In the end, only after he had his way did Gandhian activist Anna Hazare (73) break his fast-unto-death undertaken at Delhi’s Ramlila park on the 13th day. “Expressing the sense” of both houses, on August 28 Parlia-ment conceded in principle that his three non-negotiable demands — appointment of a Lok Pal or national ombudsman panel with jurisdiction to investigate, prosecute and sentence all Central government employees barring members of the judiciary; appointment of Lok Ayuktas in all states with equivalent powers and jurisdiction; and proclamation of a national citizens charter notifying specific time limits for government clearance of all citizens’ applications, papers and petitions — will be included in the Lok Pal Bill, currently under consideration of its standing committee.
But although it was a decisive victory of this former Indian army corporal-turned-rural social reformer and water conservationist who has mobilised the nation into his India Against Corruption movement, the long drawn-out battle over the provisions of the Bill was also an improbable win for India’s muddle-through democratic polity. The unanimous approval of Team Anna’s non-negotiable demands by a special all-day Parliament session convened on August 27, has undoubtedly broadened Indian democracy by establi-shing the important principle of the citizenry’s right to initiate legislation, negating the hitherto prevalent orthodoxy that legislation and law-making is the exclusive privilege of Parliament. Team Anna’s victory established the historic precedent that mass movements can force Parliament to listen to the people and give their demands due consideration.
Another beneficial outcome of Hazare’s punitive self-abnegation which had the entire nation on edge as negotiations between the obdurate Congress-led UPA-II government and Team Anna over recall and later amendments to the government version of the Lok Pal Bill — universally condemned as deeply flawed and cosmetic — stretched for 13 days during which the fasting septuagenarian shed 7.5 kg bodyweight, is that all the estates of India’s faltering democracy — Parliament, the judiciary (represented by lawyers and retired judges), the media which gave the fast and related issues top priority coverage, and the executive — rose to the historic occasion revealing the strong democratic foundations of the nation.
SURVIVAL CAPACITY
By its own norms, the debate in the special session of Parliament was unusually civil and established a new benchmark for this institution which has been steadily transforming into a cacophonous brawling house. Likewise, the national debate in the media was extensive and constructive. Simultaneously the 126-year-old Congress party which had been led to the brink of disaster by its oleaginous too-clever-by-half lawyer negotiators and spokespersons, again re-exhibited its remarkable capacity for survival. And finally, with the assured appointment of an empowered Lok Pal in the near future, a great leap forward has been taken in the fight against the brazen corruption of public officials, the shame of post-independence India’s democratic experiment.
Although all’s well that ends well, the arrogance of power and dangerous brinkmanship exhibited by the Congress party leadership when confronted with Hazare’s overdue demand to urgently legislate the Lok Pal — first introduced in Parliament way back in 1968 — should prompt some introspection within this grand old party which led India to political independence. Right until the end, unmindful of the impact of the 13-day fast on Hazare’s health, its leadership grouped around prime minister Manmohan Singh continued to argue about parliamentary procedure and the propriety of withdrawing its own universally condemned “toothless” Bill, and substituting it with Team Anna’s alternative draft for debate in Parliament.
The Congress leadership’s sudden concern for parliamentary procedure and propriety would have had some credibility if it practiced it. Under the Congress party’s watch — the party has ruled at the Centre (with a few interregnums) for over 40 years since the dawn of independence — Parliament, especially the lower house or Lok Sabha whose members are directly elected, has transformed into an ineffective, irresponsible assembly in which orderly and reasoned debate is the exception rather than rule. Conse-quently, ill-conceived legislation and laws drafted by wily bureaucrats who take the care to vest vast discretionary powers — the distinguishing characteristic of all legislation in post-independence India — in themselves, have always been enacted hastily with minimal debate. Indeed, it’s not unusual for the Lok Sabha to enact a clutch of Bills in one sitting because of time lost in walk-outs, sit-ins and rioting.
PROVEN REFORMER
Against this backdrop of open and continuous contempt of Parliament by its own members, it defies credibility how these MPs were ready to risk the life of Hazare — a proven reformer with an excellent record in agriculture development and water conservation in his bailiwick in rural Maharashtra, and a long-standing crusader against corruption in government and public life — on matters of parliamentary propriety and procedure. Quite patently, its intent was to hurriedly push its toothless Lok Pal Bill through the standing committee and Parliament for quiet burial in the graveyard of dead-letter legislation.
Curiously, despite claiming to represent the people, the Congress leadership seems unaware that during the past 64 years since independence, the brazen corruption of government officials, insolence of office and the law’s delay, has touched every one of the country’s 220 million households. It failed to discern that Hazare’s anti-corruption movement — in which the appointment of a Lok Pal truly empowered to crack down on the flagrant corruption synonymous with the Congress party rule — is a necessary first step towards a national cleansing and purification. It’s a failure which may have wiped out the political capital of the 126-year-old party.
Fortunately for its ruling dynasty and its self-help oligarchy, good sense prevailed at the eleventh hour. But by doing its best to sabotage the Lok Pal Bill even at the risk of the life of this Gandhian reformer who articulated a crying need of the citizenry, this once great political party has dealt itself a body blow from which it is unlikely to recover.