Lokpal is within reach: Anna + Aruna = Win-win

The biggest danger in the government versus Team Anna eyeball-to-eyeball on the Lokpal Bill is that opportunities for compromise will be missed in all the cacophony and confusion. The truth is both sides – and many others with their hats in the ring, including the draft presented by Aruna Roy’s National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) – have started with maximalist positions. They need space to manoeuvre themselves out it. Unfortunately, this is what we are not giving them. Firstpost uses the term ‘we’, because the media and thinking intellectuals have only made it tougher for Team Anna to back off by calling them all kinds of names – fascist, communal and, worse, middle class manipulators. This is appalling. A genuinely popular upsurge is being branded all kinds of things merely because they happened to run away with the agenda. In fact, all this name-calling has emboldened the government to believe it is on the right track with its Lokpal Bill – which nobody seems to have criticised, even though Anna’s critics have torn into his Jan Lokpal. Before we explore ways forward, we need to underline what went wrong with all the three approaches to the Bill – the government’s, Team Anna’s, and those touted by external observers and commentators. First, the government It screwed up badly by trying to trip Team Anna at every step. It did not videograph the joint drafting committee’s discussions, and did not accept a common draft in the end. It then tried to finesse Team Anna by slyly presenting its own watered-down Lokpal Bill, and sent Kapil Sibal, Manish Tiwari and P Chidambaram – all Dobermans, not known for their subtle ways – to tear Team Anna apart. The trust deficit with Team Anna is the result of these factors, not anything else. [caption id=“attachment_66992” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The government would do well to simply announce that it will withdraw the current Lokpal Bill. PTI”] [/caption] Second, Team Anna Anna Hazare’s advisors have managed to put everyone’s backs up by constantly saying that it has to be their bill or nothing. As a maximalist position that all negotiators adopt before talks, this is only to be expected. But more words of accommodation, and indications that they are willing to negotiate, would have blunted most of the sharp attacks levelled against them by other civil society groups and intellectuals. Third, media and intellectuals The media has become a player, with one group backing government and so-called constitutional norms, and another openly espousing Anna’s cause. Intellectuals, and especially Left intellectuals with no popular base, have been busy vitiating the atmosphere by calling Team Anna fascist, communal, etc. It seems calling someone communal is the easiest way to delegitimise a popular movement against corruption. Using abusive terms does not contribute to dialogue. As if on cue, Dalit and Muslim groups have suddenly started asking whether Team Anna is the enemy. If we have to leave the acrimony behind and move towards a sensible compromise on the Lokpal Bill, all three sides have to reflect on what they did wrong and allow tempers to cool – so that negotiations can begin before a 74-year-old man is sent to hospital. In our view, there is already enough common ground among all groups to start the process of negotiating a win-win agreement. Here are four points to keep in mind. One, the government would do well to simply announce that it will withdraw the current Lokpal Bill which has been sent to the select committee for vetting. This alone will probably be enough to reduce the trust deficit between government and Team Anna, leaving enough space for both to negotiate their way to a fair deal. This, together with, say, a commitment to present a unified draft within two or three weeks would be enough to end the Anna fast. A sharp deadline is vital, or else it will be seen as just buying time. Two, the two rival drafters of the Bill – Team Anna and the NCPRI – need to start talking on their common points and differences. If one actually looks at the Jan Lokpal Bill and the NCPRI versions – there are very few unbridgeable differences . Both bills will ensure a stronger Lokpal than the government version. The main difference is that the NCPRI version would like to keep the lower bureaucracy and the higher judiciary out of the Lokpal’s ambit. This is eminently sensible, both from a logistical perspective and from the need to ensure that the Lokpal doesn’t become so all-powerful as to become the new area of corruption. Absolute power, after all, corrupts absolutely. Since the government appears willing to cover the lower bureaucracy with another Bill and the judiciary with a Judicial Accountability Bill, we already have points of convergence. The details, of course, need to be debated in each of these two bills. The similarities between the NCPRI draft and Team Anna’s outweigh their differences. Both want the Lokpal Bill to include the creation of Lokayuktas in states (the government doesn’t want to do that). Both want the PM covered. Both are against having too many judicial persons on the Lokpal panel. Both reject the idea that MPs should not come under Lokpal. However, NCPRI says this would need a constitutional amendment. Both NCPRI and Jan Lokpal are against the official Lokpal Bill which says those making frivolous complaints should be jailed for two years. They agree that a fine of Rs 1 lakh is deterrent enough. When there is so much agreement between Jan Lokpal and NCPRI versions, it is obvious that a strong Lokpal Bill can come from their coming together rather than carping at each other from the sidelines. Maybe, Team Anna and Aruna Roy need to have a conversation before meeting the government’s team for negotiations. Three, the media needs to shut up and stop being a player in the game. One of the biggest reasons why the government’s and Team Anna’s positions look so far apart is that media persons are trying to take positions that are pro or against the government. While individual media commentators and individuals can have opinions that are pro or anti, TV channels and the rest of the media cannot bring these biases into their reportage. Partisanship is not going to help solve the crisis. Four, intellectuals need to introspect. Whether it is Arundhati Roy or Mahesh Bhatt or Shabnam Hashmi or various Dalit intellectuals, all that they have managed to do is divert attention from the issue of corruption and focus on caste, community and class. This is simply unhelpful and divisive. They are generating heat rather than light. They are adding to the cacophony without contributing to sanity on both sides. Five, if the trio of government, Team Anna and NCPRI can get an agreed draft to parliament, the opposition can be brought to the debate for any final reshaping of the bill. Involving the opposition before this stage would contribute to grandstanding rather than constructive debate. The point is this: after a long time, Team Anna has managed to bring the issue of corruption to the forefront of national debate. They may not have the perfect remedy for this ailment, but why attack them for being successful in bringing the issue to the point where a solution can at least be attempted?