Re: Anna Hazare arrested by Delhi police ahead of today's fast.
I still dont understand what you guys are on about giving "all the power" to one person.
No one person will have ultimate power. You need to understand how things are drafted. One person even if all powerful, within judicial or extra judicial system that are proposed will think twice about misusing his position if there is transparency. But transparency alone is not enough, there needs to be a fear of ramifications for your action. In perfect world, it wont be needed. But it is needed in real world.
Lokpal's duty and scope is limited to corruption only. If there is no wrong doing by anyone, he has nothing to fear. Not to mention it will not be one way sentence. There will be a procedural inquiry and details of all cases will be a matter of public record as per the draft proposed at the moment. There will be equal chance given to the accused to defend himself and punishment will be handed down only if person is found guilty. Lokayukta like SC judge will not be single person handling all work load. There will be a team like any institution that will be working together.
Not to mention the draft proposed at the moment have equally strict punishment for those involved with Lokayukta office if they misuse their power, or show complacency.
This bill does not give undue power to anyone. This bill provides a infrastructure which a common man, opposition or ruling party or basically anyone can put forward his grievances regarding those in power or are elected in office and have them investigated without fear of political pressure or prejudice against him. This bill will also make people come forward and blow the whistle when someone witnesses a act of corruption rather than be a mute witness.
The scope of this bill and the proposed post of Lokayukta ends at that. He does not have any power to punish / investigate anyone for anything other than corruption charges.
With current system, these guys sitting at top has very little to fear unless they get caught in massive scams like spectrum scam and there is nowhere to hide. With this system, there will be provision for punishment for any act of corruption. It will not change things overnight, but 1 or 2 high profile cases will get the ball rolling. Fear of getting caught with deter some people. In the end it will only benefit the society.
Lokayukta will not be almighty untouchable person as it is made out to be by you guys. There will be provisions to remove him if he himself is found guilty of misusing his power. But that will not be at the mercy of ruling party or one single person anymore like it is now for most judicial establishments.
As far as bribery goes. We have reached to the bottom limit of the sinkhole. A honest man or businessman cannot start or run his business these days without bribery because without paying bribe, he cannot work. This has to stop somewhere and it began with RTI. It needs to get stronger and the next step is lokpal bill. After that the system needs to filter down to all government departments with stronger system at state and municipal levels.
Take a example of this, getting a simple VAT number for a local business. It should not cost a penny over the voluntary charges of Rs.5000 or 25000 (advanced tax for voluntary registration). Or Rs.500 is you are filing the VAT after turnover of 500000. Its very essential thing for any business doing retail or wholesale business. But you have to pay close to Rs.2k to get the damn form submitted and signed by the authority personal. Otherwise they will keep bumping you for days or will delay you to the end where you will get frustrated and end up paying whatever they want or will have to keep making multiple trips to ST office.
Same goes for every department I had to work with till date. Be it customs, import export dept or whatever. You name it, and there are barriers to face due to corruption. This is one of the reason why a common person thinks twice before starting his own business and is happy to work for a salary. One of the reasons why small industries have been routed out in recent past. If this is all to change, it has to start somewhere, and the reason you see such huge response to this movement is precisely this. Everyone out there supporting the bill on streets or TV might not understand the bill, but everyone understands and has faced corruption. This is why there is support for this. Not because of one person, or for one reason, but due to the fact that all of us have directly or indirectly have suffered due to this.
And then there are few who have benefited from corruption. I can understand why they would oppose this.
As for the matter of fighting corruption on individual level, you cant in this world. Not in its current state and not without suffering heavily. And the concept of lack of individuality being the reason for our loss of independence and we being under british rule for such long is equally wrong. It was exactly opposite. We did not have pan India centralised power when British came in and they took advantage of exactly that. In ancient history when there was one powerful empire covering large portion of India, there was prosparity. British took benefit of all the infighting between various kingdoms, offered trade and military deals and negotiations with different rulers to suit their cause. The selfish attitude and mistrust about fellow Indian rulers are primary reason why we fell under british rule. We got independence when millions of people come together to fight for one cause. And it started and ended with act of dissent and demonstrations.
All these protests till now, and there has not been act of violence even with 1000s of people that are out there protesting. That tells you something about this movement.
I dont agree with all the claws (actually one claw of minimum punishment, I think minimum 10 years is too harsh ), but there is more good that can come out of this than bad. Real world has never been perfect in human history, it probably never will be, the question is, whether you take proper steps and calculated risk for the betterment of society or not.
Sorry for long post, probably my last post for today. And please stop personal attacks. That is the reason we usually dont allow political threads here. If you dont agree with others, at least have decency to read their comments and respect their point of view.
