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Debate: What rights to information?
Reverting to another earlier piece. I'm sorry but I did not read in detail
this earlier discussion on Bunker Roy's article. First of all let us me
recap what I know about Bunker (for those who might not know him) whom I
have met on numerous occasions both in Tilonia in Rajasthan, in the
National Academy where he is a regular fixture, and in CAPART in New Delhi
where I had been on numerous occasions as Project Director of DRDA and
later, Director of Rural Developement and Panchayats, Assam.
Bunker is sincerity personified. Such dazzling sincerity and commitment to
India's poor in the villages is rarely to be seen. He was India's national
squash champion when he gave up a promising career to spend his life in
the villages. Nearly 25 years of service to rural India. And this man
knows the exact nature of the problems of corruption and mismanagement in
the field. When Bunker writes, India's rural development planners listen.
Unfortunately, the poliics of India has kept his good suggestions at bay
for many years.
Ratan: I think that Antony has very correctly stated that the villager
only 'knows' through rumours and that this is not quite a good situation.
The villager needs to actually see the records to know who took what money
from where (to the extent that this is feasible: since most corruption is
'off-the-record'). What Bunker (through MKSS?) is promoting is something
very vital. Remember, the fundamental principle or philosophy we have on
the web page (origin of powers), makes it clear that it is we - Indians,
who are owners of our government, which is only a contractor given the
task of providing us certain services. Clearly, therefore, the government
is duty bound to provide to the citizens, information on anything
(excluding national security issues, perhaps) that relates to them. The
govt. of Rajasthan cannot deny this information under any circumstance. If
it does that the government would violate the basic, implicit compact,
which legitimizes a government, and the citizens would have the right to
withdraw their support [if necessary by declaring a separate nation in
their village]. The question is how is this compact to be honored? Under
the current system, the citizens cannot directly call for the records.
That needs to be changed.
Let me illustrate. As the State Enquiry Officer in Assam, my
responsibility was to personally investigate (cause inquiry) into the
cases of corruption or other serious charges (such as derelection of duty)
against gazetted officers in Assam, including senior Police officers,
engineers, and State Civil service officers.
Without going into the procedure, and its outcome, let me focus on the
mechanism: Under this system, the assumption is that a government employee
is merely an employee of "government," the contracting agency, and not an
employee of the People. The model is as follows:
Owner of nation = people
Contractor of people = elected representatives = government
Contractor of government= officials (who are no longer full-
fledged citizens since their
fundamental rights of speech
and political participation are
completely eliminated)
In other words, a BDO or a Police O/C is not directly accountable to the
people, but only to the permanent body called government [the executive].
But unfortunately, the elected representatitives do not have any power to
call for the records of the BDO or the Police officers, either. In other
words, we have created this fictitious machine called 'government
servants' who are a de-feathered species of Indian citizens (without
rights to speak, for example), but who can only be investigated by
themselves. A Frankenstein, if I may say: completely untouched by the
People but supposed to provide all the services to the People. There is
clearly no systemic accountability in this system.
I, a villager, might be a fully-feathered citizen, and might elect Mr. X
to represent my interests in terms of providing security to my wife and a
school building for my children, but neither I nor Mr.X has any power to
either register a case if my wife or daughter who gets raped, or to find
out where the money meant for my village went. I cannot think of a more
impotent system than this to further my security, and my interests, as a
citizen of India. Who is the fool who devised this?
I - the villager of India - want **my** employees - government employees -
to be fully accountable to me, the citizen. I will pay them very well -
that I must, but at the end of it I must get not only security, but
justice, clean water and a school, etc.
Assuming that I pay them well (that is already in the manifesto), the next
question is: how do I, the villager, get this control over my employees?
So here I come to the practical part:
Today we have the right of information of the following nature:
* executive can look up all information of the executive
(either as an audit, or as an inquiry officer)
Clearly with this type of information, the incentive of the
'inquirer' is suspect, since he/she is not the primary stake-
holder. A villager whose school has not been constructed despite
sanction of funds, would be an excellent stake-holder for
purposes of verification of the village records. So let
us provide the rights to the immediate stakeholders and reduce
the monitoring costs.
* judiciary can look up all information in disputed cases, of the
executive, though it cannot call for it suo-moto.
The right that I need as a citizen is the following:
* The right of a person in general, to acceess the records of the
executive/ government.
The problems relate to its feasibility. Even in the advanced countries,
the Rights to information are restricted to the right to verify one's own
records in government. The US citizen does not have the right to go to the
Pentagon and randomly go into any office and look into any file that he or
she likes. There is a period of limitation after which such records are
available.
