Raj artha
Crowing On corruption
By Manohar Manoj
This is one of the most valuable moments in our nation’s life. Everywhere there is surrounding sound of anti corruption talk. Corruption, the crux of all problems, being faced by country, ultimately being debated in such a large scale. There is such a huge unanimity now on this issue among various section of society, which was just a rarity in the past. But in a way it seems what we are seeing, is not only a melodious sound of corruption, it is a deep crowing kind of sound also on corruption. Because on one side there are some groups who want to do either netagiri or they want to become messiah, through their symbolic movement against the PM, sitting in Delhi? The problem which has gripped millions of govt. offices and organizations of the whole country responsible for the plight of one billion population, can not be addressed with the symbolic agitation in the capital city of the country.
On the other side the ruling congress party is just trying to manage the whole thing in stage management manner in order to sustain its government. The present government is just following it direction as per the direction of political wind. The party which has almost ruled the 90 percent period in the post independence period has never been serous on the issue of corruption, which crippled the whole system and set-up of our polity, administration, economy and society. Why PM is saying now that I do not have magic stick to crush corruption. The question is why government was not considering the corruption as major issue in last 65 years. Why it did not give priority to this fundamental issue. Was congress party waiting some mass movement before initiating any major action against corruption?
Even during the commonwealth games preparation, when some irregularity and lapses in the work were raised, government did not take it very seriously. Because till that time it was considered this is part and parcel of India’s public life. There is rarely any instance of public construction work in India, where commission are not taken and given. But when media repeatedly covered the lapses and dillydallying in the CWG projects, then government became serious. Subsequently on 2 G Scam, media which was earlier silent, all of sudden became vociferous. In spite of that government was not ready to take action on tainted ministers and other officials. The conclusion is that the whole regime of congress party in general and this UPA govt. in particular, has never a vision to make country corruption free. They always wanted to maintain status quo. They don’t take any action unless some agitation, some media coverage or pressure of opposition party took place. So under these circumstances the statement of PM is meaningless.
Till upon there are two event which took place in capital city. First was hunger strike by Anna Hazare on the drafting of Jan Lokpal bill and second was Baba Ramdev hunger strike Ramlila Maidan on the issue of revealing of black money. Both agitations were managed by congress party in different way, which is not a solution at all of such a gigantic problem. Anna Hazare’s agitation has both plus and minus. It is taking Jan Lokpal bill, which looks very ideal in theory, but ultimately it is pleading for the formation a separate power center. We already have four pillar of democracy in the form of legislature, executive, judiciary and unofficially but in reality the press. It these four pillars with the help of check and balance policy of democratic governance, could not curb corruption in the country, what is the guarantee that fifth power center will make it possible. Secondly we have millions of matter related to day to day corruption, it is not possible for Lokpal to address all cases of corruption which is happening everyday both at micro level and macro level. Lokpal may have some inspirational affect on down the order set up of governance, but the basic necessity is how we change the culture of governance?. It can not be brought in with the help of any single way whether by institution of Lokpal or separate bench of Supreme Court on the matter of corruption. We need variety of measure which contains policy measure. Penalty and rewards, law and institutions, social set up, control and decontrol, effective utilization of market and regulatory authority, identification of some role model organization. Like that. It is question for both government and agitating organization on corruption. Have they full survey and status report over the issue of corruption prevailing at all three tier of governance viz. center, state and at local body. Have they full statistics on the malfunctioning and irregularities very block office to south block office. We have innumerable departments and its related offices. How these organizations function and corruption germinate here. What are the loopholes? Even organization like transparency international has no work on petty corruption in India. They bring data of corruption states wise and department wise.
The issue of corruption requires a complete redefinition of governance and style of its functioning which is not being taking into account by either parties. Still 99.99 percent public of our country do not know fully about their government, its institutional set up, its hierarchy, its schemes and programs, its style of functioning. Even journalists who go into the deep of the government organizations, they are not able to know about the full information about government, under these circumstances how can we say public are better governed.
Now we come on the agitation of Baba Ramdev. Baba is raising the issue of corruption in patriotic manner but his motives are hundred percent political, no one can deny this. Congress party first tried to manage him by giving extra ordinary respect to him, when he did not find it politically opportune to him, he continued hunger strike, the frustrated congress party just crushed his satyagraha. The whole conclusion is neither party is very serious about corruption. First we should have complete status report on corruption, and then we need a great national resolve to counter it. Because no single party is absolute culprit on this issue. This is interrelated matter. We have a system of penalizing all corrupt at one point of time and rewarding all honest at one point of time. Otherwise culture of corruption would remain in our system.
Let us start it from voting behavior. Do we not know public as a voter is also corrupt. This is the starting point of political corruption. Why honest people do not dare to fight elections and if he fights out, he is not able to win it. We have witnessed so many elections and the formation of several government s, but how many of them have been held and fought on the issue of corruption, perhaps none of them. 1974 JP movement was also fought on the issue of price-rise, unemployment and corruption, but ultimately 77 Elections was lost by Smt. Indira Gandhi because of imposition of emergency. 1989 election was fought on the issue of Bofors Kichback, but no one got absolute majority. The thing is that elections are fought between political parties basically on the basis of their organizational strength. The issue sprouted in the elections, can not only decide the result of election, it is the strength of political parties, which mainly matters. It is absolutely true that no one can cure this 64 year disease with the one stroke of ordinance. We know that there is no any single measure to curb corruption. A huge policy research, a gigantic criminal justice system, a vast monitoring system, a very authentic social and financial audit system and above all a national accountability bureau is needed. These all have to be executed in a long term manner. But it is also true that gesture of government is not very motivational so we can say that govt. is not very serious on the removal of corruption
