[Assam] RTI in India

[Dilip Deka]

Will such incidents scare people away from RTI? I met government officials in 
Assam who are serious about RTI implementation.
In a country where class system has been in place for thousands of years, I am 
not surprised that violence is used when activists use RTI to set things right. 
I feel RTI is a powerful tool and it must not be allowed to die.
What do you think?
Dilip Deka
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High Price for India’s Information Law 
 
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
A man herded sheep on land in the Gir Forest that had been torn up by illegal 
limestone mining. 

 
KODINAR, India — Amit Jethwa had just left his lawyer’s office after discussing 
a lawsuit he had filed to stop an illicit limestone quarry with ties to powerful 
local politicians. That is when the assassins struck, speeding out of the 
darkness on a roaring motorbike, pistols blazing. He died on the spot, blood 
pouring from his mouth and nose. He was 38. 

	*  
Enlarge This Image 
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Balu Bhai Socha, an environmental advocate, said that he now thought twice 
before challenging powerful interests and that he wondered if the risks were 
worth it. 

Enlarge This Image 
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Bhikhu Jethwa sifts through photographs of his son, Amit, who was killed after 
filing a lawsuit to stop an illicit, multimillion-dollar limestone mine run by 
powerful local politicians. 

Mr. Jethwa was one of millions of Indians who had embraced the country’s 
five-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 for the 
poor or a government pension without having to pay a bribe, or determining 
whether government doctors and teachers are actually showing up for work. 

But activists like Mr. 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. Officials who are meant to serve them often act more like 
feudal lords than representatives of the people. 

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. 

When the law was passed, Mr. Jethwa, a longtime activist who nursed a lifelong 
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. The preserve is the 
only remaining habitat of the rare Asiatic lion. The animal is featured on the 
national emblem of India, and is considered by Hindus to be a sacred incarnation 
of Lord Vishnu. 

But the forest sits in a mineral-rich area of coastal Gujarat dotted with cement 
factories that churn out building materials to fuel India’s near double-digit 
economic growth. The limestone that lies just beneath the soil in and around the 
Gir Forest is an ideal component of cement. By law, the forest and a three-mile 
boundary around it are off limits to all mining activity. But quarries the size 
of several football fields have been cut deep into the earth in the protected 
zone. 

This mining has had serious consequences not only for the forest preserve, but 
also for water used for drinking and farming. The thirsty limestone is a natural 
barrier between seawater and fresh groundwater. A recent state government report 
concluded that limestone mining had allowed seawater to flow into the aquifer, 
causing an “irreversible loss.” 

Balu Bhai Socha, an environmental advocate who worked with Mr. Jethwa, said the 
pace of mining rapidly increased as the local economy boomed. 

“The speed with which the illegal mining was going on, we realized, within 10 
years they will clean out the whole forest,” Mr. Socha said. 

Mr. 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. 

Mr. Solanki, who had risen from the State Legislature to Parliament, was a local 
kingmaker and an imperious presence. He had the backing of the local police and 
bureaucrats, activists here said. Mr. Jethwa and many others suspected that he 
was the mastermind and principal beneficiary of the illegal mining operation. 

In February 2008, Mr. Jethwa was attacked by a gang of men on motorbikes. He was 
beaten so badly that he had to be hospitalized. He immediately suspected Mr. 
Solanki. 

“If someone attacks me, or kills me in an accident, if my body is injured — for 
these acts the Kodinar MLA Dinu Solanki will be responsible,” he wrote in a 
letter to Gujarat’s chief minister, Narendra Modi, after the attack. 

His father begged him to stop. 
“I cautioned him several times about the danger,” the elder Mr. Jethwa said. 
“But he used to say: ‘Forget that you have three sons and say you have two sons. 
Let me do my work.’ He would say, ‘My religion is rule of law.’ ” 

Mr. Jethwa’s information requests found sheaves of correspondence between 
forestry officials and local bureaucrats showing that despite repeated efforts 
to shut down the quarries, the practice continued. 

By last June, he 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 cellphone records to link Shiva Solanki, the 
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 Mr. 
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 Mr. 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,” Mr. Yagnik said, seated below a portrait of Gandhi in 
his basement law office in Ahmedabad. 

The police did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the investigation 
into Mr. Jethwa’s death. Mr. Solanki told reporters at his office here that 
because the case was under investigation he would not answer questions. 

“You are welcome to sit here, have a cup of tea,” he said. “I will not say a 
word.” 

Mr. Jethwa’s death has sent a chill through the community of activists here. Mr. 
Socha, the environmental activist, said that he now thought twice before 
challenging powerful interests and that he wondered if the risks were worth it. 

“Our hearts are broken after his death,” Mr. Socha said. “You cannot fix the 
system. Everybody is getting money. If I give my life, what is the point?” 

Hari Kumar contributed reporting.