Firstpost: New Delhi: Friday,
January 13, 2017.
Chief
information commissioner RK Mathur, who administers the Right to Information
Act (RTI), and Delhi University's central public information officer Meenakshi
Sahay have done a disservice to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, by giving out the
impression that they are trying hard to keep details of Modi's Bachelor of Arts
degree under wraps. Here is how.
Firstly,
Sahay refused to inspect documents sought under RTI, on the grounds that a
postal order for Rs 10 which accompanied the application was not made out in
favour of the Registrar of Delhi University. Information Commissioner M Sridhar
Acharyulu called this "penny wise, pound foolish", and fined the CPIO
Rs 25,000.
The saga does
not end there, however.
Within days
of this order, Mathur, without any explanations, took Acharyulu off the domain
he was dealing with, that is questions regarding the Human Resources
Department. Acharyulu found such a legal battle over a Rs 10 postal order
inexplicable, and said he was "vexed with non response” from the
CPIO".
It was
possibly Acharyulu's gumption in pulling up the Prime Minister's Office (PMO)
last year for not providing certifications of Jana Gana Mana as the National
Anthem and Vande Mataram as the National Song. He had also faulted a flurry of
transfers of applications from one department to another.
His being
divested of the HRD charge only adds fuel to the fire that attempts may be on
to not share details of Modi's degree certificate. As The Indian Express
reported, the CIC's order "comes only days after another order on 29
December, on allocation of work in which Acharyulu had retained the HRD
Ministry".
The question
is not whether Modi's BA degree from Delhi University and an MA from Gujarat
University as claimed by him in his affidavits in the 2004, 2007, and 2014
elections are genuine or not, but of the concerted bid to stonewall publicising
the details of it.
Mathur's
action, so close on the heels of a punitive step initiated by Acharyulu, does
raise doubts, and it is something that a CIC could do without, since he's
holding an office in which people repose lot of trust, one that's a key route
to ferret what governments hide.
As to the
question of whether Narendra Modi has a BA degree from Delhi University, the
answer could be yes or no. He has been in politics and been holding public
office, initially as Gujarat chief minister for 11 years, before moving up to
Delhi for another top elected office. The question should be whether he is a
good administrator. Does his brand of ideology, inherited or developed, fancy
voters to show their approval? That is normally the yardstick. When voting, one
does not look beyond that.
Most voters
don't even bother about the contents of the affidavits that politicians file
with the Election Commission. The one key component, which is the financial
status, could even well be a fudge. Which is why the Election Commission would
now like to see them reveal the source of the income they show. Not having done
so yet is an indication of why that affidavit was a formality, more in form
than content. In short, pointless.
Coming back
to Modi's educational degrees, it is hardly pertinent to the manner in which
government ministers are appointed. A finance minister could be a lawyer a la
Arun Jaitley and not a finance guy. Appointments are usually made on political
considerations. Information regarding Modi's educational status
"qualification" is a word not advisedly used here, for it is no
benchmark in the matrix we are talking about has to be extracted one tooth at a
time.
First, it was
the Aam Aadmi Party's allegation that Modi did not hold a degree he claimed to
have held. Quick release of an authenticated copy would not have let the fear
of obfuscation take hold. When the degrees were shown by BJP chief Amit Shah
and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at a press conference in May last year, the
matter should have ended. But it didn't.
A bellicose
AAP insisted that the degrees displayed were fake, a very serious allegation
indeed, but thereafter, instead of further proving the authenticity of the
degrees, there have been attempts to stall it. RTI, a key right provided to all
citizens of India, came into play.
If doubts
about the degree are not put to rest entirely, questions arise about the
integrity of the person. Let us assume that Modi does hold the degrees he
claims to, and has no qualms about it, but why is the establishment making attempts
to stall its disclosure?
The word of
the Delhi University Registrar about the authenticity has not cut much ice with
those who want to prove that it was not genuine. He had provided both the
enrolment and examination numbers and explained that a variation in the way the
name was written in the records was an error something that does happen.
The DU
demurred when it came to further clarifying it. The university said in response
to an RTI application that "DU, as a matter of policy, seeks to maintain
the privacy of every student as it holds the data pertaining to a students in a
fiduciary relationship with the student concerned".
It could be
so in principle, but it was an issue regarding the personal integrity of a man
holding the highest office in the land, and in consultation with him, the
details could have been allowed scrutiny. Especially when an RTI applicant was
denied scrutiny on grounds that the postal order accompanying was not in favour
of the Registrar.
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