[GeneTraylor]

(note: I don't mean to be rude, but this comment has barely been up for 1 minute and I'm already being down-voted. Surely no one can read something this long this fast and down-vote even faster. I've tried to write a reasoned critique of the phenomena before me. It's not a political comment, but a logical one.)

Any constitution is a fine balance of power, a body like this which concentrates power outside of the constitution without carefully thought out checks and balances can be used to deliver the coup de grace to democracy. After all who guards the guards?

This will be extremely unpopular over here, but the citizens of any nation are responsible for corruption. Their leaders aren't alien beings who have descended from planet Z to rule upon their country. They were and are chosen from amongst them, and in a representative democracy it is they who choose them. You might argue that the vote itself is an ineffective tool, and you will be right, but it does offer us the opportunity to ruthlessly edit people from power. At the end it is the culture of a country that shapes a leader to a great deal. They are simply mirrors of society, but we seem to run away from that fact.

The same goes for bureaucrats and any other malaise that plagues society. They are from amongst us, and although the blame may be greater on some shoulders, it is borne by all of us.

The inherent assumption is that the people in this organization will be somehow pure, sans biases, and without malice. It makes me doubt this because human nature being human nature, sooner or later someone creative is going to come along and will convince people to side with him/her and play this unbalanced system to achieve control. It's not a matter of if, but when.

Of course, I might be wrong and this bill might be a carefully calculated with the calculus of power to be perfectly neutral, but I somehow doubt that given the sheer PR and the herd mentality that seems to surround this. For example the man portrayed as a Gandhian whipped drunks in his home town in the name of "social progress", how is that behavior Gandhian? (I'm not questioning if the behavior is right or wrong, I'm simply asking how can someone who whips people be called the modern Gandhi?)

I think that something rather interesting is going on over here, and that the true nature of this bill and the organization it will create will be apparent as time passes on.

I honestly hope that it's genuine, and it won't lead to a calculated attempt to gain power, but I wouldn't bet on it.

[sandGorgon]

Even if the lokpal bill comes and goes, the impact has already gone far beyond the concept of an ombudsman.

For the first time in my memory, the urban middle class of India have been represented - as opposed to factions based on religion, caste, race and language. A new platform has been given due recognition - that of the growing, tax-paying, facebook-ing urban demographic which has never been able to dissolve its own lines of religion, caste, race and language.

This is a huge achievement in a country in which nearly every state is governed by a political party which is strictly local and more often than not ethnically and linguistically native. I am extremely optimistic that the next general elections (for the country's Prime Minister) will have corruption, infrastructure and education as some of the platforms rather than being right-wing, left-wing or secular.

I for one (as are many in India) am fearful about the lokpal - primarily because the actual people behind the Anna Hazaare campaign are "professional" non-profit organizations. I would much rather have e-governance as well as absolute and complete transparency on government functioning (for example, Estonia ??)

[FraaJad]

factions based on Race in India? I think you are getting carried away with your hyperbole!

[kingsley_20]

Vague as the concept of race is, doesn't the northeast represent one?

[geekgawd]

He meant caste.

[architgupta]

Let me try to give a perspective on the reality that is faced by most Indians. This is a general analysis and not a position on the Lokpal bill itself.

Corruption at the lower level of bureaucracy:

Corruption/graft is faced by people every day in common functions of their life. The market incentives are there to support graft (low salaries, a huge imbalance in supply and demand - contributed in part due to a very large Indian population, wide disparity in income distributions).

But consider that there are limited or no checks against corrupt officers. We got the Right to Information Act (RTI) recently due to civil activism. RTI enables you to get data from public offices. A lot of times this data is enough to point out instances of corruption. So you can point out corruption, but when you want somebody to act on it, its so far neigh impossible to see action. Police won't register your case easily, so a common man is left with very little avenue to pursue this further. RTI activists and whistleblowers experience a lot of hostility. 10 were murdered in 2010 alone for bringing to light scams and corruption cases.

There is a strong erosion of trust from Government and Public offices. The word correctly describing the situation is malaise. Folks are sick and tired of experiencing day to day exploitation. As with any typical malaise, it crept up, slowly and steadily, steeped into our systems.

The bill is seen as hope by a large section of the public as a first step towards fighting corruption. Hence the hundreds of thousands of people out on the street protesting. Peacefully. Not rioting.

<opinion> I too have concerns with regards to the policing of the Lokpal body. Or who will guard the guards. But strong public opinion and action on corruption is needed. </opinion>

[ankeshk]

There are checks and balances. The Lokpal will be supervised by the cabinet secretary and the election commission. Also, any case against a curropt Lokpal chairperson can be bought in court - and can be removed if found guilty. Its only independent of the government - who its supposed to keep a check on.

