Stir against graft has only begun

Make no mistake about it, the campaign to focus on strong anti-corruption measures in the country — sparked off by the movement of Anna Hazare — has not ended with the adoption by Parliament of the resolution whichfocuses on three specific points — namely, a citizens' charter, an appropriate mechanism to bring the lower bureaucracy under the purview of the suggested Lokpal, and the setting up of Lokayuktas in the States.

What the Hazare campaign has accomplished can be gauged by the fact that, single-handedly, it has forced the Government of the day to take concrete measures to operationalise the concept of a strong, over-arching Lokpal, the concept itself having been mooted by the wise men of our nation more than 40 years ago.

Why has it taken such a long time for the Lokpal concept to be placed on the policy pedestal in such a way that there is now no way of avoiding setting it up?

The politicians of the nation will have to admit that they , as a class over the years, have been responsible for the failure to institutionalise a mechanism which, if it had been set up earlier, would certainly by now have been one of the important weapons to fight the scourge of corruption . It is solely because of Anna Hazare's campaign that the politicians have been shaken out of their inability or unwillingness to move forward on the anti-corruption front.

Critical issue

The critical issue now is that the steps which Parliament has resolved to take should be implemented honestly, so that, at the end of the current process begun by Hazare and his band, a material difference is achieved in the fight against corruption. It is a sad fact of life that politicians, as a tribe, are not what they used to be when the nation gained Independence in 1947 and immediately afterward.

As far as the average Indian is concerned, both in rural and urban areas, an element of mistrust of politicians has crept in, which is all the more reason why the focus now is on the need to ensure that there is no last-minute backtracking from, or diluting of, the essential spirit of the resolution adopted by Parliament on the Lokpal issue.

That the waters are strewn with hidden rocks and lethal eddies is strongly suggested by the curious effort that is being made by some people to project the view that the entire Lokpal issue has been governed by a Parliament vs civil society conflict.

To take an example, Mr Salman Khurshid has (as reported) declared that the way the UPA Government tackled the Hazare agitation underscored its “courage of conviction”, adding ominously, “We are not pushovers. We might have made errors of judgement. We may have lost ground somewhere, but we are determined to get that ground back.” What “ground” is Mr Khurshid talking about? Indeed, he has even stretched his neck out to emphasise that “errors of judgement are not mistakes”!

Right to recall

Has there been a regression in the quality of our MPs, and politicians generally, compared to earlier decades? These are serious issues, and Anna Hazare may be right in suggesting that the next campaign should be to institute the right of recall of an MP or MLA.

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