Attack on RTI activists on rise
DP Bhattacharya | Ahmedabad, March 10, 2011 | Updated 09:51 IST
It was hailed as a potent medicine to cut away the canker of corruption plaguing the country's public institutions. But fighting graft comes at a price - as thousands of activists who have used the Right to Information (RTI) Act to blow the lid off several scams very well know.
The past two years have seen an exponential rise in the number of RTI whistleblowers being attacked, threatened or even killed for embarking on such crusades.
Last year saw 28 attacks on RTI activists across the country. These included 10 murders. Unofficial estimates claim the number is much higher. This year is no different. January saw five brutal attacks on outspoken RTI campaigners. Several more were reported in the subsequent months.
For instance, on March 3, Dalit activist Mangalaram - a resident of Bamanor in Rajasthan's Barmer district - was brutally attacked with axes by the village sarpanch Ghulam Shah and his goons. Mangalaram had to go through all this as he had dared to file an RTI application, demanding information on all public works undertaken since 2001 by Shah's panchayat. Mangalaram had also filed queries on works sanctioned and undertaken under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act since 2006.
His is not a solitary case. He has company in Dr Amarnath Pandey. A resident of Robertsganj in Sonbhadra district, Uttar Pradesh, the 50-year-old homeopathy practitioner and social worker was shot at in January.
"Everything was going well till I started exercising my rights under the RTI Act and started demanding answers from government officers about various developmental works. Soon, I started receiving threat calls. I reported the matter to the police but they didn't take me seriously. I think it is safe to say the police and all government officers hate the RTI Act," Pandey said.
Pandey was lucky to have survived; RTI activist Satish Shetty was not. He was hacked to death in Pune on January 13 last year.
The RTI activist from Talegaon Dabhade was instrumental in exposing a number of land scams in Maharashtra by using the Act.
Ahmedabad-based environmental activist Amit Jethawa also met the same fate. He died on the spot after unknown assailants pumped several bullets into him right outside the Gujarat High Court building on July 20 last year. Jethawa had moved the court against illegal mining around Gir forest.
Indeed, Gujarat is no haven for RTI activists if statistics are to be believed. While two persons were killed in the state last year for seeking information under the RTI Act, many others have been facing threats and attacks for standing up for their rights.
Pankti Jog from the Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel (MAGP), which runs the RTI Helpline in Gujarat, said: "There are several such cases. Activists are targeted frequently for seeking information. Those under most danger are the ones who seek information on land issues. Petitioners quizzing the government on the implementation of the public distribution system (PDS) and other government schemes as well as those who challenged powerful wrongdoers are also hounded."
Noted RTI activist Harinesh Pandya said: "The cases of assaults on RTI users are on the rise. We are now asking people to file petitions en bloc (in groups), so no one person is targeted."
He added: "We are also asking the government to ensure that the information sought by any RTI petitioner be brought moto, so that such tactics of
stopping information are rendered useless."
Gujarat's chief information commissioner R.N. Das admitted that RTI activists were being harassed in the state.
"We have been trying to keep a tab over the situation and keep the law enforcers in the loop," he said.
But he added that ensuring the safety of the applicants will require larger and better systemic response than addressing individual cases. He also
lamented the fact that the commission lacks the teeth to provide protection to such people.
Nutan Thakur, a member of National RTI Forum, stressed on the importance of ensuring the activists' safety. "Law enforces must ensure the activists are not harmed if they want corruption to ebb," she said.
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