The country owes a debt of gratitude to Team Anna for succeeding in channelling popular anger against corruption into a determined movement to seek institutional measures to cleanse our politics of the cancer of corruption. Anna Hazare has succeeded in igniting the fading spirit of patriotism and idealism in the country’s youth which was increasingly turning cynical and distancing itself from politics. Not too long ago there was an all-pervasive feeling that India’s politics and governance were beyond redemption. Today, there is a strong belief in citizens’ power and ability to call the mightiest in the land to account. The “Yes We Can” mood has the potential to bring about far-reaching and urgently required changes in the country.
Today, we have four Lokpal formulations-those of Team Anna, the Government, Loksatta and that of NCPRI. This is too important a piece of legislation to be passed in haste under threat of fast unto death. India is collapsing under the weight of too many poorly conceived but draconian laws that not only fail to deliver what they promise but in fact end up becoming convenient tools for harassment, tyranny and extortion. While the Sarkari Lokpal has been aptly termed as a Jokepal, the Bill proposed by Team Anna is far from perfect. It is too overarching, envisages too much concentration of power in one institution in addition to taking on an excessive load since the body would be required to monitor everybody from the prime minister to the Sarkari peon. Even the NCPRI formulations are a work in progress.
Thus far the maximalist stance taken by Team Anna that the parliament should pass their version of the Bill within the next couple of days without entertaining amendments or other formulations of the Lokpal Bill has been a cause of concern for many of us who support the anti-corruption movement because it betrays an extremely authoritarian mindset. The Fidel Castro style of “direct democracy” Team Anna is practising at Ramlila Maidan to claim legitimacy for their version of Lokpal has serious dangers of turning into the rule of a coterie that has the power to sway the masses for a period. This method would work eminently for the gram sabha level of decision making but not for legislation affecting 1.5 billion people.
Our already flawed democracy will be weakened further if we totally bypass democratic institutions and count on street power to decide on state policy and legislation. It seems Anna Hazare is also beginning to distance himself from leading members of his team as was evident from the statement made by Nikhil Wagle, his old associate from Maharashtra. Wagle told CNN/IBN that Anna and his Maharashtrian colleagues are very unhappy at the extremist stand taken by certain members of his team and therefore wants to negotiate directly with the Prime Minister’s emissaries. Justice Hegde and Swami agnivesh have also distanced themselves from the extremist stance of Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi.
Need for Pre Legislative Public Consultations: Many of the well-functioning democracies have institutionalized well-crafted processes for pre-legislative consultations before any new law or amendment is introduced in parliament. Starting with the Lokpal Bill we need to institute a similar mechanism for public involvement in drafting important legislation so that the suggestions of diverse sections of society can be heard and taken into account when drafting the final Bill. It will also prevent similar pressure tactics by those who can mobilize street power through generating cyber frenzy and high voltage media campaigns into blackmailing the government into passing important legislation without taking on board diverse opinions.
Most important of all, Team Anna would do well to recognize that the exaggerated expectations aroused by it are bound to boomerang if we overlook the fact that there is no one institution, no one law which can put an end to the deeply entrenched culture of extortion, bribery and petty tyranny that is destroying the health of our polity and society like an AIDS virus. A draconian anti-dowry law has not eradicated dowry. A Stringent law against feticide has failed to arrest the declining sex ratio in the country. The list of failed laws that achieve the contrary of what they promise is long and tragic.
Combating corruption requires looking at and reforming each department of the government, each Sarkari institution that is engaged in public dealings or assigned the responsibility of providing public services or constructing civic infrastructure, to identify rules, regulations and laws that bestow arbitrary power to government functionaries or politicians which enable them to deny citizens their rightful due without facing any consequences.
The Devil Lies in the Detail: Let me illustrate: For example, municipal officials all over India systematically fleece citizens by sending highly inflated house tax bills. I recall that several years ago, one of my neighbours– let us call him Mr. X– got a house tax bill of Rs 1.65 lakhs for a small 2 bedroom flat in South Delhi. In sheer panic, he approached a local political worker who claimed: “good connections” with the municipal officials. This man then went and brokered a deal with the concerned babus. Mr. X was asked to pay Rs 25,000 in order to get the 1.65 lakh demand reduced to Rs 7,000 per year tax liability. He accepted the deal gladly because it appeared to him as if he was receiving a big favour, even though the falsely inflated bill was actually just a device to frighten him into paying a bribe. This was in fact a standard practice; virtually every house owner was subjected to this form of blackmail because the rules governing house tax rates were totally opaque with officials routinely getting away with demanding arbitrary amounts as payoffs because they have the power to send out bogus bills and seal the property with the victim left fighting never-ending court battles.
This citadel of corruption collapsed in one stroke when, following the example of Ahmedabad, Patna and Bangalore, Municipal Corporation of Delhi also reformed its mode of property tax calculation and collection in 2004 by introducing a self-assessment scheme with clearly defined parameters for calculating rates for different categories of the property depending on the covered area of the property – both commercial and residential. A detailed description of how to calculate the tax due on each property in different areas of Delhi – with a higher tax rate for high priced properties and lower rates for poorer colonies-has been put on the publicly viewable website. Today one can pay this objectively calculated property tax in Delhi through the payment portal of MCD on the internet or through any number of banks. It leaves little scope for extortion. In fact, Mr. X today pays no more than Rs 3800 by way of tax for the same property for which he was sent the Rs 1.65 lakh bill.