Undemocratic Team Anna vs. democratically elected Government. Will the Lokpal eradicate corruption?

Corruption it seems has become a marketable commodity today. Media houses, so-called civil society, political parties, common man all seems to have been bit by the anti-corruption bug. So much so that even the corrupt are becoming anti-corruption crusaders.

Let’s take the case of Lokpal or Jan Lokpal as Team Anna loves to call it (as it is their version of the Lokpal).

Lokpal or ombudsman as it is called elsewhere is a grievance redressal mechanism for the citizens.

The Wikipedia definition:
An ombudsman is an official, usually appointed by the government or by parliament, who is charged with representing the interests of the public by investigating and addressing complaints reported by individual citizens.

As is clear from the ombudsman legislations of different countries, an ombudsman is a trusted intermediary (mediator) between the organization (govt.) and the internal/external constituents (citizens in this case). In simple terms he is a government representative hearing & mediating complaints against the government. He is appointed by the government or the parliament of the country.

But what Team Anna is asking for, through their version of the Lokpal bill, is an extra constitutional authority which can even override the functioning of the elected government. By even bringing the Prime Minister under the Lokpal they are seriously undermining the office of the Head of the State. How can in an elective democracy an appointed official supersede his appointer? Nothing but the Parliament can be the supreme authority in a democracy. Just think, with all those powers resting with a single individual or a group of individuals, will we not be moving towards a self inflicted dictatorship.

Corruption sure is a cancer that is eating this country and everyone is concerned about it – not just the so called ‘civil society’. But as we all are concerned, we all are also responsible for it. Tell me who does not bribe a TTE to get his wait-listed and sometimes even an unreserved (general) ticket confirmed for a berth. Is the government responsible for the milkman adding water to your milk religiously every day? Or is the farmer asked by the government to inject oxytocin to fruits & vegetables. Neither do the Govt. asks Ekta Kapoor to dish out soap-operas that have corrupted our family values nor news channels who put a question-mark on our intelligence by showing “nag-nagin” & “dilli mein himyug” stories as news.

Corruption in this country is not limited to the government alone. It is part of our daily lives from top to bottom. A Lokpal alone can never fight this menace. We need to bring about a social change – through awareness programmes, campaigns, spiritual gurus and education & training system. We need to tell our citizens that through corruption you may get your work done today but it is going to ruin your tomorrow. We need to inculcate moral values into our system starting from the basic education to IITs, IIMs & Administrative academies.

It is easy to blame the government or the politician for corruption but don’t forget they all come from amongst us. Politicians, bureaucrats, police, media, armed forces – don’t come from Mars – they are as much part of our civil society as Team Anna is. So it has to be a combined concentrated effort on part of every one of us to fight the menace together and not against each other. But yes the Govt. does have the biggest responsibility in the matter.

It is sad that the principal opposition party for petty political gains has been trivialising the issue and not making its position clear on the matter. They cannot behave irresponsibly just because they are not in power. Tomorrow they’ll have to face the same issues when they come to power (if they have somehow concluded they are never returning back, then it is a different matter altogether). The Ramdev drama showed their immaturity & trying to milk the issue for petty gains. If they are really serious about corruption – they should set their house in order in Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh & Gujarat.

Now let’s come back to Team Anna & me calling them undemocratic. They are undemocratic because neither are they elected nor appointed nor represent the real civil society. They actually forced themselves upon us riding on the goodwill of Anna Hazare. Their behavior in the panel meetings & outside has largely been dictatorial. If the Govt. does not agree to any of their viewpoints they call the Govt. cheats & liars & threaten with calls of agitation & fast unto death.

The very purpose of the joint-committee is to discuss matters relating to different versions of the draft and arrive at an amicable resolution. But Team Anna members are hell bent on getting their version of the bill forwarded to the cabinet. If they wanted to have their version passed why did they agree to a joint-committee? They should’ve straight away asked the Govt. to table their draft in the parliament. Out of 40 provisions there is agreement on 34. How can you say then that the Govt. is not serious? Now Team Anna says the six points of disagreement (like inclusion of the PM under the purview of Lokpal) are important while the others are less important. I ask them if their other provisions were not so important, why they included them in the first place. They should have put only those six, which they now call utmost important, on the table. How is it that only what the five Team Anna members say is important. Why is nobody listening to what the government has to say? There are other prominent people in this country who understand the law & the constitution far better than the Bhushans. Why should their advice be, not taken on this matter. Why didn’t Team Anna publish their draft and ask eminent jurists & constitutional experts across the country for their opinions? Why is it that Prashant Bhushan calls for a referendum now when the ball is in the parliament? Why did he not have a referendum for his version of the bill first? Do they even know how a bill is drafted in a parliamentary democracy? It is not that the government drafts a bill and gets it passed from the Parliament & the President straightaway. The draft of any bill is published for the people to advice. It is scrutinized by legal experts, state governments and the union cabinet. It sometimes goes to a standing committee for approval and then is presented on the floor of the house. There are various disagreements in the process. The Cabinet members don’t always agree to everything in the draft. A long time is taken to discuss and amend points of disagreement. It is not that people agreeing start calling people who disagree, cheats and liars. In the parliament every point is discussed thoroughly and opinions from the members are noted. A bill can be put to vote then or reintroduced later if amendments are sought by the members.

