The Indian Express: Budgam: Tuesday, August 15, 2017.
"RTI
gave me voice and I felt a sense of empowerment," Sheikh said. "This
area has witnessed more development since people started filing RTI
applications,” Rasool, the founder of the Jammu and Kashmir RTI Movement said.
Five days a
week, 45-year-old Ghulam Mohiudin Sheikh is quietly at work as a carpenter. On
the weekends, he dons a new hat and seeks to change people’s lives. Sheikh, a
preacher-cum-faith healer over the weekends, has now found a novel way to solve
people’s problems. Apart from the amulet that Peer Sahab, as he is generally
known, gives the believer, he files a Right to Information (RTI) application
wherever needed.
“People come
to me with all sorts of issues – health, education, employment and other
personal matters and I give them a ‘taveez’ (amulet). But apart from these
problems, they have administrative grievances such as not getting rations,
acquiring a BPL ration card and so on,” he said. It is for problems such as
these that he files an RTI, addressing people’s issues on developmental work,
benefits under central or state schemes or allowances under welfare funds. “A
‘taveez’ cannot possibly prove helpful there,” Sheikh told PTI.
Sheikh would
wonder what he could do to resolve people’s problems. Then, in 2006, he heard
about the role of the RTI at a meeting with Shaikh Ghulam Rasool, the founder
of the Jammu and Kashmir RTI Movement, an organisation working for RTI
awareness in the state. “He asked me to join the RTI Movement to help my
followers and expose corruption in the district because he saw that I could
influence many people,” said Sheikh, who earns a daily wage as a carpentry
worker on weekdays. He participated in Rasool’s training workshops to become an
RTI activist and has since been advising and training others on when and how to
file RTI applications.
People throng
his single-storey house in the scenic Pannard village in this central Kashmir
district, about 25 km from Srinagar, every weekend. Sheikh said he trains
around 30 RTI activists every week. “RTI is my new amulet and I prescribed this
new treatment to people who come to me with administrative issues,” he said.
Rasool
described Sheikh as one of the pioneers of RTI activism in Kashmir and said he
had turned it into a grassroots revolution in the Valley. “He has trained
almost 12,000 people. He has created an army of sorts of RTI activists. No
other district has as much RTI awareness as Budgam and it is because of him. He
has created a grassroots revolution,” Rasool told PTI.
It was
Sheikh’s work on RTI that led to his election as a sarpanch in 2011 when
Panchayat polls were held in the state after decades. Sheikh said he realised
the real power of the RTI Act after filing a query in the office of a Block
Development Officer (BDO), seeking details on beneficiaries of the IAY (now
Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awaas Yojana, earlier known as Indira Awaas Yojana) in
Budgam. “Days after I filed the RTI, a man came to me with a cheque of Rs
25,000. It was a bribe for withdrawing the application. I refused, but that is
when I realised the real power of the RTI. It gave me voice and I felt a sense
of empowerment,” he said. After some days, he got a reply to his application
and found that government officials and people close to politicians were on the
list of IAY beneficiaries. “The list was then cancelled and only deserving
beneficiaries got IAY cheques,” he said.
Rasool said
Sheikh had helped many women get their widow welfare fund, school children had
been given scholarships and developmental work was in progress in the area.
“This area has witnessed more development since people started filing RTI
applications,” Rasool said. The claims were visible on the ground, with more
pucca roads in the areas than elsewhere in the district.
Sheikh
recounted some cases where the RTI helped him and the people. “An RTI query to
the Social Welfare Department revealed that unmarried girls were getting
monthly welfare fund as widows. This happened when a widow came to me for a
‘taveez’ to help her get grants from a welfare fund,” he said. Instead of
giving her a charm, he filed an RTI application on her behalf in the Social
Welfare Department. “Some days later, the reply came. We found that many
unmarried women were listed as beneficiaries for a fund meant for aged people
and widows. We took it up with the authorities and then the deserving,
including the widow who came to me, got their benefits,” he said.
A local
resident, Nisar Ahmad, said it was because of Sheikh that the area had witnessed
widespread development. “It is all because of Peer sahab and the RTI. He has
brought in a revolution and changed the way people think. He has changed the
way the administration works here,” Ahmad said. Rasool said the government
should create more awareness about the RTI in the state and help people such as
Sheikh by way of fellowships for their exemplary work and zeal.
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