By Amulya Ganguli, IANS,
When Anna Hazare and his warriors launched their anti-corruption crusade in early April, they were acting like starry-eyed idealists ready to take on the world. Their ardour had something of the assurance, full of zest, which every generation felt when they embarked on a mission to usher in a new dawn.
Although a few of those in the frontline are young – Hazare himself is a septuagenarian – their youthful fervour of those days was seemingly the result of two factors. One was the righteousness of their cause and the other was the conviction that they had forced the government into a corner by mobilising public opinion via an impressionable media.
The government was, of course, particularly vulnerable at the time because the numerous corruption cases – the spectrum scam, the Commonwealth Games financial swindles and the Adarsh housing society scandal – were undermining its prestige. Hazare and his men therefore thought that they were on a roll.
It is, however, unlikely that their present mood is equally upbeat. What they must have realised in the last few weeks is the complexity of trying to evolve a mechanism to fight corruption. It is not just a question of appointing an ombudsman with overriding powers to crack down on wrongdoers. A basic reason why such a shortcut is not possible is that institutions in a democracy, whether autonomous or not, have to function within an elaborate legal framework where none of them is omnipotent.
The central feature of a democracy is the idea of checks and balances as a safeguard against dictatorial tendencies. The unavoidable fallout is a slowing down of all processes, especially the punitive ones, because of the old belief that it is better if 10 guilty men escape rather than punish one innocent person.
It goes without saying that considerable sophistication is required in operating such a system. A prime requirement is the innate honesty of virtually everyone involved from the lowest to the highest level – from the clerks to officers to ministers to judges. If each one of them adheres to the prescribed norms, the rule of law will prevail and the guilty will be unable to escape punishment.
In India, unfortunately, the moral degeneration of the individuals operating within the system – the bureaucrats, politicians and even some of the judges – is responsible for the present crisis. As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has conceded, “there is a growing feeling among the people that our laws, systems and procedures are not effective in dealing with corruption”.
Since the decline in the calibre of those in high places has been taking place over several decades, the critical situation can be said to have been building up to a climax.
The mistake, however, of the do-gooders who gathered around Hazare was their presumption that they would be able to sweep away the degenerates by installing a lily-white Lokpal with the power to call everyone to account.
It is this utopian ideal which has received a shock. Even in the first meeting of the committee comprising ministers and civil society representatives, which is to draft the Lokpal Bill, the latter seemed to have realised that such a powerful ombudsman was not possible.
But this was not the only brush of the do-gooders with the real world. What they did not expect was that they would become the targets of what is widely known as the “dirty tricks” department, which is an adjunct of the corridors of power.
At least two episodes concerning such clandestine operations are well-known. One was in the period before Richard Nixon’s resignation when those whom the US president considered his adversaries, especially in the media, felt the heat of official wrath. The other was at the time of the Iraq war when one of British prime minister Tony Blair’s scientific advisers, David Kelly, committed suicide following unsubstantiated reports about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Subsequently, much of these furtive operations come to light in open societies. But even then, what is undeniable is that confronting a government can be a hazardous occupation. It is this danger which Hazare’s supporters have begun to find out. Predictably, they are accusing the government of indulging in a smear campaign against them by raking up details of the property deals of the father-son duo of Shanti Bhushan and Prashant Bhushan, whose membership of the committee was criticised by Baba Ramdev, one of Hazare’s star supporters.
It was, however, a turn of events which could have been anticipated. Once Hazare launched his movement by tarring virtually the entire political class with a black brush to the applause of the middle class, it was inevitable that the primary objective of his opponents would be to embarrass him by levelling similar charges against his own companions.
As in all such campaigns, it is the insinuations which matter and not the details. The average person will not have the time or the inclination to scrutinise the rebuttals offered by father and son. All that he will believe is that there must have been some hanky-panky in the deals. The fact that both of them are wealthy will also weaken their case since the rich are not the favourites of the aam admi. As a result, the purpose of those making the allegations will be served since all that they want is to raise dust.
It will, however, be a pity if the shadow boxing between the two sides delays the process of preparing the Lokpal Bill. In view of what Home Minister P. Chidambaram called the ethical and governance “deficits” which have hit the government, the need for an ombudsman who enjoys the trust of the people cannot be gainsaid.
Since the politicians now apparently realise that their earlier version of a “toothless” Lokpal will not pass muster, they may agree to make the office a more effective one than what was earlier contemplated. But to do so, the present game of one-upmanship between the political spin-doctors and Hazare’s men has to end.
(23-04-2011-Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be reached at [email protected])