Anna Hazare’s Janlokpal Bill – Are we looking at Orwellian type of society?
India is in frenzy for the last 10 days with the anti-corruption rhetoric of Mr Anna Hazare. This is similar to the one witnessed sometime back over the issue of bringing back the black money from Swiss banks. The black money issue was first coined by Bharatiya Janata Party and later taken up by Mr Anna Hazare and Mr Ramdev Baba apart from sundry others.
What we are witnessing now is not dissimilar to the earlier issue. Anti-corruption rhetoric is not new either in India or abroad. It was Mr Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India who declared that a corrupt person should be hanged from the nearest lamp post around 100 years ago. We are yet to see a single hanging. It was taken up by the successive prime ministers but nothing has happened. In fact, all the governments starting from the first government post-independence have seen some scandal or other. The lamentable fact is nothing has happened in any of these cases be it the Jeeps scandal (of the first government) of the fodder scandal of Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav or even the great Bofors Scandal of Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s government or for that matter the coffin scandal of BJP government. The reason being certain categories of people like Members of Parliament, Cabinet Ministers, Secretaries, Prime Minister cannot be prosecuted without the permission from the government which in any case will not come unless the party in power is different from that during whose time the scandal happened.
The remedy touted by all the governments starting from Mrs Indira Gandhi is the introduction of an institution called Lokpal who can conduct enquiries into such malpractices. However the bill could not go through the Indian Parliament due to the blocking by the political parties who fear that their electoral and all other malpractices will come under scrutiny. Mr Anna Hazare’s effort is laudable in this regard as he is highlighting the corrupt practices and is making an attempt to reduce the corruption by coming out with the draft Janlokpal bill. This bill wants all the government offices including the Prime Minister and the Judiciary to come under the purview of an institution called Janlokpal which is administered by Lokpals with assistance from the Lokayuktas functioning in the states. The Janlokpal envisages separate machinery with employees reporting only to Janlokpals and will have scrutinizing powers over everybody. The government came out with another draft bill where they have not included the office of the Prime Minister, but said that the actions of Prime Minister can be scrutinized only after demitting from the office. This is not agreeable to Mr Hazare and he went into a fast unto death till his bill is passed by the government in toto and implemented without any deviation. At the time of writing this his team is conducting negotiations with the government about the draft bill.
Though the effort of Mr Hazare is laudable, I don’t agree on the following points.
The power to make law is with the Parliament which is elected by the people of the country. How can Mr Hazare dictate the terms to a people’s elected Parliament to pass his draft bill without any modifications / deviations? Is he not going against the people’s will? The counter which can come from the supporters of Mr Hazare is that since the government has betrayed the people’s trust due to the various scandals like 2G, Commonwealth Games etc., and since people are with him now on this issue, it is the people’s will to get the Janlokpal bill passed.
However, they are forgetting basic thing that nobody is above the people. The format of the Janlokpal institution proposed by Mr Hazare is untested. There are several grey areas like who is going to select the Lokpals, who will oversee the functions of the Lokpals and their employees etc. According to Mr Hazare’s bill the Lokpals are to be appointed in consultation with the Supreme Court. Though it is inappropriate to comment on the Judges of the highest court, what if in future they recommend somebody who is good for them and which in turn result in quid pro quo. Also, what is the procedure for removal of a Lokpal in case he starts behaving like an extra constitutional authority?
Also there will always be some situations where the government needs to work out short cut methods. For example during the Kargil war, it was written in the media that the government has procured the shells for the Bofors guns (of the scandal fame) from a South African firm without a proper tendering process because of the exigencies. Say if the Lokpal is in existence and if any member of the public feels that the government has given undue advantage to the firm in question showing exigencies as the reason and writes a letter to the Lokpal who in turn starts an investigation. Can anything happen in such a situation where there is a constant watch over shoulder by somebody? It is a common practice in government organizations to suspend an employee and conduct an investigation. What happens if the Lokpal orders the Prime Minister to go out of the office till the completion of the inquiry? Will he not be exercising the powers of the President of India or even more? Also in such a situation how the government will function? Also if Lokpal is going to have his own investigating arm, are we not underutilizing the existing investigative agencies like Police, CBI etc? This looks more like the society of erstwhile Soviet Union where everyone is encouraged to report on his/her neighbor.
Also as Ms Arundhati Roy wrote in her recent article – what if the employees of Lokpal machinery get into the corrupt practices? Who will oversee them? Since these employees will only be answerable to their employer which is Lokpal, are we not creating a new monster? As has been expressed by several writers the people will be ruled by two rulers the government and a Lokpal who is answerable paradoxically to the people but may not do so. The passing of this kind of bill without proper safe guards is like creating a society where Big brother is watching everybody as portrayed by Mr George Orwell in his famous novel Nineteen Eighty Four.
Another scary thing is most of the people who are thronging the Ramlila Maidan where Mr Hazare is fasting does not even know what is there in the bill. This has come out in the survey conducted by a news channel on the day Mr Hazare started the fast. To the pointed questions by the channel, most of them answered that they believe the corruption will come down by 60-70 percent by passing this bill. They did not know how this can happen. They say they believe in the words of Mr Hazare. This is not a good situation for a democracy. A similar thing happened to the people of Germany in the Third Reich as Hitler led them to their doom.
