Daily Mirror: National: Thursday, June 07, 2018.
Without
information we humans, the most advanced species on Earth, would be
handicapped. Information is everywhere, but whether they are credible and valid
remains a question. Freedom of expression and the Right to Information (RTI)
have been topics tabled for decades with no proper implementation. Both these
avenues have been newer expressions of the post-war era and Sri Lanka is making
steady progress as at now.
One year
after the enactment of the RTI Act Sri Lanka recently reached third place in
the Global RTI Index thus becoming the first South Asian country to achieve
this target. Throughout the South Asian region the enactment of the RTI Act has
been a herculean task and various individuals have risked their lives to make
it a reality. Nikhil Dey is one such social activist of Indian origin, known
for his struggles to promote the RTI Act in India and the founder of
MazdoorKishan Shakti Sangthan (MKSS) in 1987, an organisation that works to
ensure minimum wages for workers.
During a
recent visit to Sri Lanka, Dey in a candid interview with the Daily Mirror,
related his experiences in enacting the Act, the importance of RTI and the way
forward.
Excerpts:
- RTI is vital for the fight against corruption
- democratic politics needs the development of a different kind of politics
- It has been recorded that there are 70 lakhs of RTI applications annually
- The Global Index considers only the quality of law and not the quality of implementing
- In India more than 70 people have been killed as means of RTI usage
- Now a decision has been made by the Government of India to make every RTI available appear on the website
Q Why is
an RTI Act important for countries such as India and Sri Lanka that are plagued
with corruption?
I think RTI
is vital for the fight against corruption. If you don’t have transparency you
don’t have access to information. It’s only access to information that can
drive a transparent structure. You can do anything in a country with so many
inequalities, different regions and climactic conditions. All South Asian
countries face similar types of challenges. Society too has all kinds of issues
including gender and different access to power. So corruption and arbitrary
exercises raise many questions in the minds of the public. If you have
democracy as a system then it’s one of the most powerful ways in which you can
intervene in governance, ask questions, demand answers and give your opinion.
So it’s the first step to the world’s day-to-day participation. The vote allows
you participation once in five years and then you are lost. If you want to keep
your elected representative or bureaucracy accountable then RTI is not a
sufficient condition, but a very necessary one. RTI connects to an issue and
it’s a battle for removing the imbalances of power. In a democracy imbalance of
power is deadly and you need distributed power. So it’s a non-violent way of
change.
Q What
prompted you to be an RTI activist?
I come from a
privileged background; in fact from a liberal home which said that inequality
is wrong, poverty is terrible and that it was around me. It just made me want
to do something rather than saying it was wrong and terrible all the time. I
thought everything would come out of politics and then I understood that
democratic politics needs the development of a different kind of politics. That
didn’t lead me directly to RTI, but instead I worked with some poor people in a
little village in Rajasthan and they are the ones who fed me with the ideas.
They related how they are frustrated and showed me where the demands need to be
made, so that they would know the truth.
If civil
society agencies and the media could write about it, definitely it will reach
the public. It should be written in Sinhala and Tamil too
Q On what
issues have RTI being used in India?
When we began
back in 1992 or 1993 there was no talk about RTI except in certain rooms in
seminars. It was a long struggle first to get local government records which
took five or six years and then bringing about a state law which took another
four to five years and making it an Act took another five years. All the way
people used it, but saw the limitations of each law. I think Sri Lanka in many
ways has a better law than India. In some places it’s weaker, but in many
places it’s stronger. It started being used by ordinary people who were
demanding their rights for survival which included the right to food,
education, wages and their everyday things. People who have never attended
school understood the value of this Act. Even the Indian courts have
acknowledged it because the Indian law changed it from just a freedom of
expression issue to a right to life issue and a right to equality issue. This
is because you cannot ensure equal treatment until you know what’s happening.
Today it is used in a million things; the Prime Minister’s office, the
President’s office, the smallest pollution control board office and even
departments in ministries. It has been recorded that there are 70 lakhs of RTI
applications annually. If you can imagine each RTI application producing such a
reaction, 70 lakhs of applications are shaking up the system.
Q It’s
been a year since Sri Lanka enacted the RTI law and we have already reached
third place in the Global RTI Index. Your comments?
The Global
Index considers only the quality of law and not the quality of implementing.
