A National Seminar war held to mark 10 years of RTI on the Constitution Day on 26th November, 2015. Former Information Commissioner, Central Information Commission, Smt. Annapurna Dixit inaugurated the seminar. Many RTI activists and experts presented papers in the one day seminar. I had worked on a new concept titled “FROM SELF GOVERNANCE TO E-GOVERNANCE:THE GANDHI-MODI PARADIGM CROSS- EXAMINED” .
“FROM SELF GOVERNANCE TO E-GOVERNANCE”
THE GANDHI-MODI PARADIGM CROSS- EXAMINED.
By L.R. Vishwanath
“GOOD GOVERNANCE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR SELF GOVERNANCE—Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1909).
“E-GOVERNANCE IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF OUR DREAM OF DIGITAL INDIA. THE MORE TECHNOLOGY WE INFUSE IN GOVERNANCE, THE BETTER IT IS FOR INDIA—Narendra Damodardas Modi (2015).
The British were undoubtedly adept at good governance. Having inherited legacy of ruling with an iron hand on behalf of Her Majesty, the British had developed an unparalleled competence and capability to rule, whether it was within their country or in those colonies over whom they exercised dominion. India was no exception to this golden rule.
Name any first pillar of development in the country, whether it be in the laying of first railway line, commissioning of the first telegraphic post, setting up of a college or building a hospital, the credit goes to the days of the Raj, when an able administrator, whether a Viceroy or Governor, invariably laid the foundation and built these institutions. That naturally gave the British the voice to rule the masses when they promised and executed good governance, more for furthering their colonial interests, than for the interest of those whom they ruled.
It took the towering personality and courage of conviction of Gandhi ji to proclaim in a loud and clear voice that “Good Governance is no substitute for Self Governance”. In other words for Gandhi ji this meant continuous effort to be independent of government control, whether it is foreign government or national (What Swaraj meant to Gandhi by M.P. Mathai). It is to be noted here very carefully that Gandhi ji’s vision of self government did not stop at the National Government taking over in place of a foreign government.
In what is known as his Last Will and Testament, Gandhi ji suggested the disbanding of the Congress organisation as a political forum and its blossoming into constructive work organisation. Lok Sevak Sang was the name he proposed to conscientise and mobilise the people to work and struggle for Swaraj. Perhaps had Gandhi ji been alive today, his struggle for Swaraj would have still continued till social emancipation is brought about to the last man below the poverty line.
In another era after a century of Gandhi’s call for swaraj or self governance there is a Prime Minister of India who categorically declares that “E-GOVERNANCE IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF OUR DREAM OF DIGITAL INDIA. THE MORE TECHNOLOGY WE INFUSE IN GOVERNANCE, THE BETTER IT IS FOR INDIA”.
Taking this to its natural corollary, any e-Governance effort cannot succeed without transparency. In other words “SELF GOVERNENCE IS FAIT ACCOMPLI WITHOUT TRANSPARENT GOVERNANCE”.
Transparency is a key word to enable self governance mechanism. Transparency is also a very delicate tool which can play havoc if not used in a judicious manner by those who administer governance.
In the Indian administrative system, the Officials Secrets Act was put in place by the British in 1923 to safeguard information which was termed sensitive and crucial. The act still prevails though with the advent of the RTI Act of 2005, the Official Secrets Act and its use and importance is being continuously marginalised.
However, quite to the contrary, instead of being transparent, the Indian Political-Administrative system became enmeshed into the labyrinths of the Official Secrets Act, thereby causing opaque resistance and hindrance to transparency in the sharing of information, leave alone a transparent administration.
In this glaring backdrop, the introduction of the e-Governance initiatives, in a modest way in 1987 is considered to be a watershed. In other words “E-GOVERNANCE IS THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS TRANSPARENT GOVERNANCE”.
