Demystifying Politics

Yesterday the Lokpal bill was passed by the Lok Sabha, albeit without some crucial changes proposed by Team Anna. Anna Hazare did not draw crowds this time around and today, he had to call off his agitation in the absence of popular visible support. Pranab Mukherjee gave a speech in Parliament which was much appreciated in the media. While arguing in favour of the composition of the selection panel as envisaged in the Lokpal Bill, (comprising of the PM, the leader of the Opposition, the Speaker, CJI or his nominee and eminent person nominated by the PM) he made this point that the PM and the Speaker enjoy the confidence of the majority of the members of the Lok Sabha and therefore the selection panel is truly representative of the people of the country. The PM himself in his speech defended the decision to put CBI outside the administrative control of the Lokpal on the ground that it would create an executive structure outside Parliament which is accountable to none.

            Circular reasoning or statesman like understanding – whichever way you may see it – but what was definitely driven home yesterday was the supremacy of electoral politics. The year long movement led by Anna Hazare, though, proved that there is also a space waiting to be created for those who want to influence the politics from outside it.  It is to the movement’s credit that it has politicised to some extent a significant section of the population which perceived politics as some alien fiefdom of people who were unlike them.

            Politics is a much abused term. Often it is confused with power. But politics is essentially about mobilising a large number of people for a common good. If politics were to be understood as a process, these would be its stages one following the other -

1.      The common good is first defined.

2.      Then a method or a solution to achieve it is proposed.

3.      The existing method or system in place is trashed to give a logical basis for pushing change.

4.      Thereafter people are mobilised around the idea or the principle.

5.      Power is sought to effect the desired change.

6.      Once power is achieved, would come the task of executing the idea/ plan.

Each of these sequential steps demands certain attributes from the participants in that process –

a.      Step 1 requires Vision.

b.      Step 2 – Knowledge

c.       Step 3 – Communication/ Propaganda

d.      Step 4 – Organisation

e.      Step 5 – Garnering votes (Electoral Politics)

f.        Step 6 – Execution/ Administration

Everyone who is placed at any of the six stages mentioned above is a political being. The media, members of the civil society, the bureaucrat, the political party worker, the subject matter experts influencing policy making are all, in that sense, political beings. And the one who is able to navigate through all the six stages is a politician. Of course, he cannot navigate all alone. He is surely dependent on the support of aides and associates at each stage in the process of politics. But he must understand the nuances of each stage himself or else he won’t command the respect of his aides and associates. But more than anything else, he must be able to draw several people to himself some of whom would eventually become part of his team.

In this vision of politics, what is absolutely indispensible is vision, leadership, team and organisation. These are also those facets which ought to be incorruptible if the politics were to remain true to its cause.  Communication and electoral politics come under the realm of “means to an end” and therefore have to be tolerant towards seemingly unethical positions or methods. This is where a “do what it takes” approach is required. And yet the “means” also shape the organisation and can also limit the autonomy of the vision with which the entire process started. These two stages in politics, therefore, demands pragmatism at its very best.

We can all therefore become political beings. There is absolutely nothing elitist about politics. The choice that has to be made is as to where in the six stage process one finds his or her capacities best utilised. And once that choice is made, it is either about joining a leader with whom you identify more than others or it is about joining hands with others similarly placed at one of the six stages in the process in order to influence and persuade the whole system from outside. For the essence of politics is to harness the power of collectivism for collective good.

Where are the people with intent?

I’ll begin by narrating a few interesting threads from a discussion I had with my colleague in office today. He told me about this boy from his father’s native village who showed a flair for arithmetic at a very young age. He could do complex arithmetical calculations fairly swiftly. He was of the same age as my colleague, but was born into an extremely poor family. My colleague remembered that his father would often cite this boy’s example to tell him how poor he was at arithmetic. And therefore he was always envious of this boy. But all that was many years ago when they were both young kids. He met this boy after a long time when he went to visit his village after completing his tenth exams. And he asked him what he was doing these days. He recalled that when his village peer told him that he was pulling a rickshaw in Delhi for a living, he felt a strong sense of disgust at the inherent unfairness in the contrasting ways in which their lives had unfolded. And as he was saying this, I saw his eyes holding back tears behind his spectacles. That day he would have understood, probably for the first time, the value of opportunity.

