In Defense of Lokpal

Our friend Acorn have articulated his views against the Lokpal and Anna Hazare movement in his blog, the first half of his post is related to his views against the proposed institution of Lokpal and the latter half is against the fast unto death method adopted by Anna Hazare in his movement against corruption. The two IMO are different debates and required to be dealt with separately, I intend to deal with the Lokpal bill in this post. His arguments against Lokpal bill can be broadly categorized as under:


1. Indian system being Complex is inherently bad, and Lokpal will add another layer to the complexity.
2. Economic freedom is proven to lower corruption and we should demand more economic freedom, not Lokpal. If middle class vote in large numbers Govt would be forced to reform the economy and Lokpal won't be needed.
3. Lokpal may be impractical to implement and they may get mired in the system as well, making little difference to corruption on ground

Coming to the contention that Complex is inherently bad, may be he is confusing complex with complicated. Contrary to popular beliefs most good systems are complex in nature, including those found in nature itself as Eric Berlow explains. So blindly removing layers  or refusing to add any new one may not make the system any better.

Economic freedom is proven the world over to reduce corruption, I don't contest that. Economic reforms are important but checking corruption should not be held hostage to economic reforms. That's why a mechanism like Lokpal is important, it is not dependent on economic reforms which depends on political will and might take ages. Economic reforms can co-exist with a system like Lokpal or ombudsman as it does in free economies like Hong Kong.

Regarding the impracticality argument, the nitty gritties can be worked out, we already have a few successful models to learn from and replicate with required modifications. Lokayukta system of Karnataka said to be the most effective in checking corruption at the highest level is one such example, CAG is another example. These existing systems can provide the blueprint for the proposed Lokpal, we should not miss the woods for the trees, any new system may not work exactly as designed and will definitely require course corrections from time to time but a beginning has to be made.

(Picture courtesy topnews.in)