Modi Government Acts to Hasten the ‘Slow Death’ of India’s Right to Information Act
The Indian government’s push to enact the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill threatens to effectively dismantle the Right to Information (RTI) Act, a cornerstone of democratic accountability. By introducing broad exemptions for "personal information," the legislation removes critical safeguards that previously allowed public interest disclosures to override privacy concerns. This structural shift risks transforming the RTI from a mechanism for transparency into a "Right to Deny," where officials can legally withhold information by broadly defining records as personal data, thereby stifling oversight and enabling corruption. This legislative move represents a significant regression for open governance, particularly for marginalized communities who rely on granular data to access welfare benefits and hold authorities accountable. The bill’s definition of "personal information" is so expansive that it could obscure most public records except basic budgets. Consequently, activists warn that this not only undermines the fundamental right to know but also consolidates executive control over information disclosure, reversing years of progress in empowering citizens to scrutinize state actions and ensure administrative integrity. The relevance to open data lies in the potential collapse of institutional mechanisms that make public information accessible. Open data ecosystems depend on legal frameworks that mandate transparency and limit arbitrary exclusions. By weakening the RTI and the autonomy of information commissioners, the DPDP Bill threatens to erode the very foundation of citizen-led data verification. This shift signals a broader trend toward data secrecy, jeopardizing the trust necessary for open data initiatives and diminishing the ability of civil society to engage meaningfully with government data.
Source: thediplomat.comPublished on 2023-08-03