Decisive action, not Acts, will help whistleblowers

While the Whistleblowers' Protection Bill, hailed as the ultimate shield that would protect those who expose corruption from harm, is listed for approval by Rajya Sabha in this session, the parched Earth is quenching its thirst with the blood of anti-corruption crusaders.
We have seen how the politicians, who otherwise clear laws left, right and centre, keep delaying key legislations that might hurt their ‘interests’.
The anti-corruption Lokpal Bill, pending for more than four decades, has been shuttled to yet another committee. We can only hope that this law will come into force before money swallowed by politicians and bureaucrats exceed the gross domestic product (GDP).
The Whistleblowers’ Bill also has not been a product of the desire of the political class to help the anti-graft efforts.
About a decade back, Satyendra Dubey, an NHAI official who exposed a massive scam in the NDA government’s Golden Quadrilateral project was murdered after his role in the expose was leaked from top government sources. It was the uproar over this incident that forcedsome movement on this legislation.
The latest to join the long list of martyrs who lost their lives to the cause of keeping the system clean was Karnataka Administrative Service officer SP Mahesh.
The upright officer was bludgeoned to death in the heart of Bangalore. He had exposed massive scams in co-operative societies. His wife told the police that he was attacked at least thrice earlier.
A few months back, a young IPS officer, NS Singh, was brutally murdered by the mining mafia in Madhya Pradesh.
If we take into account the number of social activists and NGO members who are butchered across the country, the list gets longer. Social activists, journalists, NGO members, honest government officials and RTI activists have been paying with their lives for upholding the right.
However, after the initial media hype and public outrage, the state of affairs returns to normal — and would return to limelight only at the next bloodshed. A recent article in the Outlook by Mathew Samuel, who conducted the Tehelka sting operation that exposed colossal corruption in defence deals, describes the unsavoury ordeal that lies in wait for those who expose corruption in high places.
Experience has taught us that an impressive array of laws is toothless as long as there is no effective implementation machinery; the legislation to protect whistleblowers is no exception to this.
What we need is an effective mechanism on the lines of witness protection programmes that are in place in developed countries. These countries are able to check corruption to a large extent due to the effectiveness of such programmes. Their governments allocate massive funds to ensure that whistleblowers are not exposed and provide them with adequate security.
In cases where the exposed corrupt are rich and well-connected, the whistleblowers are given new identities by the government itself so that they are beyond any harm.
We are a country where a footpath tout can get a driving licence in the name of the prime minister issued for a few thousand rupees. So it doesn’t require rocket science for the government to take a few lessons from their more vigilant Western counterparts to protect the people who risk everything in their lives to expose corruption.
We need to create a system of rewards and protection, backed by powerful laws that will enable more people to come out and expose those who eat into public money.
The scamsters should be made to realise that ‘eliminating’ informants is not going to be a cakewalk and that the system will take care of those who strive to keep it clean.
Satyameva Jayate.
(This article was published as the editorial column in Postnoon on May 23, 2012)

Uncle Sam roars at terror, India purrs

The US announcement of $10 million bounty on Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafeez Sayeed has sent the entire Indian government, security and diplomatic circles into an applause overdrive. Little time was lost in appreciating the US gesture while reiterating New Delhi’s demand to Pakistan to bring the mastermind of 26/11 attacks to justice.
However, India’s reaction and subsequent rhetoric from various quarters resembles a kitten baring its claws in the shadow of a roaring lion and expecting to generate equal amount of awe.
Global diplomatic circles and definitely Pakistan are not fooled by the Indian sabre rattling. India has an abysmal record of following up its threats of punitive action and retaliation.
This was last evident when Pakistani terrorists attacked the Parliament in 2001. India mounted its biggest ever mobilisation, termed Operation Parakram, threatening to react with force if Pakistan did not rein in the terror operatives.
However, India chickened out in the face of Pakistani threat of first use of nuclear weapons. The massive operation which saw almost half-a-million troops and war equipment moved to forward offensive positions fizzled out — the balance sheet was thousands of crores wasted, several lives lost in accidents and loss of face in front of the international community.
More than a decade has passed and there has been no dearth of Pakistan-sponsored terrorist attacks on Indian soil. India has been liberally handing out warnings and threats at each occasion — hot pursuit a favourite phrase.
Even on this doctrine, the Indian establishment has not been able to speak in one voice. When a General talks about targeting militant camps across the border, the bureaucratic and political leadership openly declare their commitment to self-restraint.
The ultimate result of lack of political will to pursue the country’s national interests is that neither Pakistan nor the terrorists groups it nurtures take India seriously. And we have an inglorious legacy of letting every terrorist group to slaughter and walk away with impunity.
The chiefs of all Pakistan-based terrorist outfits have been travelling all over Middle East raising funds and the super-secretive RAW’s operatives have not even plucked a hair of any one of them.
Indian public could watch only with helplessness when Dawood Ibrahim and his confidants, who engineered the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, were seen LIVE on TV cheering during a Sharjah Cup match. This was at a time when Indian sleuths and international agencies such as the Interpol were following every procedure in the book to get him extradited (if they could locate him in the first place) for crimes committed in India.
No country allows terrorists to mess with it and walk away unscathed. After 9/11, the Americans launched a global war on terror and did not rest till Osama bin Laden was killed. The Russians, the French, the British and the Israelis go to any extent to seek and destroy the elements who threaten national security.
However, India is content with cumbersome procedures and strict adherence to international covenants, and that too in a complacent manner which would make the techniques of the 19th century Congress moderates look like militant nationalists.
After begging all over the world for information and extraditions, our result is always blank. India’s ‘most wanted’ criminals and terrorist operatives continue to ply their trade without any interruption. At times one can’t help but wonder if our government is waiting for god to punish them.
For all the touting of our military might and the elite special forces, we remain toothless by choice while the enemies of the country continue to bleed us through a thousand wounds.

