Seeking Information

TRUE to its liberal spirit, the Constitution of Nepal promulgated in 1991 after the restoration of multi-party democracy in 1990 has accorded every Nepali a right to information. The Constitution-framers were not satisfied with rights to freedom of expression alone. They went further ahead and wrote Aticles 16 that reads: Every citizen shall have the right to demand and receive any information on any matter of public importance. Thus was fortified the Constitution in terms of upholding Nepalis’ right to information. Sadly, however, right to information of a Nepali citizen is more often violated than respected in the present scheme of things. Journalists routinely face stonewalling officials who are extremely reluctant to part with any information on governmental doings with the result that the public’s right to know is easily denied. No successive governments thought of this continuous violation of right to information as a serious enough matter to make moves towards drafting a right to information bill. In the meantime, clamour for a right to information act was continuing.

Journalists fortunately did not wait for the government to show alacrity. Federation of Nepalese journalists some months ago began to work on the draft of the right to information that, on completion, has been handed to the government. The latest news is that the government is working on this preliminary draft to table it in the current session. This is indeed good news. All proponents of right to information would rejoice if the current session of parliament is able to give the Nepalese press and the public a right to information Act. This is a long-overdue legislation that the parliament should have legislated long ago. If the present bill is passed into an Act, any individual would be able to demand and receive information from a government, other public or private agencies. If he/she is denied information, there will be ways to fight for it. In case of denial of information from any government or non-government agency, the information -seeker can knock on the doors of appellate courts. Though information on certain matters like national security can be withheld with justification, agencies will not be able to brush aside legitimate queries from the press and the public on filmsy grounds once the Act is enforced. They can do so only at the peril of inviting litigation from the aggrieved party. Therefore, the coming into force of such a Right to Information Act would certainly go into making Nepal’s officialdom more transparent than it is now and thus more accountable. The government should table the bill and the legislators afer extensive and exhaustive debate, pass it without delay.

Chisapani’s Big Bell

NO one knows whether or not the practice of warning the people of an impending natural calamity by beating a big bell is prevalent in Nepal. But at Chisapanai village, Agra VDC of Makawanpur district, it seems that any natural disaster that is about to hit the village will be announced by the chiming of a big bell. As and when the big bell rings, the Chisapani people just rush out from their homes and walk through the evacuation trials to safety. Had such a warning system being in place in 1993, the Chisapani farmers would have been spared from the devastating floods and landslides that killed hundreds of their brethren and damaged properties worth millions of rupees. The million rupee question is: why had they not thought of such a natural calamity warning system then? All it needed then was a big bell. That too, hung at a vantage point so that its deep and resounding chimes could be heard by Chisapani villagers near and far to warn them of the coming danger. For, surely there was no dearth of bells in Nepal! Nor, for that matter, of artisans to mold the bells to their orders and specifications. That such a simple device and system was beyond the ken of the villagers is not only quite surprising but also is a pointer to another unpalatable fact. That is, the villagers’ vision was circumscribed by their own small plots of land—and what took place or happened beyond their farms was of minimal importance to them. But then, whenever a natural calamity strikes, it does not spare any farm or farmer. Rather, it mindlessly sweeps away or destroys anything in its relentless path. That this realisation, albeit after the lost of precious lives and damage to considerable amount of property, could have inspired the Chisapani farmers to work collectively for their commonweal by, among others, installing a big bell to warn of impending calamities. And, of course, by building evacuation trails for speedy escape from the death-dealing blows of either the floods or landslips as well as by undergoing countless mock escape drills to the beats of the big bell. In other words, collective preparedness is the key to anticipate any natural disaster in the making. It is high time that other villages replicate the Chisapani experience to save themselves from imminent natural calamities.