So finally it is victory for social activist Anna Hazare who had been fighting for the Jan lokpal bill. The newspaper headlines applauded Anna and lacs of people who came forward for this noble cause. But the thing that made me write this post was the survey conducted by HT-C FORE whose results were also given on the front page. When asked "Should civic society activists be given the right to frame laws?" 45% people said yes and 47% said no! It was very shocking to read this as the impression that we get on TV and online would have us believe that the whole of India is behind Anna and his crusade against corruption but when it comes to the right to frame laws by civic society activists the odds are against Anna.
There has been a huge debate surrounding the whole affair especially the idea of fast-unto-death. Certain section of the society does believe that it is almost equivalent to blackmailing the government and that law making should left in the hands of government as it is impractical to make laws based on popular opinion.
(Well, Congress should be happy that we have Gandhian people like Anna who, along with his supports, has a very non-violent way of communicating things. Because if it was otherwise, I would not be surprised to see people on the streets of India like Egypt to overthrow the government considering the series of scams that it has seen in the last few years! Thanks to our forgiving or forgetful nature many corrupt people are roaming free. But this act by Anna has mobilized people who were so engrossed in their day-to-day routine that they were oblivious to the wrongdoing happening around, which in turn allowed the corrupt to continue and flourish.)
Coming back to the debate, many people feel this is a not way of getting things done and that the drafting of laws should be left to legislators as they were elected by us to do the same on our behalf! Government giving into demands of Anna Hazare may encourage people to do the same in future as well and this could happen at state level or at local level so drawing a line somewhere is of utmost importance. To this perception Anna and his supports did reply, that though the legislators are chosen by them but they were not doing their duty and despite several requests and letters the government did not pay any attention and that they were left with no option but to resort to this.
While I do support Anna in his fight against corruption and I was in complete support of his way of fighting as well but in hindsight I just hope that this was one off episode and we do not have such events taking place in future as making laws like this may create problems . One suggestion for them was to have a party of their own and have its representatives change the system by being in the system instead fighting for a cause from outside. But Anna clearly mentioned in one of his interviews that he has no plans to enter into politics. It is safe to assume now that whenever there is a mass feeling that legislators are not doing their duties properly we could have the same scenario again which could be dangerous.
But how do we tackle the problem of corruption then if nobody is paying heed to the issue? One thing that can be done is to have a system in place which makes it possible to complete government formalities online, try and reduce the interaction of officials. If somebody wants to start a shop, the licenses and formalities should be complied with online. I guess something similar is happening in Gujarat. Apart from that, Gujarat has also implemented the SWAGAT system for registering grievances online, a must-read for everyone. Something like this should be implemented on large scale. I am sure the UID scheme will also help the cause once it becomes fully operational. We can also implements things at local level. e.g.: I do not remember the name of the country but I read somewhere that it has installed CCTV cameras on the government vehicles or/and traffic junctions which has helped them reduce the incidences of unnecessary hassle caused by officials to the drivers and reduced bribery cases as well. These things will make an impact at the small level but as far as the national level is concerned we will have to make sure that we choose the right candidate. As Anna rightly pointed out in his interview that one of the reasons why he does not want to get into politics is because many a time the voters are 'influenced'. It is heartening to see people come on streets in support of Anna; hopefully we can do the same during elections as well and improve the voter turnout percentage which was 59.7% during 2009 election. If we manage to do this we could actually have a government in power whose actions would not warrant another fast unto death episode.
There has been a huge debate surrounding the whole affair especially the idea of fast-unto-death. Certain section of the society does believe that it is almost equivalent to blackmailing the government and that law making should left in the hands of government as it is impractical to make laws based on popular opinion.
(Well, Congress should be happy that we have Gandhian people like Anna who, along with his supports, has a very non-violent way of communicating things. Because if it was otherwise, I would not be surprised to see people on the streets of India like Egypt to overthrow the government considering the series of scams that it has seen in the last few years! Thanks to our forgiving or forgetful nature many corrupt people are roaming free. But this act by Anna has mobilized people who were so engrossed in their day-to-day routine that they were oblivious to the wrongdoing happening around, which in turn allowed the corrupt to continue and flourish.)
Coming back to the debate, many people feel this is a not way of getting things done and that the drafting of laws should be left to legislators as they were elected by us to do the same on our behalf! Government giving into demands of Anna Hazare may encourage people to do the same in future as well and this could happen at state level or at local level so drawing a line somewhere is of utmost importance. To this perception Anna and his supports did reply, that though the legislators are chosen by them but they were not doing their duty and despite several requests and letters the government did not pay any attention and that they were left with no option but to resort to this.
While I do support Anna in his fight against corruption and I was in complete support of his way of fighting as well but in hindsight I just hope that this was one off episode and we do not have such events taking place in future as making laws like this may create problems . One suggestion for them was to have a party of their own and have its representatives change the system by being in the system instead fighting for a cause from outside. But Anna clearly mentioned in one of his interviews that he has no plans to enter into politics. It is safe to assume now that whenever there is a mass feeling that legislators are not doing their duties properly we could have the same scenario again which could be dangerous.
But how do we tackle the problem of corruption then if nobody is paying heed to the issue? One thing that can be done is to have a system in place which makes it possible to complete government formalities online, try and reduce the interaction of officials. If somebody wants to start a shop, the licenses and formalities should be complied with online. I guess something similar is happening in Gujarat. Apart from that, Gujarat has also implemented the SWAGAT system for registering grievances online, a must-read for everyone. Something like this should be implemented on large scale. I am sure the UID scheme will also help the cause once it becomes fully operational. We can also implements things at local level. e.g.: I do not remember the name of the country but I read somewhere that it has installed CCTV cameras on the government vehicles or/and traffic junctions which has helped them reduce the incidences of unnecessary hassle caused by officials to the drivers and reduced bribery cases as well. These things will make an impact at the small level but as far as the national level is concerned we will have to make sure that we choose the right candidate. As Anna rightly pointed out in his interview that one of the reasons why he does not want to get into politics is because many a time the voters are 'influenced'. It is heartening to see people come on streets in support of Anna; hopefully we can do the same during elections as well and improve the voter turnout percentage which was 59.7% during 2009 election. If we manage to do this we could actually have a government in power whose actions would not warrant another fast unto death episode.
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