(This article was published as the editorial column in Postnoon on April 4, 2012)

The king is naked, but don’t say a word

When do you find non-partisan behaviour among legislators?
When their images are at stake.
No wonder the parliamentarians were up in arms taking umbrage to Team Anna member Arwind Kejriwal’s comments on ‘criminal MPs.’ Some are planning to send privilege notice to Kejriwal for contempt of the dignity of the House.
"In this Parliament, rapists are sitting. In this Parliament murderers and looters are sitting," Kejriwal said at a rally in Ghaziabad criticising politicians for refusing to pass the Jan Lokpal bill.
Now the question is whether the legislature, State or Central, is above criticism and scrutiny.
Based on the mandatory affidavits filed by the candidates before the Election Commis­sion, several NGOs and civil society organisations have come out with disturbing statistics of our elected representatives. Almost one third of the parliamentarians (150) have criminal cases pending against them, 72 of them face serious charges.
Though the BJP could not beat the Congress in the 2009 elections, it overtook its rival in another department by getting 42 people with criminal cases elected, compared to the grand old party’s tally of 41.
There is no reason why people would not look down on the legislators considering their ‘illustrious’ conduct. An analysis of the whole bunch would require an encyclopedia-sized edition, so let us glance through conduct of a few luminaries in the recent past.

• Three Karnataka BJP ministers were forced to resign after they were caught on camera watching porn on their smartphones during Assembly proceedings.
• Twenty-six ministers have been sacked by Mayawati on charges ranging from abuse of power to corruption, from goondaism to rape and murder.
• A Trinamool minister in Mamata Banerjee’s ministry asked what a rape victim, a single mother of two children, was doing in a night club and that the rape charge was probably an extortion attempt. The CM who called the case ‘cooked up’ and her junior colleague had to eat their words within 24 hours when the police arrested the accused and found solid evidence.
• It was not long ago that khap panchayats, which are infamous for their role in ‘honour’ killings and gang rapes, found open support from the US-educated business magnate MP Naveen Jindal, who praised the kangaroo courts for their services in upholding the moral fabric of the society. 

The exalted members find time to pass doubling of their paychecks but can’t agree over key legislations that would power socio-economic change and governance — Women’s Bill and Lokpal Bill are the best examples.
A check on their finances would show that someone who entered politics with a monthly income of a few thousand rupees has become a billionaire (rupee) in less than a decade while devoting all his time to ‘serving the people’. Financial geniuses such as Warren Buffet are reduced to amateurs before the growth model of our representatives.
The legislators are human and err like humans. So what is the point in living under the self-conferred unassailable status of parliamentary ‘privilege’?

(This article was published as the editorial column in Postnoon on February 29, 2012)

How the lights went out on Anna Hazare

In contrast to the massive support he received for his first two fasts for a strong Lokpal, there are hardly any crowds at Anna Hazare’s fast venue in Mumbai. The parallel fast by his core team in Delhi could barely muster 1,000 people. In Hyderabad it was even worse with hardly 100 showing up.
What went wrong with the strategy of the man whose name became synonymous with anti-graft movement and inspired people to sport ‘Anna is India’ caps and T shirts?
From a flower seller at Dadar station who organised people against thuggery of land sh­a­rks to the patriot volunteer to the army in the aftermath of the 1962 war and the eventual metamorphosis into a social activist, Kisan Hazare has come a long way to become the towering beacon of hope for millions who had almost given up on the fight against corruption.
However, somewhere down the path the Gandhian deviated from the target and went on a bashing spree on anyone and anything political that fell foul of him — the Congress and its allies emerged as his favourite targets.
His core team, whose nom de guerre is Team Anna, was seen manipulating public su­pport for the veteran activist to promote their personal agendas. Theatrics of Kiran ‘çrane’ Bedi may have entertained crowds at Ramlila, but little did the former top cop realise how close she was to the class she was trying to ridicule.
If it was the CD controversy that dogged the Bhushans, inflated air travel bills came as a major embarrassment for Bedi. Arvind Kejriwal lost face when he was pulled up by the I-T department over unpaid dues; Santosh Hegde, the man with impressive credentials as Karnataka Lokayukta, pulled out of the team; and Swami Agnivesh was ‘expelled’ for ‘colluding’ with the government. The halo that shined bright once has vanished.
With Anna going into overdrive attacking the Congress and even resorting to political campaigning against it in bypolls, the Gandhian was reduced to a Sangh Parivar instrument — something that cost his credibility and popularity dearly.
Another factor that Anna and his team underestimated is the public support for the politicians they elected to Parliament. Arm-twisting a democratically elected body to satisfy their whims and fancies may fetch an initial round of applause, but will not suffice to ensure constant support.
When pundits list the severe winter and holiday season as the reasons for the sparse attendance at the latest fast, they are indirectly acknowledging that the public is willing to give their elected representatives time to sort things out — something that India Against Corruption has overlooked.
With all due respect to Hazare and his noble intentions, it remains undisputed that the movement is destined to collapse from within when one man and his coterie are trying to steamroll all opposition and hold a country with a million divergent voices to ransom through emotional blackmail.
The blind opposition to government’s Lokpal Bill without waiting to assess its performance looks more like an ego issue than an argument based in logic.
A Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayuktas at state-level, bolstered with extensive legal reforms to plug existing loopholes, are essential for the anti-graft legislation to work effectively.
Polity has a way of educating leaders, even the most battle hardened one. Anna has made a wise choice by calling off his fast and jail bharo movement.
Anna should show some patience. Isn’t that an inseparable part of the Gandhian approach?