Nagender Chindam, the original petitioner in the NRI voting case and the
crusader who made the NRI population heard in the portals of the Supreme Court
of India for casting their ballots online, is a family man who refuses to rest
on his laurels. He finds himself bemused by the sudden attention -- be it his
colleagues or long lost childhood friends who cannot stop congratulating him on
his achievement.
The 33-year-old NagenderChindam is the founder and chairman of
Pravasi Bharat on whose petition the Supreme Court of India cleared the decks
for NRI voting rights. Chindam, originally from Hyderabad and currently
living in Milton Keynes, the UK, obtained his mechanical engineering
degree from National Institute of Technology, Warangal. He founded Pravasi
Bharat in 2012 as a campaign group for NRI voting rights.
In an interviewon the eve of his visit to India for an important hearing
in the case, he is both jubilant and positive on the outcome of the NRI’s
voting rights case.
Excerpts from his interview:
A) So, who is
Nagender Chindam? A family man or a revolutionist? How do you create a balance
between family life and Pravasi Bharat campaign?
Honestly, I wouldn’t
have achieved this without the support of my wife as she takes care of my kids
whenever I am out for Pravasi Bharat’s event. She doesn’t even complain
when I spend more time on Pravasi Bharat’s event instead of home.
Luckily, being a well educated lady, she understands the importance of
every vote; her moral support during the tough times was my strength to move
forward.
Actually, these
days, it is getting really very difficult to balance work and professional
life, and in our case we have to manage personal lives and our job
abroad (in my case as a Software Consultant) and additional work for the social
cause at the same time– It was same with every core member of Pravasi Bharat,
we had to spend day and night and our weekends for the cause. Sometimes,
it was very difficult to manage – As a family man, it is expected
that you take your kids out at least during weekends/during their
holidays. It used to be extremely difficult when the events of
Pravasi Bharat were clashing with family events. My older
son Srimaan Chindam was very supportive whenever I used to tell
him to take out some other time.
It was hard. But
I did my best to balance both – Whenever I said that Pravasi Bharat is my baby
– my wife used to say that it's more than your baby because you focused much
more on Pravasi Bharat’s event rather than our kid’s birthday celebration. I'm
quite thankful to my wife and the core team of PB who gave me an immense
support and shared responsibilities when it was needed the most.
I am a family man,
staying with my wife and two little boys (The elder one is 5
years old going to school while the little one is only 2 years old) in a family home at MiltonKeynes, UK. My mother used to visit us hardly once in 6
months. We have our family house (parents) in Regimental Bazaar,
Secunderabad – it’s a small house that has only one room, we still own it
and preserved it as well.
B)How did the movement start?
I started
the movement with the very basics by creating a website, Facebook page, online petitions and writ
petition drafts for the Supreme Court of India. I started researching
absentee ballot policies all across the world.Being an Indian
citizen, I wrote so many letters to the heads of all major employers,
requesting them to allow and aid their employees to exercise their fundamental
right.I wanted to approach the Supreme Court way before starting the campaign group, but it was
important to put valid points before the proceeding.We used the step by step
process to form our core team and held
our first demonstration on August 31, 2012, urging the Government of India to
provide an absentee voting option for NRIs.Through the high commissioner's
office in London,we submitted the petition addressed to the prime minister of
India and the Election Commission of India In October 2012, taking inspiration
from Gandhiji’s Salt March, we organised a London March as a form of
protest. We submitted our petition to the Supreme Court first in February
2013. Last month, the court asked the government to assure that our right
to vote is ensured within eight weeks.
C) What were the main reasons that inspired
you to start the movement? Being a software engineer living abroad, i realize that most of
the professionals were not using their right to vote due to busy work schedules
or their location. Even I had not exercised this right myself. According to me,
every vote is important in a democracy. As a proud Indian citizen living
abroad, it was really very unfortunate
that I was unable to vote in Indian elections unless I was in the country.
Gandhiji, Dr
Ambedkar were both non-resident Indians during their lives and would’ve
potentially missed the opportunity to vote in times such as ours.The only area where we needed to and certainly could
improve was one of increasing our voting percentage. Back in 2009, it was only
about 59 per cent in India, which I felt very low.
D) According to you, what
aspect of the movement proved to be the most important in this victory?
In
2014, when the general elections were only a few months away, I went on a
three-day hunger strike that ended on Republic Day in front of the Gandhi statue at Tavistock
Square. For someone who eats rice three times a day, it was a tough three
days.There are about 10 million Indian citizens staying abroad, and with 543
parliamentary constituencies, this means an astonishing average of 18,000 votes
per constituency may get polled from abroad. These additional votes, if polled,
will obviously play a crucial role in providing greater representation to the
public in our democracy. I thought ‘If India can reach out to Mars, can’t it
enable its citizens abroad to vote?’
E) How does a
simple software engineer feel about the sudden attention from the media all
across the world?
What made me
much happier was obviously the achievement of absentee ballot for
more than 10 million people.The media really gives you a sense of pride
and connect. For example, some childhood schoolmates/friends who had never been
in touch with you for more than a decade – but send you a message through Fb/twitter
congratulating once they got the news...and person from remote village
somewhere in India whom you happened to meet 20 years ago but get in touches
with you with warm greetings....It happened. Thanks to media for spreading the
news & the importance to each and every corner of the world.
F) What will be
your agenda after this victory?
At the moment,
we will continue our work as the watchdogs for this issue until the
postal ballot is successfully implemented. We will watch the process as EC
would do pilot implementations first and then spreads it to the General
elections in future. Our next job is to urge all eligible NRIs to get
registered and utilise their valuable votes without any hassle.
And as a Pravasi Bharat campaigner, we always took up the social
battles for good cause, be it a protest against the Delhi rape incident,
contributing to Kasmir flood relief – we did our best and we will continue to
do the good work within our best abilities.
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