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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Intelligent design

Intelligent design

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published Published on Jun 9, 2011   modified Modified on Jun 9, 2011
-The Indian Express
 
In a letter to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, former law minister Shanti Bhushan, one of the “civil society” members of the drafting committee for the Lokpal bill, has tried to explain why examining the prime minister’s actions should be part of any eventual Lokpal’s powers. “The prime minister is privy to the entire security-related information of this country,” Bhushan argues. “What if Mr Madhu Koda or A. Raja become prime minister of the country, which is quite likely in this era of coalition politics? What if he or she sold such crucial information?”

Let us leave aside, for now, the likelihood of the concerns so expressed, and what the nature of the concerns reveals about how those from the margins are viewed in Delhi. Instead, focus on the gaps it reveals in some readings of how crucial institution-building must be carried out. It should not matter to the plan of an institution, or to its design, who and what occupies the offices it is supposed to investigate or support. A basic democratic impulse is that everyone should submit, and be seen to submit, to the same requirements. So what if Manmohan Singh, known for his integrity, is currently prime minister? So what if someone else — whom you, but not necessarily those who democratically disagree with you, might think of as less reliable — become prime minister next year? These are considerations that should be alien to how you plan for what a final system of corruption control should look like. The effectiveness of that final system should depend on its design, not on character.

It is indeed sadly clear that this tendency to trust in the person rather than in the mechanisms of policy is endemic to Team Anna. It was a prominent feature of their preferred “Jan Lokpal” draft of the bill, which would give awesome powers to the Lokpal on the assumption that he or she would be a person of character, not like the Kodas and Rajas of the world. It reflects in their belief that only they deserve and need to be on the final drafting committee for the bill, regardless of what poor precedence that may set. In a democracy, we cannot imagine individuals as good or bad; only institutional structures can be. It seems that Bhushan, and Team Anna, have not quite understood that.

The Indian Express, 9 June, 2011, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/intelligent-design/801265/


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