Corruption has become a major public concern in the wake of successive scams unfolding over the past few years. In a country like India, where millions of people still suffer from acute poverty, hunger and lack of socio-economic opportunities,the pillage of public resources through corruption amounts to a crime of a very serious nature. Besides impedingeconomic development, accumulation of ill gotten wealth through corruption is widening the inequalities and ruining the moral fabric of our society. The recent exposures in the 2G spectrum allocation case, CWG scam etc. have shown how thousands of crores worth of public resources have been illicitly cornered by a section of corporates, bureaucrats and ministers.What is worse, tainted ministers have been allowed to remain in office for months and the investigations manipulated, in order to obstruct the course of justice. While corruption in high places has been a feature of our political system for many decades, what has emerged as a dominant trend in the post-liberalization period is a thorough distortion of the policy-making process at the highest levels ofthe government.A nexus of big corporates, politicians and bureaucrats have matured under the neoliberal regime and is threatening tosubvert our democracy. It is clear thatthe current economic regime has made our system more vulnerable to cronyism and criminality. The battle against corruption, in order to be effective today, can be achievedonly through a comprehensive reform of our political, legal, administrative and judicial systems and not through one-off or piece-meal measures. The establishment of an effective Lokpal institution is one such measure. This needs to be complemented by other measures. There has to be a grievance redressal set-up for citizens, based on a legislation. There has to be a National Judicial Commission to oversee the higher judiciary;there hasto be electoral reforms to check the use of money power in elections whichis another source of corruption. Urgentsteps also need to be undertaken to reform our tax system to plug loopholes and unearth black money, much of which is stashed in offshore bank accounts and tax havens. Firm steps need to be taken to break the bigbusiness-politician-bureaucrat nexus.Only a comprehensive systemic reformcan effectively curb corruption. Lokpal Bill The 74-year-old Gandhian has made it clear he will not end his hunger strike till his version of the anti-corruption Lokpal Bill is adopted. Photo: NDTV The institution of Ombudsman, which exists in many countries across the world, has provided avenues to redress public grievances on corruption and abuse of public office. However, the fact that the Lokpal Bill could not be passed in the Indian parliament in four decades exposes the lack of political will to fight corruption. Several governments in thepast have taken it up only to shelve it later under various pretexts. The present government has also been compelled to initiate discussion on this bill because of public outcry over successive corruption scandals. It is imperative that a Lokpal Bill which deals with corruption in high places istabled in the forthcoming session of parliament. In the wake of the on-going debate on what should be the scope and role of the Lokpal, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) wishes to set out its stand on the main issues concerning the constitution of a Lokpal.
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 12:32:20 +0000
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