ROY’S MUSINGS: The fuss about the Lokpal Bill – A Brief Discussion

SOURCE: THE HIMALAYAN BEACON [BEACON ONLINE] EXCLUSIVE

BY BARUN ROY

People who visit India often wonder how India continues to remain united as a country when every 25 kilometers, the language changes and people seem different. India’s strength is indeed in her diversity. There might not be many Indians in India but sure that is for the political parties to blame and not the people who remain loyal, gleefully cross eyed in love and awe of their great motherland. The political institutions in this nation are as strong as it ever can be and the forefathers who have formulated them must be thanked for their foresight and fortitude. However, same cannot be said about the quality of politics being practiced in this nation, since the qualities of political leaders themselves have steadily dipped to the extent it now tips the scale on the negative side. It was said that a few decades after the independence with the beginning of the License Raj, politicians resorted to the support of organized crime syndicates to help them win the elections by coercing and silencing populist voices. In the recent years it has been noticed that the criminal elements themselves have donned the garb of the politicians and taken up the mantel of the supposed ‘champions of the people’.

The Power of Universal Adult Franchise has also seemingly become redundant as the one Constitutional means available to the people as a means to address this problem. The people get to vote only once every five years and the choice of people to be voted into power seldom changes. On the both side of the coin there remain people who are not fighting each other to champion the rights of the people but the right to rule over the people.

The Supreme Court exercising its power of Judicial Review has done its bit and continues to do so but it has still not been able to root out corruption in the Governance. The Corruption in the Governance at all levels be they national, state, district or block is such that its effects are now being seen to percolate at all levels of public functioning. People themselves have begun to be corrupt and corruption it is deemed to be the only method by which any work can be done in this great nation.

Surely there must be a way out of this quagmire else this great nation founded over the toil and blood of millions of martyrs will fall prey to dejection and slavery once again. In 1809, the office of Ombudsman was created in Sweden followed by Finland in 1919, Denmark (1955), Norway and New Zealand (1962) and United Kingdom as (Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration) in 1967.

‘Ombudsman’, a Swedish word stands for an officer appointed by the legislature to handle complaints against administrative and judicial action. As an impartial investigator, the Ombudsman makes investigations, looks at all the facts objectively and reports back to the legislature. The complainant has simply to write to the Ombudsman appealing against an administrative decision. The Ombudsman system has been popular because of its simple and speedy nature. It is also a cheap method of handling appeals against administrative decisions.

In 1966 the Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) in India recommended the setting of similar institutions in the nation. The Commission stated, “… We are of the view that the special circumstances relating to our country can be fully met, by providing for two special institutions for the redressal of citizens’ grievances. There should be one authority for dealing with complains against the administrative acts of ministers and secretaries to government both at the centre and in the states. There should be another authority in each state and the centre for dealing with complaints against the administrative acts of other officials. All these authorities should be independent of the executive as well as the legislature and judiciary”. The ARC called the first authority the Lokpal and the second authority the Lokayukta.

In the decades since the submission of the report of the ARC, the various political parties in the country forming government both at the Central and the State level have promised the passing of the Lokpal Bill but the same have been nothing but a hollow dream. The biggest hurdle in setting up the office of the Lokpal independent of the Executive, Legislature and the Judiciary’ has been the unwillingness on the part of the Political Leadership in the country to submit themselves to enquiry by an independent authority. Interestingly, various states including Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Bihar, Orissa, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi have appointed Lokayukta, the appointment of a Lokpal stills seems to be a distant dreams as the dealings of every political leader in power would then fall under its purview. The appointments of the Lokayukta in the aforementioned states have also been as a result of a mass public movement initiated by the likes of Anna Hazare (in Maharashtra, the first state to pass the Lokayukta Bill).

Lastly, with the growing corruption in all the organs of the Government as brought to light through various scams involving various prominent politicians including the most recent scams in the CWG and the 2G etc and those witnessed by the people in their day to day interaction with the various government agencies, the Lokpal Bill will not be taken seriously by the government or political parties both in power or in opposition unless they are forced to do so through sheer public pressure. Prominent Social Activist Anna Hazare’s fast unto death on this issue has certainly put the focus on the Lokpal Bill and in essence the need to root out Corruption from the Indian Political System. Now it is for the people of this great nation to prove that they are really the descendents of the great freedom fighters who won independence from the British Empire. Will the present generation live up to the expectation of the coming generation? Will the generations to come hail this generation of Indians as determined and dynamic group of people who stood up for what is right, or will this generation crawl back to eking out an existence in the quagmire of corruption blaming everything happening around them to someone else? The answer lies with You!