Death of Democracy

I am certainly referring to arrest of Anna Hazare and the subsequent ‘Tamasha’ both by Government and ‘Team Anna’. 

What the hell is this going on? To what end we are marching?

I am certainly against the corruption and agree that the Cancer of corruption needs to be tackled on priority basis. But it is very important how we propose to tackle it. By creating a Leviathan? Creating a supra constitutional authority unaccountable to anyone? Undermining the Constitution and Democracy itself?

First let me be clear, on what issues I oppose Jan Lokpal bill?

I think PM should not be under the purview of Lokpal.

2.  Secondly the Higher Judiciary also should not be kept under his purview.

There are strong reasons for them. First PM is and elected person directly or indirectly, by the people whom we directly elect. PM being the ‘Elected’ supreme executive head of the nation should not owe his accountability to and ‘Appointed’ person. If he has to be accountable to someone it must be the people of this nation.

 And please stop putting the words like “Mera Neta chor hai”. Those who do think India as ‘Banana Republic’ and corrupt democracy they might want to have look at the recent electoral turnouts and results in the provincial assembly election of Tamilnadu and Bengal. We are a republic and a democracy, that too in better state comparatively, considering the starting point of democratic process and/of neighboring countries.

Our constitution has given a kind of Immunity to Legislature, Judiciary and Executive. We need to respect that. We are taking the fundamental assumption that all our elected representatives are essentially corrupt and should be hanged!

 Please remember the fact that corruption is not a phenomenon to be separated out, it is the outcome of shortcomings in corrective mechanism. So to eradicate corruption we need to correct the system not adding one more Leviathan to it.

Indian democracy had seen extreme highs and lows. It has gone through much turmoil to reach here. Let’s not undermine that.

Fundamental cause of Corruption in India is unaccountable centralization of power in the hands of statesman, aggravated by complexity of laws. By any means Jan or whatever Lokpal is not tackling it. What we are attempting is even centralization of power and complexities of rule.

And it seems Anna Hazare and his Candlelight Battalion want to have only their Lokpal bill passed and that too within this session. They want to have Lokpal delivered (cleared!) in only the third month, without paying attention to the Due Process of law making.