RTI Amendment Bill: Fascists are Scared of Informed Citizens
Information and awareness is an antidote to tyranny in any class society. Particularly a fascist government knows it too well that its brutally oppressive rule cannot sustain if it does not control the levers of information in the society. Fascism as a movement is founded, among other things, on lies and slander in order to establish myths as common sense. This explains the intention behind Modi government’s recent move to amend the Right to Information Act 2005 to take control over the tenure and salary structure of Information Commissioners. Currently the stature of Information Commissioners is equivalent to that of Election Commissioner or a Supreme Court judge. The Information Commissioner used to have a fixed tenure of five years or until he or she attained 65 years, whichever was earlier. It was difficult to remove the Commissioner from office within this term. But no more! Modi government has inflicted a serious damage to the autonomy of the Information Commissions through recent amendment to the RTI Act. Thus it seriously undermines people’s fundamental right to know. This amendment has removed whatever tooth and nail that the RTI Act used to have.
After this amendment the Information Commissioners can be removed in a whimsical manner and their tenure would be at the mercy of the government of the day. In other words, the Information Commissioners would be subordinated to government departments. It is ironical because in most cases the appeal under RTI act, the government departments or the public sector units are the party. The provisions of salary and tenure of the Information Commissioners were mentioned in the RTI act itself so as to ensure its independence so that the Information Commissioners could work without any fear or favour. By undermining the office of Information Commissioner, the government has sought to give a death blow to Right to Information of citizens.
Modi government’s move to undermine the autonomy of the office of Information Commissioners must be seen in continuity with its blatant disregard to various other institutions and democratic norms, be it tinkering with Election Commission, Central Bureau Of investigation or even judiciary. It is yet another example of the modus operandi of fascism in 21st century. Fascism today does not need to formally abandon the democratic institutions; it can maintain their outer shell and yet hollow them out from inside. That’s precisely what is being done in case of the office of Information Commissioners. Formally there will be right to information and there will be Information Commission, but in essence it has been rendered meaningless.
“Capitalism in general, and imperialism in particular, turn democracy into an illusion—though at the same time capitalism engenders democratic aspirations in the masses, creates democratic institutions, aggravates the antagonism between imperialism’s denial of democracy and the mass striving for democracy. Capitalism and imperialism can be over thrown only by economic revolution. They cannot be over thrown by democratic transformations, even the most “ideal”. But a proletariat not schooled in the struggle for democracy is incapable of performing an economic revolution.”
– Lenin, ‘Reply to P. Kievsky (U. Pyatakov), Against dogmatism and sectarianism in the labour movement’
