If legislators are paid handsomely and the cost of elections is met by the government, a lot of political corruption will be taken care of. But Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev seem to be pursuing less workable ideas.
According to the philosopher Bushido, death has to be the ultimate strategy for any samurai. Anna Hazare or Baba Ramdev are not samurai; they may not have even heard of them. In any case, the Congress party has called their bluff and both have given up their threat to fast unto death. The Congress party may congratulate itself on diminishing their importance but the issue of corruption that these agitators have raised is real and will not go away. That was why the Independence Day this year was sad.
The two agitators have misread Gandhiji’s philosophy; that is why they failed. Gandhiji treated his adversary, the British, with utmost respect. He did not threaten to throw them into jail. In contrast, both Hazare and Baba Ramdev want the present rulers to pass laws which will inevitably send many of them into jail. Whatever values our politicians have, the desire to commit hara-kiri is not one of them. The entire programme that the two envisaged was therefore bound to fail right at the outset.
Suppose instead, the two had said: “But for the grace of God, there go I. Therefore, we have no desire to punish any of you but would like to change the system so that you do not have to indulge in corruption.” That argument would probably have received a more sympathetic ear.
Funding elections in kind
Then, as a first instance, we would like to pay you well — as well as Gandhiji wanted. Gandhiji’s limit of Rs 500 a month in 1938 comes to Rs 10 lakh today. Let us make that the salary not for ministers alone but for all MLAs with regular upgrades according to inflation. Because he accepted Rs 1,200 a month paid to Bombay ministers, let us make the equivalent Rs 24 lakh a month (again linked to inflation) the salary for all MPs. If that was the first move, how many legislators would have rejected that?
Next, we know that elections are costly. Hence, suppose it had been proposed that the entire cost of elections would be met — but only in kind — by the government. Further, what that ought to be is left to the decision of the contestants themselves.
That freedom is important because the cost of fighting elections in Mizoram or in Maharashtra is vastly different. So, when the contestants are given the freedom to decide what all facilities they should have, will they object?
Once these two propositions are made, there is the obvious fear that every Tom, Dick and Harry would like to jump in to contest elections. Hence, as a corrective, let it be proposed that the security deposit each candidate has to provide to the Election Commission should be equal to the proposed one month’s pay — Rs 10 lakh for MLAs and Rs 24 lakh for MPs. Will that not be considered reasonable and hence acceptable? Then, will not the number of contestants become a manageable figure?
Trying for Corruption
These reforms are likely to be acceptable to a majority of legislators. When these reforms are introduced, there will be next to no need to collect money under the table. Suppose a few recalcitrant legislators remain corrupt. To prevent them from indulging in such activities, we might add one more rule: all complaints of corruption against politicians will be heard daily by judges and judgement delivered within three months — failing which the judge concerned loses his or her position.
We can add one more rule: let the legislator have a function to serve the constituents. The constituents will have any number of complaints against the administration. As matters stand, a legislator can at best use his or her influence to get the official transferred.
Suppose, the legislator is made an honorary public prosecutor with authority to prosecute in a court of law any offending official. Then, several benefits emerge. One, administrators are under constant pressure to act properly and yet they are not subject to the whims and fancies of legislators: they have an opportunity to defend themselves in a court of law. If it is the rule that these cases, too, should be heard daily, the trials will not be a longstanding burden. Thus, legislators would have the power to question publicly misconduct of individual officials and, in turn, the officials would have the opportunity to defend themselves — once again publicly.
I assert that in such a case, neither politicians nor officials will have much opportunity to indulge in corruption.
Competition necessary
The system can be tightened further by making the runner-up to the legislator in the election an honorary joint public prosecutor and be paid half of what the legislator gets. Then, there will be competition between the two about who keeps officials in better check. The competition is important. It is the absence of any competition once a legislator is elected that has fuelled a lot of corruption.
Thus, paying legislators well, justifying that by invoking Gandhiji himself, meeting in full the cost of elections as desired by the contestants themselves, making judiciary decide cases promptly, and further making legislators honorary public prosecutors (along with their runners-up as joint honorary public prosecutors) should be a saleable proposition. They are likely to be accepted by most legislators. When they do, corruption should become negligible.
I would like to add that the basic principle of information theory also be accepted: every voter be allowed to cast as many votes as there are candidates. Then, every candidate is forced to address the entire constituency; hence, that will eliminate narrow sectarian candidates; that will give a fillip to those who think of their constituency as a whole and the country as a whole.
Respect — and profit — are what everybody needs.
(The author is a former Director, IIT, Madras. Response to indiresan@gmail.com and blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)
This is 336th in the Vision 2020 series. The previous article appeared on August 11.
Keywords: legislators are paid handsomely, cost of elections met by government, political corruption, Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev, pursuing less workable ideas, corruption
Comments:
"Hence, as a corrective, let it be proposed that the security deposit each candidate has to provide to the Election Commission should be equal to the proposed one month’s pay — Rs 10 lakh for MLAs and Rs 24 lakh for MPs."
If the security deposit is to be paid before the election, I wonder how many Indians can coungh up that kind of money to participate for election of MP/MLA? Who would risk losing that kind of amount? An Ambani may!