A section of the media specially the news channels are misleading the country and trivializing the issue by hiding many a facts. How is it that they never tell the other side of the story? Just because you are a politician and are part of the ruling party, you are doomed. Don’t forget – this very Govt. brought us RTI (Right to Information Act) which had become a de-facto tool to fight corruption in this country. It was not Anna Hazare or Ramdev who fought for it. I don’t say that the Govt. is completely clean but let’s give credit where it is due. There is a lot to this Govt.’s credit like the NREGA, Right to Education, Food Security Act, JN-NURM, NRHM (services like 108 are actually conceived and aided by the Central Govt.)

The Indian TV media behaves exactly what the famous TATA DoCoMo ad states – “poora mat bolo, poora mat dikhao, poora mat sunao”

It has become a fashion to always stand against the Govt. without finding the facts first. Let us take the recent case of Arunima in UP. The girl who was allegedly thrown out of a running train around Bareilly. She was called by the media a national athlete. The media blamed the Govt. & asked for compensations & job for her. The media also wanted an apology from the UP CM and Union Railway Minister. When preliminary investigations were done & police pointed to a possible suicide, the media blamed the police for hiding facts. But slowly this became clear that the girl had indeed tried to commit suicide and she was not even a district level athlete let alone a national level one. The exams she said she was going to attend (ITBP) never took place at that time, later she changed her statement that she was going to inquire for a CISF exam. The truth was very different from the one that the media had stated. She had a failed marriage & when her in-laws refused to accept her back, she went to her alleged boyfriend in Delhi. When he also refused to accept her, she jumped out of the train.

This was never reported by the main-stream media because it would have sounded foot-in-the-mouth for the media. There are numerous instances of this but the media does not want to learn its lessons. Don’t know what ever happened to free & fair reporting. These people have become judges, jury & even started pronouncing verdicts. Another example of an independent institution gone wrong. It has become a game of TRPs where someone like Ramdev is given extra importance & 24hr coverage but a lone sadhu (Nigamanand) who gives his life for the same cause is not considered even worth a mention.

A look at Team Anna
Arvind Kejriwal, for whom I’d a lot of respect for his RTI endeavors, shouts unnecessarily and never lets anyone else speak. I’ve seen him on many TV debates – he’ll never agree to the other panelists’ viewpoints and keep disrupting when others speak. I still don’t doubt his integrity but he has lost my respect.

Prashant Bhushan – the mastermind behind Team Anna – is a lawyer by profession, so I don’t need to say more. He speaks gospel truth and anybody who questions him is a Govt. agent. The gentleman has a contempt of court case going against him along with a stamp duty evasion case in UP. His family got farmland allotment in NOIDA which everyone knows, no one gets without right connections. Has crores worth of wealth to his name (his father has arabs - billions) earned allegedly through public interest litigations (PILs). He will sue anyone who questions his integrity. I fear, I may be in line too. In a court affidavit filed by him on a contempt of court petition, the gentleman has stated that he is not comfortable with dharna style of protest (excerpts below). But he is using Anna Hazare to do exactly the same.

Though I was aware of the NBA dharna outside the Supreme Court on the 13th of December, and I must admit that I did nothing to stop it, I was not present at the Dharna. This was not because I do not sympathise with the cause of the oustees who had come for the dharna, or because I disapproved the idea of a dharna outside the court, but because I am not personally comfortable with this mode of protest. I have written about how grossly erroneous from the Majority judgement in the Sardar Sarovar case was, and the enormous injustice that it perpetrates on the oustees. I am also distressed by the fact that the the majority judges have dismissed the review petition without even giving the petitioners an oral hearing, despite such a powerful dissent by Justice Bharucha.
- Excerpts from Prashant Bhushan’s reply to a contempt of court petition filed by Adv. J.R. Parashar & others dated 16/04/2001 (Supreme Court CR No.: 2/2001)

Shanti Bhushan – Father of Prashant Bhushan, an ex-minister and a lawyer himself. Never pushed for Lokpal when he himself was a minister in the union government. Blames the politicians despite being a politician himself. Case of stamp duty evasion in UP. Has a NOIDA farmland allotment to his name. Wealth in excess of Rs. 2 billions.

