The right to know

The campaign in Rajasthan has demonstrated that people need to understand how the system works, and is distorted, and they need be given the power to hold public officials accountable, writes KALPANA SHARMA.

The campaign for the Right to Information, launched five years ago in Beawar, Rajasthan, has attained a greater relevance today in the light of the ``Tehelka'' revelations and the daily litany of scams being exposed.

On April 6, 1996 the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) held a 40-day dharna in front of Beawar's Chang Gate in the heart of the city. The organisation had uncovered fraud that added up to thousands of rupees. The people of Beawar supported the dharna by providing food and money to the participants. At the end of the dharna, the then Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Mr. Bhairon Singh Shekawat, agreed to pass a law on the Right to Information.

Since then, the MKSS has held 11 public hearings in different parts of the state. This unique tool is used to publicly expose fraud by bringing together those who govern and the governed. Public documents are scrutinised by everyone, questions are asked and answers demanded.

In panchayat after panchayat, the story of ``ghost'' musters, where all the names entered in muster rolls for public works are fictitious, ``ghost'' works where schools, health centres, anicuts, community centres are built only on paper, and diversion of funds meant for the poor, like the Indira Awas Yojana, to the powerful in the villages has been confirmed. As a result, in two panchayats the indicted sarpanchs have publicly returned the usurped funds to the panchayat. In other cases, action has still to be taken against officials.

The question that inevitably arises is whether this can be replicated, or whether this movement of exposing fraud will remain confined to the areas in Rajasthan where a remarkable group like the MKSS is working.

Ms. Aruna Roy of the MKSS holds that the process begun by the Jan Sunwais in Rajasthan has already led to many other changes. The first is the law itself, enacted by the Rajasthan Government last year. Every panchayat is supposed to paint on its office wall the full accounts of how money has been spent in the previous year. And citizens can demand photocopies of records which ought to be delivered within four days.

But the law, Ms. Roy, acknowledges ``is only an enabling provision''. It exists in five other States. But the difference in Rajasthan is the fact that people are beginning to know their rights under the law. Thus, the recent Jan Sunwai in Janavad panchayat, Rajsamand district, came about because villagers read the accounts of expenditure painted on the panchayat building. They spent two months trying to get hold of the documents. When they failed they turned to the MKSS. Despite the law, it took the MKSS almost a year to get the documents. But in the end, they successfully established fraud that added up to Rs. 45 lakhs.

What is relevant in the larger context is that since the law was enacted, word has got around that public scrutiny of accounts could take place. As a result, as soon as there is a demand for documents, the panchayat starts public works of some kind. These are the first signs that the pressure on those who govern to answer for their actions is mounting. It still might not be enough to stop fraud altogether.

Yet, the campaign in Rajasthan and the recent Jan Sunwai has convincingly demonstrated that people need to understand how the system works, and is distorted, and they need be given the power to hold public officials accountable. For the poor, this is not ``an abstract ethical concept,'' as Ms. Roy puts it. It is literally a matter of survival.

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