Dear Colleagues ,
The issue must not be approached from a simplistic
point of view .
This article is for your information , you need not accept the views
given in this article .However a reasoned debate is on in the country
and diverse views are a part of the dialogue, even though everyone accepts
that there should be several tier authorities, as against one authority
sitting in Delhi
against corruption and for ventilating public grievances .The issue still
requires careful and effective considerationconsidering that the CVC which
was earlier hailed as an answer has not worked and neither has the Lok Ayukta
effectively . Recently the Lok Ayukta in Karnataka had to ask for protection for
his report against illegal mining activity and in many provinces the authority
has no teeth !!!!!!!
How is a centralised 11 member body seating in New Delhi going
to function for the length and breadth of the country ?????
Morever the Supreme Court and High Courts required to be cushioned
against threat and influence , as it is they are too timid to act in many
cases and
need a separate investigative body on which sitting and retired Judges
will function along with independent and honest authorities .Whereas in
appointments to the higher Judiciary the Chief Justice and Judges should
have an adequate say in the appointment as the competence and
integrity of the candidate has to be assessed if the Supreme Court and
High Courts are not to be packed by a Commission working out its
own agenda !!!!!
The Preventionof Corruption Act which is basically a sound enactment needs
very few amendments ; namely wherever there is a prima facie case even
on a complaint by a citizen the facts shall be investigated and sanction for
prosecution shall be given by the anti-corruption authorities to be established
all over the country from the Talukas/Tehsils /Districts/States /New Delhi
depending
on geographical jurisdiction and the prosecution shall be before Special Fast
Track
Courts and not before the nomral civil and criminal courts ;moreover
Corporate Houses , Real Estate Companies , Builders , Money lenders
etc including NGOs receiving Corporate funds all require to be covered under
this Act as well as Transnational foreign and Indian Companies etc as they are
as well as legislators for acts done outside the legislative bodies ,
Muncipal
Councillors , Nagar Parishad members and officials of all such bodies.
The Janlokpal Bill does not cover Companies , the builders and financiers
lobby etc who in fact subvert the system at the highest levels neither does
it cover Media Houses and NGOs funded by the Corporate Sector .
We need several tier authorities from the Taluka , District upwards with
the authority to direct investigation and prosecution under the Prevention
of Corruption Act which provides that whereever assets are disproportionate
to the source of income the individual shall be liable as provided under the
Prevention of Corruption Act with Special Courts as per the statute.
To say that unless a particular version of the Lokpal Bill is enacted someone
is going to starve to death is absurd .An effective measure is required
including
protection for those who make the complaints and needs careful consideration.
The question as to how far in a system dominated by corporate policy
influencing every decision and at every level, democracy can function
effectively is in thefinal analysis a political question and that is the
existing
political limitation to statutory measures enacted so far to prevent
corruption
and those on the agenda . We have seen what has happened to the US and the
UK .The famous Justice Brandeis had observed that private Corporation would
enslave societies in the same way as the African-Americans had been enslaved
if there were no checks and balances on their economic and financial power .
As of now with the economic and financial collapse of so many financial
centres there is a desire to prey on the budgets of other societies ,in this
context we have to be particulary careful that heads of government are not
made or unmade from financial citadels hijacking NGOs .
The issue has to be approached without blinkers and illusions and the
attempt to manufacture individual heroes who will lead us into the
promised land avoided .
Niloufer Bhagwat
----- Original Message -----
From: Niloufer Bhagwat
To: [email protected] ;
[email protected] ; matthias chang ; ial central
Sent: Monday, August 22, 2011 1:22 PM
Subject: Re: Lokpal and the Three (Magsaysay) Musketeers-S Faizi-21 August
2011
Subject: Fw: Lokpal and the Three (Magsaysay) Musketeers-S Faizi-21 August
2011
-- Original Message --
Lokpal and the Three (Magsaysay) Musketeers
S Faizi
21 August 2011
While condemning the short detention of Anna Hazare and his colleagues, it
is nevertheless pertinent to understand what the Magsaysay Award really is,
especially in the wake of the United States official support to the
anti-corruption agitation led by three Magsaysay awardees (Anna Hazare, Kiran
Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal).
