The engagement between the representatives of the government and those of civil society in the new Lokpal drafting committee will be quite interesting. The government side has ministers who have impeccable credentials as lawyers. Home minister P Chidambaram, communications minister Kapil Sibal and water resources minister Salman Khurshid are all sharp legal minds who will try to take a more conservative approach to the highly contentious legislation to ensure that the existing balance between the powers of the legislature, executive and judiciary, as designed by the Indian Constitution, do not get disturbed. After all, it is partly for this reason that the idea remained in the works for 42 years.
The civil society representatives led by Anna Hazare are impatient and want a Lokpal that acts as a super judicial authority and that will autonomously investigate, prosecute and judge corrupt bureaucrats, MPs, MLAs and ministers, including the Prime Minister. The Lokpal Bill remained a subject of debate because earlier it was felt by many that the autonomy and privilege of Parliament requires that the prime ministers, ministers and MPs be accountable to Parliament only. This is the most contentious issue about the proposed Lokpal that remained unresolved all these decades.
The new drafting committee is unlikely to come up with a quick solution to this impasse. Already, there are ample signs that the two groups on the drafting committee will lock horns over this matter.
In some ways, the water resources minister gave it away in an interview to CNBC TV 18 when he said: ?We will seek views of Parliamentarians on the proposals made by the civil society members appointed on the drafting committee.? And there lies the catch. How do you expect the leaders of various parties in Parliament to agree with the idea that some of the legislature?s authority is vested in a new body called Lokpal. If Parliament members across parties do not endorse such powers being handed to a super-judicial authority, then the Lokpal Bill cannot be passed.
Will Anna Hazare do another fast unto death to coerce political parties to endorse the Lokpal Bill in Parliament? This take us back to the fundamental point that in a democracy, however messy, the elected representatives wield the final veto on all such issues.
So, while Anna Hazare did stir the middle-class consciousness against corruption during the days he went on hunger strike, the next logical step for him is to form a new political party that fights elections on the single issue of corruption. Of course, this will be a long haul and will need mass mobilisation based on an organisational structure. If Hazare feels so strongly about Sharad Pawar?s ?lack of integrity?, he must challenge Pawar in the next Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra. That is the only way to go in a democracy.
Hazare must learn from Mahatma Gandhi, who was a master tactician and never believed in throwing the baby out with the bathwater when it came to dealing with the British. Gandhi would do a fast unto death only in crunch situations and often withdrew tactically to fight another day. To follow this approach, Hazare must first recognise that winning smaller battles along the way is very important to reach the bigger goal subsequently.
Indeed, there is a small battle to be won after having succeeded in making civil society representatives part of the drafting committee of Lokpal. The big battle cannot be won through Lokpal as Parliament will reject any draconian proposals that the civil society group places before the committee. It is important for Hazare and his colleagues on the drafting committee to recognise this reality.
The drafting committee has two good legal luminaries from civil society in Justice Santosh Hegde, the Lokayukta from Karnataka, and the former law minister Shanti Bhushan. They would certainly help in getting the best deal out of the current exercise.
Anna Hazare must recognise that those who rallied around him were essentially frustrated about the delivery of public goods and services, which is ridden with corruption. The Lokpal could have a sharper focus on the corruption that dogs spending on public goods and services, which affects the day-to-day lives of the people. This will require bringing all government officials at the Centre and state levels under the purview of Lokpal. Here the Lokpal could have special powers to investigate and prosecute corrupt officials without seeking prior approval of the government.
A pragmatic approach would see even this mechanism as a small but significant victory for Hazare, especially when nothing at all materialised in the form of Lokpal over the past 42 years. The government will have to concede this without demur as it would want to be seen as giving something substantive. In a sense, if bureaucrats are brought under the purview of an independent Lokpal, a lot of other problems will automatically get addressed.
This will put the fear of god in the mind of the bureaucrats and they would stop taking irregular instructions from their political masters, if only to cover their backsides. It is believed that former CVC PJ Thomas was not personally corrupt and he looked the other way only to let his political masters do as they wished under his authority. He did that because he was certain he would be protected, and indeed he was till the very end. Under a strong Lokpal authority covering all officials, the PJ Thomases will have no incentive to look the other way. They are more likely to turn whistle-blowers when they know the Lokpal will catch them sooner or later without seeking government sanction.
In some ways, if the bureaucracy is well covered by Lokpal, many other ills will be automatically addressed. As for ministers, MPs and the Prime Minister being covered by Lokpal, it is best to deal with them in the electoral arena. Any Lokpal draft Bill with jurisdiction over them will never go through Parliament. This is the bitter truth about any democracy.
mk.venu@expressindia.com