When was the last time you called your Corporator?

I was walking my dog the other day, when something Reap Benefit co-founder Kuldeep Dantewadia had said came to mind. ‘Go and ask a group of young people in and around where you live if they’ve ever called their ward corporator.’

So I walked up to some middle, high school and college students and asked them and did just that.

I recieved blank looks, eye rolls and shrugs from a few, while some 7th graders who were perhaps learning about local government structures, knew what a Municipal Corporation was, but struggled to recall what the corporator did. None of them had considered that it might be possible for them speak to this person, nor perhaps had they ever felt the need to. To be fair, I think if I’d asked the same question to adults, I would have received a similar response.

This was of course a quick, ad-hoc survey (and I use that term in the loosest sense possible) done with 15–20 people in my building. So one could dismiss it as not being indicative of a more widely prevalent issue. But when juxtaposed with the statistic that only 1% of India’s 1.3 billion strong population is actively engaged in the nation’s democratic system, we may wish to think differently.

What does it mean to be actively engaged with democracy? To be civically engaged within one’s community? Does it mean being aware of politics and policies? Is voting all it takes? Questioning the government’s actions over coffee with friends?

Perhaps it should also encompass starting a dialogue with your local government representative and holding them accountable on issues around civic infrastructure (roads and lighting on the streets), utilities, environmental issues (that factory dumping waste in your local lake) and more.

You might say, well isn’t it the government’s job to take care of these things anyway? Why do I have to call up and ask? Simply put, because it’s your right as a citizen in a democracy. Research that shows municipalities are understaffed by 35%, so one could draw the conclusion that local government must join hands with citizens, citizen action groups and civil society to even hope to begin addressing some of the issues that plague our neighbourhoods.

This is why our work activating young people to become community level problem solvers is core to Reap Benefit. And in a democracy, one crucial aspect of problem solving is talking to your locally elected representative.

In 2019–2020, 11,428 Solve Ninjas took 24,871 civic actions of which 11, 486 were reporting an issue to a local authority.

Why is this aspect of our work so important and what impact does it have?

In a country like India, students typically have very little agency in a numbers of things that concern them. When young people feel that they cannot easily approach a teacher or school leader to voice their concerns, they potentially grow up to become adults who will not question other kinds of leadership. Who will accept the status quo and feel they have no role to play in changing things. By demonstrating to students that they can actually call up and question their elected representative, and that by doing so they’re playing a vital role in the functioning of a democracy, Reap Benefit is helping break down prevailing power equations.

This was highlighted in July, 2020 when amidst the rising COVID-19 cases, the Karnataka government announced that it planned to set up 8,800 booth level task force committees to fight the spread of the disease more effectively.

The announcement spurred the Reap Benefit team into action.

‘We thought this was an excellent opportunity for Solve Ninjas to reach out to their ward Corporators to find out if they were conducting the mandated ward committee meeting or not.’ shares Archana KR, Reap Benefit.

As technology is an important enabler in our work we deployed our WhatsApp Chat Bot to assist Solve Ninjas.

‘If the Corporator answered positively, we encouraged the Solve Ninja to ask for details regarding the meeting. Corporators who were not planning to hold the ward meeting were nudged to say when the meeting would be conducted.’ shares Kuldeep Dantewadia, co-founder and CEO of Reap Benefit. ‘This might seem like a small action, but it really does break the power channel between young people and the government. To know that I can call my corporator and question him/her and hold them accountable is truly empowering.’

48 Solve Ninjas signed up to the task of calling 198 Ward Corporators across Bengaluru to gain details about the meeting.

Solve Ninjas took to social media to post video messages about why it was important to call their Corporators.

For some, it was their first brush with local governance.

Post the initiaive, a quick survey showed that 60% of responses indicated that the experience of interacting with a corporator was ‘Great’ while 9% described it as ‘Insightful’. 27% of responses showed that the experience taught ‘Importance of Citizenship.’ And only 14% of responses indicated that the Corporator was ‘Unhelpful’.

But we didn’t stop there.

‘Now you’ve called your corporator and spoken to them, one shouldn’t become complacent or have a sense of entitlement that action will be taken. Follow up is crucial,’ shares Kuldeep.

Taanika Shankar, a Reap Benefit Youth Board Member and active Solve Ninja who steering a cohort of University Student Unions protesting the #EIADraft2020 spoke about her experience attending the ward committee meeting for Ward 145.

“My ward is a very small one, and covers about 13–14 roads altogether.” says Taanika, who has attended one or two ward meetings pre-Covid. “There were only three of us at the meeting along with the corporator initially. And for the first half an hour, nothing much happened, and to be honest, I felt invisible as the only young person and woman in the room.”

However Taanika did learn some things about her ward. “We have one testing centre in the ward, but there’s no ambulance and regular sanitisation is not happening. I also found out that for some reason, Revenue Officers are checking in on residents under home quarantine! I realised how most people in my community are not aware of what’s happening at the ward level, or even what the BBMP is meant to do.”

Taanika, who has been an active volunteer with Reap Benefit during the pandemic feels that “While the work Covid Ninjas did was crucial and important, my interaction with the Corporator left me feeling that working with the BBMP and being more vocal and engaged with local government is the way in which more sustainable solutions to systemic issues can be found.”

“It really renewed my belief that as citizens we must keep our local government accountable for their actions.” Taanika said.

Next Steps

‘Solve Ninjas are developing a Civic Engagement toolkit to hold Corporators/Councillors accountable. Our first experiment has been successfully run in Bangalore. We plan to try this in Pondicherry soon and then provide the toolkit to partners across the country: the idea being to crowdsource best practices and create a network of people who can learn from each other.’ shares Kuldeep Dantewadia.

Meanwhile, if you’re a young citizen with a desire to problem solve civic and environment problems in your school, college or neighbourhood, consider signing up to be a part of the Solve Ninja Community today!