Santosh Hegde – He is the Karnataka Lokayukta and a retired Supreme Court judge. Is considered as the best Lokayukta the country has today. Despite his efforts he is not able to curb enormous cases of corruption in the state of Karnataka. He resigned as Lokayukta in June 2010, expressing inability to be effective in his anti-corruption mandate owing to a non-cooperative Government of Karnataka. He took back his resignation after persuasion by BJP national leadership fueling assumptions of being associated with the BJP.

Anna Hazare – The man whose shoulders are used for this entire fight for Lokpal Bill. He is a clean and honest crusader with a long history of protests & fasts to his name. He has fought for the cause of the common people for many years. Allegations are that he is being used by the so called “civil society” members to further their own goals. I saw Anna Hazare being tutored by Arvind Kejriwal on a NDTV talk show. When Anna gave an answer that was not to the liking of Arvind Kejriwal, Mr. Kejriwal prompted and rephrased the question in Hindi, slighting changing it and hinting to Anna Hazare to change his answer. When asked by a lady as to why the language of Team Anna of late had been abusive – both Prashant Bhushan & Arvind Kejriwal (who are the ones shouting & abusing the most) shrugged off responsibility & placed it on Anna Hazare. Arvind Kejriwal emphasized that only liars & cheats have been used and that too only by Anna Hazare.

The team has called their movement “2nd war of independence”, as if mere constituting the Lokpal will eradicate corruption in this country. And what is the guarantee that the Lokpal thus constituted will be free of corruption itself. Where will the common man go to if the Lokpal staff starts doing what our police does. Is there a guarantee that people will not be threatened in the name of anti-corruption by the Lokpal staffers? After all the Lokpal will be consisting of the same very society from where other people come from.

I dunno how many people have interacted with human rights commission staffers. They are rude, arrogant & threaten people of consequences when confronted. Just see the conduct of pollution control board staffers. It is one of the most corrupt organizations today. They threaten people with dire consequences if they are not paid handsomely.

Lokpal is being tom-tommed in a manner as if it will completely eradicate corruption from this country. For me it is too far-fetched. Even the BJP leaders off-the-record agree that some of the Team Anna’s demands are impractical & absurd.

And it is not the Congress Govt. alone that has to pass the bill. It is the parliament that will put its stamp of approval to make it a bill. Even the state governments have to agree. It would have been wiser if Team Anna had circulated their draft to all political parties & sought opinions from them. They should have tried to build a consensus with all the players that will be involved in the process. It is not just the Congress that is corrupt. There are far more corrupt parties in this country and they also have a stake in passing the bill. Let us say the Union Cabinet under pressure agrees to the provisions that Team Anna consider important. What if after the bill is tabled, the BJP, BSP & SP don’t agree to the draft or to the Team Anna provisions? Will it ever see the light of day?

It is very easy to criticize anyone especially the government. But it is an entirely different case when you are in the same position. If you’ve a solution please put it forward, if not, let the person handling it decide what is to be done. Let us also not be victims to propaganda created by political parties & some individuals. People like Ramdev are businessmen not yogis. They have a hidden agenda for their personal benefits & not for the masses. The man who owns an island in Scotland must tell the people from where he amassed such wealth in such a short period of time. And please don’t tell innocent people that someone donated it to you. His yoga camps are nothing but money mints. People are charged from Rs. 1000 for the back rows to upto Rs.50,000 for the front rows. The ayurvedic medicines that are sold by him are more expensive than Dabur or Baidynath. If he is so concerned about the common man – why doesn’t he subsidise the medicines. How much benefit his yoga gives is anybody’s guess now. The man himself couldn’t sustain 6 days of fasting and had to be admitted to an allopathic hospital – the same allopathy Ramdev claims he’ll make do shirshasana.

Everyone wants a corruption free India but the means to achieve the end should also be corruption free and beyond suspicion. Change doesn’t come in an instant. It took more than 100 years of struggle to free India from the Raj while the fight against corruption has just started.