The Lokpal bill was initially introduced in the Indian parliament in 1968. 43 years ago. Many attempts were made to make it into a law - always unsuccessfully. Until Anna Hazare whipped the people into a frenzy, went on a fast and essentially blackmailed the parliament. That is why he is called a modern day Gandhi. He successfully used Gandhian techniques to achieve an impossible feat. Not because of some checkered instance from his past.

(Also, Gandhi recruited Indians to become soldiers during WW1 and fight for the British - going against his doctrine of non violence. No one is pure and nothing is black and white.)

[bbk]

The Indian leader Mayawati has already demanded that there should be reservation for SC/ST/OBC in Lokpal members.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Maya-seeks-reservation-for-SC-...

If this continues, I dont see JLB being any effective in rooting out corruption. It will end up being just another layer of bureocracy.

Edit:added link

[maheshs]

These kind of shits happens in politics in every country with some twist.

I had discussion with one of my friend in UK and stated his statement - "UK has faced riots for 15 days and India has peaceful movement for 15 days" earlier these statement used to be reverse.

Change always take time.

[digamber_kamat]

You are correct. Full agreement.

[dimmuborgir]

Have you read Lokpal bill?

First, the Lokpal deals only with the Judiciary part of the constitution while both Legislature and Executive parts will be untouched. So it's not an alternative constitution. Even within Judiciary it deals only with officials 'who are facing corruption charges'. In fact Lokpal will be weaker than an income tax officer. A corrupt Lokpal can be removed within two months by the parliament!

Second, no one is questioning the electorate system. But when it comes to an effective anti-corruption law, just saying "vote the right person in the next election" won't cut it in a country rifed with illiteracy, poverty and communism. We should be pragmatic instead of just sticking to textbook definition of democracy.

Third, Gandhian is not someone who behaves exactly like Gandhi. Anyone inspired by Gandhi's principles is a Gandhian. Nehru was called Gandhian even though he declared wars.

[abhiyerra]

People also forge the Quit India movement which was Gandhi's proposal of getting the British out by any means possible: including violence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quit_India_Movement

[sushantsharma]

I am not sure if you understand the complete situation. Presently, the body that looks into the corruption cases against politicians and other Govt. workers is directly under the control of Govt. (you see the conflict of interest). The idea of lokpal is more than 40 years old, which says that the person/body investigating these corruption cases should be an independent body and (at least theoretically) should not be under the control of those being investigated. I don't see any problem with having a Lokpal. Of course, the lokpal can be corrupt. But atleast a non-corrupt Lokpal can investigate freely. Whereas, right now investigating Polititians and Govt. works is nearly impossible.

[rushabh]

Totally agree. It seems like a media driven phenomenon. Incompetence is a bigger problem than corruption in India. The systemic problems that face the society need ambition, will and technology. This solution is too simplistic for me to be taken seriously.

[anonri]

> Incompetence is a bigger problem than corruption in India. The systemic problems that face the society need ambition, will and technology.

This is the elephant in the room when it comes to India. There is just a huge amount of apathy amongst the people. A simple example is how much produce rots to waste as a result of poor transportation/refrigeration. There are so many processes crying out to be optimized.

As a US-born NRI, there are so many things that I find appalling that my family in India doesn't even notice. It's like they've been desensitized to all of these issues over the years to the point where they're not even really considered problems.

A lot of people believe the difference between India and China is that China's autocratic government allows them to modernize and improve their country much faster, but the truth is that democracy can be compatible with rapid modernization if the people are willing to work together. Even in China, the government is ruled by a large number of people - no one would say that Hu Jintao has a level of power even close to that of a dictator. The real difference is that the Chinese government has labored long and hard to improve living conditions for hundreds of millions of its citizens (though it has also brutally mistreated several million of them) while the Indian government has been sitting around twiddling its fingers.

[Retric]

Corruption directly results in inefficient systems.

Consider a road from A to B. Ideally you would want a strait line, but if someone owns land that would benefit from being near a road then you just bend the path a little and suddenly his land is worth more. As long as the person drawing that line has more to gain from bribes than an efficient road you are going to build a lot of odd looking roads. Taken to the extreme and you get roads that are less useful and more costly to build and maintain because they are longer.

[elangoc]

Exactly. Why is it that the smaller national highways and a few of the biggest airports only got nationalized recently (i.e., the past 2 years)? It's most likely that that the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi temporarily broke the spell of apathetic stupor. (or perhaps this only applies to South India, in which case that would be sad yet telling, since South India is the home to most of India's IT sector.)

India's high population and smaller landmass (--> higher pop dens) requires innovative, planned, coordinated strategies to conserve resources. To say that India is a democracy does not mean that it is a meritocracy. It still seems to be more like a feudal-like hierarchy inherited from the British, which itself was usurped and adapted from the feudal monarchies before. Most post-colonial states wrestle with issues of being too top-down, despotic, nepotistic.

Laws are only really worth anything if they can be adjudicated and enforced. What good is a law that no one respects? Everything is all about institutions and what they do, so celebrating a law might be premature since it's only 1/3 of the entire end goal -- you need the judiciary and the executive on the same page and working, too.

