Crowdsourcing Governance Reform

I just came upon this article in PopSci proclaiming that "Iceland's Citizens Are Writing Its New Constitution Online" thanks to a friend who shared the link on Facebook.

Without getting into the whole issue all over again, of Anna Hazare's fast demanding active participation of the civil society in drafting the Lok Pal Bill, I just want to make a point here in this post: in a democracy sovereignty ultimately lies with the People -- beyond the Constitution or Parliament. Iceland's bold experiment is testimony to this simple fact. And this point begs to be made, flying as it does in the face of criticism to the effect that citizens' active (and "official") participation in changing the law of the land: (a) is unconstitutional (b) subverts Parliamentary processes (c) undermines our democratic institutions.

Perhaps it is time to recognize that in today's day and age (relevant zeitgeist: increasing empowerment of common citizens) a purely representative democracy is unsustainable if it does not conflate at least some elements of participatory democracy. Some burning issues just cannot wait till the next elections, especially if the average citizen strongly feels that the establishment and its political processes have failed to deliver clean governance. Clearly, such is the case when it comes to the twin issues of graft and capital flight in the Indian context -- the Government in office has failed to check these chronic maladies over the years (even worse, its officials are suspected to be perpetrators of the same crimes themselves) and the main Opposition party has failed to correct that failure (even worse, is suspected to more or less equally guilty).

I sincerely hope our Indian think-tanks (who are wont to quote Dr. Ambedkar's quip about the "Grammar of Anarchy" at the drop of a hat these days) sit up and take note of the precedent set by Iceland, without bringing up feckless counter-arguments like: "Oh but you can't do that here because only the elite in India have access to the Internet" or "Oh but you can't do that here because the Indian public lacks maturity". We can definitely replicate Iceland's experiment in India (especially considering the urgency of the need to reform our antiquated and obsolete legal and regulatory framework). We have the technology, we have the intellectual capital (what the heck -- we export that stuff!) and we have the maturity too. We can do it, and we must do it. I just hope we will!

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Minor Observation #7

The kerfuffle caused by a certain "Swami" (a.k.a."Baba") Ramdev and his followers recently, inspired me to explore the many meanings and applications of the word "Capital". Here are a few:

Capital Flight: The siphoning out of ill-begotten wealth from the mainstream economy, and then stashing it away secret bank accounts overseas. This forms the main thrust and focal point of Ramdev's crusade: to bring pressure on the Government to "bring back"  that wealth and declare it as a national asset.

National Capital: New Delhi, the place where Ramdev was received like a VIP on arrival, and from where he was unceremoniously booted out a few days later, after he earned the wrath of the high and mighty.

Capital Punishment: What Ramdev thinks the corrupt deserve: the death penalty (he seems to have settled for life imprisonment, in later interviews).

Human Capital: Ramdev's flock -- the several thousands of followers who had gathered for satyagraha at the Ramlila grounds, who a day or two later were gassed, caned and evicted in the dead of the night, some of whom have sustained serious injury.

Intellectual Capital: The one thing that is conspicuously absent in almost everything that almost everybody has uttered on this subject on national television and newspapers.

Capitalizing on Opportunity: What the national political parties are doing against this backdrop, each to further their own political agenda.

Capital 'F' for Failure: Failure of the Government (to check graft and bring the guilty to book); Failure of the Opposition (to ensure that the Government does its job); Failure of Civil Society (to remain civil and shoulder civic responsibilities while protesting against the aforementioned failures); Failure of the Intelligentsia (to develop meaningful solutions before the public at large acts out of sheer outrage); Failure of the Common Citizen (to eschew all forms of corruption in daily life; to stick to the straight and narrow path despite its inconveniences).

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The Fast and the Furious

When I logged on this morning I found that my opinion on the Lok Pal Bill and Anna Hazare's fast unto death, and the furious debate over the last few days among the Indian intelligentsia, had already been articulated in my friend Raj Jayaram's blog post -- and that too with a degree of precision that is astonishing, if not scary. With me in Mumbai and him sitting far away in Singapore, without us exchanging a word on this subject, it seemed as though we were both reading each other's thoughts. It wouldn't have worked better if I had hired an amanuensis. And this is really strange because rarely have Raj and I agreed on something so wholeheartedly, in the many interesting debates we've had on many interesting topics. In fact, more often than not, we end up "agreeing to disagree", and switch to less controversial topics of mutual interest.

So, instead of repeating all that here (per my resolve last night to write out a blog post on Saturday morning regarding this whole business), all I will do here, other than point you to Raj's post, is to reproduce some of my own tweets on the subject. Since I have not mastered the craft of extracting relevant tweets from my twitter timeline and pasting them here, I am reproducing them verbatim in plain text, with links to the originals. A couple of facebook status messages also appear, though without links, since my privacy settings would not permit all to view them.

Hundreds of critiques, hazaar criticisms, but not a single workable option to either Hazare's Yantra or his Mantra #IndianIntellectualElite

If we don't get this less-than-perfect soln., fraught with risks & anxieties as it may be, we deserve the rotten quagmire we are sinking in!

Rather than worry about possible subversion of democracy in the future I worry about bringing to book proven abuse of power in the past.

It is heartening to vindicate the fact that supreme sovereignty in a democratic republic lies with the people, not the parliament or const. 

Expanded on facebook: It is most heartening to see vindicated the fact that supreme sovereignty in a democratic republic lies with the people, not the parliament or the constitution - these are mechanisms and tools the people set up to enable governance. And they can change. They will change, over time. It is inevitable.

Words I watch out for: "misguided" and "self-righteous". People who use them at the drop of a hat usually are both.

