THE struggle for people's right to all information relevant to
their lives is intensifying worldwide. While some countries
have accepted it as fundamental to the human rights issue,
most - even those who have partially accepted this - have
restricted the right to a greater or a lesser degree. No regime is
today ready to allow unhindered access to all information,
fearing a complete image crisis: there are too many skeletons
to hide in each cupboard. In developing countries like ours, it
is the struggle to find out where the 85 paise out of every
rupee, meant for the poor and underprivileged and yet not
reaching them, is going.
However, some developments in India and abroad are
encouraging. In April this year, under immense pressure from
the Majdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), and facing the
general elections, the chief minister (cm) of Rajasthan,
Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, belonging to the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party, accepted the villagers' right to
information about developmental problems (Down To Earth.
Vol 4, No 24). It was, however, a partial victory.
For a year now, Shekhawat has been promising the villagers the right to examine every document relevant to developmental projects. Adding to this already
radical measure, the cm has been promising
that they would be allowed to photocopy the
documents too. When the MKSS finally made
this an eve-of-election issue, the CM must
have realised that it would be a political harakiri to renege at that point. So the right
was granted, but the rider was, the right
to photocopy was not. A photocopied
document can be used to take legal action
against erring officials, if need be. The state
government, facing the wrath of the
bureaucracy, went for the halfway house:
information, yes; evidence, no.
So, the task only starts here. The dharna
(sit-in) for the right to photocopy has been going on since the
last month, and the venue has now shifted from Beawar town
to the state capital Jaipur. There is a need for NGOs in other
states to take this up and build up a national-level campaign.
The MKSS'S struggle is to force open the doors of ethical
governance through the power of information in the hands of
the people. None of the political parties "I be willing to go
too far on this. Their village power bases lie with that crucial
figure, the sarpanch (village headperson), who controls the
vote bank. The sarpanches are the ones who will be directly
affected, for their very real financial 'black' bank from corrupt
practices will be destroyed if the right to information comes
through and is utilised intelligently by the people and their
representative organisations.
_ Thus, the NGO sector has to take up this issue on its own.
This is even more relevant today, when under the combined
onslaught of liberalisation and globalisation, natural resources
of the people are coming under increasing threat. Each of the
constituents of this concept of the right to information -
traniparency, social audit and accountability - 'have very
widespread implications. The real struggle is to push for a legislation with teeth, because halfway houses, like the one provided by the Rajasthan government, will only frustrate people;
half measures always do.
Take for instance the attempt made earlier this year by the
Union ministry of environment and forests, to empower local
communities with the right to access information regarding
hazardous industries (Down To Earth, Vol 4, No 19). But the
moot question is, why. only hazardous industries? Under the
Land Acquisition Aci,, all those whose property is being
acquired for any developmental project, have a right to question the public purpose under which the land is being
acquired. But people cannot question a project if they do not
have the relevant information regarding it.
Even internationally, the need for transparently
is being felt, and a conservative
agency like the World Bank too, under
intense public pressure, has taken a significant first step towards making information
public through its "Disclosure of Operational
Information Policy, 1994". But our government, ever ready to provide all information
to international funding agencies, never tires
of finding excuses for not providing the same
information to our own people, for whom- it
is supposed to be working. One of our own
reporters was once refused common meteorological data collected by the Bhaba Atomic
Research Centre, Mumbai, on grounds that
these were state secrets... the air and water of our land!
One international NGO has drafted a comprehensive piece
of legislation, "Public Participation and Access to
Information". Its attempt is to get the draft adopted
by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) general assembly to
be held this November. To ensure the safe passage of the draft,
the IUCN has already started lobbying with its own members
and others. It is high time Indian NGOS got their acts together,
too, on this issue. Eighty five paisa out of every rupee is not a
small matter. It is the tax payer's money and the tax payer's
health and future which is at stake; so, the person on the
street must know. Information is our birthright, and we
must have it.
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