The Hindu: Jaipur: Saturday, May 28,
2016.
Ironic though
it may sound, a unique memorial celebrating the Right to Information has come
up in the Beawar town of Rajasthan where the RTI movement had started 20 years
ago at a time when the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the State has opted
to delete chapters on the evolution of RTI campaign and law from its school
textbooks.
Hundreds of
people from all walks of life, who gathered at Chang Gate in Beawar on Thursday
night to commemorate the historic 40-day dharna of 1996 for RTI, witnessed
unveiling of the aesthetically-built memorial and demanded restoration of
chapters dealing with common people’s contribution to RTI in the textbooks.
The dark blue
memorial, is perhaps the only structure of its kind in the country, giving
recognition to peasants and labourers who launched the campaign for their right
to know about the way the government functioned and spent the public money.
40-day
dharna
“I can never
forget those 40 days when we sat on a dharna organised by the Mazdoor Kisan
Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) at Chang Gate. I was preserving every moment of it
through my camera without a clue that we were making history,” said Ashok Sain,
an activist.
The dharna,
which lasted 40 days, went on to become a movement for transparency,
accountability and participatory democracy and led to the establishment of the
National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI).
A strong
movement
The movement
forced the Rajasthan government to pass the State RTI Act in 2000, after which
Parliament enacted the RTI Act in 2005. Justice S.N. Bhargava, former Chief
Justice of Sikkim High Court, who unveiled the memorial, dedicated it to the
people.
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