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Retrospective RTI by Sanjaya Baru


Conflicting recollections on Bhopal tragedy highlight need to make old government papers public

I was on the last unaffected train out of Bhopal that night, or so I was told. It was the Dakshni Express from Hyderabad to Delhi. There was nothing unusual at the station and next day in Delhi, I went through an entire working day unaware of that night’s news. It was not the age of 24x7 television or mobile phones. News came to most Indians through the 9 pm broadcast.

In the days and the weeks following, and for months, the gas leak tragedy at Union Carbide’s Bhopal plant was among the most important news stories of the time. It is, therefore, not surprising that so many people remember so vividly the events of that time. Even 85-year-old retired civil servants seem to have fairly good memory of what happened.

Yet, one cannot depend on memory alone for facts. Any modern government in this information age and knowledge-based economy should be able to marshal facts, figures and a record of decision-making based on documents and documentation available to it.

It is, therefore, in the fitness of things that the Cabinet Secretariat, the Prime Minister’s Office and other wings of the government have unlocked almirahs, opened files and looked through records to find out who said what to whom and when in that tragic winter of 1984.

This information should be in the public domain so that there is informed public discourse on the rights and wrongs of the actions and the decisions taken by various functionaries of government, at the state and central levels.

Why should public opinion today be based on hearsay or selective memory? There is no need for anyone to worry about someone being made a scapegoat. There is no need for anyone to blackmail another with unpublished information. India is a modern democracy, not a banana republic. Let facts speak for themselves. People have a right to information!

Indeed. One of the great pro-people achievements of the government of the United Progressive Alliance is the Right to Information Act. Of course it is understandable that access to contemporaneous data on decision-making within government is subject to some limitations under the Act. Of course it is understandable that one has to file a petition seeking specific information for such contemporaneous information.

But, why cannot citizens have freer, if not free, access to information from the past. Most modern democracies have a 30-year rule. At the end of 30 years, a large part of government files get declassified. Barring what is still regarded as “secret” in the interests of “national security”, most government papers become available to the public.

Such access has not only spurred scholarship and good research but has also contributed to more informed public discourse on government policy and national affairs. An informed nation is an empowered nation. It is also a wiser nation.

George Santayana has often been quoted as saying something like this: “If we do not learn from the mistakes of history, we are doomed to repeat them.” The idea perhaps draws on Hegel’s less hopeful view: “What experience and history teach is this — that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”

It is in acknowledgment of such wisdom, and in recognition of the limitations of memory recall of retired government officials, and appreciating the importance of an informed analysis of government policy and decision-making that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh once observed, at a function where he released former Foreign Secretary Jagat Mehta’s book Negotiating for India (Penguin, 2006):

“I am aware that serious scholarship in India on government policy is hampered by a lack of access to official documents. Several eminent scholars have mentioned this to me. In other democracies, after a specified period, scholars and researchers are given access to official papers. This has encouraged professional study of contemporary history and policy-making. In the absence of a policy on making government files publicly available, the best records we have of policy-making and thinking at the highest levels in government are to be found in personal memoirs of distinguished men and women in public life. I, therefore, welcome Jagat’s contribution to our understanding of the major events in our recent history.

“However, I do hope that we do not have to depend only on memory and personal notes for a record of policy-making. I think the time has come for us to have at least a 50-year rule, if not a 30-year rule, that allows scholars and researchers free access to declassified official papers. I would like to have this issue examined so that we can take an early and informed decision. In the long run, this will make it possible for us to draw appropriate lessons from the past and make effective decisions for the future.”(Available at pmindia.nic.in)

This was the prime minister in April 2006. The matter was examined in government. I have no idea what advice the prime minister was given by his officialdom and by his party, but no steps have been taken to make this prime ministerial wish come true. The time has come for the government to act on it.

The Bhopal gas tragedy was not the last industrial accident in India. India is a nation of death by accident — the country’s roads, railways, fire accident-prone buildings, slums, public places and so on are all death traps. So, many from lowly municipal officials to larger-than-life politicians are culpable for this state of neglect.

Perhaps an honest and public review of how past accidents were handled will help handle future ones better.