The Great comedy circus of the Indian Democracy

 “If Men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.” ― James Madison

The 16^th Century renaissance replaced autocracy with democracy in Europe. This tide of democracy spread to other parts of the world in the next 5 centuries. “Accountability” is the main difference between autocracy and democracy. In Democracy, the elected governments are accountable to the citizen. Question hour in parliament, no-confidence motion in Loksbha, Election after 5 years, etc. are the modes to make government accountable. But all these tools are in hands of the politicians and not in hands of citizens. The introduction of the Right to information act (RTI) was the inflection point of our democracy as RTI empowers the citizen to make the government accountable on day to day basis.

Today, India facing the unprecedented crisis of the covid19. The ego of the one person, Prime Minister Modi became heavier than the lifetime risk of the 130 crore citizen. For such situation, Ram Monohar lohia have said  "जिंदा कौमें पांच साल तक इंतजार नहीं करतीं". In Many European states, there is the option of the Right to recall where citizens can remove the elected government. But India has not any such mechanism. We have to rely solely upon RTI to make the government accountable.

Here I want to write upon how the RTI, the tool of accountability becomes the joke.

In 2013, Calcutta High Court directed RTI queries to be initiated by giving only post box numbers to safeguard the applicant's identity. Passing the order, the bench observed "we find logic in the submission of the petitioner that the applicant need not disclose any personal detail." 

Disposing of the petition, the bench directed the secretary, Union Ministry of Personnel, to circulate the copy of this order to all concerned so that the authority take appropriate measures to hide information with regard to personal details of activists to avoid any harassment by the persons having vested interest and likely to hide the the information asked for. In January 2014, DoPT issued this circular to implement the order of the highcourt. Here it is :

Public Authorities ( Government departments) have to reply to RTI application in 30 days,  they have to keep records of the reply, etc. This is not possible through the normal post. So it is standard practice to use Speed post for the RTI related matter.

But the surprise is that India post’s Postal box service does not allow the speed post facilities. It only accepts the normal post which is not possible to use for the RTI purpose. Here is the RTI reply to the India post regarding the use of the postal box for the RTI purpose.

It has been 8 years since Calcutta High Court passed the order to facilitate the RTI by the Postal box service to safeguard the privacy of the applicant. On paper, the Government has facilitated it but practically it is not possible. This aptly reflected in the lines of the Adam Gondvi –

तुम्हारी फाइलों में गाँव का मौसम गुलाबी है
मगर ये आंकड़े झूठे हैं ये दावा किताबी है