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Journalism of Courage
Learn from America, Prakash Karat has told a government whose 8220;strategic closeness8221; to America was cause enough for him to part ways with it. Karat doesn8217;t deserve sniggers, however. Far from it. First, because the ability to spot virtues in those you critique most is a precious quality in politics. Second, he has touched upon a point that is vital in Indian governance. Karat contrasted the government8217;s refusal to share its IAEA document with the US government8217;s openness in some of these matters; documents of a nature routinely treated as secret in India are posted by the American government on relevant official websites. Washington is a keeper of many secrets, some dark, as is the case with all governments, but it also functions under a system where access to and demand for information are vastly greater than here. True, India8217;s nuclearised and not exactly friendly neighbourhood 8212; with the possibility of 8220;loose nukes8221; in Pakistan, and friction with China 8212; puts some limits to disseminating information on the official IAEA submission. But the principle stands. More, it can be a departure point for broad reform.
To take America8217;s case again: US legislators, of whatever party, are privy to a lot of 8220;sensitive8221; information gathered and put together by the executive via closed door Congressional hearings. These are hallowed parts of the American system and any executive that treats these disclosure obligations lightly is vulnerable to strong censure. This is not to deny that it can lead to controversies, like the allegations that information was leaked by Senators in the Iran-Contra hearings. India can have a system that takes the spirit, is different in details, and the seeds of which have already been planted, albeit in a different context and with different aims. In 1998, Atal Bihari Vajpayee responded to criticism within and outside the BJP and made Pramod Mahajan, then political secretary in the PMO, take the oath of secrecy. Jaswant Singh, then deputy chairperson of the Planning Commission, took the same oath though he too was not a minister. Let8217;s take that idea forward for a different, much broader agenda.
