Friends
There is not an iota of doubt that India as a country is being sucked dry of its vitality by the singular malaise of corruption. There is hardly any sphere of endeavor-public or private-that has not been afflicted by this malady. While it is the public/Government sector that has been at the receiving end of the heavy artillery fire from the media and others on this issue, the fact is that the private sector is perhaps much more corrupt and a much bigger defaulter when it comes corruption in the country. But I guess that I have already written enough on the corruption prevalent in the private sector. The purpose of this article is different.
At the very outset I would like to assert that I am a great admirer of Respected Shri Anna Hazaare and the members of the 'Civil Society' that is pressing for the immediate (and unconditional) passage of the Jan-Lokpal Bill. However, having said that, I must also add that I firmly believe that what they are doing-albeit appealing in the short run- is going to prove disastrous and counterproductive for the nation in the long run. Since the current movement to pass the Jan-Lokpal bill is being presented as the second independence "Doosri Aazaadi" movement, I will compare the passage of the Jan-Lokpal bill to the "Freedom" that we got in 1947 and the aftermath of the event.
There is no denying the fact that when we became independent, we had statesmen, thinkers, educationists and other citizens of the highest merit, scholarship and integrity in the constituent assembly and then the parliament. Corruption, though still present, was low and the common man-the aam junta-had a lot of hope and expectation from the "freedom" that we had attained and the democratic system that we had adopted. To be fair, in the short run, the hope was repaid by rapid development and leaders of high caliber. However, soon the situation started to deteriorate. Casteism was the first evil that became a part and parcel of our democracy destroying-in one stroke, all the good work done by generations of social reformers from Raja Ram Mohun Roy to Swami Vivekanand. Pretty soon criminalization of politics started. And soon the heady mixture of casteism, criminalization and corruption was emitting a stench that would put two day old shit lying unflushed in the commode to shame ! If the media is to be believed, we have had 40 major scams in the 65 years that India has existed as an independent democratic state. Today, things have come to such a pass that the nation as a whole is endorsing the idea that we never became independent in the first place.
So, what does this state of our democracy have to do with the passage (or success) of Jan Lokpal as a bill and as an institution ? Actually by discussing the state of our nation and our democracy today, all I am trying to do is to illustrate how we function as a people and a nation. Actually we are a nation of corrupt citizens. We have a natural love for things that are not right. We love to flout rules, break laws and harass our fellow citizens at the slightest opportunity. And, the worst of all, we, the citizens of India, always put our petty interests and ambitions before the well-being of the nation and the society. And that is the reason that each and every institution in this country is corrupt without fail. The whole private sector is corrupt and the corruption in the public sector is hidden from none. Even the holy cows of the Indian democracy-the army and the judiciary-are not untouched by this malaise. So, if all the institutions that matter in this country are corrupt or, we may say, have become corrupted over a period of time, then how are we being naive enough to presuppose or believe that the Jan-Lokpal institution will be manned by angels ??!! From where are we going to get the personnel for the Jan-Lokpal ? The answer is obvious isn't it ? The same people who have failed to keep even one institution in this country clean and free of corruption are going to make the institution of the Jan-Lokpal as their heavenly abode ! Initially for a few years-just as it was the case with our independence-we will no doubt get a Jan-Lokpal headed by a very honest and competent person and the organization itself will, by and large, have honest persons manning it. But, after those first few honeymoon years, the elixir of casteism, criminalization and corruption will start permeating the organization of the Jan Lokpal also, and, mark my words, within a decade of its formation, the Jan-Lokpal will become the single most corrupt organization of this country.
If the Jan Lokpal is given all the powers being demanded by the Civil Society, the result would be that the honest officer, who, at present, is still able to perform, will be hounded, victimized and forced to become corrupt. I will present the future to you. It will be as follows:
"An inspector of the Jan-Lokpal walks into the office of an honest officer and demands that ten of the files of tenders and contracts done by the officer be handed over to him. The files are handed over. The Jan-Lokpal inspector scrutinizes the files minutely and out of the ten that he has taken, finds that 'Procedural' flaws have been left in two of them. The inspector now gives a call to the honest officer and demands a bribe of a few lakhs of rupees from the poor officer who is not even aware of the 'procedural lapses' that he has supposedly 'committed'. Since the officer is honest, he obviously has no money to give bribe to the Jan-Lokpal inspector. So the inspector takes the matter to his seniors, a chargesheet is prepared, the honest officer (without the money to pay the bribe) is chargesheeted, sent to jail, his property is confiscated and since all other institutions in the country from the police to the judiciary and even the Prime Minister are within the purview of the Jan-Lokpal, he receives no help from any quarter because everybody is afraid of making the all-powerful Jan-Lokpal their enemy. So the net result is that the poor honest officer of our story either spends his time in Jail and then comes out to live a life of indignity and dishonor or he commits suicide !"
Now if we replace the honest officer of our story with a dishonest one, we find that the complexion changes immediately. The dishonest officer-and dishonest officers usually have no ego hassles and/or scruples-is quick to bow down before the corrupt Jan-Lokpal inspector. He polishes the he ego of the Jan-Lokpal inspector and offers him a monthly share from his corrupt earnings. The Jan-Lokpal inspector takes the offer and starts protecting the dishonest officer who merrily continues with his corrupt ways.
Mind my words, this is exactly what is going to happen. Actually the vigilance organization of the country was strong enough to put the brakes on corruption. So was the CBI and the courts and the ED and the police and the plethora of watchdogs and other similar organizations that exist in this country. But all these organizations, which were supposed to battle and stop corruption became ineffective because with the passage of time they became infiltrated and staffed by the corrupt elements which form the overwhelming majority of the population of this country.
The fate of the Jan-Lokpal will be no different. It will eventually become a "Bhasmaasur"that will seek to destroy the very institution that created it, i.e: the parliament and the Civil Society. Since all the other institutions would be within the jurisdiction of the Jan-Lokpal, they will all make peace with it instead of fighting it. The Jan-Lokpal of India will, thus, eventually emerge as the dictator of India-a sort of Indian Gestapo with the powers of the Fuehrer and not even the rudimentary responsibility towards the public that perhaps even Hitler had to shoulder.
The Civil Society members say that the Jan Lokpal would be responsible to the citizens of India and that any citizen would have the freedom to complain against the Lokpal to the Supreme Court of India. While making that assumption they forget that we are a country on non-complainers. We are a nation whose drivers are 'Jugaad" and "Chalta-Hai" attitude. My prediction is that not many people will be willing to complain against this gestapo like entity with Ogdru-Jahadish overtones and those who do complain would be systematically hounded and eliminated by the Jan-Lokpal.
Call me a cynic if you would. But this is exactly how the story is going to unfold once the Jan-Lokpal is created. I may be proved wrong on the time line. It is possible that it may take more than a decade. But mark my words, by pressing for a Jan-Lokpal of the type advocated by the Civil Society, we are driving the last nails in the coffin of democracy and the fundamental rights granted to the citizens of India.
