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Leaning Speaker
Beyond the farmers’ stir
Congress ignores youth |
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The post-Osama scenario
Catty tales
The Jan Lokpal is being vested with sweeping powers, which are susceptible to misuse. The centralised structure of the Lokpal will be ill-suited for sorting out governance deficit. People will be confined to
being complainants and applicants. There is need to make the Jan Lokpal people-centric
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Leaning Speaker IN the normal course, Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa would have preened and celebrated on Friday as the BJP wrested the three assembly seats from the Congress-JD(S) combine in the byelections, but a Supreme Court ruling came on the same day to ruin the party nice and proper. The apex court quashed the Assembly Speaker’s decision to disqualify 16 MLAs ahead of the no-confidence motion last year which had ensured survival of his government. The stern judgement criticising the Speaker’s decision for not meeting the twin tests of natural justice and fair play makes the position of the Chief Minister untenable. With the disqualification of the MLAs set aside, the state government has now been reduced to a minority. The judgement says categorically that “extraneous considerations are writ large on the face of the order of the Speaker and the same has to be set aside. The Speaker, in our view, proceeded in the matter as if he was required to meet the deadline set by the Governor, irrespective of whether, in the process, he was ignoring the constitutional norms set out in the Tenth Schedule and the Disqualification Rules, 1986, and in contravention of the basic principles that go hand in hand with the concept of a fair hearing”. The brazen disqualification of MLAs just because they had dissented against the Chief Minister had come in for stinging criticism from all quarters, but the BJP did not act against the regional satrap, perhaps in order to not let go of its toehold in the South. The indefensible inaction made its anti-corruption campaign against the UPA government look like a charade. The Karanataka High Court order upholding the disqualification came as a shot in the arm for Mr Yeddyurappa. But the Supreme Court reversal of that judgement has taken away even that pretext. He will be hanging on to the post only at the cost of moral and ethical propriety.
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Beyond the farmers’ stir
Behaving
in her own style reflecting arrogance, UP Chief Minister Mayawati has provided an excellent opportunity to opposition parties — the Congress, the Samajwadi Party of Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Rashtriya Lok Dal of Mr Ajit Singh — to expose the state government’s weaknesses. The state government could have found a way to handle in a different manner the farmers’ agitation launched against its controversial land acquisition policy. The use of excessive force leading to the death of three persons, including two policemen, showed that the UP government had little idea that this could lead to an embarrassing situation for it, adversely affecting its popularity among the public. The recent arrest and subsequent release of Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi at Bhatta Parsaul village in the Greater Noida area highlighted the on-going drive for winning the 2012 UP Assembly elections. Though the Congress has been a minor political player in UP for the past few years, it has been making all-out efforts to improve its position under the leadership of Mr Rahul Gandhi. The Congress did make considerable gains in the 2007 assembly polls, though its strength was in no way comparable to that of the BSP and the SP. The Congress has been confident of regaining the dominant position it has lost because of the growing unpopularity of the two caste-based parties — the BSP and the SP — and the BJP. For some time the Congress has been focusing on the Dalit-dominated and drought-hit Bundelkhand region to exploit the area’s neglect by the state government. This, however, does not mean that the ruling BSP has little chance of retaining power after the coming polls. The party is known for its committed supporters. It may suffer reverses to some extent because of its failure to come up to the people’s expectations in maintaining law and order and speeding up the development process in UP. But its main challenger, the SP, has no better image among the public. The BJP, too, has failed to get its image changed from being a single (Ayodhya) issue party. This situation suits the Congress under the youthful leadership of Mr Gandhi.