In India, the main thrust for e-Governance was provided by the launching of NICNET in 1987- the national satellite-based computer network. This was followed by the launch of the District Information System of the National Informatics Centre (DISNIC) programme to computerise all district offices in the country for which free hardware and software was offered to the State Governments. NICNET was extended via the State capitals to all district headquarters by 1990. In the ensuing years, with ongoing computerization, teleconnectivity and internet connectivity, the government established a large number of e-Governance initiatives, both at the Union and State levels.
The formulation of National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY) and Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DAR&PG) in 2006 has boosted the e-Governance process.
The Central initiatives include:
(**National Portal of India)
The Government approved the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), comprising of 27 Mission Mode Projects and 8 components, on May 18, 2006. In the year 2011, 4 projects - Health, Education, PDS and Posts were introduced to make the list of 27 MMPs to 31 Mission Mode Projects (MMPs). The Government has accorded approval to the vision, approach, strategy, key components, implementation methodology, and management structure for NeGP. However, the approval of NeGP does not constitute financial approval(s) for all the Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) and components under it. The existing or ongoing projects in the MMP category, being implemented by various Central Ministries, States, and State Departments would be suitably augmented and enhanced to align with the objectives of NeGP.
In order to promote e-Governance in a holistic manner, various policy initiatives and projects have been undertaken to develop core and support infrastructure. ***
(***National e-Governance Plan/Government of India, Department of Electronics and Information Technology [Diety])
The media, which is accorded the role of the Fourth Pillar in a democracy like India, assumes immense responsibility to usher in transparency and accountability in governance. The print media has a cherished history in the freedom struggle of the country, with many of the freedom fighters themselves being journalists/writers including Gandhi ji.
The electronic media came into being in the mid 80s but proliferated in huge numbers during the 90s and today we have around 600 odd Electronic Media/ TV channels covering both News and General Entertainment.
The advent of the social media has created a big impact on the media scenario on the world scale and proactive democracies such as India in a big way. The internet along with Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Instagram etc. have catapulted the information access mechanism for the average Indian into an unimagined media domain. This has enabled e-Governance to shape up in an effective and deliverable scale. In other words “SOCIAL MEDIA ENABLED GOVRNANCE IS AN EFFECTIVE TOOL FOR E-GOVRNANCE”.
Today there are 125 million Facebook users in India (based on the statement given by Facebook head of Products [Facebook Lite] Vijay Shankar). Similarly there are 22.2 million users of Twitter in India (based on the report of market research firm ‘eMarketer’)
But the social media enabled governance can happen only when there is a information gateway in the process. Any amount of social media initiative cannot succeed in actualising e-Governance in the absence of a transparent institutional mechanism to extract information. It is precisely in this context that the RTI Act 2005 has made a million dollar difference.
“Consider this: When, The Associated Press, in early 2011, filed Right to Information (RTI) request for information on terrorism charges and convictions in 105 countries, it got its reply from Turkey within a week; India, within a month; Mexico within two months; while the Canadian government sought a 200-day extension to give the reply. According to news reports, only 14 countries responded with the full information within their legal deadline; most countries did not provide any of the information asked for. The FBI too took six months and at the end of it, gave only vague replies.”+
“Hence, it is not surprising that leading countries with otherwise good governance like USA and UK are ranked 39th and 28th in a comprehensive world-wide RTI Rating Project undertaken by Centre for Law and Democracy based in Canada (which stood 52nd) and Spain-based Access Info Europe. The results of the two year study were recently unveiled and showed that India ranked second having scored an impressive 130 out of 150 points with Serbia ranked first with 135 points”.+
(+Hurrah! India stands second in the world in global RTI rating- Vinita Deshmukh)
This brings us to the next important principle: “RTI IS THE INFORMATION GATEWAY FOR SOCIAL MEDIA ENABLED GOVRNANCE”.
