A private agenda

I think that the Right to Information Act...enable(s) us to fulfil to a considerable degree, Bapu’s dream...

On May 11, 2005, intervening in a parliamentary debate on the citizen’s right to information (RTI), Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had made a passionate appeal for the new RTI law: “At the centre of this intricate web (of democratic polity) is the common man, the aam aadmi, whose prosperity and welfare is the core concern of our Constitution. It is this common man or common woman who is the fulcrum of our democratic system, as an observer, as the seeker of information, as the one who asks relevant questions, as the analyst and as the final judge of our performance.”

Earlier this month, a week after leader Arvind Kejriwal, of the movement called India Against Corruption used RTI data to implicate Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra, in a real estate deal, the prime minister said: “There are some obvious areas of concerns about the way the Right to Information Act is being used presently... There are concerns about frivolous and vexatious use of the Act in demanding information the disclosure of which cannot possibly serve any public purpose.”

It would indeed be easy to read this as a reaction to the October 5 exposé of the growing pelf of Mr Vadra and his amazing dealings. But it must be conceded that the prime minister had occasion: it was at the seventh annual convention of the RTI law. But what does give cause for concern is his plan to restrict the operation of the law on grounds of protecting “personal privacy” of the citizen. “The citizens’ right to know should definitely be circumscribed if disclosure of information encroaches upon someone’s personal privacy.” However, in 2006, celebrating the first year of the RTI law, Mr Singh had held: “...the right to know is the most fundamental of all those rights, which are critical for upholding human dignity.” This is a different man speaking, a man tried and tired by governance.

Though he now allows that “where to draw the line is a complicated question”, his government is already moving on a new legislation, The Privacy Bill, to protect privacy. Prime Minister Singh and his Congress colleagues, who were out in full and furious form to protect Robert Vadra on television, have their task cut out. To start with, member countries of the United Nations unanimously resolved 60 years ago, to promote freedom of information as a fundamental human right. On the question of right to privacy, the Supreme Court of India has repeatedly held that while it is a fundamental right, it is subject to conditions and to be decided on a “case by case” basis; especially, in cases involving the public interest. What is Mr Singh’s real case here?

About a million RTI queries were filed before the Union government alone in the last year. This is empowerment and the citizens subscribe to it. Where is the man who had pleaded before parliament in 2005? “I have always believed — all power is a sacred societal trust — that you cannot sit on power, you have to spend it, but you must spend it taking into account the good of the largest number of people... I would only like to see that everyone, particularly our civil servants, should see the Bill in a positive spirit; not as a draconian law for paralysing the government, but as an instrument for improving government-citizen interface resulting in a friendly, caring and effective government functioning for the good of our people.” This is not even the man who said in 2008, at another RTI convention: “It is (a) revolutionary enactment that has placed huge powers in the hands of the ordinary citizen of the country to demand a transparent and accountable administration. This transition from a tradition of secrecy in official matters has of course not been easy. It has involved not only the setting up of an appropriate institutional mechanism but also a change in the mindset of public servants.” But all that these years of governance have done is to change the mindset of the prime minister.

Perhaps, this has something to do with private citizen Robert Vadra, after all. The Wikipedia entry on Mr Vadra shows a troubled and tragic family history, but he continues to retain his mysterious powers. An RTI reply from the ministry of home affairs shows he “has been granted exemption from pre-embarkation security checks at all civil airports in the country on the recommendation of this ministry as a special case as he is married to a SPG protectee, i.e. Smt Priyanka Vadra, in consultation with central security agencies (sic).”

The only other special case in that list comprising the President of India and other state dignitaries is the Dalai Lama.

Surely, Mr Vadra is not Mr Singh’s idea of the common man? At the first anniversary of the RTI law in 2006, this very same prime minister had said: “Mahatma Gandhi had once observed, ‘real Swaraj will come not by the acquisition of authority by a few, but by the acquisition of capacity by all to resist authority when abused.’ In many ways, I would like to think that the Right to Information Act...enable(s) us to fulfil to a considerable degree, Bapu’s dream... What is of particular satisfaction is that it has become clear that the citizens of our country have owned this Act with their arms wide open. This has become, if anything, a Peoples’ Law.” So what is the problem now?

Published in The Express Tribune, October 26^th, 2012.