The best idea is start with a proper debate where Mr Hazare or his team explain how this institution is going to function, what are the safe guards built into the system to prevent its misuse. Let the information be disseminated by the people, the law makers and come out with an appropriate law but within a specific time period like say by 31st December (which is 4 months away) instead of the threats like there will be revolution if the bill is not passed by 30th August. Let the calmer minds prevail.
What we are witnessing now is not dissimilar to the earlier issue. Anti-corruption rhetoric is not new either in India or abroad. It was Mr Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India who declared that a corrupt person should be hanged from the nearest lamp post around 100 years ago. We are yet to see a single hanging. It was taken up by the successive prime ministers but nothing has happened. In fact, all the governments starting from the first government post-independence have seen some scandal or other. The lamentable fact is nothing has happened in any of these cases be it the Jeeps scandal (of the first government) of the fodder scandal of Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav or even the great Bofors Scandal of Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s government or for that matter the coffin scandal of BJP government. The reason being certain categories of people like Members of Parliament, Cabinet Ministers, Secretaries, Prime Minister cannot be prosecuted without the permission from the government which in any case will not come unless the party in power is different from that during whose time the scandal happened.
The remedy touted by all the governments starting from Mrs Indira Gandhi is the introduction of an institution called Lokpal who can conduct enquiries into such malpractices. However the bill could not go through the Indian Parliament due to the blocking by the political parties who fear that their electoral and all other malpractices will come under scrutiny. Mr Anna Hazare’s effort is laudable in this regard as he is highlighting the corrupt practices and is making an attempt to reduce the corruption by coming out with the draft Janlokpal bill. This bill wants all the government offices including the Prime Minister and the Judiciary to come under the purview of an institution called Janlokpal which is administered by Lokpals with assistance from the Lokayuktas functioning in the states. The Janlokpal envisages separate machinery with employees reporting only to Janlokpals and will have scrutinizing powers over everybody. The government came out with another draft bill where they have not included the office of the Prime Minister, but said that the actions of Prime Minister can be scrutinized only after demitting from the office. This is not agreeable to Mr Hazare and he went into a fast unto death till his bill is passed by the government in toto and implemented without any deviation. At the time of writing this his team is conducting negotiations with the government about the draft bill.
Though the effort of Mr Hazare is laudable, I don’t agree on the following points.
The power to make law is with the Parliament which is elected by the people of the country. How can Mr Hazare dictate the terms to a people’s elected Parliament to pass his draft bill without any modifications / deviations? Is he not going against the people’s will? The counter which can come from the supporters of Mr Hazare is that since the government has betrayed the people’s trust due to the various scandals like 2G, Commonwealth Games etc., and since people are with him now on this issue, it is the people’s will to get the Janlokpal bill passed.
However, they are forgetting basic thing that nobody is above the people. The format of the Janlokpal institution proposed by Mr Hazare is untested. There are several grey areas like who is going to select the Lokpals, who will oversee the functions of the Lokpals and their employees etc. According to Mr Hazare’s bill the Lokpals are to be appointed in consultation with the Supreme Court. Though it is inappropriate to comment on the Judges of the highest court, what if in future they recommend somebody who is good for them and which in turn result in quid pro quo. Also, what is the procedure for removal of a Lokpal in case he starts behaving like an extra constitutional authority?
Also there will always be some situations where the government needs to work out short cut methods. For example during the Kargil war, it was written in the media that the government has procured the shells for the Bofors guns (of the scandal fame) from a South African firm without a proper tendering process because of the exigencies. Say if the Lokpal is in existence and if any member of the public feels that the government has given undue advantage to the firm in question showing exigencies as the reason and writes a letter to the Lokpal who in turn starts an investigation. Can anything happen in such a situation where there is a constant watch over shoulder by somebody? It is a common practice in government organizations to suspend an employee and conduct an investigation. What happens if the Lokpal orders the Prime Minister to go out of the office till the completion of the inquiry? Will he not be exercising the powers of the President of India or even more? Also in such a situation how the government will function? Also if Lokpal is going to have his own investigating arm, are we not underutilizing the existing investigative agencies like Police, CBI etc? This looks more like the society of erstwhile Soviet Union where everyone is encouraged to report on his/her neighbor.
Also as Ms Arundhati Roy wrote in her recent article – what if the employees of Lokpal machinery get into the corrupt practices? Who will oversee them? Since these employees will only be answerable to their employer which is Lokpal, are we not creating a new monster? As has been expressed by several writers the people will be ruled by two rulers the government and a Lokpal who is answerable paradoxically to the people but may not do so. The passing of this kind of bill without proper safe guards is like creating a society where Big brother is watching everybody as portrayed by Mr George Orwell in his famous novel Nineteen Eighty Four.
Another scary thing is most of the people who are thronging the Ramlila Maidan where Mr Hazare is fasting does not even know what is there in the bill. This has come out in the survey conducted by a news channel on the day Mr Hazare started the fast. To the pointed questions by the channel, most of them answered that they believe the corruption will come down by 60-70 percent by passing this bill. They did not know how this can happen. They say they believe in the words of Mr Hazare. This is not a good situation for a democracy. A similar thing happened to the people of Germany in the Third Reich as Hitler led them to their doom.
The best idea is start with a proper debate where Mr Hazare or his team explain how this institution is going to function, what are the safe guards built into the system to prevent its misuse. Let the information be disseminated by the people, the law makers and come out with an appropriate law but within a specific time period like say by 31st December (which is 4 months away) instead of the threats like there will be revolution if the bill is not passed by 30th August. Let the calmer minds prevail.
chala bagundi
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