When studios were buzzing with the various twists and turns in the Salman Khan verdict, Sonia Gandhi was speaking on her adjournment motion - her first ever since the Congress was relegated to the opposition - on the issue of the methodical subversion of institutions by this government.
Her's was a direct attack on the Prime Minister, unprecedented for various reasons.
Several crucial appointments in the government are not being made. There are apprehensions about the intentions of this government. Since September, 2014 the post of Central Vigilance Commissioner is lying vacant. Since August 2014, the Chief Information Commissioner has not been appointed. Two posts of Information Commissioners are yet to be filled. The appointment of the Lokpal is pending too.
The pitfalls of the 'first past the post' system may have been felt on several occasions in the past, too, but never in such a short tenure of a government has the country realized the dangers of this system. We had almost resigned ourselves to coalition governments and started looking for the silver lining in the self-correcting mechanisms concomitant to coalitions. With disparate groups lending restraint to governments and parties, competing political voices automatically become watchdogs of institutional integrity.
The UPA governments led by the Congress party attempted to put in place instruments of empowerment insulated from political interference. The Right to Information, Whistleblowers' Protection Act and Appointment of Lokpal were some of the measures taken to make governments transparent and accountable. The RTI, which threw the doors and windows of mighty offices across the country open to public scrutiny, was made law within one year of UPA coming to power. Within one year of coming to power, the Narendra Modi government has undone this powerful weapon in the hands of the common man. When Sonia Gandhi was negotiating with experts and NGOs seeking their inputs to design the RTI Act, there were naysayers within the establishment of the party and the government who were apprehensive of arming the citizen with a weapon as powerful as the RTI.
Many wrongdoings were brought to light through the RTI across the country. NGOs and activists were able to expose malpractices in the remote and voiceless corners of India. Activism got its premolars from RTI. The UPA government was at the receiving end of RTI activism.
The foot soldiers of democracy ensured the horizontal and vertical spread of democracy on the streets,
muhallas and squares in every city. Several scams were unearthed, giving arsenal to the opposition, media and civil society against the UPA government. Despite this, the then government did not once contemplate weakening of the RTI.
As the government of the day sits on the decision to appoint the CIC, pendency of cases before the CIC sky rockets to 39,000, the waiting period for the disposal of an RTI application goes up from a month during the UPA regime to two years under the present regime. It is not just subversion of instruments of transparency, on one pretext or the other, NGOs too are under disproportionate scrutiny and attack.
Sonia Gandhi is right in her questioning the intentions of the government headed by Narendra Modi. Why was the same alacrity which was shown in bringing the land ordinance not shown in implementing the Whistleblowers' Protection Act - an Act which got Presidential assent in May, 2014? The priority of this government it appears, is to shut out questioning voices, to shut out opposition and in short, to shut out all dissent.
As Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi's record of dealing with RTI queries has been abysmal. There have been several instances of RTI applications on Modi's foreign tours, on the Gujarat government's expenditure on the foreign tours of RK Raghavan (head of the Special Investigations Team which gave Modi Government a clean chit in the Gujarat riots), on the gadgets and gizmos installed in the official residence of the Gujarat Chief Minister, on the follow up to declarations of investments in the much-touted Vibrant Gujarat summit, and several other sensitive issues going unreplied.
Interestingly, when a Mumbai-based RTI activist Anil Galgali filed a query on the actual number of days the Gujarat Chief Minister had attended office, the number of cabinet meetings and the number of meetings conducted by Modi with various government departments from January 1, 2012 to March 10, 2014, he was stonewalled by the Gujarat government. The same questions, when asked to the Maharashtra government, got appropriate and satisfying replies.
After he took over as Prime Minister, the same blacking out of information continued. An interesting RTI query that reached the locked door of the Prime Minister's Office was the one on whether sandalwood saplings were planted in lieu of the 2,500 kilograms of sandalwood donated by Mr Modi to Nepal's Pashupatinath Temple in August 2014. Needless to say, the query did not get a reply. Another interesting RTI query was posed to the railway board about whether there was any record, registration number or official pass issued to Narendra Modi allowing him to sell tea on trains and/or railway platforms. In its response, the railway ministry stated that there was no such evidence to suggest that Mr Modi did actually sell tea on trains or platforms.
On 20th October 2014, the Modi government issued an order to Ministries asking them to post RTI queries and their replies online from 31st October 2014. Seven months and thousands of unreplied RTI queries later, the country still awaits filling up of positions critical to the smooth and transparent functioning of the RTI Act.
(Pawan Khera is a political analyst with the Congress party.)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.