Anna's fast overshadows Parliament

Anna Hazare's fast today overshadowed Parliament with Opposition utilising the campaign on the Lokpal issue to the hilt to target the government, paralysing proceedings and forcing repeated adjournments.
The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha were adjourned for the day without transacting any business after the two Houses witnessed two adjournments each.
It was trouble from the word go with BJP giving notices in both Houses for suspension of Question Hour to discuss the serious situation caused by lakhs of people in the country coming out on the streets to protest against corruption.
In the Lok Sabha, Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj hit out at the government saying "it cannot wash its hands off the protests which are a result of the deep-rooted corruption in the government."
"Scams after scams have been unearthed in the past one year which are of huge magnitude as compared to the earlier scandals," she said.
"Barely had the din died down on Adarsh housing scam, the 2G issue came to the fore followed by CWG, Air India and now the KG Basin," she said, adding people were saying that crores of rupees were stashed away in foreign banks and there were no funds to build village roads.
Swaraj dubbed the Lokpal Bill introduced by the government in the Lok Sabha as "poor, weak and ineffective".
"The Bill brought by the government has neither teeth nor eyes. It is totally ineffective," she said.
The Lok Sabha also witnessed clashes between DMK and BJP members over issues to be taken up for discussion.
BJP members wanted an immediate discussion on corruption in the backdrop of Hazare's agitation, while the DMK pressed for a debate on Sri Lankan Tamils as listed in the agenda.

Hazare's protest

It is not any ‘outside' force (as claimed by the Congress) but the ‘force' called corruption that is inducing people to come out in large numbers in support of Anna Hazare. It is evident that the UPA government is concerned more about taking on him, not corruption. Instead of targeting him and seeking to divert people's attention, the Congress-led coalition should think of some constructive ways of adding weight to the Lokpal Bill. Whether or not people support Mr. Hazare, they feel that the government Bill is a fractured one.

S. Pravish,

Chennai

A few have described Mr. Hazare's protest as blackmail that undermines Parliament. But can they tell us how to end corruption, now that the Prime Minister has said he doesn't have a magic wand to eradicate it? It is not just the Congress but the entire political class that is against an effective tool to curb corruption.

No system is foolproof. Laws, including the Constitution, are subject to change in the interest of the nation. All that Mr. Hazare is doing is mobilising public opinion to rectify some flaws in our system. Can't Parliament, which accommodates even those who have criminal cases pending against them, consider Team Anna's Jan Lokpal Bill?

Biranchi Narayan Acharya,

Cuttack

Mumbai dabbawallahs' decision to strike work for a day, breaking a 120-year tradition, to support the Jan Lokpal Bill points to the remarkable assertion of the common man against the growing menace of corruption. It is an unmistakable demonstration of the importance the country attaches to good governance.

K.V. Raghuram,

Wayanad

A strong Lokpal is the need of the hour. Mr. Hazare is the right person to lead the fight against the political class which has showed no resolve to eliminate corruption. The movement against corruption should not be seen as a showdown between the government and civil society. Every citizen has the right to a corruption-free administration.

Basavaraj Revannavar,

Dharwad

I am amused on reading the reports, articles and letters on corruption. Everyone knows what the sources of corruption are. We know full well that nobody can buy or sell property, get an electricity or water connection or work done in a government office without bribing. We all know that educational institutions bribe the higher bodies to get recognition. There are institutions where bribe appears ‘legalised.' But nobody even murmurs because all of us are interested in getting things done at the earliest.

We also know that corruption and black money can be reduced to a great extent if we make the punishment for the offences stringent. What is lacking is the will.

A. Ramadas,

Puducherry

Some readers have expressed the view that we should stop bribing in our day-to-day lives if corruption is to be eradicated. Common people do not give bribes willingly; they are forced to pay. Of course, there are a few who bribe others for selfish reasons. But most people offer bribes because they have no choice. Mr. Hazare is doing what people want, which is why they are with him. What other option do they have?

Rajapandi Selvaraj,

Chennai

The allegation that Mr. Hazare is obstinate and unreasonable is misplaced. To brand his agitation a blackmailing tactic is unfair. Was the Dandi march against the salt tax unlawful and belligerent? If yes, then Team Anna's protest is anti-everything too. It is apparent that no politician wants an effective Lokpal.

Anilkumar Kurup,

Anna is not India nor India Anna

With the anti-corruption movement spearheaded by Anna Hazare winning the first round hands down and the United Progressive Alliance government capitulating to its demand that the Gandhian must be allowed to lead an indefinite fast without any restrictions worth speaking about, the focus shifts to what the agitation can expect to achieve in terms of an effective Lokpal Bill. The conditions seem propitious considering that the unintended consequence of a scam-tainted government's initial reaction — which bore the stamp of Pavlovian conditioning — has been the strengthening of the anti-corruption mood in the country. What the agitation symbolised by Mr. Hazare has succeeded in doing is to totally discredit the content of, and the motivation behind, the Lokpal Bill the UPA government has introduced in Parliament — which Prashant Bhushan, a key member of Team Anna, has taken to calling the ‘Promotion of Corruption Bill.' The wise course for the government is to withdraw the Bill immediately, without standing on false prestige. Not to do so would only strengthen the popular perception, reflected in a number of public opinion surveys, that it is bent on perpetuating and covering up corruption.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's exposition of a “constitutional philosophy” in his August 17 statement in the Lok Sabha misses the mark by a mile. Even a cursory look at the history and sociology of how major laws are shaped in India and other parliamentary democracies shows that quite often they are the end product of movements and struggles of various kinds and that the proposition that it is “the sole prerogative of Parliament to make a law” is true only in the most literal, superficial, banal sense. Moreover, in the Indian constitutional scheme (in contrast to the British), Parliament is not supreme; it is the Constitution that is supreme. That said, it does not in the least follow that settling the terms of the anti-corruption institutional mechanism can be left solely to Team Anna or that its Jan Lokpal Bill, which has some impractical and unsound provisions, must be accepted in toto. In quite un-Gandhian fashion, a mood of triumphalism has taken over the current occupants of Ramlila Maidan. Mr. Hazare has stated that he would not budge from the venue until the Jan Lokpal Bill was introduced in Parliament; and Kiran Bedi, a widely admired member of Team Anna, was so carried away by the mood that she proclaimed, perhaps momentarily forgetting the slogan's authoritarian era associations, that “Anna is India and India is Anna.” Democratic, progressive, political India needs to find its own way. It must use this favourable moment to push forward and shape a law that centre-stages the principle of independent, effective, and quick-acting investigation and prosecution of corruption, especially in high places.