TCN News - TwoCircles.net

By Rameeza Rasheed for TwoCircles.net

The civic conscious people of India are totally confused over the justice in the respective arguments of the government and the civil society team regarding the shape of lokpal bill. But it is not confused over the need to put an end to the chronic problem of corruption which has spread over all the vital sectors of the economy like judiciary, administration, legislature, education, health and banking. No citizen of India can say that they are not victimised, humiliated and humbled by corruption. Former President Abdul Kalam said that, "corruption is the single most important reason affecting growth.” He is right. Even the flow of foreign direct investment slowed because of corruption among the ministries and the bureaucrats in charge of clearing the projects. The countries land and mining mafia are looting the resources of the nation with the help of corrupt politicians. Excessive circulation of the tax-evaded money is contributing to hyper inflation. All these factors affect growth.

It is true that Anna Hazare’s team acted as whistle-blowers and helped in mobilising the collective anger of the people simmering over many decades, over the chronic corruption in which the mining, smuggling, drug and liquor and the real estate mafias are involved. They were looting the country’s resources without any fear of getting caught and punished by the existing laws. Now a mass movement is questioning all these atrocities. The credit goes to Anna Hazare’s’ team who created awareness about the extent of corruption in India and made the middle-class awaken from their prolonged slumber, come out in the open and participate in the agitations against corruption through the non-violent methods, like fasting, procession ,candle-light vigil etc., Anna’s team has created a platform to the people to express their collective anger and to demand a solution through creation of a machinery called Lokpal with power to cover every corrupt functionary of the government including the PM and the judiciary. Hence, they are agitating to accept their version of the bill as final .But, there is frenzy across India over the corruption issue and even children participate in it with the mood of participation in a mela since the protest area has all the ingredients of a mela. Indians in general are guided more by emotions than practicality. Even in the matter of Lokpal, it can be surely stated that most of the participants in this mass movement may not know the exact differences between the Jan and government Lokpal drafts correctly .

Many have joined India Against Corruption movement led by Anna Hazare [TCN Photo by Md. Ali]

The government’s decision to ignore their version of the bill and the attempt to introduce in the parliament a toothless government’s Lokpal bill which does not cover any important functionaries of the government, the judiciary and the PM led to the present crisis in which Anna Hazare’s movement has gained more popularity and support from different sections of the society. The 24x7 coverage by the electronic media and the high technology methods, they follow for mobilising the people for their activities have made them look like a force to reckon with. The TV media gives only 20% of their time to know the government views and 80% of the time to cover the mass hysteria. It is true that all the sections of the society are participating, irrespective of their religious, educational, financial, gender, age and professional differences .It is because all of them had suffered due to corruptive practices pervading in this country from the top to the bottom level. But it is no reason for the civil society team to grow arrogant day by day and dictate terms to the duly elected government and challenge it, in an arrogant tone with least respect for the concept of parliament and democratic procedures set by the Constitution of India.

They cannot fix a dead line for the government to accept their draft. It is not the way a democracy functions. There are differing views and all the views are to be examined. It is true that the government seems to have lost its sense of direction and hence faltered many times while dealing with the mass movement. . Other wise it won’t be engaged in cheap tactics like maligning every body in the team, making guesses regarding the forces behind the agitation and calling it blackmail through fasting and arresting the Anna’s team without any provocation under the pretext of national security. But, the government is right when it says that, there is a proper procedure to enact a law such as going before the standing committee to convey the views of concerned parties, debate in the parliament, make necessary changes after discussion and pass it with majority votes. Now, the PM is inviting the Anna’s team for further discussion. Such gestures should be respected.

Any dispute can not be solved if concerned parties are adamant about their respective stands. Both have to give-up few conditions. That is the essence of negotiation that would help in breaking the dead lock. Now to add to the existing confused scenario, the NCPRI has come out with a third version of the Lokpal claiming superiority over the other two bills. What will happen now? The Anna team has to accept the reality that in vibrant democracy views of different sections are too accommodated before coming to a conclusion on any issue.

But , the constitutional experts and several think-tanks have warned about the dangers involved in including the PM and there is strong view that the judiaciary need not be covered by the Lokpal machinery since, the government is ready with a plan to deal with judicial corruption through a separate machinery. . But after being over fed by the media about all the aspects of both the bills presented by the Anna team and the government , the sane citizens of India can only come to the conclusion that adding one more machinery to deal with corruption at the tax payers expense would only add to the wasteful public expenditure. In course of time it will also be filled with corrupt people and start functioning inefficiently. Look, what has happened to RTI Act? With what hopes it was introduced and how now the RTI activists struggle to get any information and are murdered for their activism? The tax paying community of India wants the effective implementation of the already existing laws to deal with corruption after plugging the loopholes in it. What is lacking is the strong political will to implement them.

What the government has to do now is to remove all the loopholes in the existing anti-corruption laws and gain the political will to implement them. The government should arrange for special provision to deal with the PM and judicial corruption. Have we not recently seen the cabinet ministers, MPs, bureaucrats and corporate going into the prison cells? They are not even able to come out on bail inspite the best lawyers arguing for their bail. Have they not been arrested on the basis of existing laws? Have we not seen the recent Tamil Nadu Assembly election conducted in the most efficient manner by the election commission by controlling effectively the role money in voting with the help of the existing rules of the election commission?

The Anna's team is only talking about dealing with corruption without touching upon the core issues. India needs urgently institutional reforms like election, judicial, administrative, police and political reforms. Creation of Lokpal machinery will not act as a magical wand to remove the deep rooted and wide spread corruption without addressing the fundamental flaws which are rotting the funtioning of our democracy.

In any dispute, a solution can arrive only if both the parties are willing give up some conditions. “My bill or no bill”, “Anna is India and India is Anna” are the stupid slogans chanted by the emotionally-charged people. So far, the atmosphere is surcharged, yet no violent incident is reported. But, if the agitation is allowed to prolong, some ugly development will take place. It is better both the parties meet again and further negotiate and come to an amicable settlement regarding the format of the Lokpal bill or forget about Lokpal for the time being and concentrate on institutional reforms. But there can not be two opinions on the argument that parliament as a concept should be respected.