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Notice (8): Undefined variable: urlPrefix [APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8]latest-news-updates/inside-out-government-an-tiwari-4674440.html"/> LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Inside-out government -AN Tiwari | Im4change.org
Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Inside-out government -AN Tiwari
-The Indian Express

The Right to Information (RTI) has never been without its sceptics. In the past few years, attempts to check it have become so persistent that they seem part of a larger design. One sees in them shades of jittery response by the great organs of the state and their moribund bureaucracies, forced out of their comfort zone defined by that perennial bane of good governance, "axiomatic institutional secrecy".

The latest in the series of obstructions is the fiat of the Mumbai Raj Bhavan to disclose only that information which meets the yardstick of "public interest". But the RTI Act contains no such provision. On the contrary, "public interest" has been used in the RTI Act as an "override" to disclose even information which may be otherwise exempt. But then, who can argue with those who are used to having their command uncritically obeyed.

It may be time, nevertheless, to examine certain fundamental issues relating to transparency and the efficiency-sapping secrecy in government.

A growing body of scholarly work now posits that the implementation of the RTI Act alone may not be sufficient to end the endemic stranglehold of secrecy on the state and its institutions. The RTI experienced variable success across the globe depending on the nature of the ruling elite, its adherence to constitutional norms and the quality of overall governance. It works best when augumented by enabling conditions such as institutional transparency; independence of and openness in the functioning of the main organs of the state; technological intervention in governance (for instance, computerisation and digitisation of documents); routinisation of internal processes of the administration; infrequent use of secrecy-promoting instruments; and so on. The key element in all these processes is transparency.

Arguably, therefore, simply by promoting transparency, a state can engender the forces that transform a closed system of governance into an open and accountable one. Functional transparency can accommodate considerable variation within a given approach. The fears governments express - and these are not necessarily corrupt or bad governments - are about the unintended consequences of all-encompassing transparency. These fears can, however, be addressed within the broad sweep of such an approach.

Amartya Sen has pointed out in his 1999 work, Development As Freedom, that unintended consequences do not mean unpredictable consequences. The reformer can rationally predicate the course the events may take without getting into a panic about the genie his initiative may release. Contrary to his fears, transparency that comes from removing the barrier of mistrust between the government and the governed helps enhance the legitimacy of the government beyond the electoral mandate into something more substantive and enduring by generating what modern scholars call social capital.
The affinity the politico-bureaucratic class has for institutional secrecy - described as a natural reflex - is the stuff of administrative folklore. The entire edifice of government is premised on secrecy of information and the mystique of the state. The citizen, quite paradoxically, remains an outsider to the very government he legitimises through mandate. A non-transparent state is an exclusionary state. It diminishes the citizen.

Columnist Stewart Alsop once wrote that the ruling elites knew that knowledge was power, and power was the most valuable commodity in government. Whoever knew the secrets and controlled knowledge, controlled power. Secrecy was the prison guard of state power. Jim Marrs (Rule By Secrecy) goes to the extent of arguing that secrecy is the connecting tissue in what he describes as the "conspiracy" of the state's power-wielding elites against the ordinary citizen.

The advent of the RTI, doubtless, constrained the elite's power to keep the citizen at an arm's length. But not enough to deal that power a crippling blow.

The ruling elites remain in business through a judicial order here, an administrative fiat there or by the insidious expansion of the list of organisations excluded from the RTI and so on. No arm of the state seems to be free from these impulses.

While implementation of the RTI will, no doubt, incrementally promote transparency in government, transparency by itself is a dependable and time-tested strategic option for ushering in good governance. In other words, transparency is not only a key element of improved governance, it can become the very pivot on which good governance rests. If viewed only through the prism of the RTI, transparency is fettered by those very limitations that hobble the RTI. As a free agent, it is a game changer.

The great constitutional scholar, D.W. Brogan, more than 50 years ago, called upon governments to disclose not only their decisions but also "the accounts which went into making them". Herein lies the crux of institutional transparency, variously described as, "active disclosure", "the publicising of incumbent policy choices" and "the availability and increased flow to the public of timely, comprehensive, relevant, high-quality and reliable information concerning government activities". Transparent governance is, therefore, "inside-out" governance: the government remains actively engaged with the people by systematically providing them with information, while also enabling them to make use of it. The process is at once empowering and trust-enhancing.

A close and intimate relationship exists between transparency and trust on the one hand, and trust and good governance on the other. Some of the most well governed countries of the world are known to enjoy high trust levels with their peoples. The interface between transparency and secrecy is mediated through a dynamic process taking the people into confidence. It enhances social capital, an empirically proven antidote to malgovernance. The statesman's job is, thus, cut out for him.

Transparency, expressed through its key aspects of openness, accessibility, communication and accountability, should become his lynchpin to usher in change and transform governance. The trust-enhancing power of transparency will, then, perform its magic. Without genuine commitment to institutional transparency, good governance remains but an empty slogan and true democracy, a distant dream.

The writer is a former chief information commissioner