The problem

THE issue goes to press at a particularly fraught moment. The end to the stand-off between what many describe as independent India’s largest, and most significant, anti-corruption movement and the government seems distant, heightening fears about the proximate future. No one seems clear when (and if) Anna Hazare, the leader and symbol of this movement, will agree to end his indefinite fast, and on what terms. It remains to be seen whether the prime minister’s assurance in the House, with full support of all members, that the movement’s Jan Lokpal bill will be tabled in Parliament and given full attention, appealing to Anna Hazare to end his fast, succeeds in breaking the deadlock.

What has taken all observers by surprise is the unprecedented support for the movement, a clear reflection of widespread social angst and anger against all institutions of governance. Both in its ability to capture popular imagination and bringing the government to a standstill, it has provoked comparison with many previous landmark struggles and movements. Whether or not it will be remembered as ‘the second freedom struggle’, the favoured claim of its supporters, there is little doubt that the movement, in the audacity of its demands and the modalities of protest, marks a watershed.

Yet questions remain, both about the movement’s understanding of corruption, its causes and significance, and the strategy advanced to combat it. At its core lies the demand that a new, tough and all-encompassing legislation creating a new institution of Jan Lokpal, be immediately enacted. The draft legislation has been given to the government and is available in the public domain. Dismissing the official Lokpal bill, currently before a standing committee of Parliament, the movement claims legitimacy from popular endorsement. In demanding that its version of the bill be passed, and in a specified time frame, the movement challenges the validity of established parliamentary procedures, if not the right of elected representatives to independently decide, setting up, what many fear, is a possibly dangerous precedent.

But, what is the Jan Lokpal bill all about? How does it compare with the official Lokpal bill? Or other versions prepared by other ‘civil society’ groups? Have all these versions been put to reasonable and reasoned scrutiny? What is civil society and who can claim to speak on its behalf? How legitimate is the movement’s claim to trump constitutionally mandated representative institutions? The questions are endless.

Take first the set of concerns about the proposed legislation and agency. Since many have dismissed the official draft as ‘weak and toothless’, if not a bill ‘to promote corruption’, the current focus is on the Jan Lokpal bill. How appropriate is the proposal to bring every government institution and official, at both the Centre and states, under the purview of the Jan Lokpal? Is there not a danger of creating a behemoth, leading to an unacceptable concentration of powers? Does it not violate the federal principle? Will not bringing in the judiciary and the actions of legislators inside the House violate the basic constitutional principle of separation of powers and impair the autonomy of both the judiciary and the legislature? In brief, rather than invest faith in a single, all-powerful agency, combining both investigation and prosecution, would it not be better to work through multiple bodies, strengthening existing institutions and creating new ones? Would this not create a better system of checks and balances? Or, as the proponents of the Jan Lokpal claim, would it only dilute the thrust and let corrupt officials off the hook?

Questions have also emerged about the investigation agencies; about the relationship of the Lokpal with other wings/agencies of government mandated to check corruption and redress grievances? And about who will watch the watchdog? In brief, from the technical to the architectural, there is little clarity whether such a proposed agency can truly combat corruption and address the grievances of the citizen. Finally, how much difference can a law by itself make? We, after all, have no dearth of laws and institutions to ensure compliance.

Equally, questions have been raised about the social composition of the movement, as also its tactics and strategies. While amazingly creative in its many modes of protest – the combination of traditional forms like skits, songs, posters, dharnas, marches and so on, with new ICT enabled modes, using SMS, Facebook, Twitter – both Anna’s decision to go on a hunger fast and the call to picket the residence of legislators smack of coercion. The pitch and tenor of the slogans and speeches betrays an impatience and intolerance towards dissenting views which can easily turn authoritarian. More specifically, the questioning of representative institutions and their procedures and the labelling of all politicians as corrupt, betrays an anti-political tendency that can severely damage our democratic structure. Unfortunately, the round-the-clock, breathless, and often partisan coverage by the media which loves to lampoon the political class, has further strengthened this tendency. Nevertheless, there is little denying both the support for the movement and the social energies that it has unleashed, including in an otherwise apathetic middle class.

Finally, there are questions about our understanding of corruption. Can the focus be restricted to monetary corruption, an abuse of official power for pecuniary gain? What about policies that legally enable the differential appropriation of natural and public resources by large corporations? Is that corruption? Should these too fall within the purview of an anti-corruption agency like the Lokpal?

Whatever the understanding of the phenomenon of corruption and the modalities suggested to combat it, in going beyond its initial mandate, the movement in its constant reference to the use of referendums to ascertain social support for different policies and in its valorization of civil society, has exposed the infirmities, not just of our systems of policy-making and governance, but of our representative, electoral democracy. The seething dissatisfaction with the functioning of our institutions, the manner in which we frame policies and pass legislation, often without transparency and without providing legitimate space for citizen participation, has once again underscored the urgency of bringing in systemic reforms and actively engaging with questions of democratic renewal and legitimacy. For this at least, all of us, critics and supporters, owe a debt of gratitude to the Anna Hazare team.

This issue of Seminar debates the many questions thrown up by the current anti-corruption movement in the hope is that it will add to a reasoned, reasonable and constructive public discourse.