Democracy

Democracy is form of governance, by the people, of the people, for the people. How it normally works is that the people of each constituency of the democracy elect a leader to lead them and put forward their point of view. That leader then represents them in various forums such as the Parliament, where laws are made. The laws are debated by all of the representatives and based on a majority it gets passed.

Politicians and corrupt and therefore the entire system under them is corrupt, this needs to be stopped? How can this be achieved? There are two schools of thought to this:

Anna school of thought - Let us continue to elect crooks and criminals as ministers. Create a watchdog agency that will watch over these guys. The crooks would suddenly develop culture and refrain from bribery.

Was the CVC also not there for the same purpose? When the CVC could become corrupt, why not the Lokpal?

My guess. A watchdog agency with infinite powers is created. Then these guys will start bribing the watchdog agency and continue to do whatever they have been doing. Anna Hazare will be first Lokpal in India, he will also clean a few bucks after he assumes that position and stash it in Swiss Bank accounts.

The other school of thought - Disenfranchise the crooks and criminals. Take away their ability to stand in elections. Make education a pre-requisite to lead. Increase salaries in government to the level where talented individuals are attracted to work for the government. Cleansing shall be systemic.

This bill will not go through the parliament easily either considering its composition. But this is the right way to do things.

What Anna Hazare is doing is getting a bunch of boisterous clowns together and demanding that he be allowed to dictate the terms of laws that are to be formed?

I would like to understand who determines that Anna Hazare is the gold standard in law making?

A group of about 1000 people standing on a road or fasting unto death is blackmail? This is not the way to form the law. If Anna really cares, let him take his ideals and float a party, get elected and then bring about all of the changes that he wants to do.

What is currently being done is not in the least democratic. If at all it is the most undemocratic act in the history of this nation.

There is another way to solve this - Plebiscite. Conduct a country wide plebiscite on what the Lokpal bill must have and even the Parliament does not need to get involved (don't know if this is constitutional but it is very democratic).

If what Anna is doing is to be considered Gandhian and agreed upon, then, tomorrow if Dawood Ibrahim was to land up with about a 1000 people outside some park in Delhi protesting the ban on smuggling, the government should bend and fold.

It is a criminal violation of democracy.