Accountability,Democratisation and the Right to Information in India

ABSTRACT

Accountability is a core democratic value. It envisages that citizens hold the powerful to account for omissions and commissions. Influenced by the global agenda for good governance, the Right to Information (RTI) Act in India was designed to build accountability through transparency. RTI is primarily a result of democratic politics. It emerged from intense grassroots activism – articulating poor and ordinary citizens’ discontent over corruption and other abuses of power. This study is based on six empirical cases of RTI usage in India’s West Bengal province. I argue that even though it is primarily designed to elicit accountability, RTI has emerged as a “seed right” because of its enabling, foundational and evolving dimensions push forward the process of democratisation. When operating individually, our respondents experienced negligible empowerment, but when the relatively powerless citizens organised collectively and were able to work through political institutions such as political parties and CSOs/NGOs, they could convincingly bargain with the powerholders, and elicit some cooperation, if not accountability.