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SRINAGAR: For the law students gathered last week at Tagore Hall — a modest state-run auditorium tucked behind Iqbal Park in Srinagar’s Gogji Bagh — filing RTI applications began as an exercise for their coursework. Soon, though, it became an early education in how power responds to questions. Some received partial replies. Others got silence. One was even offered a scooter. Yet others were contacted by people who suggested it would be better to let things go.Sabika Rasool had filed an RTI request about development meetings in her village in Pulwama. The reply didn’t come at first. A phone call to her father did. “They told him it doesn’t look good that I was filing such applications,” she said. Then came an unexpected offer — a scooter — if she withdrew it.A student at the University of Kashmir, Sabika had filed her request on Aug 1 to the rural development department. She wanted to know how often gram sabha meetings were held and what development works had followed. Her seemingly simple query triggered a quiet but unmistakable response from the local administration.When she visited the office in person, she was directed from one desk to another, only to be told “the designated officer had been transferred”. A few days later, her father received a call. The caller said it would be better if his daughter didn’t pursue the matter. She received a 32-page reply in Urdu on Oct 15, listing 11 meetings and referencing projects under schemes like Har Ghar Jal. Sabika is not convinced that the data is accurate. But one thing changed: meetings are now announced in mosques. “At least people know when they’re happening,” she said.Dr Peerzada Farhat, the then assistant commissioner (development) at Pulwama, described the scooter claim as a “white lie”. “All data of the rural development department is online and accessible, and in public domain.”Like Sabika, these students had not set out to confront the state. Many had filed their RTIs as part of legal coursework. Yet in department after department, they found that even routine queries were met with delay, redirection, or informal pressure — delivered not through written denials, but through relatives, neighbours, or local influencers.When Idrees Farooq asked about the renovation of a stadium in Ganderbal — seeking costs, contractor names, floodlight installations and revenue from night matches — the response he received cited just Rs 31,500, without any details. Soon after, some of his relatives were contacted by officials. “I had to explain it wasn’t a complaint, just an RTI,” Farooq said.An official from the sports council department said they had responded properly to the RTI and encouraged the applicant to appeal, if unsatisfied. “There is a lot of politics involved in this matter, but despite that, we have provided our response. We do not look at it through a political lens,” she said.Some applicants didn’t receive a reply at all — but their questions still appeared to make something shift. Junaid Budoo, a student from Uri, had asked why a public library appeared on govt rolls but did not function. He heard nothing from the department of libraries. But within weeks, the library opened and staff began reporting for duty. “They didn’t send me a reply,” Budoo said, “but the library started functioning again.”In Kargil, Ghulam Abbas filed an RTI with the irrigation and flood control department in Ladakh, seeking information about a long-stalled canal project in his village. Weeks later, it wasn’t an official who contacted him but his father — who’d been approached informally. “They told my father that the department had no old records, and my father then advised me to withdraw it,” Abbas said.In March this year, the J&K information technology department issued a press statement asserting that the Union Territory’s RTI portal — launched on Jan 10 — was “fully functional” and operating in compliance with the RTI Act, 2005. According to the department, over 15,800 applications had been filed, with 11,631 disposed and 4,260 in process.The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative reported in 2024 that RTI filings in J&K had fallen by 31% since 2022. The group attributed the decline to lack of oversight, extended delays, limited digital access in rural areas and what it called a “culture of discouragement.” Go to Source
