State of Disclosure
10 Oct, 2011, 05.11AM IST, ET Bureau
Any amendments must strengthen, not dilute, the RTI Act
Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid's remarks on the need to revisit the Right to Information (RTI) Act, on the purported reason that its 'misuse' was hampering 'institutional efficiency', displays the discomfort amongst the political and bureaucratic classes over an Act that has unprecedentedly empowered ordinary citizens.
Talk of amending the Act on those and similar grounds is nothing but those classes seeking to disempower citizens, and return to the days of official opacity.
The power of the RTI is manifest in the number of scams that have been unearthed by deploying it - be it a citizen seeking details about that perpetually unrepaired neighbourhood road or a multi-crore scam of national proportions.
Perversely, the number of RTI activists killed or threatened is also testimony to the danger this Act has posed to all sorts of entrenched, vested interests. The UPA government, in fact, had pledged to strengthen the Act.
In her address to the joint session of Parliament in 2009, President Pratibha Patil laid down the government's agenda to put in place a public data policy that would "place all information covering non-strategic areas in the public domain". By no stretch of the imagination can anything other than military or intelligence-related, or sensitive communication of a specific kind be called 'strategic areas'.
Indeed, amendments, if any, should be those that buttress and consolidate the RTI Act - providing protection for RTI activists and whistleblowers in general, for instance - rather than seek to dilute it. But, it seems, as the power of the RTI becomes manifest sections of our polity who thrived on the withholding of information are getting queasier by the day.
An opaque state is essentially a colonial vestige. One that is impervious, mysterious in its workings, if not actually hostile towards ordinary citizens. In contrast, a state which envisages the disclosure of information not just as a citizens' right, but its own fundamental duty is one where citizens can feel part of governance and its workings.
It seems our netas and babus, among others, would prefer the former. This must be resisted. The point is to strengthen democracy, not starve it of information.
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With regards to all,
------Mukund Apte
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