RTI: What is lacking, awareness or action?

WALKING DOWN the lane Jim saw a manhole, and said to Ted walking by his side that there was nothing commendable that the government was doing. They discussed it for over two hours stopping only when they saw a child fall in the manhole. It set Jim wondering if his doing something could have spared the child this hurt. But all he had done was criticize the government! The basic Indian tendency is reflected in this incident. After all the government has not landed from Mars, they are from amongst us Indians.

This implies that if we, as citizens of this country, say something to the government, indirectly, it is a question aimed at our own judgment. The UPA government has passed a law, 'Right to information' and yet the masses haven’t even been able to spread awareness amongst themselves. Passed in October 2005, it has come to the notice of people just lately, and I am sorry to say, but being an adult with a role to play in the future of the country, I was one of those many 'uninformed' people.

Generally, the laws and the bills passed through the governing bodies benefit the State. This act has been the first of its kind when the control is on the other side of the fence. Section 4 of RTI empowers a layman to simply barge into a government office and ask for “Inspection of Files”.

The recent years have seen a gradual rise in the number of ‘Suo Moto’ applications and a burgeoning enthusiasm and questioning power in the citizens. This has already proved a deterrent to many officials with intentions of corruption. The RTI process is very crystal clear in its terms, dos and don’ts. The Act allows you to apply for anything that you find is not going according to how it should be, you have to write an application to the authorities questioning them.

You can’t blame them for not doing a certain thing or doing it the wrong way. More than half the time, the officials distract you either by misleading information or by not giving it at all. The section 6 and section 4 give us the right to question and at the same time, section 8 regulates the kind of information you can ask for. Often the officials justify their “not giving the information” as threat to national security and integrity under section 8.

Another pull back baggage attached to the act is the application has to be very precise and must end within 150 words. If a person has a query that can’t end in 150 words, he can’t apply. After all this application sending and waiting period of some 45 days, if you still don’t get satisfactory justification, you can make an appeal to the appellate authority above that officer.

Masses have woken up to some extent and are waking up to the fact that if you don’t start questioning now, you will never get an answer. In Bangalore, Coalition against Corruption is a smaller but very effective effort undertaken by Guru Ravindranath. They have filed applications and even won a few of them. Pune is moving towards RTI through Intelligent Pune, a weekly. In Delhi, however, the approximation says that only one official was found guilty and was punished in last five years with a meager penalty of Rs.500. To add up to the misery of it all, the accused official himself confessed. But still the silver lining to the cloud appears each time a ‘Suo Moto’ is applied for.