Just Because it Sounds Right…
I’ve read 2 different sets of people not agreeing entirely with some of Anna’s proposals. And no, I don’t refer to the politicians and bureaucrats. It came from other quarters and surprisingly, they gave reasons rather than just shouting in some stupid TV show.
The first instance was from a financial paper, the Wall Street Journal (India edition). Their reasons were two-fold: first, they asked whether it made more sense to knock off the existing system and replace it with what the Lokpal wants rather than having two parallel, bloated, bureaucratic/policing, expensive systems?
WSJ’s second argument was that the Lokpal addresses the symptoms (corruption) rather than the root causes (why is their corruption in the first place?). In WSJ’s opinion, the root cause is the red tape that surrounds everything, that takes forever to decide or execute anything, that places discretionary power in the hands of the politicians and the bureaucrats. WSJ’s preferred solution? Reduce the red tape.
The other example I saw was in the CEC’s arguments against the “Reject all candidates” option during elections. The CEC argued that if such an option was provided and exercised in a lot of constituencies, then what’s the next step? Do we hold a re-election in those places? Because that’s expensive, and there’s no guarantee that the next set won’t get rejected again. Are we OK with unrepresented constituencies?
As these two sets of arguments show, often there’s no perfect solution. It makes sense to evaluate the proposed solutions in terms of their do’ability and costs and consider where they lead to. More often than not, people just hear an idea that sounds “right” and “noble” and decide that’s the way to proceed. Life’s too complicated for such a simplistic, moralistic attitude.
Unfortunately, we don’t have any legislators who are capable of thinking things through or who can communicate well and explain their reasons for coming up with different options…
The first instance was from a financial paper, the Wall Street Journal (India edition). Their reasons were two-fold: first, they asked whether it made more sense to knock off the existing system and replace it with what the Lokpal wants rather than having two parallel, bloated, bureaucratic/policing, expensive systems?
WSJ’s second argument was that the Lokpal addresses the symptoms (corruption) rather than the root causes (why is their corruption in the first place?). In WSJ’s opinion, the root cause is the red tape that surrounds everything, that takes forever to decide or execute anything, that places discretionary power in the hands of the politicians and the bureaucrats. WSJ’s preferred solution? Reduce the red tape.
The other example I saw was in the CEC’s arguments against the “Reject all candidates” option during elections. The CEC argued that if such an option was provided and exercised in a lot of constituencies, then what’s the next step? Do we hold a re-election in those places? Because that’s expensive, and there’s no guarantee that the next set won’t get rejected again. Are we OK with unrepresented constituencies?
As these two sets of arguments show, often there’s no perfect solution. It makes sense to evaluate the proposed solutions in terms of their do’ability and costs and consider where they lead to. More often than not, people just hear an idea that sounds “right” and “noble” and decide that’s the way to proceed. Life’s too complicated for such a simplistic, moralistic attitude.
Unfortunately, we don’t have any legislators who are capable of thinking things through or who can communicate well and explain their reasons for coming up with different options…
The point is, whatever be the system we create and modify, whether we can really make it work is of paramount importance.
ReplyDeleteWSJ argument is perfectly valid. Our vigilance departments all over India is doing nothing beyond tokenism. And they can never decide on matters with speed. If a good Western civilization office of authority takes 2 weeks for a decision, it would be 2 full years or more for a decision under identical situation and conditions! Not only corrupt fellows will be worried about their fate all the time, the honest persons will also be feeling frustrated because the case will not end. No way! The only solution left for honest officers is to avoid doing anything worthwhile because the vigilance people will go on and on fishing for anything they do can find to use against the innocents - because they are groping in the dark all the time! Tomorrow, if Lokpal gets the authority to deal with corruption, it would do the same - tokenism to check corruption. Nothing more.
Even with Anna Hazare's movement, the present assessment is not positive. Those in Anna's team who are fighting for the Lokpal empowerment have begun to show lack of unity, poor integrity/honesty, loss of clarity of both the purpose and the method. And, if the movement fizzles out, the politicians will have the last laugh (but not the last loot; they will go ahead with bigger plans for continued looting of tax payers' money). I am unhappy the movement has to go this way. Sad indeed.
Lastly, while we may declare the politicians satanic because of their corrupt ways, one reason for our trouble is this: All parties need tons and tons of money for fighting elections. We must know that not all the loot goes to individuals. A good percentage of the loot goes for party use. So, all the parties are fully unified for standing up for corruption (while pretending to be otherwise). The politicians will fight real hard to ensure that corruption will be mightier than any check system against corruption.
We, the people of India, also have a big weakness. We are not good at systems for one thing; we are also poor in social order and social sense of rightness. Centuries of social divide has taken its toll. Thus today, we, the people, do not have the strength in us to ensure a better system for our own benefit. We can be taken for a ride and we do get taken like that all the time. Therefore, this is all we deserve, one can say.
Future, after some decades perhaps, may prove that we are a better lot than what we are today. May that happen.