The magic bullet

Recently I had the audacity to question the solution for corruption as proposed by Mr Anna (Mohandas Karamchand) Hazare and, as expected, was promptly and severely chided by his (and my) well-wishers.  The central thrust of the pro-Anna brigade was that ANY solution was better than what was happening at present and that if I didn’t have a better solution to offer then I should just shut up and suck it.  Now I am not going to debate the pros and cons of the various Lokpal Bills (Jan or Govt or any other version).  It is obvious that we do need to have much stronger laws and much better implementation to deal with this all-pervasive menace.  However, having stronger laws is one thing and creating an entirely new institution for implementing those is quite another.  Still, be that as it may, it should be clear that my objection has never been to the eventual goal of eliminating corruption, but only to the means employed to achieve that goal.  As someone said, the end justifies the means, but I say that this is not true if the means chosen may possibly lead to a completely different end.

The question remains though – do I have a better solution, or should I just shut up and suck it?  Here is what I think -

First and most important, we must realize one thing – the title of this post is blatantly misleading.  There is no magic bullet.  OK, two things – there is also no Messiah (note to Rajinikanth fans – please do not shoot me, angry letters or otherwise).  This is because Messiahs lived in the past and we live in the present.  So no Messiah and no magic bullet.  This means that whatever it is that needs to be done, we must do it ourselves.  I already proposed this as my solution but it was shot down as being too idealistic and naive – as a friend rightly pointed out, we cannot just pin our hopes on the possibility of an en-masse introspection and consequent saintliness by the general populace.   Something more concrete will need to be attempted.

Second, and equally important, we must define what it is we want to fight.  Actually, it may be easier to define what we want – and then we can simply fight whatever it is that prevents us getting what we want – which is, the right to live our life with dignity, without fear or favor, and with the best possible standard of living we can afford within our honest means.  We want to lead a happy life, we want to sleep the blissful sleep at night, and we want to awaken to our children’s laughter the next morning (of course, I realize that for this to happen our children need to get up before us but let’s ignore that technicality for now).  We want to live in a country where the water, the electricity, the roads, the health and sanitation, and the social security – to name a few fundamental services – all work as expected and the only wheels we have to grease belong to transportation vehicles – literally.  We want to live in a country where we trust our government to do what is right for the country and for the majority of its citizens.  We want to live in a country where our children can take for granted a better quality of life than what we do or did.  We want to live in a country where the rule of law is supreme and where it is the same for everyone – regardless of religion, class, caste, economic status, political affiliation or whether we think Tendulkar or Dravid is the better batsman (we know it’s Sehwag of course, but whatever).

Let’s see now – what prevents us getting all this?  In my opinion (maybe for the sake of brevity we should just take it as a given that all of the following is my opinion, so I don’t have to qualify each thought and idea with those words) this is what prevents us getting what we want -

Inadequate or incompetent representation in Parliament

This is simple enough to change.  We should all just step out and vote for the best candidate we can.  Oh, but all the candidates are equally bad, you say – how do we choose?  So what we need is a “None Of The Above (NOTA)” option on the ballot paper.  Make a law that if NOTA gets the majority then that seat must be deemed unelected and there must be a by-election for that seat with the added constraint that none of the candidates on that ballot paper can contest that seat for the next five years.  Implement this and just see how quickly we get good candidates to choose from.

Undue government meddling in things that don’t concern them

Government must only control policy matters of extreme national importance – defense, internal security, economic policy, and law and order.  Everything else must be deregulated and privatized and subject to competition.  Whatever the government spends on the PSUs and on subsidies must be released to the common man in the form of social security and other direct benefits.  Let the common man use that additional income to buy the appropriate goods and services as they see fit.  Real competition will bring automatic accountability and transparency, and create value.  For example, instead of the government providing rice at Rs 2/- and subsidizing Rs 18/- (or whatever), give the 18/- directly to the concerned person and let them decide if Big Bazaar provides better value than their local kirana shop.

Legal logjam due to huge backlog of court cases

To remedy this the government can appoint more judges and make cases time-bound.  No one should be able to get continuance after continuance on mere technicalities.  Make the courts work round-the-clock, using shifts if required.  After all, the BPOs do shifts and they seem to be doing fine.

Manual intervention and control

Use technology for automating the hell out of everything.  Use manual intervention only as required on very specific extreme or outlier cases.  Land records, legal documents, licensing, bank accounts, any remaining subsidies, municipal taxes, income taxes and so on must all be computerized.  Tap into the genius of Indian techies from the private sector to design the next generation security systems for protecting all this online data and work-flows.

Stagnation and complacency

Pay the IPS and IAS cadre as per the market standard and take away all intangible perks.  Set appropriate performance targets and link performance (as opposed to seniority) to promotions and pay-hikes.  Non-performers must be laid-off and replaced.

Discretionary power

Everything that is still under government control must have extremely clear and documented processes and ways to track the implementation of those processes.  Think ISO or CMM.  Something like that.  No babu should be able to stop, delay or even speed-up any process based on their discretion (aka “whim and fancy”).

* * *

Will the above eliminate corruption?  Can this even be done?  I have no idea.  I’m no legal or constitutional expert.  I’m also just another common man with a simplistic solution.  Einstein once said “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe“, so it is quite possible that we’ll still somehow manage to mess it all up.  But it could be a start and it may lead to the desired end.  Failing this, of course, we can still find solace in the words of Mariah Carey -

So when you feel like hope is gone, Look inside you and be strong
And you’ll finally see the truth - That a hero lies in you.

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