“A direct relationship exists between right to Information, informed citizenry and good governance. The Right to Information provides citizens the opportunity of being informed of what the Government does for them, why and how it does it. Good governance provides a platform that enables government functionaries to operate efficiently, effectively and transparently and be accountable to the public for their actions. It aims to put an end to inconsistent government practices and helps in establishing a responsive State. Public participation in Government, respect for the rule of law, freedom of expression and association, transparency and accountability, legitimacy of Government, and the like, which are the core values of good governance, can be realised only if the right to information is implemented in the right spirit. Right to information is the hallmark of good governance”. ++
(++Right to Information Act and the Role of Media, RTI Cell, ATI, Kohima)
This gives us the inspiration to enlarge the scope and ambit of the RTI Act in order to bring in greater and more comprehensive access to information, expand the width and depth of the transparency so that e-Governance becomes a tool of socio-economic transformation to improve the standard and quality of life of the citizens. That means “ENLARGING THE AMBIT OF RTI WILL ENSURE EMPOWERED GOVERNANCE”.
“The Indian Press Council formed a committee on 2nd June 1998. The purpose was to assess the future of the Print Media. A questionnaire of twenty-four questions was prepared to solicit the opinion from the concerned people across the country. The second question was itself, how will the Right to Information legislation help in discharging the professional duties of the Journalists?
The Press Council on March 2001, had stated that the Right to Information Legislation as very vital for the media. It stated that- “ At present, one of the stumbling blocks in the path of investigative, analytical and popular journalism is the difficulty in getting access to the official information. The bureaucracy, the police the army, judiciary and even the legislature guard information regarding even the most mundane subjects with astonishing zeal. Few journalists are able to break this iron curtain of the official non-cooperation. The right to Information will encourage journalists and society at large to be more questioning about the state of affairs and will be powerful tool to check the unmitigated goings-on in the public realm and will also promoter accountability. No longer will scribes have to depend on conjecture, rumour, leaks and sources other than knowledgeable sources. The legislation when enacted will pose an antidote to vested interests which try to conceal or misinterpret information or which try to manipulate media directly or indirectly to plant misinformation. Through this legislation, transparency in public, professional, social and personal sphere can be achieved.
It is really surprising that such an accurate evaluation by the Press Council was not give any importance by most of the media. The media could not even find time to welcome the implementation of the Information Act officially. This was just believed to be the matters related to the farmers of Rajasthan and of the people of the slums of Delhi or thought as the matter related to the NGO type people. Its use was far away from question. It was completely ignored by the media. While, on the other hand few people who used it as a weapon in journalism had an interesting experience and showed new path as well.
Under section 19(1) (a) of the Indian constitution, the citizens of India have been given the right to freedom of speech and expression. But without access to information, this right was incomplete. Evaluation of the public authorities and the governance is impossible without factual, current/updated and primary information. The public authorities always kept guard on each information. The tragedy was that the bureaucrats were having the weapon of Officials Secrets Act, which played over the right of speech and expression, and the some constraints laid down by the constitution. Therefore, the rights of the citizens remained confined. Similarly, the judiciary has the Contempt of Court provisions and the legislature have the parliamentary privileges. It was impossible for the journalist to go into the depth of any matter properly under these constraints”. +++
(+++Right to Information- Is Media Playing its Role? -Vishnu Rajgadia
Coordinating Editor, Prabhat Khabar, Dhanbad & Deoghar(Convener, Jharkhand RTI Forum))
The observations of Shri Vishnu Rajgadia is an eye opener towards the apathy, whether inadvertent or deliberate, by the media about the issues raised by the Press Council of India. That brings us to the next issue: “ENCOMPASSING THE POLITICAL CLASS, JUDICIARY AND THE PRESS WILL RESULT IN INFORMED GOVERNANCE”.
As far as political class is concerned, various provisions for declaring information including funding during elections, their sources, assets and liabilities of political leaders especially members of Parliament, State Legislatures, utilisation of funds under the MPLAD schemes as well as criminal antecedents of candidates contesting elections have brought in a new vistas in the profiling of the political personalities by the media and the opinion makers in the present day scenario.