            We would have all experienced or known something similar at some point of time in our lives as well. And yet so often we mistake opportunity for achievement and then create an undeserving halo around ourselves. Little do we realise when the halo around our head gently slips and falls around our feet...a halo marking out the pit on the ground into which we are destined to sink for the rest of our lives. I wonder if it is because we learn to stop engaging with things other than the ones which find their way to us on their own.

            When my colleague confided in me that one day he dreamt of starting a school of his own, I was immediately curious to know the contours of his plan. He said he wanted to start a normal kind of school...nothing to do with innovative teaching methods or anything...a school in a very traditional kind of mould, geared to give its students the skill and preparedness to do well in the existing board exams and entrance exams. The only thing which he was particular about was that the school fees should be low...catering to the needs of children born into families with income less than twenty thousand rupees per month. His reading was that there was a huge unmet demand for such schools in several small towns and villages across the country. Schools were either too costly for people from this income bracket to afford or at the other end of the spectrum were government schools which were in total disarray. His analysis that government schools were in such poor shape because anybody who has a voice and who can question the poor quality of delivery does not send his or her children to the government school did seem rational to me. He drew the analogy of low cost no frills airlines to explain the fundamental theme behind the kind of school that he had conceived. His observation was that there were many who could work their way around even an average quality of teaching and that access to a decent school environment was their only bottleneck. And how would this school compete with schools with much higher fees and consequently better quality of teachers and teaching, especially when the end objective was to deliver results on the same parameters like success in board exams or entrance exams? He felt that the school’s USP would be its students...there were many students from such low income families who were hungrier to do well than others. Access or opportunity, however basic it may be, was their sole bottleneck and his school would just fill the gap between an existing demand and an insufficient supply. Of course, it would not able to reach children from even poorer families but then wasn’t it better than doing nothing at all? Since the success of the school would depend so much on the results of its students...so it was a long timeline on which the idea and his methods would be tested. I thought it was then so important to constantly stay engaged with the idea that one wants to see happen...and I quietly wished me the very best.

            Off and on, I meet so many young people who are restless to do something more than what has found a way to them on the back of the opportunity that they were born with and yet the restlessness does not spill over to doing anything concrete. Is it because they don’t stay engaged to their idea long enough and deep enough? Imran Khan spent fifteen years in political wilderness before he started drawing the crowds that he is currently drawing. I guess he stuck out his neck and simply stayed there long enough to start to matter.

            The more I see the system from within, the more I realise the most important missing link. Like for example in the development sector, we have hundreds of policies and several of them are designed well. There’s no dearth of subject matter experts. There’s no anarchy either and what more, we have a system staffed with reasonably pliant people...the only missing link then could be will. There’s a crying need for people with will and intent to infiltrate the system both from within and without. Only if we could engage with the system...long enough to start to matter...

The Lokpal Debate - Things to watch out for in the Coming Week

The Lokpal Bill is going to be tabled in Parliament tomorrow. What have been the pillars around which the entire debate has evolved? And what is the likely position in the Bill to be tabled tomorrow as per available media reports? Mainly these –

1.      How to ensure that the institution of Lokpal is both powerful and independent? To achieve that, the following is generally understood to be critical –

·        Administrative and financial independence of the institution

·        Broad based method of selection of members of the Lokpal

2.      Whether the PM and the judiciary should be covered under the scope of Lokpal?

3.      Whether or not Group B & C employees should be included under the scope of Lokpal?

4.      Whether or not grievance redressal should be within ambit of role of Lokpal?

5.      How to create similar institution (Lokayukta) at the state level?

6.      How to ensure speedy trial in corruption cases and strengthen the punishment mechanism for the offenders?

The way consensus around some of the above mentioned issues has evolved between both camps and as things stand today, some of these issues have ceased to be so.  These are –

·        The PM will come within the scope of Lokpal and the judiciary will be kept outside its purview.

