As one would have expected the Lokpal bill has hit the dead end owing to dissonance between the ‘Anna team’ as they like to call it and the government, the biggest area of dissension being the proposal to bring Prime Minister & higher judiciary under the purview of the bill along with other demands. But let us not discuss the ‘delay’ part as it had to happen considering the consequences of implementation! What I want to highlight here is one of the USPs of the bill i.e. crowdsourcing: the fact that the bill is open to people’s opinion and that the suggestions of people are being incorporated in the bill ‘to the extent possible’. One may argue here that it is not crowdsourcing in real sense as it is drafted by a committee not people and that point is well taken but I am only referring to the 'editing part' for which the common people are being invited.
Something similar is happening in Iceland as well after the banking fiasco. The council is drafting clauses of the constitution and it is being uploaded on their website/Facebook for people’s opinion. This whole idea of taking vox populi into account while forming legislation has a downside to it I feel i.e. popular opinion tends to be loaded in favour of emotions rather than rationale and emotions can’t be the basis for any law. And also what I feel is most important when we talk about public opinion is ‘majority’. So it made me do some research on situation prevailing in Iceland which is experiencing something similar though it is the constitution that is being referred to people there compared to Lokpal bill in India. What I read on fastcompany.com was terribly disappointing. Of two thirds of Iceland's population (3.2 lacs) which is on Facebook an average post elicited 4 to 5 comments. I, then, checked on indiaagainstcorruption.org and found a total of 1817 comments on Lokpal bill, not a big number considering India’s population. You would find more comments when any wannabe celebrity changes his/her status on any networking site! At the same time I also admit to have not taken the pains to go to the site and comment on it like most of the others. This is because most of the people think their opinion will not have any impact and in the process we lose out, something that happens during election as well (though I must say that I have never missed out an opportunity to exercise my right to vote). So unless the situation improves in terms of more people contributing to the cause we will end up having a legislation by the committee members for the people instead of by the people for the people which is actually the objective behind it. It is practically impossible to reach out to everyone personally for their opinion; closest we can go is to have a national debate on it if possible (even that will only lead to chaos). So please go out or should I say please log on to the site and have your say for a better India.
Something similar is happening in Iceland as well after the banking fiasco. The council is drafting clauses of the constitution and it is being uploaded on their website/Facebook for people’s opinion. This whole idea of taking vox populi into account while forming legislation has a downside to it I feel i.e. popular opinion tends to be loaded in favour of emotions rather than rationale and emotions can’t be the basis for any law. And also what I feel is most important when we talk about public opinion is ‘majority’. So it made me do some research on situation prevailing in Iceland which is experiencing something similar though it is the constitution that is being referred to people there compared to Lokpal bill in India. What I read on fastcompany.com was terribly disappointing. Of two thirds of Iceland's population (3.2 lacs) which is on Facebook an average post elicited 4 to 5 comments. I, then, checked on indiaagainstcorruption.org and found a total of 1817 comments on Lokpal bill, not a big number considering India’s population. You would find more comments when any wannabe celebrity changes his/her status on any networking site! At the same time I also admit to have not taken the pains to go to the site and comment on it like most of the others. This is because most of the people think their opinion will not have any impact and in the process we lose out, something that happens during election as well (though I must say that I have never missed out an opportunity to exercise my right to vote). So unless the situation improves in terms of more people contributing to the cause we will end up having a legislation by the committee members for the people instead of by the people for the people which is actually the objective behind it. It is practically impossible to reach out to everyone personally for their opinion; closest we can go is to have a national debate on it if possible (even that will only lead to chaos). So please go out or should I say please log on to the site and have your say for a better India.
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