My suggestion - earlier expressed in the case of the Police station not
registering a rape case without a bribe - is that we need an intermediate
institution called a Local Board - for each government department or
office. For example, in the case of a Block Development Office, we should
create a local board of half a dozen members that comprises citizens
randomly selected out of the literate registered voters of the area, whose
members would be fully authorized to go into a BDO's office, and, without
any advance intimation, take stock of any file or paper that is found
there, without disrupting the smooth functioning of the office. In other
words, if a BDO were dealing with a particular file at a given moment,
then that file would not be available for 'inspection,' but other files
would be so avaialble.
This might not be the best solution either. My point is that Bunker is a
sincere person promoting the correct thing and to that extent I agree with
Antony on this, that this is not an attempt by Bunker or anyone to
dislodge a particular party. At the same time, I am very averse to vast
generalizations which do not take into account the feasibility of a
particular thing. For example, I contested the minimum wage concept not
only on theoretical grounds but very strongly in terms of its feasibility.
And I do not see the Rights to information very clearly yet, in terms of
the 'perfect' theoretical demand for perfect access to everyone of every
record.
When Joginder singh (the cbi man) wants all files to be published, we can
straight away shoot that idea out of sight. That is too costly. We are
interested in providing access. So let us do that:
DEBATE:
=======
Hence, I propose for the Agenda: "The rights to information would be of
two types:
a) Right of each citizen to DIRECTLY call for a copy of any record
maintained by government on that citizen.
b) Right of each citizen to INDIRECTLY - through a Local Board for each
government office - call for any non-sensitive record. There would be no
non-sensitive record in any department except the Home, Defence and
Finance departements. Even within these departments, records would have to
relate to really important and sensitive issues of internal security, in
order to be elegible for being labelled 'sensitive.' "
I'm putting the above in the Agenda. Any debates may please be raised by
offering an alternative phraseology, as usual.
SS
> Date: Wed, 8 Jul 1998 10:27:46 +0700
> From: Antony Joseph <antonyj@tm.net.my>
>
> Ratan: Are you implying that the villagers have privy to information now as
> against earlier? Or are you saying that they are aware there is corruption?
> If it is the latter the problem is still unresolved. Transparency and access
> to information can only bring more accountability and reduce corruption/
> increase efficiency of the Govt arm. Maybe we should work this into our
> policies if it is not already done.
>
> By the way this is no attempt to topple the BJP or any govt. Any political
> party is welcome to use the information compiled by this group (correct me
> if I am wrong) to help India acheive true democracy and economic freedom.
>
> Antony
>
> >
> >Date: Tue, 7 Jul 1998 22:35:26 +0000 (GMT)
> >From: "17.12.97" <rsingh@jp1.vsnl.net.in>
> >
> >All this writing on India as exemplified below is the foreign model being
> >imposed on rural Indians, because the truth in villages of India NOW is
> >different. It is this: The villager knows very well where the money went.
> >No need of written information from the government on this. Even the
> >politicians know it and the police knows it. It is perfectly transparent
> >open secret. But what next ? I suggest let the present BJP central govt.
> >work for 5 years. We in India do NOT want elections. We want ANY govt. to
> >continue. We in India are fed up of repeated elections. Ratan.
> >
> >On Mon, 6 Jul 1998 owner-india_policy@cinenet.net wrote:
> >
> >> Date: Mon, 6 Jul 1998 14:45:32 -0700 (PDT)
> >> From: Manjunath Somayaji <somayaji@rocketmail.com>
> >> Subject: Transparency in Bureaucracy
> >>
> >> This is a very good example and role model for anyone
> >> trying to introduce transparency in the Indian
> >> bureaucracy. However, criticisms and flaws in the
> >> method used below are encouraged. Ideas for other
> >> methods are also invited.
> >>
> >> Manjunath
> >>
> >> =======================================================
> >>
> >> THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION
> >> - Bunker Roy
> >>
> >> The crucial issue facing the rural poor today in India
> >> is very simple. Does a poor illiterate peasant,
> >> landless labourer, artisan and rural woman have a right
> >> to demand from the Government details of development
> >> expenditure carried out in their own village ? Do they
> >> have the right to ask for copies of bills and
> >> vouchers
> >> and names of persons who have been paid wages contained
> >> in 'muster rolls' on the construction of schools,
> >> dispensaries, small dams and community centres that on
> >> paper have been shown to have been completed? If they
> >> are willing to pay for these documents to be
> >> photocopied which could also serve as certified copies
> >> in case any police cases have to be registered against
> >> village officials or politicians for embezzlement,
> >> corruption or misappropriation, can the government
> >> refuse?
> >
> >....
> >
>
>
>
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