By RICHARD SPRINGER
India-West Staff Reporter

PALO ALTO, Calif. — India’s Right to Information Act has “transformed the lives” of many the victimized in India, but it is being threatened at the appellate level, according to Magsasay Award winner Arvind Kejriwal, the keynote speaker at the 11th annual Recognition Dinner of Indians for Collective Action.

Kejriwal is the founder of non-governmental organization Parivartan, a Delhi-based citizens movement that fought for passage of freedom of information laws at federal and state levels and continues to seek increased transparency in government.

He supplied several anecdotal stories of people in India who have greatly benefited from the act since its passage in 2005 and from earlier freedom of information statutes in nine Indian states. The federal statute is stronger and makes moot state laws, he told India-West.

After citizens filed petitions, bureaucrats who previously dragged their collective feet on matters such as electricity connections and passport and food card issuances, snapped to attention and red tape mysteriously disappeared.

One woman who waited for three months for a ration card, and literally couldn’t get her foot in the door at a local bureaucrat’s office, was immediately ushered into the office and given tea just four days after filing under the act. She was given her card and asked to “please take back” the petition.

The law has bite because of the “penalty clause,” he said, explaining that stiff fines can be imposed upon those deemed responsible for the delays or for providing false information. The rate can be as high as Rs. 250 per day for delays and Rs. 5,000 for providing false information.

“There are more than 68 countries around the world that have a (right to information) law but India’s is the best in the world.”

“Every citizen in India, even a beggar, pays a tax, and that money belongs to the people of India,” Kejriwal said, adding that there need to be an accounting of “every penny of tax we paid.”

He told the audience of about 100 here Oct. 15 at the Crowne Plaza Cabaña hotel that some of his workers have been beaten because of their efforts on behalf of ordinary citizens. The group has 1,500 volunteers working with 700 organizations at 55 centers in India.

Another serious issue is that at the appellate level, the five-member federal Information Commission has agreed to hear only two of 1,500 appeals.

“In one of those cases, they withdraw the penalty (fine) and it looks like they will withdraw the other one,” Kejriwal said.

The outspoken NGO leader said appointees to the commission are “former bureaucrats,” who are in some cases “happy to have a job.”

A former Indian Revenue Service worker and mechanical engineering graduate of IIT-Kharagpur, is urging Indian Americans to ask Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam, who has the power, to replace the commissioners with new appointees.

“Look,” said Kejriwal, “I don’t want to blame all the bureaucrats. Some are good and some are bad, just like some politicians are good and some bad.”

Another threat to the law is that the India’s cabinet may decide to weaken it by amending it. The cabinet in July debated an amendment, but “when the word got out, there was a public outcry,” he said. He worries a similar push may be made when the cabinet meets again in November.

Transparency in government is a familiar concept in the U.S., at least in theory. In India it may not be as familiar.

Asked by India-West if India is ready philosophically for transparency, Kejriwal responded that indeed there could be some hurdles to overcome.

He pointed out that when there was a movement to have “complete transparency” in public exams, instead of an “outcry,” there was a demand for more debate, with many saying “complete transparency may not be a good idea.”

But, he told the ICA audience. “What the Right to Information Act has done has made the most common man in the street empowered. People are able to fight injustice and fight poverty.”

The other speaker at the ICA dinner, Dr. Larry Brilliant, founder of the Seva Foundation and executive director of Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, delighted the ICA audience with stories of his time in India working as a smallpox eradication official for the World Bank. Seva has helped more than two million people in India regain their sight through surgery and other medical treatments.

One of the most fascinating stories involved a quick decision by J.R.D. Tata in 1974 when smallpox erupted in Tatanagar (Jamshedpur), threatening the WHO’s efforts to rid India of the disease. The Tata family head immediately gave Brilliant the funds and his company’s full resources after one late-night phone call from outraged Brilliant, who witnessed thousand of people dying at railway and bus stations, “trying to go home to die.” Brilliant was able to get enforced forced inoculations of anyone trying to leave the city through Tata’s help.

Asked if there is anything in India that he would like to change, Brilliant mentioned the situation in states like Orissa, where many still struggle to survive, while it has been said “There are more billionaires in Bombay than in New York.”

“There are still some 300 million people in India who are living on less than $1 a day” and India is running out of water.”

ICA executive committee member Abhay Bhushan told India-West that ICA, founded by students at the University of California at Berkeley in 1965, is likely to hit its goal of raising $50,000 from the dinner.

About $2,700 was raised before the dinner and $11,400 at the event. An addition $8,000 was pledged on the spot and the StreetEdge Foundation is making a $12,500 donation. Anoop Khurana and Raj Mashruwala have made two matching donations of $5,000 each and the ICA executive committee has pledged $5,400.

ICA presented Kejriwal it s “Social Innovator” award and a check for $5,000 for his work with Parivartan. ICA executive board member Lata Patil detailed some of the groups in India who have received ICA grants. They include the Rural Technology and Development Center, an NGO in Himachal Pradesh promoting local self-governance; Ruchika Social Service Organization, which works with slum children in Bhubaneswar, Orissa; and the Samrakshan Public Charitable Trust, which promotes health and hygiene in Madhya Pradesh.

In remarks from the audience, Venk Shukla of the Foundation for Democratic Reforms in India said the group would be co-sponsoring a two-day conference next year at the University of California at Berkeley on India’s governance and policy issues. The group hopes to hold the conference annually, similar to what currently takes place at Stanford regarding India’s economic policy issues.