·        Complaints of corruption against Group B & C employees will continue to be dealt by Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) with only a supervisory role envisaged for the Lokpal. Given the fact that the CVC itself is largely an advisory and supervisory body and the complaints at the ground level are dealt by internal Vigilance Divisions within each public organisation/ department, this in effect implies that for all practical purposes investigation of complaints of corruption against Group B & C employees will be outside the effective purview of Lokpal, in a way enabling the institution to remain focused on corruption in the higher echelons of the executive.

·        The task of creation of Lokayuktas in states will be left to the respective state legislatures since creation of the same by Union Parliament would amount to disturbing the federal character. This in effect means that the battle for setting up of Lokayuktas to probe corruption against state government officials has to be taken to the respective states.

Therefore, the main issues to watch out for when the bill is tabled tomorrow and thereafter when debate rages around it both inside Parliament and outside it are the remaining i.e. –

·        Administrative and financial independence of Lokpal – and that brings us to the main point of contention. Whether or not CBI should be under the administrative control of the Lokpal? The bill says no. And that is a critical let down. Let us clear the air on this first. What is required to be placed under the administrative control of Lokpal is the anti-corruption branch of CBI alone and not the organisation in its entirety. Administrative control would give Lokpal powers to select officers to be posted in CBI as also to transfer them or penalise the erring officers. It would also imply that the Lokpal can be independant and shielded from influence of the government of the day.  The government bill has merely inserted a provision saying that CBI shall not be answerable to the Ministry or the Lokpal during the course of any investigation on the merits of such investigation. (the intended purpose, if any, is likely to be lost to the ambiguous technicalities built into this provision) Otherwise it has only given supervisory functions to Lokpal over investigations done by CBI. The Lokpal can only enquire into a complaint and report the same to CBI for further investigations. This is indeed recipe for a toothless body that the government might be proposing tomorrow.

·        Manner of selection of Lokpal members – the panel for selection as proposed by the government appears to be heavily skewed in favour of the government of the day. The panel must be broad based in order to give a fair chance to building an independent institution manned by relatively non-partisan people at its very top.

·        As regards grievance redressal, the government has introduced a separate bill called Citizen’s Charter and Redressal of Grievances Bill. The good part is that this bill requires every public department to lay down timelines for rendering various services to citizens. Complaints against non-compliance with such timelines can be addressed to a designated Grievance Redressal Officer within the same department who has to attend to the complaint within 30 days. Next level of appeal lies with the head of that department and thereafter with new grievance redressal commissions being created at the state and national levels. Team Anna had instead proposed that action against complaints be taken by a judicial officer appointed at the local level who in turn would come under the administrative control of the Lokpal. The fate of this bill needs to be watched with interest along with Lokpal Bill simply because the concept of timelines for services to be rendered by public departments being introduced through this legislation has far reaching positive implications. Two specific items on the watch list could be – one, whether penalties proposed in this new law for non-compliance with time lines are strong enough to create deterrence and two, whether the system for grievance redressal proposed by the government is too centralised to be effective.

·        Last but not the least, the one issue which appears to have slipped into background but which is extremely critical is - what are the provisions in the Lokpal Bill for ensuring speedy trial in corruption cases and what is the punishment mechanism for offenders proposed and whether it is strong enough?

Meanwhile, we can all try and understand that Anna needs to do what he is doing because the interest in the issue has to kept alive lest we get cowed down by high sounding arguments about supremacy of Parliament or technical nitty grittys of law making and miss the point...once again.