anna lokpal critcism

8/2/2019 Anna Lokpal Critcism

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The draft Jan Lokpal bill (as present on the website Indiaagainstcorruption.org) foresees a

Lokpal who will become one of the most powerful institutions of state that India has ever

known. It will combine in itself the powers of making law, implementing the law, and

punishing those who break the law. A lokpal will be deemed a police officer and can While

investigating any offence under Prevention of Corruption Act 1988, they shall be competent

to investigate any offence under any other law in the same case.

The appointment of the Lokpal will be done by a collegium consisting of several different

kinds of peopleBharat Ratna awardees, Nobel prize winners of Indian origin, Magasaysay

award winners, Senior Judges of Supreme and High Courts, the Chairperson of the National

Human Rights Commission, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, the Chief Election

Commissioner, and members of the outgoing Lokpal board and the Chairpersons of both

houses of Parliament. It may be noticed that in this entire body, only one person, the

chairperson of the Lok Sabha, is a democratically elected person. No other person on this

panel is accountable to the public in any way. As for Nobel Prize Winners of Indian Origin

they need not even be Indian citizens. The removal of the Lokpal from office is also not

something amenable to a democratic process. Complaints will be investigated by a panel ofsupreme court judges.

This is middle class Indias dream of subverting the messiness of democracy come

delightfully true. So, now you have to imagine that Lata Mangeshkar (who is a Bharat Ratna),

APJ Abul Kalam (Bharat Ratna, ex-President and Nuclear Weapons Hawk) V.S. Naipaul

(who is a Nobel Prize Winner of Indian Origin) and spectrum of the kinds of people who take

their morning walks in Lodhi GardenSupreme Court Judges, Election Commissioners,

Comptroller & Auditor Generals, NHRC chiefs and Rajya Sabha chairmen will basically

elect the person who will run what may well become the most powerful institution in India.

This is a classic case of a privileged elite selecting how it will run its show without any

restraint. It sets the precedent for the making of an unaccountable council of guardians

something like the institution of the Velayat e Faqih a self-selected body of clericsin

Iran who act as a super-state body, unrestrained by any democratic norms or procedures. I do

not understand what qualifies Lata Mangeshkar and V.S. Naipaul (whose deeply reactionary

views are well known) to take decisions about the future of all those who live in india.

The setting up of the institution of the Lokpal (as it is envisioned in what is held out as the

draft Jan Lokpal Bill) needs to be seen, not as the deepening, but as the profound erosion of

democracy.

I respect the sentiment that brings a large number of people out in support of the Jan Lokpal

Bill movement. but I do not think there has been enough thought given to the implications of

the provisions that it seeks to make into law. In these circumstances, one would have

ordinarily expected the media to have played a responsible role by acting as a platform for

debate and discussion about the issues, so that we can move, as a society, towards a better

and more nuanced law. Instead, the electronic media have killed the possibility of any

substantive discussion by creating a spectacle. It is absolutely imperative that this space be

reclaimed by those who are genuinely interested in a serious discussion about what

corruption represents in our society and in our political culture.

Clearly, there is a popular rage, (and not confined to earnest middle class people alone) aboutthe helplessness that corruption engenders around us. But we have to ask very carefully


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whether this bill actually addresses the structural issues that cause corruption. In setting up a

super-state body, that is almost self selecting and virtually unaccountable, it may in fact

laying the foundations of an even more intense concentration of power. And as should be

clear to all of us by now, nothing fosters corruption as much as the concentration of

unaccountable and unrestrained power.

I am not arguing against the provision of an institution of a Lokpal, or Ombudsman, (and

some of the provisions even in this draft billsuch as the provision of protection for whistle-

blowers, are indeed commendable) but if we want to take this institution seriously, within a

democratic political culture, we have to ask whether the methods of initiating and concluding

the term of office of the Lokpal conforms to democratic norms or not. There are many

models of selecting Ombudsmen available across the world, but I have never come across a

situation where a country decides that Nobel Prize winners and those awarded with state

conferred honours can be entrusted with the task selecting those entrusted with the power to

punish people. I have also never come across the merging of the roles of investigator, judge

and prosecutor within one office being hailed as the triumph of democratic values.

Having said this, lets also pause to consider that its not as if others have not been on hunger

strike beforeIrom Sharmila has been force fed for several years nowbut I do not see her

intransigence being translated into a tele-visually orchestrated campaign against the Armed

Forces Special Powers Act. The impunity that AFSPA breeds is nothing short of a corruption

that eats deep into the culture of democracy, and yet, here, moral courage, and the refusal to

eat, does not seem to work.

The current euphoria needs to be seen for what it isa massive move towards legitimizing a

strategy of simple emotional blackmaila (conveniently reversible) method of suicide

bombing in slow motion. There is no use dissenting against a pious worthy on a fast, because

any effort to dissent will be immediately read as a callous indifference to his/her sacrifice

by the moral-earnestness brigade. Nothing can be more dangerous for democracy.

Unrestrained debate and a fealty to accountable processes are the only means by which a

democratic culture can sustain itself. The force of violence, whether it is inflicted on others,

or on the self, or held out as a performance, can only act coercively. And coercion can never

nourish democracy.

Finally, if, as a society, we were serious about combating the political nexus that sustains

corruptionwe would be thinking seriously about extending the provisions of the Right to

Information Act to the areas where it can not currently operatenational security and

defence; we would also think seriously about electoral reform about proportionalrepresentation, about smaller constituencies, about strengthening local representative bodies,

about the provision of uniform public funding for candidates and about the right to recall

elected representatives. These are serious questions. The tragedy that we are facing today is

that the legitimate public outrage against corruption is being channeled in a profoundly

authoritarian direction that actually succeeds in creating a massive distraction.


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Anna Hazare wants to form an autonomous authority that willmonitor the activities of politicians and bureaucrats (i.e., the existing government) and hold

them accountable for their actions.

In essence, thats creating a powerful, autonomous, non-representative authority, with a

leader at the helm, who will literally have access to the monopoly power of the judiciary and

law-enforcement over the democratic government.

In other words, Anna Hazare wants to institute yet another government and bureaucratic body

(a non-elected one) to monitor the current, elected government. This is simply creating an

extra-governmental body to do the functions which a proper government should be doing

anyway as part of its very reason for existing. When a government goes bad, one should notsimply institute another government body on top of it! One should work to fix the current

government we have.

Moreover, Anna Hazares authoritative body can be susceptible to same risks of corruption

and bribery that the central government is mired in.

More importantly, however, his solution has the potential to produce a more insidious form of

dictatorial corruption of power because of its non-elective, autonomous, and non-accountable

nature.

There is no other solution to corruption other than denying the politicians and bureaucrats amonopoly on the supply of the goods and services that they currently control. Which

means, we need to kick the government out of every aspect of our private affairs and release

the supply of goods and services into private, competitive hands. This will ensure that there is

no political monopoly on the services or goods provided and the people will decide what to

purchase and at what price (such as drivers licenses, etc.)

anna lokpal critcism

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