Government trying to muzzle dissent: Activists

Civil society activists on Wednesday accused the government of showing disregard for rights-based legislation like the MGNREGA and trying to muzzle dissent.

"The hallmark of the present government was to "brook no dissent, silence all civil society organizations that have even the mildest difference of opinion with the government and wherever possible adopt the highly undemocratic route of ordinance and not be accountable even to parliament," activist Aruna Roy of 'Jan Awaz' told the media here.

She pointed out that all the rights that civil society had fought hard for over two decades such as the Right to Information were "being undermined in the most blatant manner and we are seeing a return to the days when the Official Secrets Act was used to justify lack of transparency and accountability".

The non-appointment of the chief information officer, Roy said was inexplicable and was tantamount to showing utter disregard for the rule of law.

Prabhat Patnaik of the Jawahar Lal Nehru University said it was clear that all the explanation that the government is giving about the increase in state share of taxation from 32 percent to 42 percent is completely misleading as the total transfer of central budget to states had been significantly reduced from 6.1 percent to 5.8 percent of GDP.

"This reduction of fund transfer to the states is going to prove extremely deleterious for all states but more so for the poorer states like Uttarakhand, Bihar and Orissa and with the introduction of GST the autonomy of the states to raise their own resources and levy taxes would be further curtailed," he said.

Announcing a series of events to highlight failures of Modi government on completion of its one year, Nikhil Dey, of the Mazdoor Kisan Sashaktikaran Sangathan (MKSS) emphasized that all "people's campaign and struggles are going to collectively raise the demands for justice, democracy, accountability and sustainable egalitarian development for all".