Issue :   
Happy New Year 2020 to all Readers.          January 2020 Edition of Power Politics is updated.
Issue:Jan' 2020

FRANKLY SPEAKING

Towards building an
“Informatics Society”

Hari Jaisingh

T he most critical area of good governance is the flow of information, and that too right information and not tailored to facesaving devices of the powers-that-be. Though the right to information for citizens is not enshrined in the Constitution, the Right to Information Act of 2005 is a vital instrument to bring about transparency and accountability in the system.
Looking at the slow moving economy under the Narendra Modi regime, it is a pity that most politicians, particularly belonging to the ruling class, do not have proper appreciation of national economic goals.

As for bureaucrats, they either play safe or tend to be status-quoist. In any case, the bureaucracy is mostly politicised and hence its role tends to be partisan. Once a civil servant gets into the clutches of an undesirable politician, he becomes vulnerable. Good governance suffers, in the process, to the advantage of unscrupulous persons.

Those better informed, know what is what and what goes on behind the ruling coterie. The average citizen has probably no idea about who is behind whom! The problem in today’s governance is that there is no element of fear of law.

As it is, decent persons dare not question the operations of the ruling clique, howsoever undesirable. Intolerance of the voices of dissent and muzzling of all those who refuse to toe the line set by the ruling dispensation seem to be becoming the order of the day. The writing on the wall is clear. We must reverse the drift in good governance and the people’s right to truthful information flow which alone can strengthen the spirit of democracy.

Of course, the power of citizens got a big boost from the 2005 Right to Information Act. It helped ordinary citizens feel empowered and equipped with some means to take on corruption and corrupt persons. However, what has of late been disquieting is the chipping away of certain provisions of the RTI Act through amendments.

For example, new rules have downgraded the office of the chief and other information commissioners at the Centre and in the states through July 2019 amendments to the 2005 RTI Act. These rules have reduced their tenure from five years to three. They have also cut down salary and perks of the CICs and ICs at both Centre and the States. Their objective apparently is to weaken the Act and undermine the citizens’ powers vis-àvis governmental authorities.

Amit Shah Union Home Minister Amit Shah has reportedly said that the government wants to put out as much information in the public domain as possible in order to reduce the need for RTI applications. The question may be asked: why? We know well enough the government loves to conduct itself secretly. It hardly cares to match citizens’ wish to know about the process of decision-making of a specific matter.
Be that as it may. One heartening development has been bringing the Chief Justice of India’s office under the RTI Act. On November 13, the Supreme Court ruled that the CJI’s office is “a public authority” under the RTI Act. The five-judge Constitution Bench then upheld a Delhi High Court ruling of 2010 and dismissed three appeals by the Secretary General and the Central Public Information Officers (CPIO) of the apex court. It may be recalled that the Supreme Court in 2010 petitioned itself challenging the Delhi High Court order.

While ruling that the office of the CJI is a public authority, the Supreme Court held that RTI cannot be used as “a tool of surveillance” and that judicial independence has to be kept in mind while dealing with transparency. The CBI, however, is still out of the RTI’s ambit. The CBI case is pending before the apex court. However, my moot point is: how about “public authority” of various democratic institutions. They have to be brought in the RTI Act network.

Looking on a larger canvas of citizens’ right to know, I wish to recall the observation of Justice Ranjan Gogoi a day before his retirement on November 17. He said “Ordinary freedoms are finely balanced in our institutional functioning — while you have the bar whose members can exercise their freedom of speech to the extent even pushing boundaries of such freedom, the bench requires its judges to maintain silence while exercising their freedoms.

He further observed, “this is not to say that judges do not speak. They do speak, but do so only out of functional necessity and not more.” Bitter truths must remain in memory, he declared.

Justice Ranjan Gogoi I find this remark of Justice Ranjan Gogoi somewhat intriguing. If “bitter truths”, sooner or later, do not come out of the judge’s memory, how shall we be able to fill the gaps in fair and transparent functioning of the judiciary?
Notwithstanding good intentions of judges, they need to constantly keep in mind the desirability of transparency and accountability of both judicial and non-judicial powers of our institutions.
Broadly speaking, we know what is wrong where. It is also true that we are heading towards building “informatics society”. Still, the harsh reality is that right information is controlled and twisted out of shape by the vested interests having the sole aim of spreading misinformation for their ends. Thus, in reality, people do not get right information as well as the requisite awareness about the advantages that power-wielders derive from the faulty system.

Broadly speaking, we know what is wrong where. It is also true that we are heading towards building “informatics society”. Still, the harsh reality is that right information is controlled and twisted out of shape by the vested interests having the sole aim of spreading misinformation for their ends. Thus, in reality, people do not get right information as well as the requisite awareness about the advantages that powerwielders derive from the faulty system.

Take, for example, the Official Secrets Act of 1923 is used indiscriminately by the authorities to keep the level of information at its lowest, while providing a shield for culpable powerful persons to hide behind it. In fact, power is often used by them “to criminally and legally” victimize those who are basically powerless.

A civilized order, however, would expect a harmonious approach to life and society. For this, we have to find proper answers to strengthen the areas of transparency, accountability and fair play in the system against all the odds. All that I can say: justice has to be done and seen to be done. Similarly, an exemplary punishment has to be given and seen to be given to those who play with the system to their advantage.

This should be possible. All that is required is building a viable governance system of checks and balances to ensure accountability of power-wielders. The challenge before us is one of evolving the right “form” for the desired “function”. For this purpose, the battle of ideas and communication as well as the urge for sharing experience must continue. Indeed, the right of information is too precious to be messed up, wittingly or unwittingly, by making shady characters custodians of a sort!