Mritunjay Kumar chronicles the practical issues concerning the implementation of the RTI Act.
The RTI (Right To Information) Act has proved to be a great step for our democracy, but what of its uses? What of the difficulties people face while and after filing an RTI request? During the 3rd Prakash Kardalay Memorial function at the Institute of Engineers, Pune, the audience was enlightened on these questions by Vinita Kamte, author of the book “To the Last Bullet” and Magsasay Award winner for RTI Activism, Arvind Kejriwal.
A true journalist
Prakash Kardaley was very well known for his civic and community journalism. He always took up with community journalism as an effective tool to fight against the system. He was the first person to take up the issues related to human interest and environment in Pune. He ignited the fire among the citizens for the maters such as roads are penetrating through the hills and hence causing global warming and exploiting the nature. While working with the Indian Express, he re-established the term Civic Journalism. He preferred talking about the problems and troubling issues for the public instead of chronicling minor happenstances in the lives of politicos. Then to his relief came up the RTI Act and he again was established as a RTI activist. In a very strict manner, it can be quoted that he witnessed the transition in fighting for the human interest with and without RTI. On the third memorial lecture for his tribute came up Vinita Kamte and Arvind Kejriwal.
Truth denied
Vinita Kamte, wife of late IPS officer Ashok Kamte, who died fighting terrorists during the 26/11 attacks, spoke of her experience with the RTI Act during her quest for the truth behind her husband’s death. Vinita took charge of revealing how and exactly what happened at the dreadful night of 26/11 through RTI. She challenged the system, asked for all the call log records from the walkie-talkies that were carried by the three brave heart officers and also the exact charge sheets of what happened. She demanded also for the control room call log records and to her surprise she was clearly denied. She was even refused the post mortem reports of her husband and even those were procured through RTI. But she fought till she was through with it all and penned down the complete sequence of incidences that occurred on that night near Cama Hospital, where her husband lost his life.
With the help of her journalist friend, Vinita Deshmukh, who is now editor of the weekly, Intelligent Pune. Together, they could rip apart the system in front of the common man to know in the form of her book, To The Last Bullet. The speech entailed descriptions of her experience with Senior Police officials and the vague and shaky descriptions she received when she enquired about her husband’s situation at the time of his death.
“I was treated to ever changing descriptions and the way officials remarked about Ashok and his colleagues, was extremely insensitive. The manner in which we treat our martyrs is downright shameful,” she said.
Speaking of her book, she said, “I am now at peace with myself. My idea behind the book was to reach out to people and I believe I managed that. Today, it’s possible for me to stand here and know the truth about what happened because of the RTI Act. It is a great tool for the people of this country.”
While Vinita Kamte spoke of her experience with the RTI act, and how it helped her get to the truth, RTI Activist Arvind Kejriwal, spoke of the act in itself and how the people filing RTI requests faced problems.
The long crusade
Speaking of the problems and attacks faced by RTI activists, he spoke of the proposal of a “Whistle blowers’ Protection Act” and how it might not help activists at all in the current state of affairs. “The problem lies not in the absence of such laws, but the inability and absence of people and authorities to implement them. Even if such a Whistle blowers’ Protection act is passed, it will be of no use as most of the authorities who would be implementing them are corrupt. More important than the existence of any such act is the political will and unity of the people to stop corruption. Without it, any number of such acts will be useless,” he explained.
Continuing his speech, he outlined one of the main issues concerning RTI: the lack of power to the people. “We file an RTI application, get the information, but then what next? With this act, we only have the right to gain information. Not any power to do anything, as most of the authorities who we can approach are corrupt themselves. RTI gave us only the power to question and gain information. Not the power to act. There is a serious need for political power for out people to act,” he said.
He explained how the Indian public hasn’t any control over government revenue, laws and authorities by giving examples of the Commonwealth Games preparations in Delhi and how extravagant expenses were being made to decorate the city while people faced water scarcity, no electricity and widespread ration problems.
“We have a very strange democracy in our country. Democracy in our country is activated only once every 5 years during the elections. The solution to this problem would be to give control of the Government to the people byway of Nagar Raj or Mohulla Sabha,” he said.
The concept of Mohulla Sabha, Kejriwal explained, was a unique one in which the population of a single limited sized area was responsible for and took decisions regarding their problems. ” In this scenario, the public decides their problems and how the authorities should go about them. If the authorities fail to act, the public decides not to pay them their salaries or other types of punitive action. The proceedings are usually done through a councilor present on the scene and the Sabha meets at a per-designed schedule,” he explained.
Kejriwal supported this concept by giving examples of Mohulla Sabhas in areas of Delhi and how the system functioned smoothly and successfully. For this he asked the Puneites to come together and start Mohalla Sabhas. The near future of these meetings is that “A bill to be presented in a Vidhan Sabha would first be presented in Mohalla Sabha.”
Ending his speech, Kejriwal said, “There are no engagement platforms in our democracy for the people, authorities and leaders to interact. Real democracy can only be achieved through direct and seamless communication and by giving power to the people. Our democracy should be activated 24x7x365. Not once in 5 years.”
