Hazar(e) Cynics

It is quite clear with the recent events that we don't live in the innocent days of Gandhi. Everything that any famous person does these days is scrutinized to death. The first thing people think is may be he has an ulterior motive or he has some hidden agenda or simple it will never work; they are fools for trying this.

While it's good to have some level of cynicism let's look at the different arguments put forth for why this Jan Lokpal bill will never work.

First criticism that I keep hearing about the bill is we are all corrupt and we all give bribes so this law is not going to change anything unless we reform and stop giving bribes.

This is like saying we are violent people, we start beating each other after road accident; we beat up small time thieves rather than calling police, so we don't need police reforms or police itself. Unless we stop being violent problem is not going to be solved by police. Surely if we are the most corrupt people in the world that is all the more reason to have this JPL bill. If we are corrupt then its more likely that people we elect are also going to be corrupt so we need somebody to look over them, somebody to keep an eye on them. So if we are a nation of bribe givers that is more the reason to have this bill passed.

This is an unconstitutional move and it will set a bad precedent for the future.

This is a bill specifically to police the netas and to keep a check on the corruption by the netas so a lokpal has to be an independent person, not from any political party so he/she is not accused of being biased. Right now civil society is only involved in drafting the bill as there is conflict of interest in govt making bill to police itself (and also they haven't done it in the last 40 years). Eventually representatives of govt. and opposition together can elect Lokpal and a bench of judges under lokpal for the prosecution, but look at what happened in CVC where despite protests from Sushama Swaraj govt. almost was able to choose somebody it wanted, presumably so he would go soft on govt. So we need an independent body selecting lokpal.

And as far as this setting wrong precedent, well you have to keep in mind the pressure on govt. to agree to demands is not because of Anna Hazare but because of thousands of people out on the streets and millions online supporting the movement. They are not always going to support all the protests done by the civil society. Corruption is the rare thing on which everybody agrees cutting across the caste and communal lines. So there is no need to fear that people will make govt. agree on things in the future by blackmailing them in such a way. As the Gujjar protests have shown even a fairly large number of people can't force the govt. to act in their favor if the majority doesn't want them to. Also as far as I know the Lokpal will only be concerned with corruption in the govt. and stopping the graft so there is no need to fear that they will influence policy decisions of the govt. and force govt. to act according to their volition.

Who is going to police the Lokpal? What if it itself is corrupt?

As far as I know there are several checks on this not happening. First is the selection process which can be done by retired judges and very imminent persons. If there was just one or two person selecting the Lokpal then there might be chance of getting it wrong but so many person involved would make sure that the person is scrutinized thoroughly. And even if suppose a corrupt person manages to become lokpal there is parliament opposition to highlight when lokpal has not done it's job. The accused also always has the chance to appeal in the Supreme Court. Also if we go by this thinking then we will never be satisfied with anything and we can keep adding layers and layers of watchdogs all keeping eye on somebody, but the fact is this is better than having no lokpal. At least there is one more layer of scrutiny.

We can't have an unconstitutional body prosecuting anybody. If it was just investigating and generating report then it was okay (as done by other countries) but we can't let them prosecute anybody, remove anybody from the govt. post, or cancel contracts.

Well yes this is a valid criticism. Ideally we could have Lokpal investigating and then submitting his findings to the court who then can decide on the culpability of the said person but unfortunately our judiciary as we all know is way too overburdened and any trial will take way too much time (possibly decades even) while a corrupt minister continues to remain in power getting more powerful and rich. We can have a bench of eminent supreme court judges (retired or otherwise) who can do the job of prosecuting and deciding culpability (by setting up a proper court proceeding with prosecuting and defending lawyers) and then the accused of course can appeal to the supreme court if he thinks he got a raw deal which I think is fair.

Currently it seems unless a scam is big enough where media can keep highlighting it for days on end and put pressure on the govt. or opposition stall parliament for days nothing seems to get done. And even then the case is given to CBI, which many people claim is controlled by whoever is in power. What about small but significant cases of fraud that are not highlighted by media or taken up by opposition. We need an independent body who can on it's own start investigation on anybody without being asked to or having to take permission, who can investigate a scam even if it is small and not sexy enough for media to pickup. Think about it's implication at the state level where many many small but significant amount of scams of various kinds might be going which media can't keep highlighting or build a campaign around. Here a Lokayukt at state level would come very handy.

I don't know what the scope of this Lokpal and Lokayuk will be but eventually we also need a body to police the police and take complaints regarding police not registering case or asking for bribes or harassing people. Also for bureaucrats and govt. workers not doing their job.