(Un) Civil Society

The divergent views among the Government and the Civil Society Members on the contentious Lokpal Bill are unfortunate, to say the least. The government may undoubtedly be reeling under a volley of corruption charges. But, this should not used by the Civil Society to bulldoze the government into submission to accept its suggestions in entirely without mutual acceptability and debate. The feasibility of such proposals in the proposed Lokpal Bill must be weighed for their pros and cons. Moreover, the onus of implementing such suggestions will be solely with the government and the Civil Society can abdicate their responsibility in case of constitutional eventualities, if any, in future- which is most likely. Therefore, ideally, both sides should reveal flexibility to accommodate the reasonable ideas of the other side. The whole exercise should be for the common good of the society and not used to score points over the other. The government’s suggestion to keep the PM, MPs and the judiciary out of the ambit of the Lokpal should be viewed from the genuine concerns and apprehensions it has over the proposal. Admittedly, including them is fraught with possible scenarios of constitutional crises. Similarly, the Lokpal should not be omnipotent wielding more powers than it can judiciously wield to weed out corruption, which has permeated all walks of life. In short, the Lokpal itself should not become a Frankenstein in future. A corruption catharsis is good, but this should not lead to a constitutional catastrophe.