Ever since the Right to Information Act 2005, has been instituted in the Indian Legal System, an unbroken chain of ‘murders’ of RTI activists, scores of them from different walks of life, has become a shameful and shocking reality of our country. The death tolls of the “information martyrs” or “RTI martyrs”, as bloggers tag them, are on the rise, journalists note at least a dozen of them only in the last year. They dare to know the (uncomfortable) truth, courageously act on them, receive death-threat-calls and physical abuses, continue to pursue their noble service, and finally be killed. Unfortunately, this has become the ‘one-line-story’ of every one of their inspiring lives.
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| July 29, 2011 Shehla Masood posing for a photo outside the MP police HQ in Bhopal Courtesy, www.outlookindia.com. |
Shehla Masood, the slain 38 year old RTI activist (16 Aug, 2011), is the latest to join this noble fold. Born in a Muslim family (1973), she lived with her father Sultan Masood, a retired government officer of the state education department, and her aunt Rubab Zaidi (Bajjo) in the Koh-e-fiza locality of Bhopal. She has a sister Ayesha Masood, then studying microbiology in New Jersey. She graduated herself from the Bhopal School of Social Sciences and South Delhi Polytechnic for Women.
Like every upper-middle-class girl, Shehla began her schooling with conventional dreams – Air Hostess, Mass Communications – she radically ‘changed d rulz’ of her life in course of time. From a full time entrepreneur she turned into a major social-environmental activist seeking justice, good governance, police reforms, women’s rights, minority and wildlife conservation. In the former part of her life (until 2005) she founded ‘MIRACLES’ an event management company, in the latter half of 1999. It organized events like corporate promotions, rallies, social events, beauty contests for both the government and private sectors. Later in 2004, she initiated ‘UDAI’ an NGO working for good governance, transparency, environment, sports, tribal welfare, women, culture and minority issues in Madhya Pradesh. 
Things gradually changed, the woman who hoarded fineries and fashionable clothes and enjoyed a good life, intruded the ‘private’ arena of Indian bureaucracy. She claims to claims to have used RTI act right from the start (Outlook, “I fear for my life. But I’ll go on”, Interview Sep 05, 2011). However, a firm entry into RTI activism happened in 2008, when she filed RTI application on tender process adopted by the cultural department of Bhopal. Sources show that her conflicts with the high profile officials began then, only to rapidly increase with the growing years as she ploughed into uncomfortable truths of the bureaucracy. Her massive battle for justice against the brutal murder of the JhurJhura, in Bandhavgarh National Park, MP in the last year brought her into the limelight as a social-environment activist. Her probe into that case exposed a whole band of corrupt-to-the-core forest bureaucracy and other issues concerning the welfare of wildlife especially the tigers. 
Further such queries, uncovered the misuse of public funds by various officials including the chief minister of MP, certain police officers and members of judiciary. She did not stop there; she challenged the illegal mining project (£292m) by Rio Tinto in Chhattarpur district, MP which threatened the wild life in Panna Tiger Reserve and Syamri river. She has thus filed hundreds of RTIs. All this while, she received continuous ‘death-threats’, mostly from uniformed mafia (IAS, IPS and IFS)! Nothing but only death could stop her passionate crusade for justice for the wildlife conservation especially tigers and good governance. Despite her repeated petitions for her safety, one letter even penned to the Home Ministry, the government failed to protect her from her enemies. She was gunned down in her car, on the 16 August right in front of her house by unidentified assailants.
Gethin Chamberlain reporting the murder writes,
It is Tuesday morning in that same respectable street in Bhopal. A large khaki tent is pitched opposite Shehla’s house. Four police officers, posted to guard her family, sprawl inside on charpoys, fast asleep. The road leads to a large slum, whose residents pass regularly in front of the house, much as they must have done on the morning she died. It was Shehla’s father, Sultan Masood, who found her lying with her head back in the front seat of her little silver Hyundai Santro car. "I called: ‘Shehla, Shehla’, but she didn’t speak. I took some water and splashed it on her face and then her dupatta [scarf] slipped down and I noticed the black hole in her neck. I started screaming: ‘Somebody has killed my daughter, someone has shot my daughter.’ It is almost inconceivable that no one saw the killer or heard the shot, but Shehla’s fate appears to have been a warning to others to keep silent. For Shehla, though, silence was never an option.