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Congress ignores youth
Disregarding
the public sentiment against corruption, the Congress leadership has brought back tainted veterans to top positions while reorganising the party’s Punjab unit. An opportunity to purge the party of corrupt leaders has been wasted. Since corruption is set to be a major issue in the coming assembly elections in Punjab, the party’s state leaders facing inconvenient cases in courts will be hard put to speak against the rot in the state administration, let alone stem it if voted to power. It is not difficult to distinguish between cases arising out of political vendetta and those due to corruption or criminal activity. The party could face embarrassment if its senior leaders get convicted while holding positions of power. The leadership has also failed to carry forward General Secretary Rahul Gandhi’s drive to induct young blood in the party. The youngsters given responsible positions are mostly relatives of senior leaders. They include a son of Capt Amarinder Singh, a son-in-law of Mrs Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, a brother of MP Pratap Singh Bajwa and a brother of Jagmeet Brar. The younger lot in the party with no relatives or godfathers at higher levels has a reason to be disappointed. The distribution of the party ticket too is expected to be on the same pattern. Since the old guard refuses to retire and nepotism is rampant, there is little hope for bright and honest young aspirants to enter or stay in politics. The Congress leadership seems to regard winning potential, and not merit and personal integrity, of a candidate as the deciding factor in the distribution of the party post or ticket. Since other parties also do the same, this has led to certain unhealthy trends in politics. Candidates’ caste matters a lot in their success in the political career. Jat Sikhs, urban Hindus and Dalits get representation in seats of power depending on the strength of their community. Their spending ability decides their winning power. This state of affairs needs to change. Maybe, the state funding of elections can help. A systemic cleanup cannot happen without electoral reforms and a change in the political mindset.
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Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit. — Khalil Gibran
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The post-Osama scenario THE US and Pakistan have since 2001 been allies in conflict, but after Osama bin Laden’s killing their tense relationship has become so strained that the question is whether and how they can continue to collaborate against extremists in the Af-Pak area. With US officials openly saying that the mistrust of Pakistan led them to keep Islamabad in the dark about American plans to kill Bin Laden, who was enjoying a safe haven in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad, and with Islamabad saying it wants American troops in Pakistan to be reduced to a minimum, their relationship seems to be hardening. A possible trip by President Barack Obama later this year might be called off. And many in Washington are now debating the desirability of continuing to give largesse to Pakistan. While announcing that Bin Laden had been killed by American security forces, President Obama wisely refrained from humiliating Pakistan in public; instead, he has affirmed that “our counter-terrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to Bin Laden”. Perhaps, he hoped that an emboldened US would now find it easier to persuade the embarrassed Pakistani establishment to hunt down the Afghan Taliban who have enjoyed safe havens and are training on Pakistani turf over the last decade, enabling extremists to frustrate the success of America’s Afghan campaign. Subsequently, however, Mr Obama’s statement of May 9 — “some people inside of government” were providing a support structure to Bin Laden --- is diplomatic fluff for Washington’s belief that Bin Laden could only have survived in secure luxury in Abbottabad with knowledge and collusion of Islamabad. Even before Bin Laden’s death, America’s mistrust of the Pakistan Army was evident when it deployed a number of CIA operatives, Special Operations forces and contractors deep inside Pakistan without the knowledge of the Pakistani authorities. These deployments triggered the showdown over Raymond Davis but, most importantly, helped open the trail to Bin Laden. On the other side, Pakistan’s anger at the US was evident from its advice to Afghanistan to end its dependence on Washington and turn to China, Pakistan’s all-weather friend. Pakistan’s military reacted to the news of Bin Laden’s killing by cutting off communication with US and NATO forces in Afghanistan for two days. Washington couldn’t care less: it has since asserted that it reserves the right to act again against top terror suspects inside Pakistan. The US believes that Al-Qaida remains to be dismantled and defeated in Pakistan. So, it is likely to push Pakistan to stop looking both ways on extremism. One reason is that the US claims to have evidence that more Al-Qaida leaders, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the brains behind 9/11, are hiding in Pakistan. The other extremists include Afghan Taliban leader Mullar Omar, believed to be enjoying a safe haven with his cohorts in the Baluch city of Quetta and the Afghan Taliban commander, Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son, Sirajuddin, who are based in North Waziristan. Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, believes that the ISI operatives are “supporting, funding and training fighters that are killing Americans and killing coalition partners” and that the ISI has a “longstanding relationship” with them. There are also extremists from other groups, including Pakistani militants, having ties with Al-Qaida. Pakistan’s military is aware of America’s insistence that their country cannot have ties with these groups. But while leading military operations against extremists in some parts of Pakistan, the army has expressed its inability to tackle North Waziristan. Pakistan has, understandably, warned against further raids inside its territory. American intrusion into its sovereignty was already a sticking point in US-Pakistani relations as Pakistan resented American drone attacks which have killed civilians. Now with popular Pakistani protests against the US killing of Bin Laden, the new American threat will not endear the US to the Pakistanis. American-Pakistani differences also prevail on Afghanistan’s future and on India. Essentially, Pakistan’s interest in the political future of Afghanistan stems from its wish to have a client regime in Kabul which would keep Indian influence out of the country. That is not Washington’s aim. At the very least, Washington will only negotiate with the Afghan Taliban from a militarily vantage point; at best, it wants to defeat them. Even more important, perhaps, is the discomfiture of the Afghans with the idea of making deals with the Taliban. That is evident from Mr Karzai’s hailing of Bin Laden’s death, and his call to the Taliban to learn a lesson from the event. And recently Afghan officials, including former Intelligence Chief Amanullah Saleh and Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai’s main, defeated, electoral challenger in the presidential elections of 2009, addressed large crowds, saying that they did not want peace talks with the Pakistani-steered Taliban. Their opposition to Pakistani-brokered talks with the Taliban cannot be ignored by the West, especially Washington, whatever some advocates of NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and parleys with extremists might think. More generally, Kabul and Islamabad have their own differences over India. Mr Karzai and Dr Abdullah welcome India’s interest in a stable Afghanistan, Indian reconstruction aid and cultural influence. As for India and Pakistan, the US does not expect their impasse to be broken soon. But it has never accepted that as an excuse for Islamabad’s inaction against extremists on Pakistani soil. And the new tensions between the US and Pakistan will not encourage Washington to ditch India with a view to pleasing Pakistan. There have been calls in Washington to slash aid to Pakistan. That would not suit Islamabad, which has received more than $12.5 billion over the last decade in return for fighting extremism. Most of that aid has been used to help militants, to buy arms to be used against India, or to line the pockets of Pakistan’s military. Whenever the US demanded accountability from Islamabad and talked tough over the use – or misuse – of aid, Pakistan threatened to cut off supply lines to Afghanistan. The US backed down and continued to send more weapons and aid. And so the cycle continued. The death of Bin Laden presents an opportunity to the US to demand accountability from Islamabad for playing this dangerous double game. But with most NATO supplies passing through Pakistan, Washington’s hope is that Pakistan will come on board against the Afghan Taliban. That is reasonable, but not enough. The US is already reviewing its dependence on Pakistan. Should the US break with Pakistan's military establishment as the only way to bring Islamabad’s duplicity out in the open and force the Pakistani military and intelligence services to decide which side they are really on? This question is being hotly debated in Washington. For the US can no longer delude itself that Pakistan is a partner against terrorism. Post-Osama, Islamabad is looking to many Americans as accomplices to those who wish to cause harm to the US. Both the US and Pakistan will try to keep their relationship on an even keel. Whether those efforts will succeed or fail remains to be seen, but some tough bargaining can be expected in the months
ahead.
