BJP MLA "leads" attack on RTI rally in Rajasthan, injuring activists, vandalizing vehicles, snatching cameras

By Pankti Jog*
In an incident which has created a flutter among Right to Information (RTI) activists across India, goonda elements, said to be close to a BJP legislator in Rajasthan have brutally attacked the 100-day Accountability or Jawabdehi Yatra, begun by Magsaysay Award winner and pioneer of the RTI Act Aruna Roy. The incident took place in Aklera area of Zalawad district, which falls into Manoharthana constituency.
According to eye-witnesses, MLA Kanwar Lala Meena led the mob, which brutally attacked activists with lathis, vandalizing vehicles and destroying cameras.
The attack took place in the evening at around 5 pm on on January 16, when the RTI campaigners were singing songs. The assailants started snatching the activists’ cameras, and when this met with resistance, they started beating up all those who formed part of the campaign.
Shankar Singh, Anuraag, Kamal Tank and many other campaigners, who were participating in the rally, were injured. Despite the attack, so far the police has not taken any action against the culprits. The attackers attacked the activists with lathis, causing internal injury to several of the activists.
Also led by senior RTI activist Nikhil Dey and Shankar Singh, the Accountability Yatra began on December 1, 2015 from Jaipur, and will cover all 33 districts of the state, spending three days in each.

Around 100 organizations are supporting the yatra in Rajasthan under the banner Soochana Evam Rojgar Adhikar Abhiyaan (campaign for right to information and employment). Around 80 people have been travelling from day one, with hundreds joining in each district for local programmes.
The yatra registers grievances related with the distribution of ration, pension, employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), social security schemes, health and education.

In each of the districts, the yatra spends two days in the fields, performing street plays, organizing rallies, demonstrations, and public outreach programmes at cross roads, small and big towns.
In each district, a Jan Sunwai or people’s hearing and Shikayat Mela or grievances fete is being organized, at the end of which all the complaints that are registered are handed over to the administration. The complaints are registered online and tracked for their disposal.
The yatra participants are demanding a strong decentralized and effective accountability mechanism, which should be time bound as well as participatory in spirit. The organizers have prepared a draft law on this, placing it before the general public for discussion.
The yatra, which is to conclude on March 9, is already having tremendous impact on the people and the media, with the state government coming under pressure. At many places, once yatra moves on, the ration dealers were found to have begun giving ration. There have also been instances of the benefit of crop insurance being paid immediately.
Gujarat NGOs Janpath and Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel (MAGP) have strongly condemned the cowardly act by supporters of the local MLA of the ruling party in Rajasthan, and demanded that immediate should be actions be taken against the culprits. They have filed compliant with the chief minister, the district superintendent of police DSP.
---
*With Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel, Ahmedabad

Comments

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

By Rajiv Shah This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan* “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.

Authoritarian destruction of the public sphere in Ecuador: Trumpism in action?

By Pilar Troya Fernández The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa's government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.

The golden crop: How turmeric is transforming women's lives in tribal India

By Vikas Meshram* When the lush green fields of turmeric sway in the tribal belt of southern Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat, it is not merely a spice crop — it is the golden glow of self-reliance. In villages where even basic spices once had to be bought from the market, the very soil today is yielding a prosperity that has transformed the lives of thousands of families. At the heart of this transformation is the initiative of Vaagdhara, which has linked turmeric with livelihoods, nutrition, and village self-governance — gram swaraj.

Echoes of Vietnam and Chile: The devastating cost of the I-A Axis in Iran

By Ram Puniyani The recent joint military actions by Israel and the United States against Iran have been devastating. Like all wars, this conflict is brutal to its core, leaving a trail of human suffering in its wake. The stated pretext for this aggression—the brutality of the Ayatollah Khamenei regime and its nuclear ambitions—clashes sharply with the reality of the diplomatic landscape. Iran had expressed a willingness to remain at the negotiating table, signaling a readiness to concede points emerging from dialogue.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey* In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.

False claim? What Venezuela is witnessing is not surrender but a tactical retreat

By Manolo De Los Santos The early morning hours of January 3, 2026, marked an inflection point in Venezuela and Latin America’s centuries-long struggle for self-determination and independence. Operation Absolute Resolve, ordered by the Trump administration, constituted the most brutal and direct military assault on a sovereign state in the region in recent memory. In a shocking operation that left hundreds dead, President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores were illegally kidnapped from Venezuelan soil and transported to the United States, where they now face fabricated charges in a New York federal detention facility. In the two months since this act of war, a torrent of speculation has emerged from so-called experts and pundits across the political spectrum. This has followed three main lines: One . The operation’s success indicated treason at the highest levels of the Bolivarian Revolution. Two . Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and the remaining leadership have abandone...

Search This Blog