Behold The Activist:

September 09/2013: The Right To Information (RTI) Act 2005 had a government sponsored Amendment moved in Parliament which has been partially thwarted. The Lok Sabha, on 05 Sept 2013 (Wednesday) decided to refer the matter to a Standing Committee. Most likely it will be the Committee on Law & Justice that will deliberate on the proposal of the government and come up with its suggestions later. After that the issue could be brought afresh before both Houses for consideration and passing. That should take considerable time. Till such time, the CIC's directive, obviously, shall remain in cold storage.

What is interesting is the side winder activities that went on while the Bill was pending, waiting for a suitable time slot, before it could be brought for discussion and possible voting prior to being passed.

The new born 'glitterati' calling themselves RTI Activists went gung-ho on the internet. Every Member of Parliament with a known email ID had his Inbox filled to the brim. To the extent that important mails from their constituents bounced!

These so called activists, who need special scrutiny too, were insistent in their clamor that every MP must follow the glorious path set by two or three specific MPs in the matter. These honorable Members had brought in amendments to the Amendment being pushed by the government. In simpler terms, these few MPs were eagerly playing up to the 'virtual' galleries crowded with virtual people calling themselves RTI Activists who also double up as Twitteraties or inhabitants of a weird Facial world that has nothing to do with literature. There is nothing wrong to be a follower of someone on Twitter or having an account on Facebook. If you have the time of the world at your command that you stop working, constantly gaze at your mobile or computer screen and keep on reading stupid comments of people trying to pose smart, it can never be criticized. You are at liberty to exercise your freedom. Do you recollect those huge crowds thronging stadiums day in and day out to watch 5-Day Cricket Test matches? The nation may have lost (and is still losing) millions of man hours for such sporty idiocy. But did any one complain? None did. That is India. We crib that the country is not developing according to our liking. We as inpiduals, however, are eager to waste our own valuable time and compel or induce others to do so while pandering to our whims and fancies that prove, beyond any doubt, to be socially non productive.

Without a hint of condemnation, it could be categorically stated that the activities of every RTI activist is not only a sheer wastage of time but, most importantly, this activity now deserves to be monitored. India needs another bunch of people to keep a watch on what this activist bunch is doing. What specific information each of them is asking for under RTI must be discovered; since we are unaware of any of these 'activists' putting their 'collected' gems up in easily accessible (newspapers or television) public domain, it is now vital that every citizen learns where and with whom these bits of information are stored; although it would be very difficult to investigate and well nigh impossible to prove in a Court of law, there is a lurking suspicion that information collected by these activists find their way to the hands of special interest groups that do not necessarily work for the interest of the poor man or the nation.

Irrigation serves the actual farmer yet there are no 'irrigation activists' even amongst well organized farming communities. We all desperately need constant and steady electricity supply all over India but there are no 'energy activists'. Water is getting to be a scarce and extremely rare commodity in this country but there are no 'water activists'. Every newly built road or highway is getting instantly clogged with unruly motorists but no sensible citizen group is coming forward as 'transport activists' and helping in setting things correct. Privately owned medical facilities are operating as demons and cheating people blatantly while government run hospitals have become cow slaughter sheds, still we are not privileged to have a group of conscious citizens forming a 'medical activists' team. This list could go on to include every service, scheme, facility and product that government and private players offer starting from police, civil supplies, education, transport, food to even cinema and cosmetics. These are areas which matter most to the common citizen for day to day existence. This extremely wide canvas is, sadly, of no import for the Indian activist type.

Here looms in our feeble minds, and may be justifiably too, the image of Mata Hari. Gone are the days of cloak-and-dagger espionage rings. Remember, these are modern times! Modernity for Indians does not refer to any mental status. It simply implies usage of technically upgraded gadgets. With the assistance of such gadgets and a whole lot of information on specific subjects, culled over a considerable period of time at virtually no cost to the inpidual, it would be possible to wreak havoc in India. Imagine this situation in the backdrop of many people spread throughout the length and breadth of this country and operating in unison under a 'Soochana Adhikar' banner that embraces inpiduals and dresses them in the 'Activist' garb. Many of these people are not even aware of the implications of their activism. Most amongst them are indirectly being prodded, through Google/Yahoo! Groups or Twitter type internet based interactions, to start asking for information on a pre-meditated path towards a particular (possibly unknown to the activists) goal. For instance, lets say, some one yells about inordinate delay in getting a passport from the Bhubaneswar Passport Office. We shall, for the moment, forget that this very office had been the source of passports for many members of the Dawood gang a few years ago. A passport is the highest form of nationality identification. However, once a few hundred RTI applications are filed about Tatkal and normal passport issuance procedure, one should imagine the atmosphere that may prevail at that office in Bhubaneswar. What it would most probably result in is further confusion and delays in issuing of passports that could harm and upset the common applicant. Further harassment would end in much higher degree of disenchantment with the government. Similarly, once, if ever, political parties come under the RTI Act, questions galore could be asked on how and on what basis a candidate was chosen to fight for an Assembly or Lok Sabha seat or why a whip was issued on a particular Vote or even why was a person chosen as the Leader of the House. It would be a matter of minutes before the embankments are breached from merely sources of funds related queries to policy related issues. Apart from other things, a political party with no formal employees may find it very difficult to get hold of a PIO from amongst its supporters/workers who will be willing to work for it at the risk of legal punishment. If a party is in power, every future and possible decision could be queried too. This may very easily be used by forces not so conducive to India to compel political decisions that adversely affect the poor man's interest.

While passing the directive to bring political outfits under the RTI umbrella, the Chief Information Commissioner stated that they (especially 6 named parties) should be covered since they took considerable tax benefits, availed government land for offices at various places at subsidized rates and a few other points. Let us, as an experiment, remove named 'political parties' and replace with them with names of Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Group, Adani, Tata, GMR, GVK, Kumarmangalam Birla Group and so many other corporate giants, both local in Orissa and at national level too. They have all, without exception, debunked government taxes; cheated on electricity bills amounting to lacs of crores; been favored with official tax waiver schemes over and over again; granted with expensive mineral and gas exploitation licenses which are national assets but are being dealt with as paternal properties (they being handed down from one generation to another within their own families); have availed of thousands of acres of fertile private lands at throwaway prices thru government acquisition process to set up their polluting industries; gotten away not only murdering innocent apasis living on their mining lands but also Chartered Accountants, who knew too much, in London and Rome.

Yet, neither the knowledgeable CIC  nor the over enthusiastic RTI activist ever thought of bringing all these corporates under the scanner which might easily protect the small and medium investor putting his life's savings in the Stock Exchanges or Bourses.

This editorial could easily be pooh-poohed away as an imbecile writing immature thoughts. However, this kind of activism and those people involved in it or supporting it need to be closely watched. Those opposing the government's amendment from within the Parliament may simply be trying to deflect attention from their own wrongful activities. In today's India, it has become fashionable to deride the democratic system, the politician and therefore also the political parties. It is easy to ride that wagon and get momentary 'Bravos' uttered by a bunch of people who mean no good to the country. It is much tougher to go against the current, stand up and tell these jokers that we fully understand their deadly game. Only dead fish go with the flow! The Lord has, till now, kept us alive. And alert.