Citizen and the state

The agitations by Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev against corruption and black money have highlighted the failure of our democratic system to provide good governance. All the three scams — 2G spectrum, CWG, and Adarsh — were exposed by vigilant citizens rather than by the state institutions constituted to find out and punish such corruption cases. The CBI pursued the cases only after the courts asked it to investigate.

Anna Hazare and his NGO, India Against Corruption (IAC), took up the issue of corruption and received tremendous response as almost all citizens of the country have first-hand experience of the corrupt ways of the government departments and its institutions. 

The talks that followed failed over differences on the issues of methodology of selection and purview of Lokpal. While IAC wants the PM, MPs and the higher judiciary to be within its purview, ministers have reservations. These institutions of governance have failed to uphold probity in public life. While the PM ignored the indications of the scams because of ‘coalition dharma’, no MP was punished in the JMM bribery case and an inquiry is still going on in the case of the alleged bribes paid during the voting for the Indo-US nuclear deal. People have noticed the lack of impeccable integrity even amongst some members of the higher judiciary.

Similarly, Baba Ramdev raised the issue of black money hidden in banks abroad. The government failed to persuade him to withdraw his agitation and the fast. He and his followers — who included men, women and children — gathered on the Ramlila ground were asked to vacate the place at midnight when they were sleeping in tents and were later dispersed with a lathi-charge and tear-gas shells.

The moot question is: what is the role of a citizen in a democratic republic when he finds that the government is not functioning properly? The duty of a citizen does not end with voting once in five years. Protest against injustice is his duty and an obligation.

One is surprised by the reaction of the Congress and some commentators. Senior members of the Congress questioned the probity of the members of the IAC. They even called them “thugs” and “masks of the RSS and the BJP”. A smear campaign cannot be the answer to the questions they have raised.

Some eminent journalists called them “unelected” and even “unelectable”. They forgot that that particular cap fits the present PM. Civil society has many faces and many voices. Anna & Baba are one face. The NAC is another face. The critical issue is: how to catch the big fish which escape the tax net?

If a powerful Lokpal cannot be part of the structure of governance as envisaged by our Constitution, there is an alternative. Let’s have a special bench of two or three judges in the Supreme Court and the high courts to deal with only corruption charges, especially that of the high and the mighty, and fast track their prosecution. This bench should have the power to question the PM, MPs and top bureaucrats, if there is a prima facie case. The CVC and CBI can work under this bench. Legislation on judicial accountability should be able to take care of the wrongdoings by the members of the higher judiciary.

It does not matter whether the cat is black or white, but it should catch the mice. Crime should be punished and the national wealth should go to the nation.
 
(The writer is a former economic and commercial adviser to a consulate general of an EU country)