Aruna Roy quit the elite Indian Administrative Service in the 1970s and opted to work at the grassroots level in remote villages of Rajasthan for the upliftment of poor and marginalised people. She and her team gave a new idea to the world ‘Right to Information’, which not only helped in exposing organised corruption in government departments but also gave a tool to poor people to know where their money is spent. In 2000 she was honoured with the Ramon Magsaysay award for community leadership. She was also awarded the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for Excellence in Public Administration in 2010.

Aruna Roy joined the IAS in 1968 and resigned in 1974. In 1987 she founded Majdoor Kishan Shakti Sangthan (MKKS). Initially she fought for fair wages of workers and subsequently started a movement for enactment of ‘Right to Information’ Act in the country, which became a reality in 2005. She is now involved with the campaign for universal, non-contributory pension for unorganised sector workers and for enactment of the Whistleblower Protection Law and Grievance Redressal Act. In an interview to Vijay Thakur, Roy spoke on the role of RTI in eradicating corruption at the grassroots level. Excerpts:

Q: You are the champion of Right to Information movement in India and had been campaigning for it for more than 20 years to eliminate corruption at the grassroots level. How much do you think RTI has helped people in the past 13 years?

A: It has changed the grassroots system because now any individual can ask any question to any department at every intersection. The RTI movement has given a new dimension to the ‘right to end corruption’ campaign. The world over it has been acclaimed as India’s contribution to eradicate corruption. Indian RTI is the largest used in the world as over six million people have used it to get information. This is a conservative estimate, it could be as much as eight million.

The effectiveness of the law in uprooting corruption can be seen from the unfortunate fact that over 70 RTI seekers have been killed. This shows that it has been effective in impacting not only corruption but also demanding some kind of accountability from the system. The demand for this accountability has apparently led to killing of so many RTI activists, which is a cause of concern as little has been done to protect RTI seekers.

Frankly speaking I am not the only champion of the RTI movement. It was not only my idea, it was the idea of thousands of people who invented the Right to See Documents as a fundamental right and took it as a tool to fight corruption. The demand for Right to See Documents grew in 1994. Interestingly, the Indian RTI was framed not by people in civil society but it came from the workers and peasants who wanted to exercise their right to know. That’s why they came out with the slogans “Right to Know and Right to live” and “It is our money, it is our account”. Corruption was a denial of Right to live. So, people were not interested in the theoretical debate, but they demanded RTI because corruption was actually destroying their life.

Q: As you said over 70 RTI activists have been killed. The number would go up if we count those who have been threatened or assaulted by the corruption mafia in the system. What measures do you suggest to protect these activists?

A: The protection of RTI activists could come from two important positions. One is the Whistle Blowers Protection Act, which is still lying for notification. Second, if an RTI activist dies the government should put the entire information sought by him in the public domain. Because information seekers are killed by those in the system who do not want to reveal the information. If the government puts the information in the public domain then nobody would be killed or harassed. We have been fighting with every government on this issue. We took it up with the previous government as well as with the present government.

But what the BJP government is doing is just the opposite. It is trying to change the rule saying if an information seeker dies, the information should not be given. It is nothing but straightforward permission to murder an RTI seeker. Which means if someone asks a question that is uncomfortable to the government, he would be killed by organised mafia so that nobody seeks the information.

Q: You recently said, “The fate of RTI under the Modi government is a bad omen”. How do you rate the performance of the present government in encouraging RTI and transparency in governance?

A: The present government is undermining RTI tremendously. They are amending the Rule in the Act by an executive order. Secondly, the Modi government is hitting at the independence of the Central Information Commission. They are downgrading the Commission, which is equivalent to Election Commission, to function like a normal government department so that the Commission is completely in their control. Once the Commission becomes a part of government, it will do what the party in power wants. In my opinion, the Modi government has been trying to nullify the impact of the RTI law.

Q: Do you think the government has done anything to promote transparency in governance?

A: The present government has done nothing spectacular to promote transparency. It has taken no real step to promote RTI. Rather it is a one-way communication in the Modi government. It would not be wrong if I say they have dismantled the institutions and platform where there was possibility of two-way communication.

Like Planning Commission, where we could know what is going to happen in the next five years in advance. They have started NITI Aayog, where we do not know what is going to happen tomorrow. So, the whole planning process is now under wraps. In elections also, they have opened donations to political parties through electoral bonds where foreign companies can fund political parties without disclosing their identity. It is so fundamentally harmful to our democracy. They are really trying to cut at the roots of our democratic system.

Q: You have seen bureaucracy and politicians in the sixties and seventies. What has changed in the present system of governance?

A: Let me admit, the nexus between politicians and bureaucrats has become worse. In the past four years, I feel not even a single senior bureaucrat is accessible. There is a great fear among senior officers of talking to non-governmental sectors. They might be speaking to the private sector, but all doors have been closed for NGOs. We find it extremely difficult to access both the right-wing politicians who are in power today, and the civil se rvants, who used to be much more open before. Though civil servants are still accessible up to a point in states, at the Centre many doors have been closed for us.