Author Archives: Hashwinder Singh

The Age of Opacity: Reviving India’s Right to Information Act

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Nearly five years ago, Inayat Sabhikhi’s post on this blog praised India’s Right to Information Act (RTIA) —which mandates public authorities to respond in a timely fashion to citizen requests for information—as a “remarkably effective anticorruption tool.” In contrast, last year the Supreme Court of India warned that the Act was “fast becoming a ‘dead letter law.’” What can be done to revitalize the RTIA? An important part of the answer lies in centering the rural poor—increasing awareness, affordability, and accessibility to the RTIA in India’s villages.

Given that many of the RTIA’s most lauded exposés have involved urban political corruption (see here, here, and here), it is sometimes forgotten that the law was fundamentally enacted so as to empower marginalized communities in rural India. In fact, the RTIA owes its existence to the collective efforts of activists who, throughout the 1990s, successfully campaigned to uncover local employment records to ensure fair compensation for small farmers. The RTIA’s promise in exposing rural corruption is illustrated in two cases that occurred shortly after the Act’s passage in 2005:

  • In 2007, farmers in the state of Assam leveraged the RTIA to reveal irregularities in the operation of the public system for distributing food to people living below the poverty. A further investigation revealed that local officials had diverted the rice to themselves, selling it on the black market at a sevenfold price increase.
  • In 2008, activists in the state of Punjab submitted RTIA applications to understand why federal money earmarked to build rural housing had not been distributed to the intended beneficiaries. As the requested reports indicated, the grants had been embezzled by village council members, who built houses for themselves. 

While these examples demonstrate that the RTIA’s potential to give rural citizens greater ability to hold local elites accountable, such examples are the exception rather than the rule. Although corruption is rampant in rural India (see here, here, here, and here), RTI requests in villages are all too rare. While 70% of India’s population lives in rural areas, barely 25% of RTI applications come from villages, and in some states that percentage is as low as 11%. In short, the communities with the most to gain from the RTIA are the ones that have used it the least.

Two reforms would help address this problem: 

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What’s Corruption Got to Do With It? The Role of Anticorruption Rhetoric in Kolkata’s R.G. Kar Protests

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Doctors in in the Indian city of Kolkata have been protesting and striking against the state’s ruling political regime since August 2024, with no end to the demonstrations in sight. The protests were initially sparked by the brutal rape and murder of a junior doctor at R.G. Kar Medical Hospital, with anti-misogyny as the protesters’ central rallying cry. The “Reclaim the Night” march in Kolkata, which inspired parallel marches across India and garnered international attention, epitomized this early focus. In recent months, however, the protests have evolved into a broader movement against corruption. As one politician noted in his resignation letter, “the present outpouring of public anger is against this unchecked overbearing attitude of the corrupt.”

This might appear puzzling, as this anticorruption rhetoric seems rather disconnected from the movement’s original focus on justice for the victim and the broader culture of misogyny and violence against women. But there are at least three reasons why protests that originated in outrage over violence and misogyny have evolved into protests that foreground concerns about corruption.

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The Kerjiwal Case and the Erosion of Transparency and Accountability in India

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Former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal rose to power championing anticorruption in Indian politics. But last March, India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED), a semi-independent agency tasked with enforcing anticorruption laws, arrested Kejriwal in connection with allegations that his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) received over $10 million in kickbacks in exchange for favorable liquor licenses in Delhi. This is not the first time that the AAP—a self-described anticorruption party—has been implicated in a corruption scandal (see here and here). Perhaps Kejriwal is yet another example of a politician caught betraying in private the principles he’d championed in public. 

But several observers have raised concerns about Kejriwal’s arrest, and suggested that it may reflect a disturbing politicization of anticorruption enforcement under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. For one thing, critics point to the suspicious timing of the arrest: Kejriwal was arrested just weeks before India’s national elections, following two years of investigation with no prior action. And Kejriwal’s arrest may have distracted public attention from a potential corruption scandal that would affect Modi’s party, the BJP, involving BJP fundraising from anonymous corporate donations through a system that the Indian Supreme Court recently declared unconstitutional. More generally, Kejriwal’s arrest fit a troubling pattern: Since 2014, 95% of the ED’s cases are against politicians from minority parties (under the previous regime, the number was 54%). Even more disturbing, 23 of the last 25 politicians probed for corruption saw charges dropped after switching allegiances to the BJP. And just a month prior to Kejriwal’s arrest, Hemant Soren, another popular Chief Minister critical of the BJP, was arrested on corruption charges.

So, is this a case where a hypocritical politician is being held accountable for betraying his own principles? Or is this an instance in which anticorruption enforcement has been weaponized by the incumbent president to discredit and punish political adversaries? Or both? How are citizens to know? Uncovering the truth is especially difficult when the three pillars meant to ensure transparency and accountability in Indian anticorruption efforts—the judiciary, the media, and civic organizations—appear increasingly susceptible to political and systemic pressures. When these institutions fail to inspire public confidence, the boundary between legitimate accountability and political retribution is obscured. Kejriwal’s case highlights the need to examine the state of these pillars and their ability to fulfill their critical roles in such contentious cases. 

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