The query posed by a 10-year-old girl from Lucknow has revealed that the Central government does not know when and how Mahatma Gandhi became the Father of the Nation.
The query posed by Aishwarya Parashar, student of Class 6, under the RTI Act has elicited a response from the Central government which says that it does
not have specific documents to prove if Mahatma Gandhi was honoured with this title.
Aishwarya told reporters on Tuesday that she had consulted her teachers and parents before filing an RTI to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in February last year.
“I was reading my Class 5 social studies textbook which had a lesson about Mahatma Gandhi. It said that Mahatma Gandhi is referred to as Father of the Nation. So, a question came to my mind regarding the year when he was conferred with this title. There was nothing mentioned in my book. So, I asked my teachers, they had no clue. Then, I asked my parents, they did not know either. I could not find the information on Google so my parents suggested that I file a Right to Information (RTI) to the Prime Minister’s Office,” Aishwarya explained.
Interestingly, Aishwa-rya’s application was forwarded to the MHA by the PMO which, in turn, sent it to the National Archives.
“When I sent my query to the Prime Minister’s Office, they sent a reply saying that they had no specific information on the issue. Then my RTI was forwarded to the home ministry and they had no answer so then it was forwarded to National Arch-ives and they, too, did not have any information. The-y told me that if I want to research on this subject, then I can go there and conduct my research,” she said. The National Arch-ives did not have records. “My query still remains unanswered,” she said.