At last everyone can take a sigh
of relief; democracy is safe, at least for now. The much debated Lokpal
Bill has been literally, in fact actually torn up in the Indian
Parliament! The Lokpal Bill was put
to sleep at midnight .
Despite all the flak she is
taking for her seemingly flip flop attitude to her coalition partnership of the
UPA government, Mamta
Banerjee, the maverick of Indian politics, must be credited with saving
democracy in India
The Lokpal
Bill is a piece of Indian Legislation, which no one in the right thinking
mind ever wanted though it has been
mooted forty years back as an antidote to corruption in India. Though the
resistance to the Lokpal had more to do with the prevailing corrupt political
process in the past, for the modern Indian politicians, much evolved, an idea
of a super cop to look over the democratic institutions rang the danger bell,
just in time.
The process of Lokpal, which went
on for the best part of the year stalling important policy decision making by
the government and progress of the country, smacked of an Indian merry go
around with:
Team
Anna putting a gun on Man Mohan Singh’s government insisting a bill be passed
before the end of the year,
The
government desperately trying to get the parties on board and enact the Lokpal
Bill
The
politicians pulling the carpet under the feet of Anna Hazare, who they fear to
confront directly, by raising objections and hurdles for passing the Lokpal legislation.
What broke the fun was the
objection Mamta Banerjee raised to a clause permitting the central government
to enact anti corruption laws for the states, a promise extracted by Anna
Hazare from a parliament under duress which it has no power to deliver.
In reality the real corruption
Anna Hazare is fighting against happen in the domain of the states over which
the central government has no control. The reasons for corruption is the lack
of infrastructure and equal opportunities for education, healthcare and
housing, amplified in the cities by huge difference in the wages of private and
public sector caused by massive foreign money inflow. The rural India
Though the attempt to pass a bill
in the Indian parliament failed eight times before and the recent episode
appeared more chaotic than ever, in fact it has proved the strength of the
democratic process yet again and why democracy has survived in India
The Lokpal, a totally unworkable
idea which went against all the checks and balances enshrined in the Indian
constitution, was born out of the frustrations of an upward moving urban
society and imposed totally under pressure on a government which believe more
in accommodation and inclusive politics than confrontation.
While the wind of democracy was
sweeping dictatorships around the world, no where democracy was being thrown
away for dictatorship like in India by candles and text messages by a
generation, pampered by massive inflow of easy foreign investment, which has no
idea of the struggle of their grant parents to win the freedom they have taken
for granted.
What the people of India Independence