Information technology has ushered in an era of informed citizenship. It is a powerful tool by which a wide range of information on a variety of topics can be exchanged and debated.

It is also a tool by which local communities can be empowered. Gandhi favoured technologies that empowered the people and not made them their slaves. In his book "The Third Wave", Alwin Toffler observed that technologies such as information are truly Gandhian. The only danger is that vested interests may hijack such technologies and prevent them from reaching the villages and the common people.

TARAhaat is a serious initiative of Development Alternatives to design and nurture a self-sustaining internet based information system for empowering local communities operated through local entrepreneurs. State governments such as Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, are also taking similar initiatives. TARAhaat has the advantage that being registered as a public limited company, it has the flexibility to provide information that governments may not have or may not want to part with. It will also be better equipped to keep the information updated and relevant, and be responsive to the needs of its clients. Nonetheless, information from government sources is also important. TARAhaat has already established contacts with state governments to share information.

Right to Information

he would participate in decision-making in such matters as he indicated, and he would himself decide when he so chose. In democracy these become the sovereign rights of the people to information, consultation through public hearings, participation through participatory councils, and decision-making through referendums. Being sovereign rights, these rights are superior even to fundamental rights!

Referendum is the supreme sovereign right of the people to overrule their representatives on any issue. However, there cannot be a referendum on issues fundamental to democracy or the integrity of the nation. For example, there can be no referendum on making the state theocratic or threatening the integrity of the nation.

Unfortunately, our Constitution does not provide for any of these rights. Ironically, it requires ministers to take the oath of secrecy and prohibits civil servants, under their conduct rules, to disclose any information whatsoever to citizens. The Official Secrets Act of 1923, an oppressive colonial law still kept on our statute books, makes it mandatory for public servants to keep virtually all information secret from the people. Excerpt from Section 5 of the Act titled "Wrongful Communication of Information" is reproduced below:

1. If any person having in his possession or control any…note, document or information… which has been entrusted in confidence to him by any person holding office under Government, or which he has obtained or to which he has had access owing to his position as a person who holds or has held office under Government…wilfully communicates the…document or information to any person other than a person to whom he is authorised to communicate it,…shall be guilty of an offence under this section.

2. A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.

Further, most information is kept restricted for an indefinite period thus blocking research and evolving future strategies for the nation. Such provisions are clearly anti-people and anti-democracy.

Sovereign Right to Information

In democracy, the people, being the sovereign, have the right to all public information, except that restricted by the society in public interest. Surely, the representatives cannot be allowed to restrict information in personal interest such as receiving kickbacks!

Such being the case, the people can approach the superior courts seeking writs directing governments at each level – local, state and national – to furnish lists of categories of information that they wished to restrict in public interest, and the period for which it would be restricted. On receipt of the categories, the courts can scrutinise on behalf of the society whether restricting a particular category was indeed in public interest and the period proposed was reasonable. The courts and can also direct the government to set up citizen information centres in public offices as well as through entrepreneurs at which information would be available at a reasonable price. Such Citizen Information Centres should carry a distinctive emblem, possibly as illustrated below, for easy identification by citizens.

It is about time the citizens and court realise that information is a sovereign right of the people and enforce it. q