Poverty and the Right to Know: Using Information to Demand Equity and Justice

Transcript

ARUNA ROY: Many years ago I thought I had no place in Washington because I didn't want money from the World Bank and I didn't want anything from the IMF. I had nothing to do with project funding. I work in a non-party political organization. My main issue is with my government, and what do I have to do in the U.S.?

But strangely enough, in today's international politics, U.S. has a lot to do with my country, and therefore I have a lot to do with Tom and what Tom's doing, what Ann's doing, and they have a lot to do with what I am doing. So we come and share as equals information. We learn from each other. I've learned from Tom and I've learned from Ann, and I've learned from numbers of other freedom of information activists I've met all over the world. We begin from different places, but our concern is more or less the same. We want a transparent, equal and just society. We want a government which is accountable. When it's the poor in my country who want a well or the school, or whether it's a citizen in the United States who's been arrested under the PATRIOT Act or whatever you have today, we need to know, we need to know with complete integrity and honesty, what our governments are doing. So that brings us together.

Go back a little to India and to the small village where I live, where Tom has been, where Vivek is from and where Nikhil, whose friends are here today in the audience, also lives with us. The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, which is the MKSS. It's a big mouthful for those who don't know Hindi. It's a workers and peasants organization which doesn't receive funds from institutions, funds either from an Indian source or any foreign source. We believe that for our struggle against our own government we should be funded by people to whom we are responsible and accountable and who can hold us to book. So at some later point when you ask questions, I'll answer how exactly we are funded.

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