Lokpal

The Lokpal Bill in Parliament – passes the Lok Sabha, fails in the Rajya Sabha

All through the progress of the Lokpal debate that happened this year, there was a strong feeling – can such a law ever come to pass ? Can a law which has been pushed for 43 years now actually come into force, even if it was not as strong as one would have wished ? As time moved on from April, when the issue came to national prominence, the discussion started getting more focused. But it was the agitation in August that seemed to do the impossible, create a tidal wave of public (and media) pressure that pressured the Government to seem to do something, and it gave a commitment to pass a Lokpal Bill with certain characteristics. But, is it really possible that any political party in India will be serious about the Lokpal ? Think about it – the Lokpal desires to set in place an independent investigating authority that will investigate corruption (and typically, corruption is only associated with the ruling Government machinery and the bureaucracy).
Now, the economics of politics in India is simple. They are almost all in it for the money and influence; and there is no money to be made from the Government unless you have a babu (or multiples babus) who show the path, partake in the corruption, or let it happen and do not raise any objection. So, when you talk about politicians being corrupt, that is not possible without the involvement of the official machinery, and we are asking the Government and other political parties to create an outside agency that seeks to throttle this money making ability. Politicians in India are smart, and they are not about to commit suicide.
So why did the political class agree to setup a Lokpal in August ? Well, they saw a huge wave of anger in terms of a public out to apparently protest wide-spread corruption, and saw that this anger could not be countered by any more denials – instead, the usual method of delay has to be used. Delay is the most potent political weapon that the political class has, to be used for any major controversy, such as the Lokpal issue, or the Telangana issue (which is no longer front page news, and hence is not worthy of needing an immediate resolution).
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The Lokpal Bill – Current status of the discussion by the Parliamentary committee

Twice this year, there has been a lot of controversy over the Lokpal Bill. In April, the issue burst onto the limelight when Anna Hazare sat on a dharna at the Jantar Mantar in the capital, Delhi, protesting against the Government wanting to have a watered down version of the Lokpal. The move generated an enthusiastic support with people coming to the site; the media and various online fora were all abuzz with enthusiasm about the campaign. This forced the Government to come to a settlement where 5 citizens nominated by Anna Hazare were part of a committee (with 5 members of the Government as well) that setout to create a strong Lokpal institution. As expected, the Government soon went back on the basic intention, tossed aside the suggestions of the non-Government committee members on the most important issues, and decided to send a Bill.
Anna Hazare took on this issue again, promising to go on an indefinite fast to get a Bill passed by Parliament. There was some condemnation of this move, with protests of this being about subverting Parliament, and so on, but the mass support that Anna Hazare received from all sections of society forced the Government to admit that the measures it had taken were incorrect, and finally the Government decided to have a Sense of the house in Parliament, where they agreed to the most contentious issues, and sent this off to the standing committee. There was a sense of feeling that the Government will not so easily agree, since the most contentious demands arguably refer to the inclusion of the lower bureaucracy and inclusion of a citizen’s charter, since it is the lower bureaucracy that is the one used by all the political parties to generate the money through corruption that these parties need for their survival.
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Sonia starts attacking Anna’s team over their own corruption, what a comparison ..

The Congress has never really accepted the attack made upon it by Anna Hazare, and from time to time, the Congress displays this unease and frustration with how easily it is being identified with corruption. However, till now it was primarily the one and only Digvijay Singh who was appointed as the main Congress attacker, who had a mission to try and send out so many twitter updates that some of the mud would stick to Anna Hazare, and the threat that Anna and his campaign poses to the Congress is diminished (the threat will never really go away, since the various scandals that the Congress and the UPA Government has been attacked over is fairly large, and continues to increase). The Congress must be shuddering over any new attacks that would further reduce its credibility.
But so far, it was now the highest leaders of the Congress who had stayed away from a direct attack; so Manmohan Singh would express frustration but never directly attack Anna; same with Rahul Gandhi who also did not really go in for a real attack on Anna Hazare. However, in a speech delivered in absentia as part of an election campaign in Uttarakhand, the Congress leader, Sonia Gandhi, made a direct attack on Anna Hazare. Her points of attack could be called silly; after all she is the leader of a party that has seen the biggest scams that the country has ever seen; she also seems to be making a point that since there are questions raised about members of Anna’s team, they should not raise any issues of corruption. This is plain silly. We are not in utopia where everybody is perfect. What Anna’s team members say is to bring a strong law, and if it turns out that Anna’s team members are guilty, get them investigated and prosecuted. Read some more of what Sonia stated, seems to be more of a point of frustration (link to article):
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