Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge
Credit: DH file photo
New Delhi: Accusing the ruling BJP of “systematically corroding” India's transparency regime that completed 20 years of existence, the Congress on Sunday claimed that RTI means “Readiness to Intimidate" and not ‘Right to Information’ for the Narendra Modi government.
Party president Mallikarjun Kharge said on 'X' that the UPA government “ushered in a new era of transparency and accountability” by implementing the Right to Information Act but in the last 11 years, Modi government has “systematically corroded” the transparency law and thereby “hollowing out democracy and citizen’s right”. RTI came into being on 12 October, 2005.
He claimed the government “hacked away” at the RTI Act, seizing control over Information Commissioners’ tenure and pay through an amendment in 2019, converting independent watchdogs into “servile functionaries”, while the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 “gutted the RTI’s public interest clause, weaponising privacy to shield corruption and stonewall scrutiny”.
“A chilling ‘no data available’ doctrine now prevails,” he said, claiming that the information on COVID-19 deaths, NSSO 2017-18, ASUSE 2016–2020 and PM CARES are “brazenly” withheld, “erasing facts to escape accountability”. Over 100 RTI activists have been murdered, unleashing a “climate of terror that punishes truth-seekers and extinguishes dissent,” he said.
Addressing a press conference, Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh said the RTI regime has collapsed under Modi government and the Central Information Commission has become a “ghost bungalow”, with eight of the ten posts, including that of Chief Information Commissioner, vacant.
“The Modi government believes in RTI but it is the Right to Intimidate (and not Right to Information). For the Modi government, RTI now stands for ‘Readiness To Intimidate’...The government has put RTI up for mercy killing. It is making it a toothless body,” he said.
He said the RTI Act was a revolutionary law, which marked the beginning of a series of transformative rights-based laws enacted between 2005 and 2013, which included laws related to rural employment, tribal rights, education, food security, and land acquisition.
“The purpose of RTI was to empower citizens and foster a culture of transparency at every level of administration. However, since May 2014, there has been a deliberate and continuous effort to weaken it,” he said.
He said the first amendment to the RTI Act came in 2019, which weakened the powers of the Central Information Commission. This was followed by amending the RTI Act through Digital Personal Data Protection Act by keeping any personal information out of the transparency regime, he said.
Ramesh claimed that the government went ahead changing the RTI Act after CIC ordered providing information regarding Modi's educational qualification, RTI debunking Modi's claims on fake ration cards, RTI queries making it clear that RBI panel raising concerns over demonetisation, RBI Governor informing that loan defaulters' list is with the PMO and RTI making it clear that no black money was returned to India.
He said a petition he filed in 2019 against the amendment in the RTI Act is still pending. The Congress demands that the petition be taken up for hearing, vacancies be filled in the CIC and the provisions in the DPDP Act be repealed.