How politics happened to me?

Through my involvement with 5thPillar, I had become a good friend of the org's President Mr.Vijayanand. He was in the state steering committee, the collective leadership of Makkal Sakthi. I had no involvement in the party until before elections. But I decided to help the party for elections and participated in their planning meetings. It being the first general election for the party, candidates with good social work background and meeting the party's criteria were hard to come by. On 26th April, the last day of nomination, I was asked if I would be interested. After some quick thought, this is what I told them. “If you think that is the best thing I can do for good politics, I am ready”. That's how I got the Mylapore seat.

I nominated successfully after a big rush to prepare all documents with the full help of Mr.Senthil Arumugam another State Steering Committee member. Since I was from a different constituency there was a glitch and I had to wait till scrutiny on 28th April to confirm my candidacy. Again during scrutiny, Senthil came to the rescue, he argued with observer and RO quoting election law sections and I made it through. I became the Makkal Sakthi Candidate for Mylapore. Until then I had not told my parents or her parents or my office. My wife Geetha was with me and supportive but had no clue what the response from parents side will be. There was of course lots of concerns raised once the news went to them. But she still stood by me and went on to help campaign.

Campaign training:
All the nominated candidates were invited for a one day workshop on effective campaigning by a 3 time contestant and General Secretary of Lok Satta Mr. Katari Srinivasa Rao. That gave most of us, amateurs, a superb direction on how to run the campaign. That was one hell of an informative session and got us all kick started.

Cisco Support:
I had already verified that Cisco’s policy does not ban political involvement by an employee on an individual basis. After nomination was approved on 28th Monday, the only issue was getting 2 weeks leave from Cisco amidst time critical deliverables. Even to, my surprise, the management responded very positively and sent me off wishing good luck. That gave me the ultimate push to sweat it out in the field to the best possible extent.

The Campaign:
During the training we were told that at least 20 full time people are needed to run a good campaign. 10 for backend work like Volunteer coordination, media/material/finance/hospitality coordination etc. 10 in the field along with candidate for various things like knocking doors, taking down contacts, collecting funds etc and move fast. A campaign office and atleast one car is also a must per Mr.Katari. I had none of these mandatory requirements when I begun. My only strength was the trust in the power of good and the power of people (Makkal Sakthi).

As I had just donated Rs.30k to the party I had no money to spend for my campaign. I had to take Rs.3000 from my friend Ayyanar (who was running a restaurant by name 50 bucks) even for the deposit Rs.10000. I did not have a single person to work with me. A campaign office within constituency is an in disposable requirement. I did not have one. Time was ticking and I had to act fast with no money power, no man power, and no infrastructure. But I was determined to work with whatever little help coming my way. LokSatta believes only in winning by gaining people power. Whoever contesting was assured only a minimal support of 25000 Zero Rupee Note pamphlets and media advertisements. We were asked to raise the remaining help from the people by using hundis during campaign.

After considering a couple of difficult options I decided to move to my Sister’s place in Teynampet which is very close to the constituency. She had agreed to spare me a room. She was a ready supporter and assured me as much time of hers. My wife, who is a home maker, too enthusiastically supported me. So we got a place to work from - that was a huge relief from having to run around otherwise.

I had some 500 odd personal contacts, much of it in Chennai and a similar no. of Facebook friends. Apart from colleagues and school/college mates, I had made a good number of friends through the forums in Chennai that I was involved in: 5thPillar, Satyananda Yoga Center, Chennai Toastmasters Club and Chennai Trekking Club. We decided to start from them and sent SMS, email and FB status messages announcing my candidature and seeking help in the form of money and time. Help started flowing in.

There was a good team of local supporters for Velachery candidate Senthil Arumugam. To begin with I joined them in their Thiruvanmiyur and Elliots beach campaign and had my first taste of campaigning in public. They helped me with readying content and printing pamphlets. Some of them came over to Marina to kick start Mylapore campaign. We made quite an impact there with our sheer strength and quality of volunteers (with exposure to party principles and experience). We also got introduced to the nearby Nochikuppam people which later helped in campaigning there.

One of the biggest blessings for a newbie like me was the “All party candidates meet” organised by Rajaji center for public affairs. It gave me a forum to speak to the public and a chance to share the dias with candidates of other established parties. Media cover kicked off for me through this meeting. Dinamani quoted me for the headline of the news item on the meeting (“A candidate who sought house for rent” was the headline), many others including the local Mylapore times, with wide reach, too mentioned my candidacy. I spoke about the clean platform we are offering and why freebies should be stopped and asked other candidates to take a stand there. CPI in ADMK alliance said they are against freebies and Congress said people indeed want Mixies and Grinders. ADMK had not come for the meeting. After this meeting in many homes we got a different reception. Many had already heard about me.