[dimmuborgir]

According to the Lokpal bill 'incompetence is equal to corruption'. Any failure of executing a promised act can be brought to the courts.

[chakde]

Corruption exists for historical reasons and because the Govt has not had the spine to go after pilfered assets and corrupt officials as it was perceived as too big a problem.

Similar problem existed in Hong Kong and was solved using similar means as this bill.

The reflection argument only works when the people have visibility into the government machine, which did not exist until recently, with greater mass media, RTI and even youtube/facebook etc. Even people from villages are on these channels.

The janlokpal bill is as good an example of people shaping their government as anything else.

[maheshs]

@GeneTraylor agreed. in fact fully agree. But you need to start from somewhere. I am seeing whole movement in couple of ways. 1. Awake lost politician that they can take citizen granted. Even citizen has shown that they are educated enough (because even more than 5 million people have participated across the country over last 12-15 days but not a single violence and public property damage as in other agitations happens in India)

2. Aware about law which is about to come. This is a big deal first time people are talking about laws in details and when it comes to implementation they know how to deal with it. (In India we have "Right to Information" but very less people use it because they not fully aware even it have the simplest structure.)

3. Interested in politics - This is the root problem in India. New generation which is so called better educated than their old one is not taking much interest in politic. These kind of movement make few good leaders as other movements.

As far as my knowledge it was a biggest non-political movement in India so far.

[jacques_chester]

Anti-corruption bodies work well in countries with a strong history of rule of law and stable democracy, because there's a pool of incorruptibles to draw from, and the elites have a mutual interest in appointing them. Here in Australia we have a bunch of them at state level: ICAC, CCC, OPI etc.

Sometimes they turn out to harbour bad apples; but eventually those people too are discovered and removed. Recently a former manager in the National Crime Commission (a powerful anti-organised crime body) was charged, tried, convicted and imprisoned for colluding with criminals to import drugs.

The problem might be that the people with the power to appoint the guards are themselves only going to appoint their friends. It's a chicken and egg dilemma, but worth struggling with. Eventually there's a tipping point where corruption becomes the abnormality and everyone accepts independent arbitration. It can unleash enormous prosperity, which Indians deserve as much as anyone.

[chintanp]

but the citizens of any nation are responsible for corruption. Their leaders aren't alien beings who have descended from planet Z to rule upon their country

I have been thinking about it for few weeks now and was somehow not convinced that by having an anti corruption bill passed would suddenly make significant changes.

This nytimes article from last month, "In Fight for Better India, Best to Look Within" http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/02/world/asia/02iht-currents0... gives candid analysis of what is wrong and some way to fix it.

[dkarl]

This will be extremely unpopular over here, but the citizens of any nation are responsible for corruption.

This isn't like pork-barrel spending where the voters care a lot about ending it but care more about protecting spending in their own district. Nor is it like American-style corruption where every voter understands that money buys influence, except in the case of their own congressmen, whom they believe to be honest people who are forced to take corporate money so they can survive in Washington and do some good. That kind of corruption flows both ways: the corrupt congressman uses his power to reel in undeserved favors and unnecessary spending for his constituents. It's a quid pro quo. Americans are conflicted. I'm sure Indians are similarly conflicted about the corruption that brings services or economic growth to their districts, but they are not conflicted about paying bribes or having public property appropriated by government officials. They are also not conflicted about corrupt relationships between corporations and politicians where the politicians' constituents are the ones who get screwed. This is not a problem of incentives. This is a problem of investigation and enforcement. Do you expect citizens to punish politicians themselves, vigilante-style, on the basis of rumors that have never been investigated?

The disruption to the constitutional balance of power is something I take seriously, but the accounts of what the Lokpal Bill actually does vary widely. From my understanding, the Lokpal resembles a special prosecutor's office. It has the power and resources to investigate, and it has the power to bring cases to the courts. When it is said that various government offices are "under the purview" of the Lokpal, it just means they can be investigated and prosecuted, just like any official in the United States government can be investigated (and almost all of them can be prosecuted.)

Now, I could have been misled about what the Lokpal actually is, but I have to say that its supporters have been more specific about the limits of its powers, while the detractors have been very vague and hand-wavy. They say it sets up a new branch of government and disrupts the separation of powers, but the same was said about the United States' independent counsel (the most famous of whom was Kenneth Starr:)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Counsel

I think we take it for granted in the United States that if an official is breaking the law (and not just enjoying legal corruption) that some agency, probably more than one, will have the authority, the resources, and an official mandate to investigate the crime. As far as I know, that's all the Lokpal Bill is trying to accomplish. I don't see what's wrong with that.

[0xdeadc0de]

More of Pseudo-Gandhian deeds of Anna Hazare. http://www.punemirror.in/article/2/2010101220101012233239336...