However a very substantial issue has been raised by eminent lawyer Shri Prashant Bhushan on the issue of RTI and its effectivity in the Judiciary. He says “It was on the basis that the Right to Information is a fundamental right of people, that the Court ordered that even candidates contesting elections would be obligated to publicly disclose information about their criminal antecedents and their income and assets etc. Yet, though the courts general pronouncements on the right to information have been very liberal, it’s practices have often not been in conformity with the declared right. Thus, for example, the courts often follow the practice of asking the government and public authorities to file reports in sealed covers in court. These reports are then perused only by judges and often not given to the opposite parties or their lawyers. Often the orders and judgements of courts are based on their perception formed on the basis of these “confidential reports”, which is not only a violation of the right to information of the opposite party, but also in violation of the principles of Natural Justice, considered to be sacrosanct”.@
(@RIGHT TO INFORMATION AND THE JUDICIARY -Prashant Bhushan)
That brings us to a convergence of the reverse derivatives outlined in this document namely: “EFFECTING FORWARD AND BACKWARD LINKAGES AMONG THE FOUR PILLARS OF DEMOCRACY AS WELL AS BETWEEN THE PRIVATE AND PUBLIC STACKHOLDERS WILL PRODUCE CITIZENS’ GOVERNANCE”.
A very substantial issue to be debated upon is transparency to be extracted from the media houses regarding their ownership of Newspapers, Television Channels and Social Media Portals. The age old proverb “above Ceaser’s wife” holds good equally for the media while investigating, exposing facts and fiction about public authorities. The free press also needs to come clean disclosing all its credentials so that when it throws stones at Others’ Glass Houses, it is insulated from its own Glass being broken into pieces.
There are two glaring examples of media ethics in this issue, one wherein an AAJ TAK stringer in Panna district of Madhya Pradesh was caught in camera by ZEE NEWS tutoring a street child to beg in front of a State Minister, whom the media attributed to have kicked the boy, raising public anger and outrage.
The second issue was of INDIA TODAY carrying a Photoshop footage of protests against Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi during his recent UK visit and terming it as a video footage, which was subsequently exposed by CNN IBN as a photo coverage and not a video footage.
Another issue to be examined is to bring in private sector in the ambit of RTI. The Central Information Commission had maintained that as long as private companies reported to a regulator or a government department, they were within the purview of sunshine law.
According to the commission, companies will not have to appoint an information officer to deal with right-to-information demands the way government entities do. Applicants will route their requests through the relevant agency.
Thus, information on telecom companies such as Bharti Airtel, the largest mobile telephony firm, can be accessed through the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India; that on banks through the Reserve Bank of India; and on brokerages and foreign investors active in stock markets from the Securities and Exchange Board of India.
Though rules for doing business have been simplified since 1991, most companies that operate in the country have extensive dealings with various arms of the government. Companies, privately, closely or publicly held, have to file their financial statements with the Registrar of Companies.
“Applicants have every right to seek information on a private company even though it is in the private sector, if it reports to a government body”.
Only applications that served public interest would be dealt with, not those that sought to erode a company’s competitive position. The message: you can ask a cola company for details on how much water it used and where the water came from, but not the formula of its fizzy drink. If there is any difference of opinion on what constitutes public interest and what doesn’t, the commission will intercede and decide.@@
(@@Right to information: Private firms will not be exempted- K. P. Narayana Kumar)
On the issue of extending the reach of RTI Act to the financial sector including public sector banks, though it is very justified for such a cause, there are contradictory opinions. One such opinion according to Shri M. R. Umarji, Chief Advisor-Legal, IBA “Public sector banks established under an Act of Parliament are owned and controlled by the central government, but carry on this business of banking by raising deposits from the public.
They are not dependent on any budgetary allocations for their businesses. Although these banks collect public deposits, they are accountable to the RBI and not to the public for prudent use of such deposits.
Ordinary citizens seeking any information from these public sector banks are incapable of making any assessment on whether the banks are utilising the public deposits prudently and hence the basic objective of the RTI Act to make public authorities accountable to the public for use of public funds is not applicable to public sector banks.
