Continued from:
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The
RTI Act has been in force since 1997 when Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan enacted their versions.
Other states followed. Then there was Freedom of Information Bill (with much
diluted provisions) of 2000 which became a law in 2002 but the rules were
never notified.
The civil
society that had been struggling to enact a strong access to public information
law meanwhile, continued with its struggle that ultimately forced the
government to enact and notify the present RTI Act of 2005.
Now, when
the government was enacting this law, it would never have expected of the
consequences that is facing now given the empowering nature of the RTI Act. The
direct corollary that makes it evident is the government’s attitude towards the
Lokpal Bill.
What the
activists are demanding would be a much stronger tool than the RTI Act available
to the public to make the ruling class a real serving class, making them
directly accountable to the voters who elect them.
That has
led the government to frame a Lokpal Act (unlike the RTI Act) with
provisions that would serve their purpose in place of making their lives
vulnerable due to the continued tale of the widespread corruption they are a
more than a willing partner of.
Prior to
2005, we had not heard so loudly of something like RTI activism and the column
of activists armed with nothing but a law requiring simple documentation and
almost negligible monetary threshold to proceed and demand empowering the ordinary
man to access and make information public where public fund and government
machinery were involved.
Policymakers
have always underestimated the potential of the voters in this country and they
have been right most of the time except few occasions like the JP wave or the
failure of the ‘India Shining’ mirage of the National Democratic Alliance.
In 2005, while
enacting the RTI Act, the policymakers thought something like this probably,
the way Manmohan, his team, his political party and his coalition partners, have been making mockery of the spirit of democracy
and are resorting to the shameless denial of their shameful acts of corruption,
tells us this only. They are
underestimating the collective response of the voters once again, probably (or
arrogantly), baiting on the post-independence historical, ironical unresponsiveness
of the masses in this country.
Back then
in 2005, they had not expected such a widespread use of the Act by the people
they always ruled (and underestimated) otherwise they would never have notified
the Act before diluting it to suit their intent and purpose.
If the
post-2000 era saw big ticket scams riding on the big ticket economic growth, it
also saw more and more digging in about them post-2005 with the enactment of
the RTI Act. Almost every talked about corruption case today owes a major share
of revelations through the information accessed using the provisions of the RTI
Act. And it has made the scamsters and the policymakers in their garb
uncomfortable.
It is
said one learns from the mistakes made in the past and so the corrupt ruling
bunch is not ready to bite the dust once more by giving the ordinary man (the
voter) a Lokpal that would be able to put the ruling class (including
the ‘not-in-the-government’ politicians - collective unity of the political
class across the benches in derailing the Lokpal Bill tells us this) in the
dock on behalf of Manmohan’s ‘aam aadmi’.
Manmohan looks
adamant to kill the empowering spirit of the RTI Act. So often he talks about
how the RTI Act is being misused, but he seldom acknowledges the emancipation
that the Act has brought across the cadres of unnamed masses of the Indians. Recently,
his government had to drop a proposed amendment to the RTI Act after fear of electoral
loss in the season of elections and the public backlash in the season of activists
turning politicians.
RTI and
Lokpal – either by the enactment, the subsequent use and the ruling class’s
response (RTI) or by the efforts to derail the enactment (Lokpal) - these
two Acts unmask the unitary character and double standard of the political
parties across the party-line on issues of self-interest, probity and
corruption. While they come together to derail the Lokpal Bill, none of them is
ready to be put under the purview of the RTI Act.
In a
world driven by the market economy, the Indian economy is poised to generate
more, at least the in the near future, and so the ever increasing options to
amass the disproportionate assets.
Like in
the past, the ruling class will work in earnest to derail any such measure that
would be potent enough to derail their corrupt march.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com