PRAGOTI

 

Lokpal makes only a small, though important, difference to corruption in India. While the idea of Lokpal, and many versions of it, has been in circulation for many years, it has not been passed by the Parliament till today. If the passing of Lokpal is the only criterion chosen to judge the efforts to end corruption, then there is indeed a collective failure of the political system, that includes the Left. However, the choice of that criterion begins with the assumption that Lokpal is a complete, and adequate, answer to corruption in India. I dont think so. The Left also has never said that anywhere. It is Anna Hazare who says it now.

 

The core long-term political question I am interested in is not whether Lokpal was passed or not, and who made the shrillest noise about it, but who has made the best effort to fight corruption in its multiple varieties. Certainly from the 1980s, at least, when large-sum corruption started showing up in India, it is the Left that has fought it tooth and nail. Take Bofors, take the Jain diaries in the hawala case, take the JMM bribery case, take the St Kitts case, take the Sheila Kaul case, take the Shiv Shanker case...in all these cases, it was only the Left that fought the Congress and its corruption on the streets, as well as in the Parliament. Yes, many of these struggles did not acquire the stature of the Anna Hazare agitation. Partly, I believe, it was because the starkness of corruption had not, probably, stared at the Indian people (particularly the middle class) more before. An idea, ultimately, has to grip the masses!

 

But today, corruption has expanded most widely to many more spheres, has exceeded imaginations in scale and size, and the growing midde class has gotten restless about the frequency with which it has hit the stands. This was never the case before. This is why the idea of Jan Lokpal, put forward so dramatically by Anna Hazare, has become popular. I am sure that more than 95 per cent of the people with Anna have never read the Jan Lokpal Bill. They dont know the difference between the government’s Lokpal Bill and Jan Lokpal Bill, other than that the Prime Minister is not included in the government’s Lokpal Bill. At the same time, the credibility of the UPA-II government is so low that people are not ready to believe that they can ever bring in a genuine legislation on corruption. So, they believe that anything other than the government’s bill has to be a “good” and “strong” bill. The media (eager to raise money and TRPs) is publicising only the Jan Lokpal Bill. They do not even discuss or publicise the alternatives put forward either by the CPI (M) or the NCPRI. So, people think that parties like the CPI (M) are sitting silent on the present Lokpal controversy.

 

Going back to history, it was never thought in the Indian political discourse that a Lokpal can end corruption on its own. This was not just the Left’s view. Reviewing the Lokpal Bill of 1985, L. C. Jain (noted Gandhian, economist and Magsaysay award winner) wrote in the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) in 1986 that: “in any case, even with a vastly broadened scope, Lokpal will always be a moral censor and no more”. In this short piece, Jain refers to the report of the Santhanam Committee on Prevention of Corruption of the 1960s, which had put much emphasis on “an example being set by the top” as crucial to end corruption. He quotes the Committee report thus:

 

“There is a large consensus of opinion that a new tradition of integrity can be established only if the example is set by those who have the ultimate responsibility for the governance of India.”

 

Jain further wrote that:

 

“The Committee also reported that “the public belief in the prevalence of corruption at high levels has been strengthened by the manner in which funds are collected by political parties, especially at the time of elections” and suggested that all political parties be required to publish audited accounts annually and “failure to conform to such obligation should debar a political party from recognition by the Election Commission”.

 

 

The Santhanam Committee’s recommendation “to set an example from the top” was to create a CVC, which was actually set up. MPs do submit asset returns to the Parliament now. And Santhanam’s Committee’s most fundamental recommendations regarding prevention of corruption were related to “administrative reforms”, and not on Lokpal. Thus, the first Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) was formed in 1966, headed by Morarji Desai (however, in a State like Kerala, the Left had instituted an ARC in 1957 itself). This ARC suggested that there should be two different set of institutions for the redressal of citizen’s grievances: the first to deal with complaints against Ministers and Secretaries to government at the central and State level; the second to deal with the complaints against other officials. The same ARC also stated, however, that:

 

“The setting up of these authorities should not, however, be taken to be a complete answer to the problem of redress of citizen’s grievances. They only provide the ultimate setup for such redress as has not been available through normal departmental or governmental machinery and do not absolve the department from fulfilling its obligations to the citizen for administering its affairs without generating, as far as possible, any legitimate sense of grievance. Thus, the administration itself must play the major role is reducing the area of grievances and providing remedies wherever necessary and feasible…When this machinery (in-built departmental machinery) functions effectively, the number of cases which will have to go to an authority outside the Ministry or the department should comparatively be small in number (emphasis added).”

 

The point is that while both the Santhanam Committee and the ARC of 1966 saw the institution of Lokpal and Lokayuktas as important, they contemplated only a very limited role for them. They went far beyond the Lokpal, to recommend wide-ranging and comprehensive reforms in the administration itself to end corruption (on the other hand, the Lokpal Bill has a rather chequered history in the Indian Parliament. Between 1968 and 2011, it has been introduced in the Parliament 8 times in as many versions: Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill, 1968; Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill, 1974; The Lokpal Bill, 1977; The Lokpal Bill, 1985; The Lokpal Bill, 1989; The Lokpal Bill, 1996; The Lokpal Bill, 1998; and The Lokpal Bill, 2001. In all these cases, the house either got dissolved before passing the Bill, or the government withdrew the Bill before it was passed).

