On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 19:16, Mahesh Murthy <[email protected]> wrote:
>> So I do have a strong set of issues with the supposed 'intelligentsia'
>> response to the Anna Hazara / IAC movement / Jan Lokpal bill - I use the
>> terms loosely and interchangeably.
>
> The key stands, summarising Nitin Pai, Amba Salakar, Arundhati Roy et al
> seem to be:
> 1. "We (the civil society experts / bloggers / hand-wringers) know how to
> fight corruption, but this is not the way".
> My comment: yeah, who died and made you Gods Of Knowing How To Fight
> Corruption?
Who died and made you God Of Shutting Up Those Who Have a Problem With
The Way Those Fighting Corruption Are Going About It? That allegation
can be levelled against all. The fact is, no one knows better, at
least not until hindsight kicks in, and even then it is debatable.
People who have an interest in the matter are arguing it out, that's
all. And I am all the better for this public argument. What I see
from many of the Jan Lokpal janta is anger against politicians,
bureaucrats, and institutionalised politics. There is a saying in
Tamil that anger blinds. This anger and a desire for quick passage of
a law "after decades of waiting" are blinding them.
One example: Arvind Kejriwal recently stated that the
inclusion/non-inclusion of the judiciary is negotiable for 'Team
Anna'. However, 'Team Anna' has also stated that if the law that they
want isn't passed (at least in the version I read it said passed) by
Parliament by August 31st, there will an unprecedented response all
over the country.
So which one is it? If its proponents are so sure of their position,
how is the inclusion of the judiciary negotiable? Are any in the
crowds thronging the Ram Lila maidan thinking about this?
> Social change does not a pattern follow. If this is the form of protest it
> takes to change one aspect of Indian life - endemic corruption, and this
> form of protest has found itself large national acceptance and support, with
> an impact many times that of what has ever happened before, then this might
> probably be a likely way to make change happen.
I agree. And I am all the happier for this, as someone who wishes
that corruption would be less endemic and less acceptable.
> I'm sorry that it's not how you think it should be - because, let's face it,
> that way (whether it is re-writing the constitution, or some vaguely defined
> "Reforms 2.0" or Salakar's defence of current legislation) hasn't worked
> yet, and shows no signs of working yet.
Sure. I agree completely. But in the maelstrom of all this
discussion about corruption, why should one be forced to accept the
(seeming) majority on how things should be? Dissent is a healthy
thing. All in civil society needn't speak in one voice against
corruption. They can damn well speak in many voices against
corruption, including calling some of the voices
'dictatorial'/'dangerous for our democracy'/etc. Why does it have to
be "with anti-corruption movement or against anti-corruption
movement"?
To think otherwise is like saying that every right-thinking Indian
should have agreed with Jayaprakash Narayan in the lead up to the
Emergency. One could well say that the JP movement had dictatorial
tendencies, and still agree that the Emergency was a bad response to
it (or, as some have it, that the Emergency would have been a good
response to it had it only been lifted in a few months, possibly
November 1975).
> 2. "Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal are unfit to lead this movement (for
> various reasons)" without a mention of who else might be. Or even if the
> movement should have no leader.
> Arundhati Roy does the classic knife-the-rival-to-the-socialist-throne by
> suggesting somewhat loosely that Hazare, Kejriwal et al are American stooges
> - a point of view that puts her in bed, incongruously, with the ruling
> party.
> She whines that "Kejriwal received a Ford Foundation grant" when she herself
> received some half a million pounds as publication advance for her book from
> Evil Western Capitalists. But she doesn't go as far as suggesting who else
> the movement might be led by.
> Nitin Pai defends the right to be an armchair intellectual and not really do
> anything on ground with the reasoning that "pilots don't design airplanes".
> Yes, Mr. Pai. but armchair intellectuals don't either. People who know the
> principles of flight do - and then they usually go test-fly the damn thing
> themselves, risking life and limb before they prescribe their designs to the
> hoi polloi.
I disagree with this bit on armchair intellectuals. I see different
people taking on different roles. Armchair intellectuals are less
likely to achieve what they say should be done than people who take to
the streets. That is their comeuppance. Why does that mean that they
shouldn't wring their hands and say that it is an unfair system where
the hoi polloi are swayed by the rabble rouser? After all, there are
people (on this list, even) who have (outrageously and rather
ridiculously) argued that only educated people should have the right
to vote. While I am convinced that what they say is stupid, and
perhaps even dangerous, that's their armchair opinion. The hoi polloi
who vote give that view little credence.
> 3. "The Indian constitution is sufficient. Why add a layer of complexity?"
> Well, the supposedly sufficient Indian constitution has resulted in us
> having an enormous amount of corruption in our lives. However sufficient it
> might be in theory, it's not sufficient in practice. Perhaps another body -
> like Hong Kong's ICAC - can help.
> Adding a layer of complexity is not in itself a bad thing. It is probably
> the way to cut through the Gordian knot of legislation and systems we
> currently have.
