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Journalism of Courage
The daily death rattle in Iraq reminds us how fragile and inchoate is the arduous process of giving birth to democracy. We in India have become used to the institutions and processes of our democratic republic. Yet even as we celebrate the world’s new found admiration for the way we have managed the diversity of our people and channeled their aspirations, there is a gnawing feeling that the job is half-done. And even as we believe that the natural province of the argumentative Indian is a free society, we look for answers to make India truly empowered.
Some search for panaceas that involve great leaders coming on their white steeds delivering salvation. Others take refuge in ideologies often flawed and fundamentalist. Some more hark back to a more moral simpler era. Yet the answer is not there so much as in making our governance more open and responsive.
To truly empower India, we need to reduce the knowledge asymmetry between the ruler and the ruled. Once the opaque veils on our state are raised, the citizen will be truly in charge. The sunshine that we bring to bear on the inner working of government will ensure that both the incompetent and the corrupt will have far less chance of getting away with it.
To do this, we have to bring together the two great proven successes of Independent India, our democratic tradition and our mastery over Information Technology. The process begins by using technology to automate and streamline the processes of the way we take decisions, use funds and deliver services to the people. This automation is usually seen as way to streamline processes, improve public delivery, reduce corruption etc.
But the most important function of automation in a governance scenario is to create a window into the inner working of government. If the citizen is able to get visibility into the inside functioning of government, on how decisions are made, on how money is spent, on who the beneficiaries are and what were the outcomes it stands to reason that the quality of decisions will be far better, the system will become accountable, and the citizen will be far more empowered.
However, technology is not enough. The natural tendency of the state is to use the information not to empower its people, but to exercise more control and repression. If technology is implemented by itself, all it does is transfer the levers of power from one set of people to another. Hence, any effort to implement technology must have a concomitant goal mandated by law to disclose to the people all the information that has now been made possible by the use of such tools.
The third leg of this process is creating the forum for citizens to engage with the state on the basis of this vastly new knowledge of the state’s functioning that is available. The actual mode of citizen participation may vary, based on which tier of government it is, and the nature of governance. But citizen involvement is vital and it is going to be far more effective, since it will be with information and data whose integrity is accepted rather than in an atmosphere of distrust.
The final piece of the puzzle is the right to information. This is what will allow the ordinary citizen to ensure that he can prise open the information from the hands of an unwilling state. The Right to Information Act is often touted as the magic bullet that will be the panacea for all our ills. But unless it is preceded by technology enabled knowledge systems, mandated disclosure and structured citizen participation, it will be a damp squib. Having Right to Information without the first three will be like giving every child a Right to Education without having built any schools.
Is all this doable? Absolutely. When Independent India was conceived it was done in an analog era, of paper and pen. It was built on top of a foundation of set of bureaucratic processes left by the British. Our founding fathers could not have anticipated the swift advances in technology that allows us to wire every nook and corner of the country, that would make computers and software cheaply available and the liberating power of the Internet. Nor could they have known that in this new information intensive era, Indians would have a natural aptitude, and play a leading role.
The marrying of our democratic and governance mechanisms with the liberating power of IT is the key to reducing the knowledge asymmetry that exist between the state and its citizens. This gap between what the state knows and what the people are told is the root of repression, corruption and inequity. It is this complete opacity that allows those who have subverted the state to use it for their own ends. Eliminating this asymmetry and setting the foundation for an open democracy is what will truly empower India.
