Is Mr. Anna Hazare defying democracy or is he helping us?

Before I say anything further, I must confess that I am a Member of the Indian National Congress as well as Vice-President of the Dist. Congress Committee at Surendranager (Gujarat).

Obviously, my heart lies with Congress.

But should that mean that I lose all my right to speak what I feel is right. Or do I become a blind follower of leaders who have become morally deprived?

Congress became the ruling party because of people like Gandhi and Patel in it. These people spoke truth, lived with simplicity and were heroes of this nation.
Do we have same Congress Party today?

Answer upon my cursory observation is obviously NO.

The political dignity has deteriorated. Politicians are looked upon as scoundrels rather then people with virtues.

The Congress argues that Hazare is defying democracy and undermining Parliament. In an argument of this sort, there lies an intrinsic presumption that the Parliament is constituted of people with high dignity, high level of ethics, fair-play and people with excellent qualities. These people whom we recognize as Parliamentarians are our leaders who excel in quality and spirit of democracy.

People of this description, if they constitute parliament, make Parliament an august institution.

But do we have parliamentarians of that sort? No. To the contrary, Parliamentarians are people who qualify in all sorts of crookedness. They go to parliament. They have no answerability as to what they did. They literally sleep in parliament and get caught in TV Cameras. There is nobody to question. They use their grants, there can be no questions. They have no listed constitutional duties. There are no punishments fixed, no standards of performance, nothing of that sort. So what parliament are we talking about? A Parliament that has criminals into it – Parliament that crushes any voice of opposition? Is that an august Parliament?

The Moral science lessons that we were taught in school stated that “Respect is commanded - not demanded”. But what the Congress has resorted is begging for respect. They are simply harping of parliament and shadow boxing. They are hiding behind a smoke screen and putting fallacies with an expectation that people are going to buy their argument.

Manmohan – a man whom we thought was so honest. Now being analytical by nature, we may be forced to rethink. You know what happened to Bhisma – a Minister in the King’s Court who mutely saw a woman being stripped off her clothes. How is Manmohan no different from him? Or more bluntly, is he a wolf in a sheep’s disguise?
And what is Anna asking for? Is he asking for too much? What is wrong in saying that Corrupt should be removed? What is wrong in saying that the Government Lok Pal is a watered down useless piece of legislation that seeks to punish those who try to get corrupt people into the cage?

What does democracy mean to the government? Simply getting elected once in five years? No answerability? No right of people to protest? Misuse of Criminal Law? Misuse of Police? Misuse of CBI, Income Tax and every power to crush any voice of Protest. Open defiance of Court and misuse of 144? Is that governance? Did Gandhiji give his life for a purpose of this sort.

I would not have been surprised if people like Bal Thakeray or Narendra Modi behaved in this fashion – because they are fascist, supports of Hitler who have all affinity to stranglehold democracy. I would not have been surprised, if BJP did this.
But Congress? Now it looks – all in the pool are without clothes.

May God give long life to Anna, Kejriwal, Bedi, Bhusans and their group.
Meanwhile I am reproducing critique of the Government Lok Pal Bill as available on the India Against Corruption Website.

Here it Goes:



Critique of Government’s Lokpal Bill 2010

(Proposed to be passed as an ordinance by the Central government)

UPA government has been under constant attack due to exposure of one scam after the other on the issue of corruption. In order to salvage its image, the government proposes to set up an institution of Lokpal to check corruption at high places. However the remedy seems to be worse than the disease. Rather than strengthening anti corruption systems, this bill if passed, will end up weakening whatever exists in the name of anti corruption today.

The principal objections to government’s proposal are as follows:

• Lokpal will not have any power to either initiate action suo motu in any case or even receive complaints of corruption from general public. The general public will make complaints to the speaker of Lok Sabha or chairperson of Rajya Sabha. Only those complaints forwarded by Speaker of Lok Sabha/ Chairperson of Rajya Sabha to Lokpal would be investigated by Lokpal. This not only severely restricts the functioning of Lokpal, it also provides a tool in the hands of the ruling party to have only those cases referred to Lokpal which pertain to political opponents (since speaker is always from the ruling party). It will also provide a tool in the hands of the ruling party to protect its own politicians.