I am so glad we moved things along. Dystopia is what happens while we slowly and patiently build Utopia. Vice is more impatient than Virtue.

And now that we are where we are I earnestly hope that the voices of dissent will come forward with constructive feedback instead of sulking

@BDUTT One of the reasons that engagement doesn't happen is cynicism. And one of the reasons behind cynicism is corruption.

@vikramchandra Gandhian methods may or may not be the best, or "perfect", but proved to be most effective, since nothing else has worked

And the last one, on facebook: 

Coercion subversion diversion conversion - pick your version. But I am amazed that a 72 y.o. can fast for so long and still be cool. Me? I turn into a beast if I miss breakfast. You rock, Anna!

Again, for a more detailed discourse please read Raj's post.

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Conversatility

This is not 

A haiku poem. It is not

Even a poem. It is not

Anything.

By not being 

Anything

It sets itself free.

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"She Said He Said" -- The Empirical Method à la BJP

After lunch today I switched on the telly to watch the news. A live broadcast of the proceedings in Parliament was being aired and I settled down to watch it. A lady Parliamentarian was making a rather impassioned speech. She was referring to the cash-for-votes scam of July 2008, the fires of which were recently kindled by the winds of that notorious cyber anarchist operation WikiLeaks.

She said that a few days ago, the prominent newspaper -- "The Hindu" -- carried a story based on information sourced by WikiLeaks from the US diplomatic cables from India containing a dispatch from the US Charge D'Affaires in India dated July 17, 2008 stating that an aide to a Congress leader said to a US embassy staff, in an aside, that a political party had been paid off for each of their four MPs to support the government in the no-trust motion regarding the nuclear deal.

So, essentially, she said that the newspaper said that WikiLeaks said that the US Charge D'Affaires said that a colleague said that an aide to a Congress leader, "in an aside", said that they were paying cash for votes. According to the lady MP making this speech, this constituted adequate evidence that the Prime Minister and his party were guilty of corruption. She went on to reprimand the PM for his earlier statement in Parliament that this allegation was "speculative, unverified and unverifiable." Apparently the Hon'ble lady believes that this allegation is indeed verifiable.

So I tried to imagine how such a verification might proceed. In my mind, I began asking direct questions to all concerned in this narrative chain, starting with the immediate source -- the good lady MP herself. This is how my imaginary investigation went:

Question to aforementioned Lady MP: Ma'am, do you have evidence that the PM and the Congress party paid bribes to secure votes from other political parties in the no-trust motion back in July 2008?

Aforementioned Lady MP: No, I don't, but you should read the report in The Hindu, which clearly points to such evidence.

Question to The Hindu: Do you have evidence that the PM and the Congress paid bribes to secure votes from other political parties in the no-trust motion back in July 2008?

The Hindu: No, we don't - we only published what came out of the WikiLeaks download.

Question to WikiLeaks: Do you have evidence that the PM and the Congress paid bribes to secure votes from other political parties in the no-trust motion back in July 2008? 

WikiLeaks: No, we are not making any such claim. We merely accessed a bunch of diplomatic cables that captured communication from various US embassies and the government in Washington.

Question to US Charge D'Affaires in India: Sir, do you have evidence that the PM and the Congress paid bribes to secure votes from other political parties in the no-trust motion back in July 2008? 

US Charge D'Affaires in India: No, I don't but a staff member in the embassy told me that there might have been some pay-offs.

Question to US Embassy employee: Do you have evidence that the PM and the Congress paid bribes to secure votes from other political parties in the no-trust motion back in July 2008?

US Embassy employee: I was told that the Congress is securing votes using various tactics, by an aide to a Congress leader, who showed me "two chests containing cash and said that around Rupees 50-60 crore (about $25 million) was lying around the house for use as pay-offs."

Follow-up question to US Embassy employee: You saw the chest containing cash, but did you see a Congress party member giving the cash to another political party member in return for a commitment to support the UPA government in the no-trust motion in Parliament the next day?

US Embassy employee: I didn't say that did I? If I'd been witness to something like that, then that's what I would have said, instead of what I actually said.

Question to aide to Congress leader: Did you pay said cash for said votes?

Aide to Congress leader: "I do not know anything. I have not witnessed anything"

Question to the Congress leader: Sir, what do you have to say about the report that your aide showed chests of cash to a US embassy employee claiming it was meant as pay-off to buy votes?

Congress leader: "I do not know what the Hindu is talking about. I have never known this person. There is no question of him being my political aide."

OK, so some part of this Q&A (but not all) happened in my mind. But seriously, reality would be no different if someone were to actually go up to these dramatis personae (other than the ones who have already been approached for comment) and ask them those questions (other than the ones that have already been posed to them by journalists as per the corresponding links). And if you doubt that, go ahead and prove me wrong. 

So much for verifiability. I think the BJP and other members of the opposition need a crash course in the methodology of empiricism and, particularly, need to be educated on what constitutes "verification" and "verifiability".

Speaking for myself, I have little doubt that the Congress is guilty -- in this instance, as much as most other such instance where strong doubts have been raised on their integrity. Probity is not one of their strong suits, as I've observed in an earlier post. But, that said, the BJP-led opposition needs to learn how to do its job in exposing such cases of corruption. They have wasted precious time in Parliament on shallow argumentation and sabre-rattling, when they should have done some mature "opposing" ... or else focused on so many other issues that urgently need deliberation. All they appear to be doing is baying for the incumbent government's blood at every given opportunity -- big or small, wanting to overthrow the UPA government and replace it with their own. This is their understanding of their role as opposition. Makes me wonder whose interests they have at heart. With opposition parties like these, who needs enemies?