On July 19, Dr. Sandeep Pandey, a leader in the education rights
and nuclear disarmament 
movements,
gave two presentations in Syracuse. His talks were entitled "Fighting
Corruption with Right to Information: Inspiring New Movements in India"
and "Acting for Peace in a Nuclear Context."
After obtaining engineering degrees in the US (his Master's is from Syracuse University, his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley), Sandeep taught briefly at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur. He left that prestigious position for grassroots work, based on his deep commitment to peace and the empowerment of marginalized people. In 2002 he received the Magsaysay Award - known as the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize. He is best known for co-founding Asha (hope), an international organization for promoting education among India's poorest children. He started this organization while in Berkeley, and a Syracuse University chapter soon followed. Asha expanded in India, the US and other areas of the world, to fund and establish centers for learning that emphasize empowerment of India's poorest, including Dalits, the ex-untouchables.
Sandeep has been intensively involved with peace marches for nuclear disarmament, anti-corruption campaigns, promotion of the right to food, and global justice work protesting Coke and Pepsi's groundwater depletion and pollution. He creates dialogue between Muslims and Hindus over heated political issues such as the status of Kashmir and the demolition of a mosque in the religious Hindu city of Ayodyha. He has established people-to-people interaction between India and Pakistan.
Right to Information
(RTI)
The RTI movement is based on the effort of people to become aware of their
rights and to find means for asserting them. The movement has increased the
openness and transparency of the operations of administrative officials leading
to improvement of services such as road construction projects, government
schools, food programs and other services for poor people. Using official
documents on projects implemented "on paper", activists and local
people organize "social audits". This has helped bring out corruption
in programs and in the process educates people about their entitlements. The
solidarity built during social audits also contributes to social and political
pressure on the officials. In Rajasthan where this process has been used for
over a decade now, there are indications that corruption has gone down significantly
on programs where social audits have been organized regularly. The method
was pioneered by Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) in Rajasthan and is
now being adopted across India after the passage of the Right to Information
Act by the Parliament of India in 2005. Sandeep has been one of the pioneers
to take it out of Rajasthan and has been involved in spreading the technique
in his state of Uttar Pradesh and nationally.
Nuclear Disarmament
After India's nuclear tests at Pokhran in 1998, Sandeep helped to organize
an 88-day, 1500 km Global Peace March from Pokhran (the nuclear test site)
to Sarnath (the birthplace of Buddha). Marchers collected 18,000 signatures
for global nuclear disarmament and delivered these to the embassies of the
seven nuclear states. Sandeep holds India responsible for the nuclearization
of the subcontinent because of its 1974 tests. In an interview he said, "It
was quite foolish to carry out the blasts because it gave Pakistan an opportunity
to flex its nuclear muscles." He points out "…the more weaponisation
programs are encouraged, the more insecure we become." He belongs to
the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace.
In his speech accepting the Magsaysay Prize, he notes that trends
towards nuclear disarmament in the '90s were derailed by India and Pakistan's
escalation, which jeopardizes "the security of the entire area of South-Asia."
Describing nuclear weapons as weapons "of zero military value,"
he notes the radiation threat of the entire process of its production and
calls for the halting of nuclear energy because it is equally dangerous. Sandeep
refers to the US/India nuclear deal as a trap that India has fallen into.
He points out that George Bush wants India to adopt nuclear power, in which
the US has stopped investing, to free up petroleum for more developed countries,
and sees the deal as a major setback for the India/Pakistan peace process.
Claims of peaceful uses do not hide the potential use for bombs, a cause for
suspicion in other nations. Since "the act of making nuclear weapons
or even nuclear power is highly irresponsible…there is no such thing
as a 'responsible nuclear state'."
