I met Jasmine Shah 1 year ago to the month. A young engineering graduate from IIT, Chennai, Jasmine had just walked away from a promising career in the corporate sector to lend his hand and voice to nation building. Looking at him, I remember thinking: “How can someone so mad look so normal?” But if Jasmine is mad, what India needs right now is one billion lunatics.
Jasmine is the brain behind Jaago Re! One Billion Votes, a web-based voter registration campaign launched by Janaagraha (www.janaagraha.org) in partnership with Tata Tea to enlist every eligible Indian citizen as a registered voter before the 2009 General Elections.
“Before I joined Janaagraha in November 2007, I was a model example of the typical Indian youth,” says Jasmine. “I was cynical, I was insulated from the political system, I had never voted, and had absolutely no knowledge about or interest in the voting process.” A year later, Jasmine is the Coordinator of the phenomenally successful Jaago Re! One Billion Votes campaign that has, at the time of writing, “awakened” 1,63,860 people, handed them a steaming cup of tea, and put them on the voters’ list.
“I didn’t do it alone,” says Jasmine emphatically. “Janaagraha not only gave me the opportunity of a lifetime, it enabled, equipped, and backed me 150%. The One Billion Votes team is beyond amazing! Many young people have given up successful careers to devote themselves full time to the OBV cause and new volunteers are joining us every day.”
Firmly united behind a single, clearly defined goal, every member of the OBV team brought something to the table as they worked with feverish urgency to transform an idea into a national movement in less than 12 months.
So, what turned the cynic into an evangelizing believer? “That can be a book by itself,” laughs Jasmine, (read it in his own words here http://jasmineshah.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html) “but seriously, how long are we going to talk about the things that are wrong? What is preventing us from doing something about it? If broken systems need fixing, only the people in the system can fix it. I worked with ITC for 3 years managing their engineering and infrastructure projects. My work exposed me to the best and the worst side of urban governance. I had visited Europe and I was blown away by the quality of life citizens enjoyed there. The contrast was so stark. I knew my calling had come”
With that knowledge, Jasmine decided to walk the talk. He became his own reference point as he tried to understand why India’s youth had such distaste for political engagement. Why did they shrink away from the polling booth? “I stayed in Chennai for 5 years and I didn’t vote even once simply because I didn’t know that I only need to live in a place for 6 months to vote there. Even had I known this, the challenge of navigating through the system was so daunting, it intimidated me.
Thankfully, Jasmine didn’t stay intimidated for too long. He had identified 2 clear challenges: lack of access to quality information about the electoral process and a system that severely tested the patience of youngsters who don’t have much patience to begin with. “It was clear to me we urgently needed to develop a hand-holding customer service model for citizens that would make voter registration a pleasant and easy experience requiring minimum time and fuss – and it had to be through a medium interesting and familiar to the youth.” All of which the Jaago Re! One Billion Votes campaign is. But doesn’t a web-based campaign cater only to urban India? “Urban India is a lot more apathetic than its rural counterpart when it comes to civic participation in governance,” says Jasmine. “On a personal note, I’m a product of urban India. Like most urban citizens, I don’t like the state of our cities. To transform the quality of life that cities offer their citizens, we need better quality governance for which we need quality candidates for which we need urban India, especially the youth, to vote. One-third of the Indian population comprise citizens who are between 18 and 30 years. Hardly 20% votes. We cannot stay outside the political system and expect it to transform on its own”
But there are no “quality candidates,” I argue. Our choice is really that of voting for the lesser evil. “This is a classic chicken and egg argument,” Jasmine counters. “Urban India doesn’t vote because there are no good candidates; good candidates don’t enter the fray because urban India doesn’t vote. We have to start somewhere!” Granted. Somebody has to blink first. But does he really believe we can bring about lasting change by simply exercising our franchise? “Yes, I do believe that. Like I said, we have to make a start. If urban India starts voting and then holding their elected representatives accountable to their election manifestos, we will see qualified people with merit getting into politics.”
Jasmine’s idealism is infectious. His message is clear: “We have to demand more from ourselves. We have to take our roles as citizens more seriously. We cannot simply keep talking about it. Each of us has to find an issue to become passionate about and then work with that issue to effect the change we want to see.”
‘Change’ is such a powerful word but where do you start? I ask somewhat overwhelmed.
“There is only one logical place to start,” says Jasmine quietly, “you start with the person in the mirror.”
To be the change you want to see, log on to www.janaagraha.org
To learn more about Jaago Re! One Billion votes, log on to www.jaagore.com
