Anisha Anand, TNN Jun 3, 2013, 06.53AM IST
PATNA: Any rule and regulation or amendment to any law should be put in the public domain to solicit people's views before sending it to drafting committee, said noted RTI activist and former member of national advisory council (NAC), Aruna Roy, on Sunday.
Delivering the Pradhan Jwala Prasad memorial lecture on 'The Challenge of Transparency and Accountability in Indian Democracy', Roy referred to the government's cash transfer scheme and plans to linking payment through UID card. "People in Delhi believe these schemes are the panacea for all the problems. But at the grassroots level, people believe they are fallacious. When I communicated the villagers' views to people in Delhi, they called me a romantic and an idealist," Roy said.
She said people were pragmatic in their views. "Without pragmatism, a perfect democracy remains a distant dream. So, the issue of making the government transparent and accountable is the fundamental one," she said.
The Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership winner referred to TOI's report published on May 31 with the headline, 'Dogs, trees and chairs have Aadhaar cards', and pointed the fallacy of linking schemes with the UID.
"Nobody questions what UID is, what it is about. How can we accept anything and everything without questioning it?" she asked.
About the agenda of transparency in democracy, Roy said, "We have to engage with the government", and added, "Information, hearing, participation in the hearing, proper action and security are the five aspects of a true democracy."
Speaking about her quitting the NAC, Roy said she did not favour any thought nor did she was against any notion. "People should focus more on the advice that NAC gave to the Prime Minister (regarding putting up the new laws and amendments on government websites before forwarding them to drafting committee) rather than on my reason for resigning from the NAC," said Roy.
"What is the price of asking a question in this country?" she asked, referring to the five RTI activists who lost their lives in Bihar. "In a democracy, if there is no right to ask questions, it is in no way a real democracy. The real challenge in the way of revolution is the people's cynicism," she said and added that the notion of 'Kuch nahin ho sakta iss desh ka' is the biggest impediment in the path of revolution.
Later, Aruna called on CM Nitish Kumar at his residence.