The New Indian Express: New
Delhi: Sunday, June 09, 2013.
The ruling of
the Central Information Commission (CIC) to bring the political parties under
the ambit of the Right to Information (RTI) Act seems to have achieved what the
gravest national crisis may have failed to achieve. It has united parties
across the political spectrum in vehement opposition to a move which the entire
civil society has hailed as a small step towards removing the opaqueness of the
political system.
While the
government has said that it is “examining” the CIC order and would take into
account the concern expressed by political parties, the Congress party ruling
at the Centre has dubbed it as “adventurism” that would harm democratic
institutions. The CPI(M) feels that the decision is based on a fundamental
misconception about the role of political parties in a parliamentary democracy
and the Janata Dal (United) insists that political parties cannot be treated as
shops.
The petulance
with which most political parties have reacted to the ruling underlines the
inner contradictions within India’s political system. Having become accustomed
to operating in an opaque political landscape, where some of them are being run
as personal fiefdoms of an individual or a family, they fear the CIC is opening
floodgates of long overdue reforms in the political system which they had
resisted all along.
The order is
based on the logic that the big political parties are “public authorities” because
they are “substantially financed” by the Central government and enjoy access to
prime real estate and broadcast time, all of which draw from the public
exchequer, and to that extent, they should be accountable to the general
public. The CIC has rightly taken note of the criticality of the role being
played by these parties in our democratic set-up in arriving at the decision.
The nature of duties performed by them also points towards their public
character and justifies bringing them in the ambit of Section 2(h) of the RTI
Act.
Though it is
unclear how the issue will pan out in the long term, the CIC’s order has once
again brought the spotlight on the need to ensure accountability of political
parties to the people whose aspirations they claim to articulate. Currently,
the management of our political parties is like a black box. There are many
pieces of information about the functioning of political parties which are
crucial, but are not available in public domain. In a democracy the governments
are formed on the basis of the informed choice of the electorate. They have
every right to know how the parties that seek their mandate function, what the
sources of their finances are and how they arrive at decisions that would
impact the lives of millions.
It is absurd
to contend that bringing political parties under RTI will destroy the political
system. During the last seven years of its operation, no democratic institution
has collapsed due to enforcement of the law. Rather, RTI has led to the
beginning of the process of their cleaning.
Welcome as
the CIC order is, its effectiveness will be severely tested by the cussedness
of the political parties and their resistance to reform. In the past also
political parties across the spectrum have joined hands to resist or delay
moves that are in public interest but restrict vested interests of the
political class. The way they have ganged up on the issue of electoral reforms
is a case in point.
It is common
knowledge that ceiling on election related expenditure, determined by the
Election Commission (EC), is egregiously violated in the full glare of the
public. The EC is notionally equipped to penalise, even disbar, parties that
are in blatant violation of election laws. However, in a recent case of paid
news against former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan, the ruling
establishment has told the Supreme Court that the commission is only entitled
to seek details of such election expenditure and not scrutinise it or go into
its truthfulness.
The CIC’s
ruling is just a small step towards making the political system more
transparent. In itself, it is unlikely to change the way political parties are
being run. However, it has underlined the need for change. Since the political
parties themselves may not be too eager to initiate it, it is for the civil
society to launch a movement for revamping the electoral system and empowering
the EC to ensure that the political parties function in a transparent and
democratic manner.
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