption, they were saying they would be defamed. He said if I started hunger strike international donor agencies would stop offering billions in grants to CIAA. I told him that if this was how CIAA operated, it might not be long before we had to start a struggle to abolish it.
How would you evaluate the level of corruption in the current government?
It’s for CIAA to decide whether anyone is corrupt. But virtually every minister is corrupt. Take Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai. He goes on village junkets every month as per his “Prime Minister with the People” program, with around a dozen other officials in tow. He uses the helicopter to fly to and fro from Kathmandu, spending hundreds of thousands of rupees. Is this not a form of corruption?
Corruption is deeply entrenched in Nepali society. Do you believe individual efforts like yours will make much of a difference?
Someone had to start somewhere. If someone had started it two decades ago, perhaps we would be living in a less corrupt society today. I have started it now and I hope I will be successful one day. It may not be possible during my lifetime, but surely my children and grandchildren will get to live in a less-corrupt society thanks to our effort. And I am not alone. There is a huge mass of corruption victims across the country. The problem is they are not organized while corrupt people have an established nexus. So we are planning to form a struggle committee in every district. The most important tool to fight corruption is to exercise our right to information. If we exercise this right and demand for information from local bodies, we can see for ourselves where irregularities are happening. But again we should be clear that we cannot completely uproot corruption. We will only be able to minimize it. But I am not going to give up. I will fight against corruption till my last breath.
You ended your hunger strike after a settlement with the government. What if your demands are not addressed again?
First let me be clear, I have not ended the hunger strike. I have only stalled it for time being. Government officials seemed more serious about our demands this time than before. As my campaign has spread around the country and gained wider media support, it won’t be possible for them to sweep our agenda under the carpet. If they still cheat me, their dishonesty will be proven. I will restart my campaign and will not relent until all our demands are fulfilled.
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