Indian democracy has known defeats as well as victories and there are dark spots in its histories as well as signal achievements. In the coursing of the ages, a new and a great civilisation is rising and democracy is once again on trial.
The framers of the Indian Constitution had great faith in the people of India and in the ideals of democracy, and it was with this in mind they guaranteed freedom of speech and expression to all citizens. When a society has chosen to accept democracy as its creedal faith, then in a democratic society citizens are entitled to be well informed, thereby enjoying a right to decide by whom and by what rules they shall be governed, entitling them to further call on those who govern on their behalf to account for their conduct. Thus, when the people are sovereign in a democracy, their right to be informed of the true facts on any facet of the functioning of the state is germane to that very concept.
Demand for openness in the government is gaining ground and increasingly growing for a continuous and pervasive orchestration of democracy, as gone are the days when people exercise their franchise once in 5 years to choose the rulers and once the vote cast, then retiring into passivity with least interest in the government. Inter-alia, this means and also involves that people should not only cast intelligent and rational votes but should also exercise sound judgement on the conduct of the government and the acts of public policies, because democracy recognises that men can be power hungry and prone to self delusion, that they can prefer old errors to new truths, that they can act without caring about what they are doing to others. And democracy firmly believes that the goodness and rationality of men can have a chance to grow if the above referred human tendencies are constantly checked by being exposed to the open air and subjects to other men’s continuing judgement.
The citizen’s right to know the facts about the administration of the country is thus one of the pillars of a democratic State. The role of the people in context of above can only be fulfilled if they have an open government where they have full access to the information in regard to the functioning of their government.
Now, if secrecy were to be observed in the functioning of the government or if the processes of the government were to be kept hidden from public scrutiny, it would tend to promote and encourage oppression, corruption, misuse/abuse of authority for it would all be shrouded in the veil of secrecy without any public accountability. An open government with information to public would definitely help assure the people a better administration. After all, an open government is definitely a powerful safeguard against political and administrative aberration and inefficiency. democratic government has an obligation to its people. It needs the trust of the governed. It cannot use the plea of secrecy to hide from the people its basic aims. On the contrary, it must explain these aims and it must provide the justification for them.
In a government of responsibility like ours, where all the agents of the public must be responsible for their conduct, there can but be few secrets. The people of this country have a right to know every public act, everything is done by their public functionaries. They are entitled to know the particulars of every public transaction in all its bearing. The right to know is a sine qua non for a democratic polity. The concept of an open government is the direct emanation from the right to know which is implicit in the right of freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under the constitution. It is high time that disclosure of information in regard to the functioning of the government must be the ‘RULE’ and secrecy an ‘EXCEPTION’, as over concealment of governmental information creates a communication gap between the governors and the governed, and its persistence beyond a mark is apt to create an alienated citizenry, thereby making democracy weak.
