War on graft versus fight over drafting a bill

By Shyam Khosla

OUTPOUR of public support for Anna Hazare’s hunger strike is a manifestation of public outrage against all pervasive corruption in the Government and non-Government institutions, including the corporate world. The Gandhian seized the moment and his movement caught the imagination of the people all over the country with the help of an obliging and aggressive electronic media that whipped up mass frenzy in favour of the Jan Lokpal bill without going into the merits of the bill. The ruling dispensation reeling under tremendous public pressure to come clean found the easy way out by accepting all the demands put forth by Hazare, including the ones that are unreasonable. A small coterie of social activists masquerading as "civil society" declared it the "second freedom movement" (What was then JP’s movement against dictatorship in mid-70s?). Anna did score a victory of sorts by forcing the Government to issue a Gazette notification on the formation of a joint committee of ministers and social activists to draft a Lokpal bill. Hazare and his coterie thundered that the draft they have produced should be accepted even as Karnataka Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde, who was one of the authors of the Jan Lokpal bill, expressed misgivings about some of its draconian provisions. The bill will have to go through the prescribed procedures, including its adoption by the Parliament, before it becomes a law. Hopefully, the country would soon have in place a robust institution against corruption with requisite checks and balances.

The Lokpal Bill drafted by the Government is weak and full of loop holes. Why, for instance, bureaucrats should be outside the purview of the Lokpal? Bureaucracy is no less corrupt than politicians and far less accountable. Further, why should the anti- corruption watchdog have only advisory powers and no authority to order prosecution of persons against whom there is credible evidence? These and other anomalies in the bill must be removed to ensure effective mechanism against corruption. So far as the Jan Lokpal bill is concerned, the devil is in the detail. It suffers from glaring infirmities. The proposal of an all powerful anti-graft institution is scarry in the absence of checks and balances. The justification given by the self-appointed representative of the civil society that the persons appointed to the high office would be selected by a panel of "irreproachable integrity" from amongst winners of Nobel and Magsaysay awards doesn’t carry conviction. Some of the worthies claiming to represent "civil society" have shady backgrounds. NGOs run by them are undemocratic and are accountable to none. Some of these NGOs are funded by mysterious sources and their functioning lacks transparency. The country can do without such members of the "civil society".

The torch-bearers of "civil society" can’t be allowed to usurp the space meant for elected representatives of the people. The Committee set up to draft a new bill has representatives of the Government and a few NGOs. The opposition parties that also represent large sections of society must have a say in the formulation of the extremely crucial law. There is no point in rushing through the draft bill without in-depth deliberations. A bi-partisan consensus needs to be evolved to have a robust law that inspires confidence among the masses. A handful of social activists masquerading as sole representatives of the civil society have no right to push down the country’s throat their self-serving version of a bill. Their entire approach - no politician should be allowed on the dais and any criticism of the bill they drafted amounted to supporting the corrupt and sabotaging the movement against graft - smacks of authoritarianism and fascism. Apolitical citizens have a right to put across their view point and must be heard with respect. But they have no right to tar the entire political class with the same brush. All politicians are not corrupt and all members of the "civil society" are not above board. Demonising the political class that has become fashionable with the media and the self-styled "civil society" is undermining people’s faith in democratic processes. Launching a fierce war against the corrupt without undermining democracy is the need of the hour.

Hazare is reputed to be honest and sincere but his disdain for democratic institutions is disturbing. He also tends to make odd statements that reflect his inexperience and shallow knowledge of the intricacies of our democratic polity. His recent statement that he would never contest elections because he was sure to be defeated and that he would forfeit even his deposit because the voter lacks awareness is astounding. More surprisingly, he went on to say, "They cast their vote under the influence of Rs 100, a bottle of liquor or a sari offered by candidates. They don’t understand the value of their vote". If the voter is so corrupt that he sells his vote for a bottle of liquor or a sari, how can a strong Lokpal bill clean up the mess? This is nothing but contempt for the ordinary citizen and democratic institutions. A theory doing the round and gaining ground is that the entire drama at Jantar Mantar was stage-managed. Mega scams had generated a massive public outrage against the rampant corruption in the Government. BJP and other opposition parties had effectively cornered the Government on the issue. Add to it the mobilization of the masses by Baba Ram Dev’s campaign against corruption. His hugely successful Ramlila maidan rally in Delhi was indeed historical. The demand for making public the names of Indians having money in tax havens had also gained ground. It was, so the theory goes, to divert public attention from the crucial issue of massive corruption that have besmirched the reputation of the mighty and the powerful that Anna Hazare’s credibility was exploited by the powers that be. Behind the scene parleys with likes of Swami Agnivesh and others of his ilk were used to strike a deal with Hazare. Certain constitutional and legal imperatives were given a go by to achieve a self-serving aim of reducing a mass and sustained campaign against corruption to a fight over drafting a bill. No wonder, the Swami was soon singing peons to Sonia Gandhi and Dr. Manmohan Singh. And both of them have welcomed Hazare’s initiative and pledged their "commitment" to root out corruption.

If the Government is indeed serious about rooting out corruption as the Prime Minister and Congress President Sonia Gandhi claim, why hasn’t the Government ratified the United Nation’s Convention against Corruption that it signed in 2005? Interestingly, Indian diplomats were among those who piloted the convention through UN. For years, the External Affairs Ministry - the nodal ministry for international treaties - has been pressing hard for its ratification, the Department of Personnel and training that is directly under the Prime Minister has resisted the move on the premise that India has not yet brought its domestic laws in line with the international convention. The premise is a lame excuse. It is the UPA Government that has made no move to amend Indian laws as required under the international convention to make India less prone to corruption. Had the Government amended domestic laws and ratified the UN convention, it would have been a lot easier for the country to bring back hundreds of billions of dollars looted from the country and stashed in tax havens by corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen, The convention mandates to put in place robust measures, including more transparency in funding election campaigns and political parties. These and other measures, including administrative and judicial reforms, must be taken to cleanse public life of corruption and maladministration.