I’m building an app called Huqooq to help people exercise their fundamental rights - starting with RTI applications.

The tagline: तेरा हक़, तू ही रख1

It’ll be free. I’ll fund it as sadaqah.

act i - the phototherapy machine

I’ve had psoriasis since 2014. In 2022, I started NBUVB phototherapy - you stand in a machine that blasts you with UV light. It helps.

Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital in Delhi is the nearest government hospital with the machine. But it breaks. Often.

One day, there was a boy inside it-only in his undies, of course, that’s how you take phototherapy. The machine short-circuited. A spark. And yelling. Both the boy and the nurse setting up the dose shrieked in fear.

It was my turn next.

Nothing happened, luckily. But it could have, right? What if it’d been me?

I’d had enough. I walked to the administration department and filed a formal gross negligence complaint to the Medical Director.

And then that became a norm. I’d roam around the hospital, almost as if I’m on inspection duty. I’d find issues-equipment, hygiene, process-and report them to the MD via written applications. Some of which I followed up on.2

Then the phototherapy machine broke down completely. They just turned away all the patients. No timeline. No explanation. Just: “machine kharab hai, aaj nahi hoga.”

I’d had enough. I filed an RTI.

I’d never done it before. The official process looked… elaborate. Forms. Fees. Postal orders. Public Information Officers. First Appellate Authorities. State Information Commissions.

So I did what any reasonable person would do-I googled “how to file RTI online” and landed on OnlineRTI.com.

act ii - seven hundred rupees

The government fee for an RTI application is ₹10.

I paid ₹700.

Now look-I could afford it. That’s not the point.

The person who most needs to file an RTI-the one fighting a broken system, the one whose PF is stuck, whose passport is delayed, whose hospital machine doesn’t work-can they afford ₹700?

The RTI Act was designed to cost ₹10.3 Not ₹700. Not “₹10 plus convenience fees plus drafting charges plus…”

I’d just paid 70x the intended cost to exercise a fundamental right.

Something felt deeply off.

act iii - huqooq

So I’m building it myself.

Huqooq (हुक़ूक़)-the plural of haq (right). An app to help you apply for your rights.

Starting with RTI:

  • Free drafting (LLMs make this trivial now4)
  • Free filing
  • I pay the ₹10 government fee

The scope isn’t just RTI though. That’s the easy example-LLMs + chatbots make drafting trivial, and the fee is small enough that I can fund it indefinitely.

I want to see what other rights can be made more accessible. Through technology. Through money. Through removing friction.

end

The RTI didn’t help much. Made me infamous in the Dermatology department, though-the HOD had to personally reply.5

Today, my dermatologist is again recommending phototherapy. The machine? Broken. Has been for 3 months now. I’m stuck on Apremilast 30mg longer than I want to be.

I could file another RTI. Roam the corridors again. Become that patient again.

But I don’t want something just for me. I want the world to improve.

Huqooq (हुक़ूक़) means rights.

तेरा हक़, तू ही रख।

Your right. You keep it.

  1. A response to “सड्डा हक़ ऐथे रख” from Rockstar. “Our right, keep it here” demands something from the world. “Your right, you keep it” says: no one should have to ask for their rights. ↩

  2. I became that patient. The one staff recognize. The one who writes things down. ↩

  3. And free for BPL families. In theory. ↩

  4. OnlineRTI themselves now have RTI Mitra-a free AI drafting tool. The drafting problem is solved. But the filing friction remains. ↩

  5. Small victories. ↩