The power of knowledge  

The Economics Times, Dec 17, 2004

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh must summon all the political will he can to make sure that the Freedom of Information Act is tabled in Parliament during the winter session.

And he should supplement it with a Duty to Publish Act. The PM should not allow a self-serving bureaucracy to obstruct the tabling and passage of the amended Act.

Information is power and the central government, together with the Opposition, must ensure the swift and smooth passage of the bill.

The government should understand that a law that ensures the right to equal information empowers citizens to intervene in the decision-making processes of the state.

That is important, considering that while our civil society has today become a passive entity, the Indian state is no more than an alien authority dispensing governance. That has to change.

The democratic ethos that the young Indian nation had generated, thanks to vigorous civil society participation in the anti-colonial struggle and post-Independence nation-building, has to be reclaimed.

The rift between civil society and the polity must be healed. Politics should once again be able to inhabit civil society comfortably. That is the only way to build a functional democracy.

The amendments suggested by the UPA's National Advisory Council to the Freedom of Information Act, 2002 are, therefore, welcome.

Provisions calling for the enforcement of penal measures like imprisonment and fines for government officials, who block information will ensure that the amendment, once passed, will be implemented in both letter and spirit.

I n fact, the government should now go a step further and accept the Centre for Civil Society's suggestion to legislate for “Duty to Publish”. That will compel the government to put out all government information in the public domain without waiting for specific demands for information. That would be a crucial blow struck for transpare-ncy, considering the abysmal levels of information asymmetry that plague large sections of our population.

The government must make the duty to publish a legislative complement to the right to information. It should realise that it's only with these two pieces of legislation in place can the political class be once again compelled to mediate between the people and the state.