Stage Set for the D-Day

When India is experiencing inscrutable pain of endemic corruption in public life, the government's motive to reject a strong Lokpal Bill draft, as suggested by the civil society led by Anna Hazare, and hence table the sarkari version of the draft in the Parliament only vociferously corroborates to the fact that the UPA-II led government is sorely hoodwinking the public in the pretext of assuring a better anti-corruption draft, which, in actuality, is a bundle of safeguards for the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. The government's version of the draft precisely excludes PMO from the purview of Lokpal by suggesting a fundamentally flawed argument that if Lokpal indicts a PM in power, the functioning of the council of ministers under the leadership of PM could be an utter disastrous for the governance, which is arguably a deliberate attempt to protect the epicenter of corruption.

In last 64 years, we have noticed that how two prime ministers of the Congress party were being entangled into high level corruption and the citizens of India just turned mute spectators of political drama that entirely telescoped the people's mandate. There is nothing indispensable in this world. If certain political parties still assume that the governance at the Centre could take a toll post impeachment of PM, then there is certainly a vested party interest in restricting PM's inclusion in the Lokpal.

Similarly, excluding MP's activities in the Parliament from the ambit of Lokpal is a clear indication of providing immunity to the conduits of corruption in public office. It's no new phenomenon in Indian Parliament that horse trading and cash for question are a legitimate practice for many MPs. However, we still live in fool's paradise by providing immunity to MPs' actions in the Parliament.

Another point of conflict here is that when maximum corruption occurs at the lower rung bureaucracy, only including top bureaucrats, which is a 0.5% of the entire government officials, in the Lokpal is only an attempt to dilute the powers of a strong Lokpal. If we analyse the effectiveness of premier central socio-economic policies such as Jawahar Rozgar Yojana and NREGA at the state level, it would be quite oxymoron to exclude the lower bureaucracy from the purview of Lokpal.

And most ironically, government's proposal to provide legal assistance to the accused for hearing even before the official chargesheet is filed by the Lokpal is a gross contradiction of a sound anti-corruption bill. This will only create enormous problems for the whistle-blowers.

If after so much public outcry against corruption, the government still takes every measure to protect corrupt people in the system, it's better not to have a toothless Lokpal. And that certainly provides enough reason for Anna and his team to burn the Lokpal draft as a reflection of their annoyance against government's decision. The government should not read this public sentiment as a contempt of Parliament. Well, Anna's call for a country-wide protest against corruption starting from August 16 will certainly force this government to think twice before passing this bill and equally interesting is how the Opposition and other political parties are engaging themselves in the Parliament to hard bargain the points proposed by the civil society. The stage is all set for a high-decibel political drama. Let's wait and watch.