Barun Roy’s column “Arrogance before the fall?” (Asia file, January 12) made a valid point. Many baseless charges have been levelled against Anna Hazare. First, he was termed an RSS man; then he was dubbed a casteist; and now, he is trying to claim superiority over Parliament. In the midst of all these accusations, however, there are some legitimate concerns. The Jan Lok Pal could create a parallel bureaucracy and managing it would be quite a task. Take the case of the Right to Information Act — there are so many applicants that swarm government offices to seek information that, in many cases, is unnecessary and frivolous. This adds to the workload of the already-burdened government offices. It may also end up making the process of governance tougher. However, these fears cannot discount the need for a strong anti-corruption Bill. The fact is that we need to make parliamentarians accountable. Today, they are not answerable to anyone (think of the five-fold increase in salary that MPs “awarded” themselves last year). Moreover, the knowledge that one’s grievances with the system will actually be addressed would go a long way in ensuring the aam aadmi’s engagement with policy and governance issues.
Raghu Seshadri Chennai
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