The right to education is deeply enshrined not only in the Copyright Act, but is woven throughout the fundamental rights in the Constitution of India. For example, the right to practice the profession of your choice is a fundamental right, a right that is all about caste. But, it is about more than caste: you can’t practice the profession of your choice if you can’t learn about it. That was my argument with the technical standards and I would advance the same proposition for knowledge in general. An informed citizenry is at the core of a functioning democracy.
Instead of making scientific information available to everybody, I would be happy making that information available to 20 million Indian students, one at a time. It would make an important point: access to knowledge is not a binary proposition. Even if private property rights are in play, we cannot let these liens on the road to knowledge become an insurmountable obstacle when students attempt to further their education. Purposefully erecting barriers to education is immoral and here perhaps is an opportunity to do something to remove those barriers.
My hope is to use that data in India and provide access to Indian students. I am not sure if I will be brave enough to do this, or if universities in India will have the courage to allow me to come to campus. I do not know how greedy publishers will react. But, I believe the activity falls directly within the intended aims of the laws of India and if knowledge satyagraha is the only way to make that information available as it was meant to be, then so be it.
Democratizing Information
The tenth area is democratizing information. This is my umbrella category, the catch-all, but perhaps the most important. Much of my personal focus is on finding large databases accumulated with public funds, usually by the government, and making those available. That is a top-down enterprise, often focused at the level of the national government in India or the United States. I look for things that already exist and try to make them available.
But knowledge is not top-down. Knowledge begins with the people. I saw that very much when I met Bunker Roy on my 2016 trip. Sam had a lecture to give at the elite Mayo College, and early the next morning we shot over to Barefoot College to see his old friend Bunker before heading over to Central University of Rajasthan where Sam had to preside over the convocation as the Chancellor.
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