The next morning I started independently (without the help of Velachery volunteers) for the first time, along with friends Ayyanar and college mate Vairam at Nageshwara Rao Park on Sunday Apr 3rd. We came face to face with AIADMK and BJP there. We were a smaller group but walkers took notice and listened to our new politics campaign. Here is where we first tasted success with people, going on our own and felt boosted up by the response. A lawyer by profession Mr.Karthikeyan contacted us after reading our email and agreed to join us in the campaign in most evenings. In the evening along with him, a college student Ayyappan and Vairam I went around the Kapaleeswar tank visiting every shop. When we reached the roadside veggie shops there, we found that many were amused by us as we were very small in number - they did not believe am contesting for assembly. We were only two by then as others except Vairam left. Some even mocked us. A concerned few suggested that we should come with a bigger group. Will we deter? We just shifted to a nearby street with residential flats and got a better reception. Here small was better. We collected contacts of supporters for SMS campaign and future use.

We got Ayyanar’s Omni for campaign use by now and stored all materials in it to be on the go always. Buying whistles, speaker/mic, printing banners, collecting print materials etc were handled by Vairam and omni was made use of wherever needed. Vairam gave the biggest support and I would not have even done half as good without him.

We took the omni in the morning to bus stops and wherever we saw groups of people I spoke a few minutes while others distributed pamphlets. Party too gave me a jeep for campaign use. We could board it and stop in every street corner to speak. This gave us a faster reach.

I made some more friends take leave/permissions and also made good use of their time during weekends. Benin joined with his wife Asha Mary to Nochikuppam and park. Balaji Viswanathan , college mate, created FB page, blog etc and was of great help in updating online infrastructure. The biggest benefit I see I gained out of contesting is the chance to meet all sorts of people, establish contacts at all levels and gather support for the party. This is what is helping me work now!!

Credits to field workers (Forgive me if I missed someone out):
Vairam - TCE
Ayyanar - School
Geetha - Wife
Anitha - Sister
Karthikeyan Lawyer - Online
Kartheeswaran - Ex-Cisco
Vivek - CTC
Veena - CTC
Amal - Cisco
Sheetal - Cisco
Mani - MSK
Srimathi - MSK
Swarna - MSK
Jarina - MSK
Sarada - MSK
Benin & Asha - TCE
Santhana Krishnan - Cisco
Veeraragavan Ponraj - Online
Arunkumar/Vijayendar - Cisco
Priya - Cousin
Rajendran/Tamilarasi - Sis’ in-laws
Harish Keerthimon - 4 year old nephew :)
Vasanth - School
Muthuraj - School

A Background (for those who interested in reading further):
Passion for the country and willingness to go the extra mile to change things for the better were always part of me. I got myself involved with various NGOs like Individual Volunteers Association, Janaagraha, Nesakkaram, AID India (Tsunami Rehabilitation) from time to time. I soon understood that only good governance that sans corruption can bring about a big and fast change and joined the anti-corruption movement called 5thpillar which was spearheading corruption fight in TN and rest of India using Zero Rupee Notes and Right To Information Act, 2005 to bring out corruption.

It did not take me much time to realize that only good politics can save our country and politics is the real platform available for youth to effect change. Even till recently, I never thought I will contest as soon as 2011 assembly elections. But am glad that it happened and through the wonderful platform setup by Lok Satta (loksatta.org) founder Dr.Jayaprakash Narayanan (retd. IAS). I am sure that, irrespective of our results, this will be a turning point in politics in TN and the beginning of the entry of common man into politics as against the trend of political heirs, heroes, super rich entering the arena.

Mahatma's "Be the change you want to see" is one quote that had the biggest impact in my life. I had a deep passion to see a change in our country and I found it perfectly logical to first be the change myself. This was around the time I started earning after joining Wipro Technologies Bangalore with a Computer Science and Engineering degree from Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai in 2004. I abstained from any kind of bribing, stopped littering, stopped buying pirated movies (how else can this powerful media be saved?), followed traffic rules, filed correct HRAs in IT returns, quit even the occasional drinks looking at the havoc TASMAC creates in the lives of poor women and kids, avoided roadside shops, spent regularly on charity. I relinquished what I relished once, non-vegetarian food, when I learnt that, world over rice fields are replaced in huge scales by fields producing fodder resulting in food price rise while hunger is still a reality. While Africa dies due to hunger, America uses the fodder from Africa to produce meat and become the obesity capital. Same parity exists within India. Why not go veg?After all it is proved to be healthier, beyond doubt.

After becoming the change it logically followed that, I should start seeing the change. I moved to Chennai to join Cisco in 2006. I, by now got very convinced that corruption in public life is at the core of every issue in our country and bleeding it, to possible death. I decided to fight against it. Found 5thpillar in Chennai which was exactly doing that through RTI activism and Zero Rupee Note and started working with them on weekends and spare time on weekdays. No turning back from then on. I organized several campaigns in friends' weddings, for housing societies in Chennai to spread ZRN and RTI. Am working on RTI petitions to recover usurped land in water bodies and unearth misused road funds.

