The agitation that won't die

A lack of initiative from Congress and UPA on tackling corruption has allowed unreasonable demands to persist

The Lok Pal Bill has once again taken centre stage in Indian politics, after the leaders of India Against Corruption (IAC) organised a token, one-day fast at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. This comes at a time when crucial, pending Bills have piled up, policy paralysis has frozen the economy, and a large chunk of the Winter Session of Parliament has already been wasted. A strong, independent Lok Pal is in India’s interest. Yet it helps nobody if maximalist demands over the nature of the institution being created freeze policy making. How, then, can India’s politics be extricated from this endless wrangling? Clearly, the Anna Hazare-led team of activists, having tasted power, is in no mood to compromise. Mr Hazare himself has insisted that if the final law does not meet his specifications or is not passed on his preferred timetable, he will fast again from December 27.

On Sunday, at Jantar Mantar, most of the Opposition turned up to lend its support to Mr Hazare. Taken together with his strident attack on the Congress leadership and a dark reference to elections in Uttar Pradesh, it is clear the movement is no longer laying claim to being “apolitical”. Parties have been tempted into making their own unlikely, maximalist demands; the Left for example, has demanded the private sector be under the Lok Pal as well. Meanwhile, discussion on important provisions of the Bill, as drafted by the Standing Committee of Parliament, is suffering. The vexed question of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is one. Clearly, just reducing it to a wing of the Lok Pal is incomplete and counterproductive. Equally obviously, it cannot stay politicised. At the very least, its director should be chosen by the sort of bipartisan panel that selects the Central Vigilance Commissioner. The question of whether the CBI also requires a separate, properly trained and tenured cadre of investigators – and whether India needs an independent prosecutorial agency – should be foregrounded in political discussion.

Yet, regardless of the irresponsibility of the IAC activists and the opportunism of the Opposition, the primary responsibility for this impasse and the continued public focus on Mr Hazare’s theatrics rests with the Congress party and the UPA government. The Congress has failed to articulate a clear anti-corruption rhetoric that resonates with the urban middle class that has voted for it solidly in the past two general elections; in the process, it has not only abdicated its responsibility as the single largest party in Parliament, but also made itself a convenient target for political attack. UPA-II, meanwhile, has conspicuously failed to look like it is taking action on a culture of corruption. Until and unless the elected government looks like it is seized of the matter, and working on a robust institutional structure – starting with the independence of the CBI – the attention paid to self-appointed “people’s spokesmen” from outside of politics will only grow. So far the actions of both party and government have been woefully reactive. India’s paralysed polity and economy need both party and government to step up and show leadership on an issue that has caught urban India’s imagination.