Nikhil Dey (born 1963) is an Indian social activist and a founder member of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, the organisation of workers and farmers in Rajasthan whose village campaigns for access to government records grew into the national movement for the Right to Information Act. He has also been closely involved in the campaigns for the rural employment guarantee, social audits and laws on public accountability.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Nikhil Dey |
| Born | 1963, India |
| Occupation | Social activist |
| Known for | Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan; Right to Information movement |
| Organisations | MKSS; National Campaign for People’s Right to Information; Soochna Evum Rozgar Adhikar Abhiyan |
| Base | Devdungri, Rajsamand district, Rajasthan |
Early Life
Dey is the son of a senior officer of the Indian Air Force and grew up in cantonments around the country. He went to the United States for university but left before completing his course, having decided that he wanted to work in rural India. He later took a law degree.
Work
In 1987 he moved with Aruna Roy, who had resigned from the Indian Administrative Service, and Shankar Singh, a rural communicator, to a mud hut in the village of Devdungri in central Rajasthan. They lived on the statutory minimum wage and spent three years working alongside villagers on disputes over land and unpaid wages. In 1990 these struggles took organisational form as the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, which accepts no institutional funding and has no office beyond the hut.
Labourers on drought-relief works were regularly told that the records showed they had not earned the full wage. The group demanded to see the muster rolls and bills. When copies were obtained, they were read aloud at public hearings, or jan sunwais, the first of which was held in 1994. Villagers heard that they had supposedly been paid for work never done and that buildings existed only on paper. The slogan “hamara paisa, hamara hisab” travelled across the state.
A forty-day sit-in at Beawar in 1996 turned the demand into a state-wide campaign and led to the formation of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, of which Dey has been a co-convenor. Rajasthan passed a law in 2000 and Parliament enacted the Right to Information Act in 2005. He has since campaigned against amendments that he argues weaken the law and the independence of information commissions.
He was part of the campaign that produced the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 and served on the central council that advises on its working. He pressed for social audits, in which villagers verify spending themselves, to be written into the scheme. In Rajasthan he has worked with the government on a public portal that publishes records without the need for an application, and campaigned for the state’s 2023 laws on a minimum guaranteed income and on the welfare of gig workers, as well as for a law on grievance redress.
Approach
Dey is known as the movement’s strategist and drafter, the person who turns a village demand into legal language, and for his ability to work both in protest tents and in government committee rooms. The collective’s account of its work was published as The RTI Story: Power to the People (2018).
Personal Life
He continues to live and work from Devdungri and Jaipur and avoids personal publicity, usually speaking as a member of the collective rather than in his own name.
Frequently Asked Questions
When was Nikhil Dey born?
Nikhil Dey was born in 1963, India.
What is Nikhil Dey known for?
Known for: Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan; Right to Information movement.
Featured image: Nikhil Dey in September 2026. Photo by Saiphani02, licensed under CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