Washington is a government that creates and protects systemic corporate
corruption across the world; a military machine that is at perpetual war with
the militarily weak countries of the global south; a regime that is at the root
of most of the corporate loot in India; a regime that is rapidly making the
planet uninhabitable; a regime to which Manmohan Singhs government is readily
obedient.
The game plan might look confusing - for Manmohan Singh too is Americas
best friend - but it is simple enough if one looks at the preceding game plans.
For example: Mossad and the CIA trained the Sri Lankan military and the LTTE at
the same time (and called both of them monkeys). Then there was Americas
strategy of fiercely manufacturing jihadi terrorism in Afghanistan to fight the
USSR, and its subsequent use of the presence of the jihadis as an alibi for
occupying and destroying the country.
Now let us come straight to the three Magsaysay awardees.
Late Ramon Magsaysay was a former president of The Philippines. But the
award, though in his name and in his honour, is not an official award of The
Philippines government, but one that is funded and run by the Rockefeller
Foundation, out of Manila to be sure, with some local faces accommodated on the
Board. And its youth award (given to Kejriwal) is funded by a bird of the same
feather - the Ford Foundation.
Cultivating and promoting society leaders who one way or the other stand up
for American values and help remove the social space for those who challenge
American hegemony that is at the root of a multitude of world problems, is the
long term purpose of the award. It can also be used for short term goals, such
as precipitating a domestic crisis. [The current face-off at Ramlila Maidan
could be said to represent such a manufactured crisis].
Magsaysay is also given as reward to those who stand for American
interests. As an example, consider the invaluable collection of Indias rice
germ-plasm assiduously built at the Rice Research Institute, Cuttack, which was
taken away by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) located on the
banks of the beautiful Laguna lake about two hours drive from Manila.
The Rockefeller Foundation was instrumental in establishing the IRRI for
the western agri-business corporations, to have a firm grip on rice cultivation
in Asia. And the man who helped IRRI deprive India of its precious rice
germ-plasm collection was later made the head of IRRI and rewarded with the
Magsaysay [a rich purse], and subsequently made chairman of the award committee.
The name Ramon Magsaysay did not come to the Ford Foundation by accident.
If it was to honour the values of freedom and commitment to the people, they
should have gone for the name of Jose Rizal, the most revered Philipino leader,
but they did not do that. Ramon Magsaysay steadfastly stood for American
interests both in The Philippines and the southeast Asia region. The 1953
presidential election that Magsaysay won was entirely manipulated by the CIA to
put him in that position. Nick Cullather of Stanford University says in his
book Illusions of Influence: The Political Economy of United States-Philippines
Relations, 1942-1960, The US flagrantly intervened in the 1953 election. The
list of CIA dirty tricks, by one account, included money laundering, arson, and
blackmail, but ironically these depredations fail to convey the scope of the
interference. The election was all about the United States.
Magsaysay was considered a great asset by America in fighting communist
movements. He happily worked for America to set up the dangerous SEATO
(Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty) military alliance, although it had
hardly any takers within the region (only the kingdom of Thailand and the
vassal state of Pakistan).
America unsuccessfully used him to spoil the 1955 Bandung Conference that
led to the birth of the Non-Alignment Movement. He refused to go Bandung (like
his mentor John Dulles, the US Secretary of State) in deference to American
interests, but sent a representative who argued for American interests, giving
lone company to the US envoy there. I wonder how many of our civil society
groups and journalists who get excited at the very mention of the Magsaysay
Award know how Ramon had attempted to malign the image of Jawaharlal Nehru (and
NAM) by describing the Non Aligned Movement as a springboard of communism,
because they were angered by Nehrus criticism of SEATO.
Ramon Magsaysay is honoured by the US for nothing but his courageous stand
against communism in the Far East. And the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations
award in his name is meant to promote that old purpose in a sustained and
discrete manner.
The three Magsaysay awardees, owning multiple well-funded NGOs, live up to
the expectations of the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations; and now the US
government has officially chipped in, though it is simultaneously trying to
distance itself belatedly in the face of a strong official reaction from New
Delhi.
Where do we, the real people of India, the owners of the Republic and the
authors of the Constitution, stand, thrown as we are between a US bent,
colonialisms apologist Manmohan Singh and the Three Magsaysay musketeers?
God, if there is one, save the country.
Dr S Faizi is an ecologist specialising in international environmental
policy; his email is [email protected]
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