Firstpos:
New Delhi: Saturday, October 13, 2012.
Shine a light
in any dark crevice, and you will find an assortment of creepy-crawlies
scurrying out. Creatures that thrive in the dark resent the incandescent light,
and consider it an invasion of their ‘privacy’. Which is why the arachnids and
arthropods that flourish in the dark are now asking for the illuminating torch
to be snuffed out. And, much to his shame, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has
joined the chorus of the invertebrates in arguing for the lights to be dimmed.
Addressing
the annual convention of information commissioners on Friday, Manmohan Singh
gave voice to his thoughts on how the Right to Information Act, which has been
used by activists across the country to shine a probing light into the dark
corners of governance, was being
used. And although he acknowledged that
the Right to Information provision, which has been in force for seven years
now, had “contributed in very large
measure… for ensuring greater probity, greater transparency and greater
accountability in the work of public authorities,” he was merely leading up to
a case for diminishing its intensity.
Manmohan
Singh‘s speech (which can be read in full here) was a masterly exposition in
the art of damning with faint praise. After a preamble in which he paid
lip-service to how good the RTI was, he neatly segued into an argument calling
for restraints on invocation of citizens’ right to solicit information under
the RTI on several counts. The RTI, he said, was being subjected to far too
much “frivolous and vexatious” use:
information whose disclosure could not possibly serve any public purpose
was being demanded. “Such queries, besides serving little productive social
purpose, are also a drain on the resources of the public authorities, diverting
precious man-hours that could be put to better use.”
The point
about the use of RTI to secure frivolous information that ties down information
officers without serving a larger public service is not entirely without merit.
Even the public interest litigation (PIL) channel, which was intended to lower
the bar for access to judicial intervention on public matters, has been abused
by self-serving busybodies: for instance, publicity seekers frequently resort
to the PIL route to challenge celebrities on frivolous grounds (such as
dishonouring the national flag, as happened with Sachin Tendulkar, Sania Mirza,
Shah Rukh Khan, Anna Hazare, and Mandira Bedi, when in fact no dishonour was
intended). But these are aberrations that happen merely on the margins, and do
not make a case for the dilution of the PIL or the RTI provision in their entirety.
Far more
insidious was Manmohan Singh’s suggestion that providing information under the
RTI may possibly amount to infringement
of “personal privacy”. The citizens’ right to know, Manmohan Singh said,
“should definitely be circumscribed if disclosure of information encroaches
upon someone else’s personal privacy.”
Two parallel
narrative strands provide context to Manmohan Singh’s invocation of the ‘right
to privacy’ argument in order to recommend curtailing citizen’s rights under
the RTI.
First, the
definition of what ought to be considered ‘private’ has been perverted in
recent times by the UPA government. Indicatively, when the allegations against
Sonia Gandhi‘s son-in-law Robert Vadra, and his very profitable transactions
with real estate developeer DLF surfaced (after information on Vadra’s
companies were sought under the RTI), the government – and its galaxy of
ministers – came out swinging in defence of Vadra, even though they
characterised the DLF-Vadra transactions as between two ‘private’ entities.
But in fact,
as has been established, Vadra benefited unduly from DLF’s uncharacteristic
generosity of spirit merely on the
strength of the fact that he is who he is:
Sonia Gandhi‘s son-in-law, with all the possibilities of
influence-peddling that that familial status comes with in a political culture
where even satellites of power centres enjoy tremendous power.
If Manmohan
Singh’s suggestion for tempering the RTI to protect “privacy” became law, it
would raise the barrier on whistle-blowing of the sorts that happened in Robert
Vadra‘s case.
More
perversely, the government has proved excessively prickly particularly in
matters relating to the affairs of the First Family of Indian politics.
Activist Madhu Kishwar’s experience of trying to secure information on the
details of Rahul Gandhi‘s foreign trips is illustrative.
Kishwar
recalls (here) that she filed the RTI application only after a rant by a
Congress leader who said that Rahul Gandhi‘s “mysterious lifestyle” – “forever
running abroad”, not disclosing details of his comings and goings or of whom he meets abroad – was demoralising
the party cadres. But her application was batted away without sufficient cause
or reason, and she has filed an appeal. But as Kishwar argues (here), Rahul
Gandhi is not a private citizen, but an elected MP answerable to citizens. More
strikingly, he is a prime ministerial aspirant and arguably the most
influential person in the Congress party, next to his mother Sonia Gandhi. He
influences government policy, and to that extent, citizens have a right to put
his public dealings to scrutiny. Nor would the revelation of such information
compromise Rahul Gandhi’s – or the nation’s – security.
Yet, the UPA
government has been resolutely opposing such disclosures. And Manmohan Singh is
now setting the stage for an abridgement
of citizens’ right to invoke the RTI on grounds of protecting
individuals’ privacy.
Nor is the
government alone in this enterprise. Even the Supreme Court has in recent times
been batting for ring-fencing more and more information from RTI scrutiny. It
recently ruled that the details of income tax returns filed by a person were
beyond the ambit of the RTI (more
here). And even State governments are
looking to slow-poison the RTI by denying much of the information sought (as
this report notes).
The irony is
that today, it is far more easy to secure the income tax returns of Barack
Obama (here) or Mitt Romney (here) than of our own netas. Such disclosures do
not amount to “invasion of privacy”, but are an important pillar of
transparency and openness that ought to characterise democracies. Instead, the
effort in India, as Manmohan Singh’s latest suggestion shows, is to build higher walls of “privacy” in order to shield
our netas – and their sons-in-law – from public scrutiny.
The UPA
government certainly deserves credit for throwing open the doors of governance
and introducing the RTI provision seven
years ago. The fact that many an RTI activist has been killed in these past
seven years for exposing corruption and otherwise shining the light on the dark
crevices of public life is testimony to
its efficacy. But the government’s ongoing effort to abridge the space
in which the RTI operates on specious grounds of protecting ‘privacy” amount to
slow-killing the RTI. Particularly given the government”s recent record of
shielding corruption in high places, it shows up its mala fide intentions.
.JPG)
.JPG)
