RIGHT TO INFORMATION AND DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE IN INDIA: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF TRANSPARENCY, ACCOUNTABILITY, CITIZEN PARTICIPATION AND CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES

Few institutional reforms in India have done as much to change how citizens relate to the government as the Right to Information (RTI). The Right to Information Act, passed in 2005, gave people a legal route to obtain information held by public authorities, and with it a stronger basis for taking part in public affairs. The law did not appear from nowhere. It grew out of a long demand for openness, accountability and popular participation, voiced most forcefully by grassroots groups such as the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS). Under the RTI framework, access to official information stopped being a favour granted at the discretion of administrators and became an entitlement that citizens could enforce. Its stated aims are to make the government transparent and accountable, to curb corruption and to equip citizens to keep watch over public institutions.This paper looks critically at how RTI relates to democratic governance in India, focusing on four themes: transparency, administrative accountability, citizenparticipation and the problems that arise in implementation. It traces how the right developed historically, sets out its constitutional basis, reviews the key provisions of the Act, and considers the work of InformationCommissions and the courts. It also surveys the existing scholarship and the main disagreements about how well the law works. A central concern is the distance between the law on paper and the law in practice. Citizens, journalists, civil society groups and activists have used RTI to learn about public spending, official decisions and the working of public bodies.