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Chapter 5 examines the conceptual set-up of the grievance redress system created by the Right to Education Act, and analyses studies on its performance. It highlights the deficiencies of the current system, and compares it to other, more effective systems such as grievance redress under the RTI Act. The different institutions that are part of the grievance redress system are either not sufficiently independent or do not have sufficient competences to enforce their ‘judgments’. These deficiencies, as well as additional implementation issues, also translate into a malfunctioning system ‘on the ground’. The chapter also examines other grievance redress systems for different state services (for instance, the ones created by the Right to Information Act), highlighting that some of the deficiencies found in the right to education system are actually not universal.

This chapter sketches the evolution of the RTI Act. After pointing out far-reaching consequences of the Right to Information Act, and the worldwide move towards transparency, the chapter traces the judicial activism towards transparency between 1975 and 1996, till it became part of the Janata Dal’s election manifesto in 1989. Still things did not progress much till in 1995, a major workshop on RTI was held at LBSNAA on the subject. A long tug of war ensued as government came and fell till the bill was introduced in 2000. The Freedom of Information Bill passed in 2002 but was never notified. The grassroots efforts by MKSS in Rajasthan since 1990 played a major role in pushing the RTI agenda forward, ultimately leading to the formation of the NCPRI. Finally, the RTI was passed in 2005. Its journey exemplifies the advocacy coalition framework.

This chapter focuses on the passing of the Right to Information (RTI) Act in 2005, an important milestone in the history of democratic India which conferred upon common people the right to request information from any ‘public authority’. This Act, comparable to the Freedom of Information Act (USA) has tremendous potential to tackle corruption and asymmetry of information in public, and it is therefore imperative that every citizen of the country knows about this act. The chapter then looks at how the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM) undertook a campaign-on-foot to create awareness about RTI among the people of some 120 villages in 2008. Covering five districts in South Karnataka, the campaigners interacted with thousands of people in about a month on not just people's right to information, but also on different issues related to democratic development including corruption, accountability, and citizen's responsibility.

This book argues that India must build a civil service for the twenty-first century to go with its growing competitiveness in the world stage. A modern, world-class civil service will improve India’s governance. Globalization has made it imperative for countries to be competitive across the board. There are some recent developments that are encouraging, including the enactment of the Right to Information Act in June 2005 and the emergence of social audits. A recent study by Daniel Markey, ‘Developing India’s Foreign Policy Software’ suggests that India should reform its foreign service in order to compete with the world’s superpowers. This finding is relevant in the context of instituting reforms in the civil service.

In India, almost all retiring or retired civil servants are offered some post-retirement position in the government. A post-retirement job is usually offered as a blandishment, a practice with serious implications. In particular, it undermines the autonomy of the institution to which a retired/retiring civil servant is assigned. Providing post-retirement placements to civil servants is a pernicious practice that can destroy the moral fibre of the civil service. This chapter looks at institutions in India where a retired/retiring civil servant may find a new job, namely, regulatory commissions, information commissions, and administrative tribunals. Information commissions have been set up as independent appellate authorities with the enactment of the Right to Information Act.

The last chapter expands the scope of the ethnographic account to reflect on aspiration and affirmative action as important sites of political inquiry in the contemporary world. Focusing on the creativity of subaltern citizenship, it argues that such creativity emerges because of, not in spite of, proximity to those state institutions from which subalterneity is often seen as an exclusion. Looking at struggles for inclusion in the Scheduled Tribe category in Rajasthan and new uses of the Right to Information Act, the conclusion proposes that the ongoing work of feminist ethnography demands that we attend to how projects for social uplift can be both collective and differentially experienced based on axes of gender, age, and religious devotion.

This chapter examines administrative accountability through the democratic pillar of public transparency. One of the pillars of democratic accountability is the availability of adequate information in the public domain about the functioning government. It has taken a social movement for transparency in government to establish people’s right to information through the passage of the Right to Information Act in 2005. However, traditional administration has not reconciled to its demands and PPPs are kept out of its purview on the plea that they are not public authorities. The Lok Pal (ombudsman) Bill has been passed in response to another struggle of civil society.

This chapter examines the issue of the perceived reluctance of officials to take decisions for fear of being at the receiving end of what is perceived by them as activism by oversight agencies. It examines the context for such decision paralysis and the underlying motivations and fears of officials. The chapter discusses the roles of the important agencies of the government—judiciary, the Information Commission, vigilance and investigative agencies, and the Comptroller and Auditor General—in contributing to the problem. It also provides several illustrative examples which highlight the problem. It also briefly examines the role of Finance Department in this context.