> Suddenly our keyboard revolutionaries want to defend our constitution and
> the status quo.
I don't understand that summary of the argument ("Constitution is
sufficient"). If what they meant was that finer points on
accountability of the judiciary and MPs (insofar as their acts in
Parliament are concerned) should be given special consideration
because of the Constitution, then I agree and don't get your argument
otherwise. If that's not what they mean, then clearly the
Constitution has nothin' to do with it.
> And to Nitin Pai, I lived in Hong Kong, and yes there was a lot of
> corruption that the ICAC unearthed - and it was a truly feared force among
> businesspeople and government folks. Here, even the once-feared threat of
> "CBI investigation" holds no menace to most folks. They know, ultimately,
> that some flaw, somewhere in the system will let them off.
>
> 4. "This won't help the poor, the 80 crores who earn Rs. 20 a day"
> Really, how do you know it won't? If a Sharad Pawar has siphoned billions
> using his position as Food & Agriculture Minister and Sugar Baron among
> other positions - what other mechanism might help? You don't know, and I
> don't either.
This won't help the poor because of two reasons:
1) The JLP will be overburdened.
This is why I think the suggestion of separating the lokpal into those
looking at lower-level corruption and higher-level corruption (as
Aruna Roy and co. have done) is sensible.
2) The poor normally pay harassment bribes, which by some courts'
interpretations of PoCA are criminal. So even if they complain, they
will also be held to be co-accused.
This is why Kaushik Basu's proposal of clarifying the PoCA makes sense.
> But the status quo won't do a thing. This just might have a chance of doing
> so.
The status quo won't do. At the very least, the layer of permission
(put in place to insulate government servants, etc., from frivolous
complaints) that is required in so many cases, including under the
IPC, has worked out really badly. But the propose JLP might not be a
good solution.
I would agree with you if by 'this' you meant the kind of fervour
whipped up by the IAC currently. If by 'this' you mean the JLP Bill,
I would disagree sharply.
> Let's start with the 8 crores who earn Rs. 200 a day, or the 80 lakhs who
> earn Rs. 2,000 a day. These are the folks protesting. Even if it cures some
> part of corruption for them and does nothing for the 80 crores, that's fine.
> It's a heckuva lot more than anything you've ever done or managed to get
> done.
> Give it a shot. Your way hasn't worked. This might.
If someone's arguing for the status quo, I would ridicule them as you
are doing. If, on the other hand, someone is riding on this wave of
anti-corruption sentiment to propose what they feel is more workable,
then I don't see any reason to deny them that.
> 5. "This is draconian"
> And you believe anything less than draconian will work here where
> politicians slime out of even murder cases in our current legislative system
> with impunity?
Let's have a permanent Internal Emergency. My dad vouches that the
reduction in corruption then was quite dramatic. Let's even have the
death penalty for corruption as they do in China.
> 6. The elephant in the room is that none of the experts write about the
> government counter of the proposed bill with a much-diluted version that is
> closer to becoming law.
The government version is better than the JLP Bill in some ways (on
judiciary and PM and proposing leaner LP), and worse in many ways.
But for the most part, most of the arguments that apply against the
JLP proposal apply against the LP Bill as well, since they are
remarkably alike.
If you're not talking about arguments per se, but that they seem to be
targetting one crowd (IAC) rather than the other (UPA), then I agree
partially. The truth is that the IAC isn't even giving time for the
Standing Committee to call for public comments. That might, to an
extent, explain why.
> If there was really no need for a bill, why would the government offer one -
> is there not some realisation that yes, we are corrupt, let's try to do a
> little to either fob off this Hazare fellow like we did last time, or to
> stem a little of the flow of loot.
To fob off this Hazare fellow? Well, the Lokpal was in the process of
being introduced in Parliament *before* the Jan Lokpal movement came
to the limelight. In fact the Jan Lokpal drafts that Arvind Kejriwal
worked on were as a response to the Bill that the government was going
to introduce. They might have made changes to fob off that Hazare
fellow, but they did not introduce the Bill because of that.
> The government proposals, from alleged "constitutional experts" and
> "defenders of the parliamentary way" is way more asinine than the Hazare
> version of the bill. The Hazare version is not perfect - we all know that,
> but what the government proposes takes the cake in de-testiculation of
> legislation.
Could you provide more details of this de-testiculation?
> There is an obvious government move to leave gaping Sharad-Pawar sized holes
> in the bill for him and his ilk to sneak through. This Governemtn version is
> actually a bill proposed before parliament, and it is somehow instructive to
> find neither Roy, Pai or Salalkar makes a mention of that impending
> legislation.
This, I believe is very valid criticism, but in no way 'instructive'
for me. It doesn't tell me anything about their motives.
> Instead, each seems more eager to derail the populist protest movement, as
> though the issue that is more important is not the Government's crappy bill
> that is going through parliament, but to reclaim the crown of "Civil Society
> Thought Leader" from these damn upstarts Hazare and Kejriwal back for
> themselves.