The writer is Visiting Professor, Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, New Delhi
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Catty tales OUR training hall could accommodate 50
participants. But we had visiting officer trainees who wanted to sit in on a lecture by a former Chief Information Commissioner. All was fine, with the capacity audience of 65, until the speaker took the mike. Then, the electricity went off and in the pitch darkness of the hall, without the hum of airconditioning, we heard the mewing of cats. While we waited for the electricity to be restored, an angry cat descended from the false ceiling and prowled ferociously. “Can I have a candle,” said our unflustered speaker, “so that everyone can see my face, and then I can get on”. After the candle-lit lecture on the RTI Act got under way we decided to tackle the threat to the health and safety of the participants. From BSNL’s helpline at 197 we got the Municipal Commissioner’s (MC’s) number. The MC is guarded, like all civil servants, by a powerful PA. He informed us that the MC had been posted out. “What about his successor,” I asked. “Oh, the panel is being considered – it will take time, madam,” advised the PA. So I told him about our immediate problem with the cat and its litter and he very kindly put me onto the health department of the MC. The health officer was in a meeting, but assured us that he would depute someone. Soon there was a smart bureaucratic person in our building, who informed us that while the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act, 1976, as applicable to Chandigarh, specifically mentioned dogs, cats fell in a grey area. “It depends on whether this is a pet cat or a wild cat? If it’s a pet it is the responsibility of the owner. If it’s a wild cat, then it’s the responsibility of the forest and wildlife department”. So I was on Graham Bell’s invention to the forest department. “I’m sorry,” said the forest official, “our jurisdiction is limited to wild animals that stray into the city and the chances of a wild cat straying so deep into the city are remote”. But how does one tell a wild cat from a domesticated cat, I queried. “Oh, why don’t you call someone from Chhatbir Zoo,” advised our forester. Unfortunately, Chhatbir Zoo had no staff to spare. So they advised that we contact the municipal corporation. We were back to where we’d started, on a path we had already traversed. Then someone suggested we contact the People for Animals (PFA). The PFA assured us of a visit from their animal catcher, but also apologised that unless the animals were sick, they couldn’t take them into their hospital. But they agreed to drop the strays on the city outskirts. The PFA man came and informed us dourly, that he could catch the kittens but not the cat. He also admonished us “heartless taxmen” severely for separating the kittens from their mother and told us, quite unequivocally, that the kittens would undoubtedly be killed by wild animals on the city outskirts. Suddenly, it wasn’t about the health and safety of the participants, but about a mother and her young. It was the day after Mother’s Day and on a day when the rest of the world was celebrating motherhood we ‘heartless taxmen’ decided to forget about health and safety, and let the cat and its kittens
be.
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The Jan Lokpal is being vested with sweeping powers, which are susceptible to misuse. The centralised structure of the Lokpal will be ill-suited for sorting out governance deficit. People will be confined to being complainants and applicants. There is need to make the Jan Lokpal people-centric
DANGERS OF ALL-POWERFUL LOKPAL
FOR many who quite rightly guessed that the Lokpal Bill drafted by the government would be a non-starter, the alternative merited automatic support. However, little was known about the contents of the two Bills except that the alternative being proposed by “India Against Corruption” had the prefix of being a “people’s” Lokpal. The consequences are too important to leave the issue to the expertise of the drafting committee. The people must comprehend, and play their part in ensuring that there will be an Act that will empower them to fight corruption — not make them surrender their hopes to yet another anti-corruption organisation. How people-centric is the Jan Lokpal Bill? While the Jan Lokpal Pill is going through rapid revisions — 12 so far — the basic framework and some principles have remained constant. Broadly, the Bill can be divided into four sections: the mandate and scope of the Lokpal; composition and selection of the Lokpal; powers of the Lokpal; and functioning of the Lokpal. The composition and selection of the Lokpal is substantively one of the least contentious sections – concerning largely with procedural matters and subjective preferences, rather than ideological or legal viewpoints. A discussion of the other three sections is necessary. Jurisdiction over all public servants The Jan Lokpal is being conceived of as an institution with far-reaching powers. It will exercise jurisdiction over all “public servants”, including the entire executive, the legislature and the judiciary (Section 2.11), and will be tasked for the investigation and prosecution of all actions punishable under anti-corruption provisions in various laws. It is also mandated to act on allegation of misconduct by a government servant, grievances of citizens, complaints from whistleblowers, and complaints against its own staff (Section 8.1). This ambitious agenda, suffers from many problems. An essential feature of democratic governance is the separation of powers to preclude the exercise of excessive authority by any one institution. The well-intentioned objective of administrative, financial and functional independence (Section 14.3D) raises fundamental questions about its own accountability. The “people” are confined to being complainants and applicants. In addition the centralised structure of the Lokpal is ill-suited for sorting out governance deficit and the