I had to speak on my passion in similar lines during match making and it was not going to be easy. After several flops including the daughter of a top Chennai bureaucrat close to MK, I got married last September to Geetha, an MCA graduate from Madurai, a rare someone who supported my ideas and here I am as a Makkal Sakthi candidate for Mylapore. I knew that politics is the best platform to see the change we want to see, but it came little too sooner than I myself thought.

In our country, the straight way of doing things are all tough ones. Bad is incentivized and good is punished. That is at the core of our problems. We, at Makkal Sakthi, will continue work to build a truly democratic party funded by people and make sure that the situation changes and good are protected, if not rewarded. "Silence of good men is more dangerous than brutality of bad men" said Martin Luther King. We have decided to speak.

People are bad, politics is bad. No, its the other way around.

I thought its worthwhile to try to dispel a common myth that is also a huge challenge for a budding new party. Hence this post.

The myth:
The people at the bottom of our society need to be educated and change. Till people change, clean politics cannot happen.

This myth is only a reflection of the rich poor divide that is being well exploited by the traditional parties in our country. Every traditional party claims to be the savior of the poor and offers them money/liqour/freebies to win elections. The better off section of our society automatically thinks that the poor are totally un-understanding and that only when they are educated will things improve in this country. But what is not understood is that a majority of the poor know that they are just being exploited, but in a scenario of total hopelessness, the only logical response poor can offer is to take money/freebies or whatever that comes their way. But while voting, like the well off, they too do not have a choice and vote for someone whom they perceive to be less corrupt of the two or on caste and religion basis. So, the myth is perpetuating only due to the total disconnect between the two worlds - the rich and the poor. This is nothing but a new version of the divide and conquer policy of the British. Due to this myth, even well-off people with good intentions are keep away from politics and the traditional parties continue to take turns in doing the misrule.

If you say that one needs to be first educated to understand that education is important, I cannot disagree more. For people to be educated first politics should change and not the other way around. I go to a nearby slum and I still find too many school dropouts. Poor will remain poor until they are given quality education and healthcare, for which policies should change first. We(Loksatta) are doing politics not hoping that educated will vote but to give hope to the uneducated. In our opinion there is no clean politics being played in TN and many other states in India. We are filling the huge gap left for us. If you still doubt watch this video, where a poor woman says that she will forego freebies for prohibition. In another survey, the poorest of the people said that they will forego freebies for education and healthcare. Nobody asked for freebies, two bad parties in TN promise this and there is nobody else in the scene who is making the right promises, so the better(ADMK) is chosen.

The gap is huge.... come join us and help fill the gap faster!

Meeting the stalwarts of their time

I got a call from 5thPillar Director Mr.Subramani for an urgent work last wednesday evening. I took it up gladly, though it meant going 10s of kms in and around Chennai in the weekdays. I owed it to 5thPillar as the PR Coordinator who hardly did any work. 5thPillar as a constituent of Forum for electoral integrity (www.freefairelections.org) is submitting a memorandum to Chief Minister requesting to take steps conduct free and fair local elections in Tamilnadu this year end.

The moment I saw the list of people I have to meet I knew it was going to be a very enriching experience. I had to meet top ex-bureaucrats like Former CBI Director, IAS officer, heads of pioneering NGOs like IPA, CAI, Nandini Voice for the deprived etc. I will elaborate on a couple of meetings that stand out.

Mr.T.S.Kannan of Insititute of Public Auditors was the first person I met. He spoke to me on his vast experience in running a mill in Mumbai, dealing with labour unions. The biggest mistake as per him of the current industry leaders is the total lack of communication with bottom level labourers. He said he unearthed lots of irregularities in CMDA approvals and is ready to guide me in acting on them.

Then I met Mr.Ragavachari Desikan of Consumers Association of India. Though he could not spend much time talking. He said there was no dearth of guidance he can give related to consumer rights and assured me of all help possible.

The next person Mr.B.S.Raghavan ex IAS and founder of the Rajaji Center for Public Affairs was a very dynamic personality. He was full of energy and enthusiasm but very angry at today's youth for total lack of passion in what we do. Software engineers per him just do the job of examining the vomit of westerners. This is what he had to say - வெறி is needed to get வெற்றி - i.e., to win deep passion is necessary. He said, if its Computer field work like Bill Gates even from a garage and if its politics then one should aim to become the Prime Minister and work non-stop starting from the field level. I had already met him at his center during the All candidates meet before elections. Though he was kind of pushing me to work in Software I told him I made up my mind after listening to my inner voice to achieve only in politics but unable to do it full time right away. He said he will give me all he can. He says today's youth have various distractions and the only people who come to his center are Lokku lokku (cough) takku takku (stick) old men. I do not fully agree and got to prove him wrong.

Though all of them had held top positions, they have a deep sense of dissatisfaction for having grown old without doing enough. They are all trying hard to motivate today's youth often unsuccessfully. Its very clear to me that there is no dearth of people who can act as alma mater - only if we youth are ready to receive the guidance.