The Hindu: National: Sunday, January 28, 2018.
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| Nevergreen: Tosa Maidan on a peaceful day | Photo Credit: Nissar Ahmad |
Where the
citizen-government gap is bridged by using the RTI Act for administrative
reforms
April 18,
2014 is a day the shepherds around Budgam town near Srinagar will not forget.
This was the day when Tosa Maidan a vast pasture that shepherds from seven
districts traditionally grazed their livestock in was reclaimed from the Indian
Army.
Leased out to
the Army in 1964, Tosa Maidan or ‘the king of the meadows’ had been turned into
a firing range, a hazardous place where landmines often went off, killing or
seriously maiming herdsmen.
Reclaiming
grounds
It was only
in 2009 that Sheikh Ghulam Rasool, chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Right to
Information (RTI) movement and a government doctor in Srinagar, became aware of
the residents’ predicament. “I visited Shunglipora (in Budgam district) to
conduct a health camp and found that every third woman there was a widow of a
shepherd who had died in Tosa Maidan,” he said. That was when the doctor
decided to bring together people of the area to demand justice.
He roped in
Pir Sheikh Ghulam Moinuddin, a faith-healer popular with the villagers, to
rally support. “I trained the Pir and some local people to use RTI and obtain
data to challenge local authorities,” Dr. Rasool said. Soon the Tosa Maidan
Bachao Front was born.
In 2014, when
the Army’s lease came close to expiring, the people began to pressure the local
authorities to not renew it. They filed RTIs to get hold of official documents
and put together figures on deaths of shepherds from landmine blasts to
strengthen their cause. The local revenue department relented and annulled the
lease.
In Jammu and
Kashmir, where public confidence in the government is very low, the RTI Act has
given citizens an opportunity to meaningfully engage with the government. While
the rest of India got the RTI Act in 2005,
the law was
adopted in J&K only in 2008. However, the law here has stronger provisions.
For instance, information appeals filed with the State Information Commission
(in cases where RTI queries are not answered by the intended government
departments) have to be disposed within 60 days. This time-bound delivery
system has helped with speedy redress and encouraged several citizens to come
forward to seek crucial information.
In 2013-14,
as many as 29,846 RTI requests were received by various public authorities, an
impressive 40-fold rise from 2009-10 when only 741 RTI requests were received.
Said
Venkatesh Nayak, Coordinator of the Access to Information Programme at
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), “By pelting stones or pursuing
separatist agendas, ordinary citizens cannot hope to resolve their day-to-day
grievances or secure their basic entitlements from the government. This is
where the RTI Act comes in.”
Kashmir’s
information warriors
CHRI has
conducted training workshops for both RTI activists and government departments
on how to make the most of the law. The spontaneous people’s movement has seen
around 20-25% women members and several representatives from the younger
generation, many of them school dropouts. “The best thing about the movement is
that everyone volunteers, and activists pay the RTI application fees out of their
own pockets,” Nayak said.
Hanifa, who
represents the Bakarwal Gujjar community in Khansaheb tehsil of Budgam, filed
an RTI in November 2016 to find out details of funding allocations in the
MNREGA programme in her village. She received only partial information, and
went on to appeal to the State Information Commission. Significantly, the
district officials have begun to provide employment to her community under the
MNREGA, something they had not done so far.
Several
citizens are using the law to fix problems in the public distribution system,
to follow up on insurance claims or to challenge the encroachment of forest
land by real-estate developers.
The movement
has also empowered those seeking justice against atrocities committed on
citizens by the security establishment.
In July,
2017, Adeela Shah, a young law student in Srinagar, filed an RTI with the Jammu
and Kashmir High Court seeking
details of
cases quashed under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978 (PSA),
considered a draconian law allowing for preventive detention of citizens.
Demanding
to know
The RTI
response revealed that of the 941 petitions filed in the court for quashing
charges framed under the PSA since March 2016, as many as 764 orders were
approved for quashing: this revealed how most charges framed under the law
could not stand up to judicial scrutiny.
RTI activists
have also sought information on disappearances, pellet injuries sustained by
citizens, and extra-judicial killings.
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| RTI activists visiting the State Information Commission in Srinagar |
Moinuddin
unearthed corruption in the distribution of the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) funds
meant for building houses for the poor. Speaking a few months ago at the fifth
National RTI convention organised by the National Campaign for People’s Right
to Information (NCPRI), he recalled: “The first RTI I filed was with the Block
Development Officer (BDO) in Budgam, demanding to know who the beneficiaries of
the IAY programme were.”
The officer
initially refused to give the details. Instead, the BDO offered Moinuddin a
cheque for Rs.25,000 to take back his RTI, he claims. “I told him I did not
need his money, I just needed the information.”
Finally, the
information was released and it revealed that local MLAs were using IAY funds
to favour residents who voted for them and that Below Poverty Line families
weren’t necessarily the beneficiaries.
However,
citizens have not always succeeded in getting the information they seek.
Requests have been denied under section 8(1) (a) of the RTI Act, citing
security reasons. Also, post offices remain shut on many days due to the
security situation, because of which citizens are unable to post RTI
applications. Besides, for a large State like J&K there are only three
information commissioners available; the last Annual Report was put out by the
State Information Commission in 2013-14.
But despite
these hurdles, as Moinuddin said, staying silent has not been an option for
Kashmir’s information warriors. He quotes Iqbal: Ye khamosh mizaji tumhe jeene
nahi degi/ Is daur mein jeena hai to kohra macha do.
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