That is something that needs to be monitored. Even in India, it was the quality
of law that was being evaluated. In India there are many shortcomings in implementation
and there are sheer numbers of the tenacity of people. In India more than 70
people have been killed as means of RTI usage. This shows how much it has
shaken up the system, but it also shows how sharp the reaction is. I think Sri
Lanka is in its early stages and what I feel is that it’s important to make
people aware of its usage. There are people out there with potential RTI
applications because they are frustrated, have various issues and have been
experiencing various vulnerable problems. In India RTI is now like a verb and
it means a lot of things because it’s about questioning, filing an RTI, getting
the records and so on. I think that popularization will take some time and for
this the media has to play a significant role. There will be a story in one
province or another which needs to come out, so that the others could be
inspired by it. In India when we started we were supported by several doyennes
of the media industry. They travelled with us and some of them even thanked the
ordinary people for fighting a battle the media should have fought. But even
when the law was fast enough certain journalists claimed that they have their
sources. Questions were raised as to who would wait for 30 days to get
information and so on. But today these sources would ask journalists to file an
RTI. In Sri Lanka a person could receive information within 14 days. But this
is the outer limit. There have been instances where we have received
information within half an hour. Certainly if there’s an issue that needs to be
written immediately, we cannot wait for an RTI.
Q What
benefits could the society and authorities reap in bringing about the proactive
disclosure of information?
For the
society as a whole it has a huge benefit because if the information is available
it has its own effect on preventing corruption. Websites and everything are now
turning into digital governance so you can easily make it available to everyone
at the click of a button. Data should be open, but it also should be usable.
Digital governance therefore allows you to produce those reports and allow
anyone to have access to them. That will make governance more efficient,
certainly allow people fight and prevent corruption and also make changes in
policy because more people could make informed choices.
Q How
could authorities be trained for this?
What we have
seen is that those training sessions end up being how you can deny information.
We don’t have that culture of transparency. We have a culture which asks why
they should answer a question, who are you to ask me etc. Therefore we need to
shift from a culture of secrecy to a culture of transparency. In that RTI and
proactive disclosure would help.
I think Sri
Lanka is in its early stages. I feel that it’s important to make people aware
of its usage. There are people out there with potential RTI applications
Q How
difficult was it to implement the law in India and what lessons could Sri Lanka
learn from it?
Still it’s
difficult. It involves continual resistance because the Government would want
to amend it and there are others who would give you half answers, delayed
answers, scare, threaten and intimidate you. When appeals start going to the
commissions they pile up there and people start getting fed up and it loses
credibility. We got it after a long struggle and we need to protect it. It’s
not a sufficient condition to change everything, but it is
absolutely
necessary.
Q As you
mentioned earlier, journalists and people who use RTI have risked their lives
to bring about a change. How should Governments respond to this situation?
The weakest
link we have seen is the Government. The Government acts as a progressive,
transparent leader that would say nobody should go to the commission and I
would file an action against any officer who denies or delays information. That
would be a good proactive, transparent administrator. But unfortunately the
Government says it will pass a law, it’s a mistake and let’s change it, find
ways around it and fight at the commission. Therefore it’s a continual battle
and if you get proactive disclosure systems in then nobody can prevent it as it
is automatic. It’s now like a grievance-regress mechanism, but you need a
follow-up and accountability mechanism. Governments have to go out, provide the
information, ask people for their opinions and take action.
Q The
concept of RTI is quite new to Sri Lanka. How could this be familiarised among
rural communities?
If civil
society agencies and the media could write about it, definitely it will reach
the public. It should be written in Sinhala and Tamil too. People should know
that there is a large civil society group backing them. There were attacks when
the Indian RTI law was being passed. It was a powerful law and they tried to
amend it within the first year, it was prevented. They tried to amend the rules
etc., but none of that has been successful so far. This is because there’s a
large group of people protecting it because it’s a people’s law.
Even the
Indian courts have acknowledged it because the Indian law changed it from just
a freedom of expression issue to a right to life issue and a right to equality
issue
Q Are
there instances when RTI could be misused as well?
Of course.
Any law can be misused particularly if it’s powerful. The main allegation
against RTI is that people could use it to blackmail people. If I know someone
is vulnerable and is doing something wrong, I can threaten them with an RTI or
I can file an RTI and publicise it. That has happened and because the person
concerned has done something wrong, they don’t want to complain.
The best
answer to that is proactive disclosure because if information comes out
automatically then how can blackmailing be done? Now a decision has been made
by the Government of India to make every RTI available appear on the website
including the answers. This way we could keep track of who is filing it and
using the information.
RTI is an
open process and in fact there are instances when people in jails have used RTI
and have freed themselves. Many have used it to seek justice; especially those
who have had wrong trials against them. You cannot argue against transparency
because where there is misuse you should act against it. I feel proud that Sri
Lanka has displaced India in this subject and a better competitor and
democratic governance is needed.