inclusion of citizens charters and grievance redress in its ambit is likely to swamp the Lokpal. Effective grievance redress needs to be built upon participative collective processes that empower citizens. Instead the proposed system of a two-step appellate process centralises power in the Lokpal, each escalation leaving the individual citizen at the mercy of an increasingly powerful and inaccessible authority. Judiciary too under Lokpal? The inclusion of the judiciary within the purview of the Lokpal also needs discussion. The Bill proposes only to investigate complaints relating to judges that would fall under the Prevention of Corruption Act. However, judicial accountability extends beyond quid pro quo corruption of individual judges – and issues of transparency, judicial appointments and judicial standards will be left unaddressed. Many eminent judges have suggested that the important issue of judicial accountability should be tackled simultaneously through a separate statute that will also protect the constitutionally mandated independence of the judiciary. The Jan Lokpal has been vested with sweeping powers, which are susceptible to misuse. The Lokpal can suo-motu initiate investigation (Section 14.6), tap phones and intercept other communication (Section 13C), has powers of search and seizure (Section 9) and initiate prosecution (Section 8.2b) without sanction (Section 8.6 and Section 8.7). According to Supreme Court judgments, the government can tap phones only if there is “occurrence of any public emergency” or “interest of public safety” and the power to tap phones goes beyond the Lokpal’s mandate to tackle corruption. Other powers trespass the executive and judicial domain such as the power to order the cancellation of a licence, lease or contract (Section 8.2.d), blacklist firms (Section 8.2.e), order the removal of public servants (other than ministers, MPs and judges) on the completion of investigation (Section 18.8), mandate changes in the citizen charters (Section 21.5), investigate judicial orders if mala fide alleged (Section 17.2) and ensure compliance of its orders through the contempt of court powers (Section 13.4). The only oversight is the Constitutional default of judicial review. However, with the entire judiciary envisioned to be within the purview of the Lokpal, this may not be an effective enough safeguard. The Lokpal or Lokayukta will respond to what are likely to be lakhs of complaints and applications through powerful local-level machinery of vigilance and investigation officers whose only accountability is to their superiors. It is difficult to imagine why these officers of the Lokpal will not be as susceptible to corruption as the public servants they would investigate. The janata at the grassroots faces the imminent danger of being saddled with an even more unaccountable centre of arbitrary power. Public anger revives Lokpal The Jan Lokpal will subsume the CVC (Section 24) and the anti-corruption investigative wing of the CBI (Section 25.3). It also has complete discretion to determine the number and categories of its officers (Section 23.2) at “special conditions or special pay” which “may be different and more than ordinary pay scales” as prescribed by Lokpal (Section 23.3 and 23.7). This provision attempts to carve out a separate and special regime under the Lokpal, and it is unclear why standards and norms applicable for other government employees shouldn’t apply to those of the Lokpal. Elsewhere the Bill mandates that all records and information held by the Lokpal shall be public, even during investigation (Section 18.9). While the commitment to transparency is admirable, this provision may violate the fundamental right to individual privacy since it is inevitable that the Lokpal will be privy to some information about the accused that will either be irrelevant to the investigation or false (e.g., malicious testimonies). The Lokpal has the power to levy fines and penalties all of which will be deposited in its “Lokpal fund”, as will 10 per cent of public monies recovered for disposal as per its discretion (Section 5.5). This provision creates a perverse incentive for the Lokpal to levy fines and usurps parliamentary prerogative of oversight over public money. The strong popular support for the Jan Lokpal Bill comes from a sense of anger and frustration with the spate of scams, particularly “grand corruption” where ordinary citizens have helplessly watched money being illegally accumulated by people who seem to be beyond the law. There is a need to create, as this Bill does, a body that is well selected, empowered and supported, to fight corruption at the very top. Perhaps innovative provisions could have been included for the Lokpal to enlist the support of the many public spirited citizens who even the RTI Act has spawned. However, by setting an agenda that mandates the Jan Lokpal to respond to all matters of mis-governance that spans the length and depth of the arms of the state, there is the obvious danger of losing focus. More frightening is the prospect that the Lokpal would create a huge bureaucracy that could become another source of corruption that it might not be able to monitor or control. The joint committee has begun by promising to consult people with an open mind. To realise the ideal of participatory democracy, the committee will have to encourage widespread debate and own responsibility to initiate diverse public consultations where each principle of the Bill is critically discussed before its inclusion. That process could perhaps promote a culture of putting people at the centre of anti-corruption efforts. Corruption is finally about imbalanced and arbitrary power relationships. The people need to be active participants in framing a law that in turn empowers them to fight corruption and the arbitrary use of power. That would ensure the “Jan”
prevails.
The writers are associated with the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, founded by Aruna Roy
(mkssrajasthan@gmail.com)
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