• Lokpal has been proposed to be an advisory body. Lokpal, after enquiry in any case, will forward its report to the competent authority. The competent authority will have final powers to decide whether to take action on Lokpal’s report or not. In the case of cabinet ministers, the competent authority is Prime Minister. In the case of PM and MPs the competent authority is Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha, as the case may be. In the coalition era when the government of the day depends upon the support of its political partners, it will be impossible for the PM to act against any of his cabinet ministers on the basis of Lokpal’s report. For instance, if there were such a Lokpal today and if Lokpal made a recommendation to the PM to prosecute A. Raja, obviously the PM will not have the political courage to initiate prosecution against A. Raja. Likewise, if Lokpal made a report against the PM or any MP of the ruling party, will the house ever pass a resolution to prosecute the PM or the ruling party MP? Obviously, they will never do that.

• The bill is legally unsound. Lokpal has not been given police powers. Therefore Lokpal cannot register an FIR. Therefore all the enquiries conducted by Lokpal will tantamount to “preliminary enquiries”. Even if the report of Lokpal is accepted, who will file the chargesheet in the court? Who will initiate prosecution? Who will appoint the prosecution lawyer? The entire bill is silent on that.

• The bill does not say what will be the role of CBI after this bill. Can CBI and Lokpal investigate the same case or CBI will lose its powers to investigate politicians? If the latter is true, then this bill is meant to completely insulate politicians from any investigations whatsoever which are possible today through CBI.

• There is a strong punishment for “frivolous” complaints. If any complaint is found to be false and frivolous, Lokpal will have the power to send the complainant to jail through summary trial but if the complaint were found to be true, the Lokpal will not have the power to send the corrupt politicians to jail! So the bill appears to be meant to browbeat, threaten and discourage those fighting against corruption.

• Lokpal will have jurisdiction only on MPs, ministers and PM. It will not have jurisdiction over officers. The officers and politicians do not indulge in corruption separately. In any case of corruption, there is always an involvement of both of them. So according to government’s proposal, every case would need to be investigated by both CVC and Lokpal. So now, in each case, CVC will look into the role of bureaucrats while Lokpal will look into the role of politicians. Obviously the case records will be with one agency and the way government functions it will not share its records with the other agency. It is also possible that in the same case the two agencies arrive at completely opposite conclusions. Therefore it appears to be a sure way of killing any case.

• Lokpal will consist of three members, all of them being retired judges. There is no reason why the choice should be restricted to judiciary. By creating so many post retirement posts for judges, the government will make the retiring judges vulnerable to government influences just before retirement as is already happening in the case of retiring bureaucrats. The retiring judges, in the hope of getting post retirement employment would do the bidding of the government in their last few years.

• The selection committee consists of Vice President, PM, Leaders of both houses, Leaders of opposition in both houses, Law Minister and Home minister. Barring Vice President, all of them are politicians whose corruption Lokpal is supposed to investigate. So there is a direct conflict of interest. Also selection committee is heavily loaded in favor of the ruling party. Effectively ruling party will make the final selections. And obviously ruling party will never appoint strong and effective Lokpal.

• Lokpal will not have powers to investigate any case against PM, which deals with foreign affairs, security and defence. This means that corruption in defence deals will be out of any scrutiny whatsoever. It will become impossible to investigate into any Bofors in future.
Therefore, the draft Lokpal ordinance is eyewash, a sham. It is sad that despite so much of embarrassment caused to UPA due to so many scams, UPA is still making a fool of the people in the form of this draft ordinance.

Value of Human Life!