Sir,there is no limit for greed. Majority of the people today in power are not in need of
money. It is the greed and lust for power that is goading them to politics. Serving the
public,which they profess, is not at all on their radar. Tough measures are required. Paying
them well,giving them powers to prosecute and having cases heard on daily basis may be
ok. Today,a common man if he wants to contest,can do and register his protest thus
symbolically. We will be taking away that also by insisting on the proposed deposit. In
effect, only the rich and party nominees alone will be able to enter and contest.every body
is an income tax asses see and are filing the returns. If these returns are properly
scrutinized and every rupee properly explained,then all the unaccounted wealth will come
out. All these need to b treated as public money and confiscated, with no further avenues
to contest. This should be applicable to all the citizens. Tough measures like this would put
an end to corrupti
Increasing security deposit amount for contesting election will ensure only rich people can contest elections. An ordinary educated service minded person may not be able to muster that much amount especially if he is a first time contestant. Power of prosecution to elected representatives will further make the officials fear them and do their bidding which they are already doing under the threat of transfers and other punishments. The author assumes that the legislators are all angels and can do only good.
paying legislators well and taking care of election expenses will not deter corruption .On the contrary the burden of funding all these will
fall on honest taxpayers.It is the national ethos and no punishment for
corruption (on the contrary
,the corrupt are well taken care of)which is at the root of most of our
troubles.Matter of fact I would suggest to do away with parliament
,legislatures, judiciary etc and let the strongest rule or misrule
us.Any way more or less that is what is happening now.
Indeed, corruption in public life is a burning and festering issue, and we need
innovative ways to fix the situation. Electoral reforms are a very promising starting
point, and worthy of deliberation by the intellectuals. Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev
are presumed by the columnist to have not heard of the philosopher Bushido. True,
and for a very good reason - there is no philosopher called Bushido, there is only a
bushido philosophy, the samurai way. I would not chastise Anna and Baba in an
Oprah-esque was for that supposed lapse. As for the rest of the article, we have read
it from the same author in the same column a few times in the past and it is deja vu
all over again.
Sir, the article from learned is bad in taste.where is the respect for judges civil employees and price for their work and why a politician should be paid rs 1.2 crore to rs 28.8 crores per annum.the professor didnt became director of iit chennai without teaching,but a politician's son or daughter can become a mla or mp or minister etc.The professor first should introspect as how education systen has been spoiled by educated.Analyse as who stands first in the scale of corruption.Professor suggests termination of Judges transfer of public servants for inefficient service,what to do with teachers professors deans vice chancellors who are more corrupt than low paid officials.in short the article is not worth reading and without proper scrutiny such articles need not be printed.
Are we really serious about eradicating corruption? When Anna and Baba go on fasts
the opposition party political leaders promptly appear on the dais to be seen as
showing support. However, no political party has made a promise in their manifesto
that they will enact a strong anti-corruption bill. If the politicos perceived a
groundswell of public emotions against corruption they would surely have capitalised
on it, like (the late ) Mrs Gandhi did with Garibi Hatao. There seems to be a deep
rooted reason why corruption can not be uprooted that easily, and paying MPs and
MLAs more may not be the solution.
Instead of requiring a safety deposit, why not put a condition of
minimum graduate degree to contest elections. After all, we want those
who rule us to be educated and smart!
Throughout the world all the industries are informing the public about their financial positions every quarter.But in India no political party is informing the public about financial positions even at the end of the year.It should be made public.Donations received by political party exceeding one lack rupees should be published in news paper
Sir, with all due respect, what you proposed is definitely thought
from a different angle. But if we agree to leave these current wrong
doers unpunished,
what is the value of those who have been sincerely and steadfastly
doing their duties (be it business or government or private jobs)?
This is like waiving off all the loans taken by people for some silly
reason leaving those who have been leading a tough life without taking
any loans without any benefits.
So in effect, our country is not worth living for those who are
honest and sincere.
Instilling fear on the corrupt is the only solution that can do away
with corruption. Politicians have absolutely no fear and they adopt
corrupt ways. Fear for life should bring discipline. No other method
will work as the corrupt fellows are all thick skinned.
It is wrong to think that if legislators are paid handsomely, corruption will go down. A vivid example is a multi fold increase in salaries of Government employees 8 years back when the same argument was given by the Commission. But you know how the corruption has gone up multifold in Government employees barring a few honest. An IAS officer earns more than Rs.20 lacs per annum with all the Power at his command, but take the example of the husband-wife IAS officers of Bhopal who ammassed wealth of more than 100 crores.
Currption at legilators level can go only if people who wants to serve the people wholehearedly are elected. Parliament is not a business house.
This artical makes a very flawed argument. You could increase the salaries of our MPs/MLA's 10 fold or even 100 fold. It is still chump change for the money they make via corruption. An increase in salaries cannot stop corruption - just as every HR manager knows that increasing salaries does not make a employee work harder or more responsibly .. it just helps to retain him.
A local MLA now commands anywhere between 10 crores to 30 crores to support a CM (Yediruppa reportedly offered such sums to all his MLA's for support to keep his seat ... we can only wonder at the mind-boggling numbers of how much he himself has stashed away to afford such expensive MLA's). Do you think if India could ever afford to pay such sums to them as salaries, their greed would just vanish ?!! The fact is that most of these politicians come from the "goon" category - parasitic bottom feeders of society who have seen the benefits of rising through muscle power or hegemony.
candidates who has been held to have violated the code or rules and removed
should be debarred for life from public office and any election.
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