Truth may never prevail
We live in times when a nation’s most powerful leader conjures up information at will with the pretentiousness of a socialite pulling a Chihuahua out of her clutch and the dexterity of an illusionist extracting a rabbit from his chapeau to rapturous applause from a bewitched audience that always sees but seldom observes. These are times when a spellbound public, eyes open and minds closed, is constantly fed a supposititious concoction of skulduggery with dollops of chicanery on a bed of false hope at an intensity and scale unfathomable not long ago. It is in times like these that it becomes all the more pertinent to recall how a struggle of few village folk in Rajasthan to get their ~11 a day minimum wage metamorphosed into a movement that ended up empowering every Indian with the right to seek information from those in power about decisions that influenced their lives. In times like these when data is touted as destiny and misinformation masquerades as information, it would be wise to recall a movement that made people realise “the right to know was the right to live”.
The RTI Story: Power to the People written by Aruna Roy with others from the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) provides a fascinating and kaleidoscopic glimpse of the evolution of a movement in a small village in Rajasthan to its culmination in the Right to Information (RTI) Act passed by Parliament in 2005. The events in the book are drawn from handwritten notes, public speeches and collective memories of those who have been part of the movement since the late 1980s. The book runs in three distinct overlapping layers till the end. In one layer are the stories of the struggles of villagers to get a fair payment for their work. In another parallel layer are the stories of Ms Roy, Nikhil Dey and a local villager named Shankar Singh and how they galvanised people into the MKSS to achieve more than what they had sought to in the first place. And the most prominent layer is the incremental transformation of the cause from 1987 to 2005.
In the first layer, the reader is given a glimpse of how villagers of Dadi Rapat and Sohangarh realised the power of information. Junior engineers who were supposed to measure the work of people before paying them were invariably paying out less than the minimum wage. Ghost entries were made in muster rolls to siphon money. In nearby Sohangarh, there are tales of the feudal lord who indulges in treachery by not notifying the land identification number to prevent unoccupied village land from being distributed to marginal workers. The book details several grass-root-level examples of how basic rights were denied and made people gravitate to the MKSS.
The second layer gives a glimpse into the parsimonious and dedicated lives of Roy & Co. The book brings to the fore Roy’s steadfast enterprise and dedication to the cause of the rural poor after resigning from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1975. Also well documented is the role of Shankar Singh, the local villager of Devdoongri, who makes Roy & Co comfortable in their village setting. Shankar Singh comes across as a great communicator who keeps the spirits of the people high with his wit in trying circumstances. This section mentions the contributions of journalists like Prabhash Joshi, Kuldip Nayar and various other good Samaritans including some district collectors who used their public offices to help the MKSS access government records to empower people with information. It also details the role of the then Press Council of India chairman Justice P B Sawant in preparing the first draft of the RTI Bill, famously dubbed the ‘Press Council Draft.’
The third layer documents how the movement that aimed to provide people their basic wages by accessing muster rolls, bills and vouchers expanded its ambit over the next decade to become a force for greater transparency and accountability in India’s notoriously corrupt bureaucracy. The movement made people realise that information could help them get more than just their minimum wages. It made them get land rights, public distribution scheme records, public contracts and even pollution control records before the RTI was written into law. The book documents how the MKSS perfected various protest strategies — from hunger strikes, street plays, songs, posters, truck yatras, and the much-dreaded public hearing. It serves as a useful guide for young people interested in learning the art of protest to achieve a cause by using peaceful pressure tactics on an adamant administration.
After her monumental efforts, Ms Roy leaves the reader befuddled by ending her book with a two-worded question. The battle for access to information was won with Ms Roy & the MKSS collective in the vanguard. But she still isn’t sure if the truth will ever prevail.
THE RTI STORY: POWER TO THE PEOPLE
Aruna Roy with the MKSS Collective Lotus Roli
375 pages; ~495