 

L. C. Jain concludes his article thus:

 

“Thus no matter what teeth we put into the Lokpal Bill or what coverage it is allowed in terms of the range of dignitaries who can be arraigned before the Lokpal, it would make little impact on cleansing public life of corruption if in the hearts of our public men it is inscribed: ‘dharma does not live here any more’.”

 

I refer to Jain’s piece here only to make the point that Lokpal was never thought of in any stream of the Indian political discourse as a panacea to corruption, as Anna Hazare is making it out to be now. There were a series of measures that were discussed. Lokpal was just one of them. So, to say that the Left parties did not fight for Lokpal earlier is to look at history in a distorted manner, and to see political debates out of their historical context.

 

As mentioned, it was only in the 1990s that big ticket corruption, and that too in short frequencies, began to hit India. The long list of corruption cases mentioned in the beginning of this post is evidence. Even here, the Left parties did bring attention to the Lokpal, but they had a different view on it. I will draw attention to the Frontline article of EMS Namboodiripad dated May 18th, 1996. It was interestingly titled “VIPs and Prosecutions: An Alternative to Lokpal”. Here, EMS was forthright in his view. He writes:

 

“The appointment of a Lokpal and bringing the office of the Prime Minister within the jurisdiction of the Lokpal is no solution for the widespread corruption from which no VIP is free. The real solution is the equal application of the law to VIPs and others. Fear of the law, the fear that one may be caught by the investigating and prosecuting agencies, is the only deterrent that will prevent VIPs from doing what they are now doing...

 

 

 

 

As is evident, EMS did not put undue faith in the supposed infallibility of the Lokpal to end corruption. He, and the CPI (M), put emphasis on more real, feasible and effective ways of tackling corruption. There was no magic bullet to end corruption; that actually happens to be Anna’s view. Anna appears sure that Jan Lokpal Bill will end 65 per cent of corruption in India, neither 64 nor 66!

 

The above continues to be the CPI(M)’s view even today. That is why the opening statement of the note that the CPI (M) has released on Lokpal Bill, dated 2nd July, reads:

 

“The battle against corruption, in order to be effective today, can be achieved only through a comprehensive reform of our political, legal, administrative and judicial systems and not through one-off or piece-meal measures. The establishment of an effective Lokpal institution is one such measure. This needs to be complemented by other measures.”

 

Indeed, in States like Kerala, the complementary measures introduced by the Left have had a major influence in reducing the extent of local-level corruption. I would like to point out the importance of decentralisation in this regard. I had mentioned earlier that one of the first State-level ARCs in India was in Kerala, which was a brainchild of EMS. By the time he took charge as the Chief Minister of Kerala in 1957, EMS had a clear perspective on introducing decentralisation in Kerala. He himself was the Chairman of the ARC, 1957. The conclusion of this ARC was unambiguous: “it is not only that panchayats should be the sole agency at the village level between the government and masses, but also that it should be through the panchayats that masses make contact with the government”. Frequent change in governments did not allow the introduction of full-fledged decentralisation in the State till 1996. Social scientists have given inadequate attention to the impact of post-1996 decentralisation in Kerala on local-level corruption and nepotism. In one analysis, T. M. Thomas Isaac argues that decentralisation “had a positive and significant impact on the reduction of corruption, nepotism and leakage” in project implementation. Below, I reproduce a table from one of his unpublished papers (Table 1).

 

 

 

He argues in conclusion that:

 

“The high levels of transparency in decentralisation made corruption more visible, which, in fact, can be viewed as one of the strengths of the decentralisation experiment. A number of measures were initiated to strengthen accountability and check irregularities, such as the appointment of ombudsman, performance audit and social audit. An audit commission was formed; appellate tribunals were set up in every district; most importantly, a thorough overhaul of the accounting procedures of the LSGIs was undertaken; and accounts were computerised.”

 

Thus, the CPI (M) has a rich history in terms of taking steps to reduce corruption at the local level through a series of measures that take the state closer to people. Demands for such participative forms of democracy have no presence in the Anna Hazare-type movements. It is in the magic bullet of Lokpal that they have all the faith in.

 

In conclusion, I believe that the CPI (M)’s and the NCPRI’s (which is closer to the position of the CPI (M)) are better, and more workable, versions of the Bill than the 2 main versions of the Bill in circulation. The CPI (M)’s view is based on the following basic premise:

 

“The separation of powers between legislature, executive and judiciary is a part of the basic structure of the Constitution. The institution of Lokpal should conform to this basic structure.”

 

But who has the time to discuss all that? Everybody is behind magic bullets, which have “popular appeal”. Populism is the king!