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Who is at the target of Government’s Lokpal?

There is no question that the movement around Jan Lokpal has been important. It has pushed back at the arrogance of the political class.  It has brought to limelight the levels of corruption in the political class, while suggesting to the corruption among our business class (but more about that later). It has been an issue that has also gotten the middle class involved in a civic issue, a political issue.

It has been a significant movement. Not constrained only to the middle-class, despite what some commentators have said. I have seen large number of people from poorer communities - from within cities and from semi-rural and rural communities participate in these gatherings. It certainly captured the anger of a very large citizen base. Anger against a political system that has refused to become accountable. And this movement is significant since it has been an attempt to rein in the growing power of the agencies of the state - in that it must be acknowledged.

While it has been significant to citizens across the country, though, for the above-mentioned reasons and more, it has not been seen as the national movement in that it reflected the anguish, the crying need of the nation. In fact, for a very significant section of the nation, the Jan Lokpal provides few answers by it self. 

India's independence was a promise for communities all over India that they could define their own needs, arrange for their processes by organizing their communities and resources. It was independence from laws set up to keep communities from defining their own destinies. Post-independence has been no different for many of these communities.

In tribal regions across the country, communities are being pushed out of their land. Access to forest is being taken away. By various agencies of the government that are meant to protect the interest of these communities. The Constitution of India protected the rights of these communities over their land - knowing that there would be efforts to steal indigenous communities off their land. Various governments first allowed usurpation of land from these tribal communities by private parties. When this was ruled illegal, there was an attempt to change the law. Now government agencies are in the practice of acquiring much higher sizes of land than is needed for a public project and then selling all of it or the rest of it to private parties.

Numerous tribal communities have opposed such activity by government after government. By governments led by various political parties. To no avail. Their political disagreement has been put down with a heavy hand. All dissidence is termed Naxal and put down by state forces with private interest with a heavy hand. Private militia funded by the government, despite Supreme Court ruling terming it illegal and extra-constitutional, continue unabated and unquestioned. 

The Jan Lokpal is important but it provides no answer to this kind of corruption. No answer that makes these communities empowered. It is impossible for members of indigenous peoples - any marginalized people's representative - to be part of  the Lokpal process.

Dalit communities continue to be marginalized almost 65 years after independence.  There are some Dalit intellectuals who have argued that their empowerment since independence is minimal. Institutionally they still are not empowered, they continue to be marginalized by government agencies. Dalit students are discriminated against in classrooms. Even reservation based policies are limited to students - professionally, institutes and government agencies keep their reserved category positions unfilled. As a recent commentator pointed out, even under so called progressive leadership, in institutes such as JNU, reserved positions go unfilled. And despite reservations, there are very few senior bureaucratic positions currently in the responsibility of Dalit individuals. Dalit communities continue to be marginalized socially. Rapes of dalit girls with no retribution continue - even in UP with a Dalit woman as the CM. Communities can still justify forcing dalits to live outside a wall. Communities still feel all right burning a dalit boy for marrying a higher caste girl. Police can fire on a dalit gathering without reporting the number dead, or choosing to fudge the number for days. 

Jan Lokpal is significant - but not to the key concerns of Dalits. It is corruption when police or other government agencies marginalize through acts of omission and commission. But there is no process of acountability. And none being asked for. Numerous dalit groups have described it as a middle class movement; it is important to understand why. And perhaps, to understand how democracy continues to be subverted with respect to their needs.

Urban poor have been thrown out of their urban slums - which are often unlivable in the first place - and have been often thrown out by force so that developers could make claim and profit from that land. In most cases, these are common or public land; not private land. And in numerous cases, land is allotted to profit the developer and the decision makers allotting the land. There are too many examples of this in Mumbai in the recent past to list. The person thrown out is often someone who was displaced in the first place - by projects, or by a collapsing rural economy. This person with no hand outs is made to be the villain of our developing nation. The developers stealing commons and profiting through graft are our page 3 heroes.

Jan Lokpal is significant - but has not empowered these urban poor. The city - for example Mumbai - has not been held accountable for not giving them their rights as slum dwellers as required by city and state laws. Lokayuktas, where appointed (such as Karnataka) have not empowered the poor who have been displaced. 

There are major sections of India's diversity that feels similarly. Where laws continue to be subverted, and in some cases changed, so that the ability of these communities to participate and influence policy making  is marginalized. Large sections of North East feel so. Their political dissidence is put down with a heavy hand. Political games have been played to marginalize their participation and separatist groups have been funded. Today, parts of North East are under Army rule for years, where armed forces can do anything they want to a civilian population with no accountability. It does not even feel like it is ones own country.

And we have not discussed Kashmir. 

The Jan Lokpal bill has little for such corruption where access to political power has been subverted from a democracy. 

The Jan Lokpal bill is not a panacea for a democracy. It is not even aimed at being the panacea against corruption, despite some media voices and a section of the supporters arguing thus.  It is meant to provide a model of checks and balances. The protagonists of  the effort (or at least some of them) recognize this.

However, it is important to understand what affects the lives of large sections of our diverse society. And to understand whether corruption can be understood more broadly, in a way, that is inclusive of the methods of subversion that limit the democratic rights of these sections as citizens of India. And that the Jan Lokpal will not be effective in addressing corruption that affects a marginalized minority or disempowered majority.

As a democratic nation of private citizens, our society is still based on large sections of commonly owned and commonly used spaces - what we will call commons. Some are physical spaces - water, forests, parks. In fact, one of the first actions of colonizing powers has been to limit access or take away access to commons.  They also include infrastructure - roads, wells, public water, libraries, schools. Our ability to access these commons affects our ability to sustain our selves, to live with dignity. Whether we are looking for roads to go to work, land to graze our goats, water to drink or use in our fields, schools where our future can learn. The constitution recognizes this and provides guarantees to them - often through rights.Taking away access to these affects our ability to live with dignity and participate in a democracy.

Corruption is a process where, as individuals, groups or as organizations we attempt to take over commons, marginalizing others' access to it, profiting financially, socially or politically. In the last decade, numerous large companies have done exactly that. While similar action by the colonizers were exactly what we fought against, these companies are being presented to us as leaders. In fact, we ourselves aspire to be them. We aspire to take over as much of the commons as possible. Whether by pushing our boundary walls on to the sidewalk and encroaching on sidewalks (commons), or cutting off others using a road (even though it is not yet our turn), or siphoning public funds. Governments have even changed laws to help such taking away of commons. 

Such encroachment of commons is what has marginalized some of the above mentioned communities - whether it is Dalits in the village commons or in government funded schools, or indigenous peoples from forests and their lands, or hawkers from urban commons.

The commons have been the strategy of disempowerment for over three centuries. They must be central to policy that attempts to prevent subversion of democratic processes, of siphoning of political and social rights (not just public funds) that are guaranteed by the constitution. Simply because the guarantee of public funds means little to communities that are oppressed with respect to their lives and livelihoods - public funds are in any case not accessible by them.

It thus requires greater transparency in decisions that relate to use of commons or of resources that belong to specific communities. It requires their broader participation, even referendum, because representative politics has not worked. It requires greater public access in decision making on use of such resources - whether it is forest land, tribal land, water, or even spectrum waves.  None of these are security issues and thus no justification for security.

The Jan Lokpal bill was significant. But it was not a revolution. It was not the second independence movement. It was not an Indian Spring. The media may claim it was. We can believe such claims only at the risk of our democracy.

For many communities on the fringes of our democracy it was another sign that they do not matter. For the sake of our democracy, we need to listen.

- Sanat Mohanty