It is almost three hours past midnight. I have begun completing my work. Fortnight back one of my friend lost his father. He had a massive heart attack. I have known the friend from the time we were in school. We spent around three years with one other and by that time our families begun to know each other well. This is somewhere in 1985 or so. Well that is about twenty five years. I have known my friend’s father since that time. Time of childhood. I remember how he would come on his scooter to drop that friend. That used to be so routine those days. If I just closed my eyes I can see those gardens of RKC so well. That gate which is still there – yes a time of 25 years has passed. Fortnight back I had received the news. All those days flashed before my eyes when I had seen his father full of energy.

I had last seen him at the Ram Krishna Math. He was looking pale and dull. He had lost almost all that energy. Twenty five years changes a lot. But then in the speed of life we forget. In fact we have no time to peep back into past. Why should we? It is always a good idea to live in present. There makes little sense in looking back at the past.

A generation that has raised us has begun to go. Some of them at least have started moving toward eternal while, we have moved on into the youth full of ideas and life forward. Perhaps some cycle is simply repeating. The biological clock is moving. We too are.

Today night when I had just finished my work, these thoughts of my friend arose to my mind. Well it was not that I was too close to that friend or too attached with his father. But there certainly was one connect. That connect was with my childhood and my having seen that gentleman since 25 years or so.

In the whole picture of those days, I remembered how my father and his father would speak to one another, how his parents would come to my house and spend that half an hour or so chatting about different things in life.

My friend is indeed too busy to think about all this. I too am. But, when there is time to retire to bed, these things strike. In a flash of five minutes hundreds of thoughts pass over the reader in mind and lot of pictures flash through. These are a mixed feeling of emotions, memory and identification of self with people and in turn evaluating the feelings and reactions.

My friend had called me up. He had few questions about the Letter of Administration and Order of the court he could not understand. He was busy taking inventory of the fixed assets, bank balances and all those physical things that had financial value attached to them. I had given technical answers to the questions that he had put to me.

In our region, we have a system of “Besna”. It is a sort of gathering where people mourn over death of deceased. It is thought to be a gathering of people who shared emotional values with the family of deceased. But that is not so in reality. Here the gathering has no connect. It is rather a sort of social ritual that most of those who attend follow with no heart in it.

It is the family or close emotional and spiritual relations that suffer upon a death. No body else gets bothered. In gathering of observances post death, people talk of business. People refresh old contacts. If there are funeral gathering of a politician or some highly placed individual, these gathering become discussion place of who succeeds next.

It is simply like those herds of wild bison moving. One dies and the others take no notice of it. Yes, there is one difference. Bison does not leave assets behind, human does. So now the question is about distribution of property, who will get what share and so on. The lawyers get some more clients. That is the value of life and memory in most of our routine affairs that are like dry transactions. Here life is nothing more then a balance sheet or a profit and loss account statement. Relations are evaluated on these terms. If an influential man dies, thousands of them accumulate. Not to share the grief but to show the face and register presence. Perhaps some day if there is some need, the contact can be “used”.

Value of human life is so subtle here. It does not matter how nice a man who passed away was. It does matter, what was his position, and status. Recently relative of some royal family had passed away at Bhavnagar. He had called Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai on the occasion of Besna through Amar Singh (cash for vote man). In deaths, there is a competition. How many people attended whose funeral? Here is a right time to show muscle, power and strength. There is a savage feeling of gratification in being able to call people. More the number, better it is! Then the question is who came.

Recently University’s Vice Chancellor’s mother passed away. There were hundreds of people who queued up to attend the Besna. The Vice Chancellor happens to be old friend of my father. I had an occasion to attend that Besna. There were about 4000 people. But same culture prevailed. Little was the affiliation of those who attended with the occasion. More was a race of registering presence. I could see mobile phones ringing. People postponing schedules, boasting on phone that they are in the mourning observance of Vice Chancellor. Some talking about business. Some talking about politics, local issues and so on. Hardly 1 per cent of them actually involved.

What hypocrisy are we enduring!!!

I think that is the way of life. It has to be accepted. We have no choice, No choice for people who think or believe otherwise. In a gathering of blinds, a man with eyes is abnormal. Same is the case with a gathering of logic bounded humans, here human as human is abnormal.