Against Corruption and Against Anna Hazare!

Let me make it clear at the beginning, I oppose the Jan Lok Pal bill and the politics of hunger strike as much as I oppose corruption and misgovernance. 

Anna Hazare may have become a hero in the eyes of people overnight but what he is doing is unconstitutional. As Mr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta said “The morality of fasting unto death for a political cause in a constitutional democracy has always been a tricky issue. There is something deeply coercive about fasting unto death. When it is tied to an unparalleled moral eminence, as it is in the case of Anna Hazare, it amounts to blackmail”.

He is derailing and hijacking the democratic process. This is a mockery of the constitutional procedure. It is extortion. He is definitely not Mahatma Gandhi and even if he was considered as one, the government in India is an elected government and not a foreign rule. 

Civil society? What is that? Aren’t we all in it? And we all vote (or so we proclaim). So if they people whom we elect are making the laws, isn’t it already the civil society that is drafting it? Plus, random individuals drafting legislations can be a dangerous. We cannot make an exception to the constitution because once we start doing that, we open the flood gates. No one knows how this can be used as a precedent for any other moral/immoral propaganda. Whoever it is, however mighty, he or she cannot be allowed to bypass or subvert the democratic institutions in which law making authority is vested by the Constitution. The ‘civil society’ wants to draft the legislation. Well, the ‘civil society’ is drafting it. our elected representatives are drafting it. In a way, all legislations can have a ‘jan’ added before it.

Also, if you are interested in drafting laws then become a politian. Get elected. Anna Hazare and his inner circle are portrayed as populist leaders, so it should be too hard for them to win elections, right?

The Jan Lok Pal bill is not a solution to the problem of corruption. It risks making matters worse. Hunger strikes are not the right means to promote a policy agenda in a constitutional democracy like ours. The promoters and supporters of Jan Lok Pal and the public agitation to achieve it are profoundly misguided. Their popularity stems from having struck a vein of middle class outrage against the UPA government’s misdeeds. That doesn’t mean that the solutions they offer are right.

If the Jan Lok Pal presides over the same system that has corrupted civil servants, politicians, anti-corruption watchdogs, judges, media, civil society groups and ordinary citizens, why should we expect that the ombudsman will be incorruptible?

I personally think that the Jan Lok Pal bill gives the Lok Pal a lot of powers. It’s very dangerous to give so much power to a single institution that too one which is not exactly a representative of the ‘civil society’.

Also, what if the Lok Pal goes corrupt? Who will guard the guards? By giving preference to Nobel prize winners in the committee are we putting more trust in the Nobel committee than our elected representatives. Btw, did you know that Yasir Arafat has received a Nobel Peace prize? Think about it.

I am not just pointing fingers. I think that there are better ways to reduce corruption. The most simple way to do it is, vote for the right person. It all begins there. If you vote properly then people who you think are honest will come to power and draft your legislations and try to clean your corrupt administration.

Second, propagate for reforms. Political, economics, police and educational. If reforms are implemented successfully then there is no need for a revolution.

There is no need for a revolution in India. We still have out democratic and constitutional setup. We have all the laws. We need better implementation and awareness. This can be done in a systematic way and without any hunger strikes.

To all the supporters of Anna Hazare, I have some questions.

Where were the holders of candles, wearers of Gandhi topis and hunger strikers when the offices of the Chief Election Commissioner, the Central Vigilance Commissioner and even the President of the Republic were handed out to persons with dubious credentials? If you didn’t come out to protest the perversion of these institutions why are you somehow more likely to turn up to protest when a dubious person is sought to be made the Jan Lok Pal?

Inspite of my obvious stand against the way Anna Hazare is going about it. I do like a few things that have happened because of him.

People are finally thinking about how to solve the problem of corruption. It has been a very successful awareness propaganda. The discussions which were being done behind closed doors are now being discussed on public forums. The ability of Anna Hazare to mobilize so many people in different parts of the country is amazing.

I would like to end by quoting Dr. B.R. Ambedkar from his Constituent Assembly speech.

“…we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.”

Jai Hind!

Related Links:

The Lok Pal Bill

The Jan Lok Pal Bill

Comparison between the Lok Pal Bill and the Jan Lok Pal Bill

Anna Hazare’s Website

View against Anna Hazare

View in favour of Anna Hazare

Acorn article on the topic

P.S. : I have freely quoted/used material from the above mentioned articles.