Talking about the RTI movement, activist Harsh Mander said Indians faced a greater battle today than they did when the campaign for the crucial accountability weapon began.
New Delhi: Incidents like the alleged Kathua gang rape and murder underline the need to “fashion new instruments to question the government”, activist and former IAS officer Harsh Mander has said.
Mander was speaking at an event Friday to celebrate the publication of ‘The RTI Story: Power to the People’, a book written by social activist Aruna Roy and the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) collective, the organisation she co-founded that pioneered the campaign for the landmark Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005.
Talking about the RTI movement, launched in Beawar, Rajasthan, in the early 1990s, Mander said Indians faced a greater battle today than they did when the campaign for the crucial accountability weapon began.
“Those who govern us foster and legitimise hatred,” Mander alleged. “It is the cynicism with which hatred is being fostered across this country, and we are just watching helplessly,” he added.
The probe into the Kathua episode, involving the abduction, gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl, has taken an ugly turn with attempts by certain sections to paint the crime in communal colours.
Roy’s book, published by Roli Books and launched on 7 April in Beawar, seeks to tell the story of the RTI campaign, which had its beginnings at the grassroots. Translations in Indian languages are expected soon, with the book’s Hindi version likely to be released on 1 May.
“It was a difficult task to write the book but I’m not the chronicler. We all did this together, it belongs to all of you,” she said, expressing gratitude to contributors within and outside the MKSS.
Other guests at the event included India’s first chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, journalist Kuldip Nayar, social activist and MKSS co-founder Nikhil Dey, and CPI leader Annie Raja.