Soli Loquies

Information is power. And that is why every administration, whatever be its political colour, tries to withhold or manipulate information.

• Whither Right to Information: Information is power. And that is why every administration, whatever be its political colour, tries to withhold or manipulate information. People need information to enforce accountability of their rulers. This was recognised by our Supreme Court in its landmark decision in S P Gupta’s case way back in 1980, much prior to the enactment of the Right to Information Act, 2005. The Court ruled that ‘‘No democratic government can survive without accountability and the basic postulate of accountability is that the people should have information about the functioning of the Government. It is only if people know how the Government is functioning that they can fulfill the role which democracy assigns to them and make democracy a really effective participatory democracy.’’ That is precisely the rationale of the Right to Information Act which states in its Preamble: ‘‘democracy requires an informed citizenry and transparency of information which are vital to its functioning and also to contain corruption and to hold governments and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed’’.

In this context the recent statement of the Chief Information Commissioner, Wajahat Habibullah, is admirable for its frankness and alarming because of its content. The Chief Information Commissioner roundly criticised the Government for its tardiness in fulfilling the duties enjoined upon it by the Act and lamented that in respect of creating mass awareness on the right to information the Government was shortchanging. Public interest, he pointed out, was the usual pretext for withholding information and as the concept had not been defined it would be for the Commission to define it. Hopefully the Commission will keep in mind the principles enunciated by our Supreme Court about what constitutes public interest and the recent judicial trend towards dilution of official claims of privilege to prevent disclosure of documents. It is a shame that there is no effective enforcement of this salutary legislation.

• Contrasting democracies in action: The virtues of democracy need not be recounted. Democracy is almost universally accepted as the best, or in any case, the least unsatisfactory system of governance. It is the most difficult yet the most rewarding form of government. It is amusing to witness authoritarian regimes—where freedom of expression, freedom of the press and other basic human rights are suppressed and an independent judiciary is absent—flaunt the democratic card.

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Free debate and discussion especially in legislative assemblies is the imperative of any democracy. Recently Prime Minister Tony Blair was severely criticised in the Commons by the Conservative leader of the opposition who sarcastically remarked that Blair’s actions were like his going to Khartoum to convince himself that General Gordon was really dead. There was laughter from the opposition benches and, interestingly, members of government in the Treasury benches, including Blair, could not resist a smile. There was no disruption of proceedings, nor were any objects or abuses hurled at members.

It was a different scene altogether in Afghanistan’s parliament. A young woman MP, Joya, in her twenties, stated in parliament that some of the bearded and turbaned MPs who were previously warlords and had led the resistance to the 10-year Soviet occupation were responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians in a civil war that erupted after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. Several of these erstwhile warlords hurled choice abuses and water bottles at the lady MP and rushed towards her to beat her up but were restrained. What a sharp contrast.

The heart of the matter is that democracy cannot be imposed upon any nation. It cannot be legislated. Democracy cannot take roots in a country whose system has been autocratic for decades. What is required is a culture of democracy, a temperament for democratic values, a willingness to listen to the other point of view and the spirit of mutual accommodation. And that too can take decades. Unfortunately this aspect is totally overlooked by the Bush administration in its policy towards Iraq and Afghanistan.

–solijsorabjee@expressindia.com

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