Right to know in India comes with risks
Some activists poking at the intersection of power politics and business have paid a heavy price.
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KODINAR, INDIA
Amit Jethwa had just left his lawyer's office after discussing a lawsuit he had filed to stop an illicit limestone quarry run by a powerful local politician. That is when the assassins struck, speeding out of the darkness on a motorbike, pistols blazing. He died on the spot. He was 38.Jethwa was one of millions of Indians who had embraced the country's 5-year-old Right to Information Act, which allows citizens to demand almost any government information. People use the law to stop petty corruption and to solve their most basic problems, like getting access to subsidized food or determining whether government doctors actually show up for work.
But activists such as Jethwa who have tried to push such disclosures further -- making pointed inquiries at the dangerous intersection of high-stakes business and power politics -- have paid a heavy price. Perhaps a dozen have been killed since 2005, when the law was enacted, and countless others have been beaten and harassed. In many of these cases, the information requested involved allegations of corruption and collusion between politicians and big-money business.
"Now that power people are realizing the power of the right to information, there is a backlash," said Amitabh Thakur, an activist and police official who is writing a book about people killed for demanding information under the law. "It has become dangerous."
India may be the world's largest democracy, but it remains dogged by the twin legacies of feudalism and colonialism, which have often meant that citizens are treated like subjects.
The law was intended to be a much-needed leveler between the governors and the governed. In many ways it has worked, giving citizens the power to demand a measure of accountability from bureaucrats and politicians.
A powerful new tool
When the law was passed, Jethwa, a longtime activist who nursed a grudge against those who abused official power, immediately seized upon it as a powerful new tool.His objective was to stop illegal quarries near the Gir National Park, 550 square miles of scrubland and deciduous forest near his hometown, along the southern coast of Gujarat, India's most prosperous state.
Jethwa repeatedly filed information requests to unearth the names of those operating the quarries and to see what action had been taken against them. He discovered there were 55 illegal quarries in and around the preserve. One name stood out among the records of land leases, electricity bills and inspection reports: Dinubhai Solanki, a powerful member of Parliament from the Bharatiya Janata Party, which governs Gujarat.
Solanki was a local kingmaker and an imperious presence. He had the backing of the local police and bureaucrats. Jethwa and many others suspected that he was the mastermind and principal beneficiary of the illegal quarry operations.
In February 2008, Jethwa was attacked by a gang of men on motorbikes. He was beaten so badly that he had to be hospitalized.
By last June, Jethwa felt that he had amassed enough evidence to file a lawsuit to stop the mining. He filed the papers on June 28. On July 20, late at night, he was gunned down, leaving behind a wife and two children.
Because of his activism and the place where he died, practically on the doorstep of the state high court, political pressure forced an unusually swift investigation. Detectives used cell phone records to link Shiva Solanki, a nephew of Dinubhai Solanki, to the killing, and he has been charged with conspiracy and murder. He is accused of hiring a contract killer to murder Jethwa.
But few people believe that Shiva Solanki, who works for his uncle, could have carried out and paid for a contract killing on his own.
Anand Yagnik, a prominent human rights lawyer in Gujarat, said that the police had made no effort to investigate Dinubhai Solanki.
"The message that has gone out is that if you resort to your right to information to try to harass a political person, even after your murder, that man will go scot-free," Yagnik said.
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