An activist who won't be labelled: Aruna Roy on speaking up for the poor

Roy tells Arundhuti Dasgupta how she has learnt to turn a deaf ear to the epithets hurled her way

"I am Aruna. A composite human being,” says Aruna Roy whose diminutive frame conceals a spirit of steel. “As feminists we fought to not have our identities fragmented into such labels — wife, mother, daughter. We are human beings and are to be accepted as that. Such labeling is extremely objectionable.” 

Her unflinching gaze dares you to disagree with her. Roy who has lent her name to almost every protest and cause from as long as she can remember has been called everything from a jholawali to a communist and other unprintable monikers. “I return the insults with absolute compliments,” she grins.

Was she always as feisty? 

Silly question really, which she humours with an anecdote. In college, she remembers, her friends were wearied by her penchant for fighting other people’s battles. “Groaning, they would say, here she comes again, that was in IP (Indraprastha College for Women) and the only redeeming feature is that I still have my friends,” she chuckles.

“I am not a violent person but to speak up for the poor is a good thing. Who speaks for them today?” Over the years, Roy has taken up cudgels on behalf of people in the villages, those whose rights are easily trampled upon and their spirit regularly broken. She was in Mumbai to attend the Tata Literature Live, an annual literary festival held in the months of November-December, and her time was limited. 

We meet in the lobby of the Taj Vivanta President, located in Cuffe Parade, a wealthy precinct at the tip of the city. Once envisaged as a sort of a diplomatic enclave with state emporia and government offices, Cuffe Parade is now just another sprawl of high priced residences and commercial spaces and a far cry from Roy’s natural environs. 

She is in a bit of a flap, breakfast has been delayed and age has set limits on her ability to run on empty. “I have to make some concessions to the years that are piling on,” she says apologetically, rushing us through our discussion on where we ought to hunker down for a conversation and a meal. Speed is of the essence and the hotel’s coffee shop comes up trumps. But that is a serious error of judgment. Noisy, crowded with large groups of tourists, it turns out to be a task conducting a conversation without turning ourselves hoarse. 

A cup of coffee to start with. Cappuccino, Roy says, without any fuss. An omelette, no tomato, with coriander, green chillies and cheese. Crisp toasts to go with it. That is all. She is clear about what she wants.

Cheese? She grins sheepishly. “Some middle class habits just stick, you don’t yearn for it but in places that I know I can get it, I indulge.”

Roy grew up in Madras, in a home filled with art, music and debate. “I grew up knowing that cultural differences will always exist.” But today we attack all differences. She is appalled by the outrage and calumny that classical musicians such as T M Krishna are being subjected to. Trained as a classical dancer at Kalakshetra, the institution founded by famed danseuse Rukmini Devi Arundale, Roy is passionate about classical music and dance. She tries to catch the odd concert — be it Delhi or Chennai. But she is equally at home squatting in a maidan, watching street theatre. 

Her eclectic tastes take many by surprise. She chuckles at the memory of running into a shocked senior IAS officer at a T M Krishna concert. “I am not always protesting on the street. I feel at home with many people.” Who knew when I went to Kalakshetra to learn classical dance, and I who love Leela Samson and T M Krishna, will be doing this. 

With ‘this’ Roy means MKSS. The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), an organisation she co-founded with Shankar Singh and Nikhil Dey and that has been the fulcrum around which the Right to Information (RTI) movement coalesced. Roy has moved out of active decision making in the MKSS, but that is where she learnt nearly everything about democracy and politics.

“We want democracy but the delivery system is so corroded.” The minimum wage and other such struggles helped forge the identity of MKSS and subsequently the RTI Act. People’s organisations are vital and MKSS is truly one, she says. “Even the name was given by the people — we wanted to give it something like a Loktantrik Morcha (people’s rally), but they said no morcha, Sangathan (coalition).”

Our breakfast arrives, the omelettes and the toasts (brown bread) with tiny whirls of butter and small jars of jam and marmalade. We tuck in, but the omelettes are overdone and the toasts, cold by the time they make it to our table. But neither of us is paying much attention to the food on our plates.

Roy calls herself a political and social activist today but she has donned many robes before. From professor (she briefly taught English Literature at her alma mater) to bureaucrat to street fighter—over the years, Roy’s identity has been shaped by the different worlds she inhabited. 

She joined the IAS after a year as a professor but left 7 years later to work with an NGO where she says, she found herself questioning much of what she had learnt. “It showed me, who fancied herself as somewhat of a liberal, just how conditioned I was,” she says. 

Democracy (at the risk of sounding clichéd) lives in the villages she says. The poor, the people fighting for their rights, they are the ones working to keep our democracy alive. More than any others, more than the activists. 

The people’s struggle for livelihood embodies the fight for fundamental rights. All people want is work, she says. But politicians are busy playing their own games. She is clear though that even if politics gets in the way, no movement can be isolated from it. “The MGNREGA was born as a result of our joint discussions, every political formation except the BJP was a part of the campaign,” she says.

Life has been a long struggle, but “Ours is non-violent and it takes time and we don’t mind, it will be long lasting,” she says her eyes flashing. How does one deal with the opposition, the brutality of powerful regimes? 

Roy has a story. They were in the midst of a hunger strike in a village, fighting for minimum wages. In the dark of the night a group of men came to drag them away. “We were well prepared. As soon as they came close, we wailed into the mikes. No slogans, nothing. Just weep as one does for the dead.” Finally they left.

Sometimes people who you work with let you down, but that too is par for the course. Roy is bitter about Arvind Kejriwal, but says that he never really was working for anyone but himself. It was a very difficult period, Roy says especially when Kejriwal came up with his version of a Lokpal. The differences soon became irreconcilable and the rift remains till today.

Roy gently steers the conversation back to RTI and the book she has co-authored. This is how people are looking at change — not a scholar or a politician or anyone else, she says. Is the RTI unique to India? There are freedom of information laws, the spirit exists in some other East European countries too. But it has not been a ground-up movement like here, she says. 

What next? Roy, Magsaysay Award winner, social activist and writer. Well life has a way of turning back full circle and now almost five decades later, she has taught again. Just a semester at the School of Public Policy at CEU (Central European University) and quite enjoyed the experience. Next is wherever the road takes her, but whatever she does, activism will always be dogging her heels.