“Shehla Masood battled corruption in India.Was that why she was killed?”
guardian.co.uk. 24 September, 2011
Eighty-six days have passed since her assassination, her case looks bleak, the murder a guarded mystery. But, for the ‘weird stories’ and rumors the case has made no progress. Her enemies have executed her physical life, her spirit however has been unleashed to the lengths and breaths of our country inspiring men and women, especially the young to talk the untrodden path. It is amazing to note how such a short span of public life could spur so much ‘uproar’. Probably she has asked the right questions to the right persons direct and clear. As she writes, “Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence” in her blog, and notes in her interview to Outlook, “I fear for my life. But I will continue working and carry on.”, she has led a courageous life! The baton is passed on to us.
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| Her Father: Sultan Masood |
Her father, brooding over her death says,
She was a fighter.
For me she is a martyr
and I would want justice for her.
Chandrani Bannerjee, “Information Martyr” Outlook Sep 5, 2011
She was equal to 4-5 sons
She knows it would take her many years
if she took the middle path.
She found a way. She jumped.
Vandita Mishra, “The Life and Death of Shehla Masood” Indian Express Sep 18, 2011
http://the life and death of shehla Masood – Express India.html
Writing about her, her friends note,
She knew too much to live. – writes Gethin Chamberlin in his article borrowing the expression from her friends.
Gethin Chamberlin, “Shehla Masood battled corruption in India.
Was that why she was killed?” Sep 24, 2011
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| Her Sister: Ayesha Masood. |
‘All that this earth can give, they thrust aside…
and for one fleeting dream of right, they died.’
How quickly they fade, our little stars of truth
that come tearing through
our thick smog of violence and corruption.
How quickly they fall, burn out, disappear into the dark night.
‘They died that we might live — Hail and farewell! —
to those who, nobly striving, nobly fell…like kings they died.’
Shehla Masood, you were silenced because you dared to speak.
Shehla Masood, you were silenced because you dared to speak.
Your striving was noble and you died like a queen.
Like a tigress. Hail and farewell. – Annie Zaidi
Annie Zaidi, “Shehla Masood’s quiet roar”, Sep 18, 2011
She was someone who could be termed as an alert citizen - says Ajay Dubey.
He is a friend and junior in her college. Dubey’s organization ‘PRAYTNA’ has been collaborating with UDAI in filing RTI queries.
Kamayani Bali Mahabal, “Murdered activist Shehla Masood had
been involved in various issues”, Aug 22, 2011
She was evidently a woman passionate about doing the right things. And she was killed – says Rachna Dhingra, who organizes SAMBHAVNA Trust Clinic in Bhopal for the gas victims.
Vandita Mishra, “The Life and Death of Shehla Masood” Indian Express Sep 18, 2011
http://the life and death of shehla Masood – Express India.html
If courage and beauty had other names It is surely yours - Shehla.
In a thousand ways you inspire me my friend,
A friend that I never met in person
But whose warmth and sincerity I feel
By the footprints of your actions
And the ultimate sacrifice of your life.
I will hide my tears carefully Shehla
For I do not want your vile assassins
And their accomplices explicit, complicit and implicit
To revel in your passing.
For you Shayla there is no end
You live on...
Like an eternal truth.
Posted by Ravi Shankar, on Sep 02, 2011 in Shehla’s Scratch My Soul
http://the life and death of shehla Masood – Express India.html
One of her dreams was to create a website “RTI Leaks”, a web resource for all information collected through any RTI application filed across India. We have no news about it; this post however marks a new beginning spreading the lives of RTI Martyrs. For blood of the martyrs is the seed of Truth and Justice.
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| A snap portraying her Anti-Corruption activism |
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