It needs to be appreciated that unlike taxes collected by the government, deposits collected by banks are repayable on demand and that being so, the business of lending and investment undertaken by banks is always conducted with paramount consideration to protecting the interest of depositors.
Prudent policy considerations, therefore, demand that all regulators in the financial market (RBI, Sebi, Irda, PFRDA) and all the public sector banks and other public sector entities operating in the financial market are exempted from the applicability of the RTI Act”. @@@
(@@@ for more details log onto http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/extending-rti-act-to-public-sector-banks-involves-systemic-risk/articleshow/15131880.cms )
To sum up:
1. GOOD GOVERNENCE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR SELF GOVERNENCE.
2. SELF GOVERNENCE IS FAIT ACCOMPLI WITHOUT TRANSPARENT GOVERNENCE.
3. E- GOVERNENCE IS THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS TRANSPERANT GOVERNENCE.
4. SOCIAL MEDIA ENABLED GOVERNENCE IS AN EFFECTIVE TOOL FOR E-GOVERNENCE.
5. RTI IS THE INFORMATION GATEWAY FOR SOCIAL MEDIA ENABLED GOVERNENCE.
6. ENLARGING THE AMBIT OF RTI WILL ENSURE EMPOWERED GOVERNENCE.
7. ENCOMPASSING THE POLITICAL CLASS, JUDICIARY AND THE PRESS WILL RESULT IN INFORMED GOVERNENCE.
8. EFFECTING FORWARD AND BACKWARD LINKAGES AMONG THE FOUR PILLARS OF DEMOCRACY AS WELL AS BETWEEN THE PRIVATE AND PUBLIC STACKHOLDERS WILL PRODUCE CITIZENS’ GOVERNENCE.
Footnotes
1. This is not a research paper. This is a referral paper on the subject.
2. The subject has been attempted through Reverse Derivative Linkages.
3. The author acknowledges various sources used for reference in this paper along with their links.
4. The opinion of the authors used in the sources are of their own and do not belong to the author of this referral paper in what so ever manner.
5. The author is writing this referral paper purely in his academic capacity and not in any official capacity what so ever.
6. The author is grateful to Dr. Nisha Singh, Principal, Dr. Pooja Singh, HoD, and other Members of the Law faculty, Modern College of Law for their constant encouragement.
Sources
1. National Portal of India.
2. National e-Governance Plan/Government of India, Department of Electronics and Information Technology [Diety].
3. Facebook head of Products [Facebook Lite] Vijay Shankar.
4. Market research firm ‘eMarketer’
5. Hurrah! India stands second in the world in global RTI rating- Vinita Deshmukh
6. Right to Information Act and the Role of Media, RTI Cell, ATI, Kohima
7. Right to Information- Is Media Playing its Role? –Vishnu Rajgadia Coordinating Editor, Prabhat Khabar, Dhanbad & Deoghar (Convener,Jharkhand RTI Forum).
8. RIGHT TO INFORMATION AND THE JUDICIARY -Prashant Bhushan
9. Right to information: Private firms will not be exempted- K. P. Narayana Kumar
10. Economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/extending-rti-act-to-public-sector-banks-involves-systemic-risk/articleshow/15131880.cms.
References
1. History of Modern India by Bipin Chandra.
2. History of Freedom Struggle by Sen.
3. We the People by Nani Palkhivala.
4. Writings on the Indian Constitution by Soli Sorabjee.
5. Writings on Judicial Reforms and People Centric Justice by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer and Justice P.N. Bhagwati.
6. Understanding Digital Marketing Strategies for Engaging the Digital Generation by Damian Ryan and Calvin Jones.
(The author, who is a Civil Servant, presently holds the post of Additional Director General, New Media Wing & Electronic Media Monitoring Centre, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India. He is presently pursuing LLB 1st year from the Modern College of Law).
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