People power

Questions raised by Anna Hazares Jantar Mantar protest still linger. Was it a victory for the people,on whose behalf a few fought for their seat at the table and their right to frame a law that held the powerful to account? Or is it a partial cause,with a few well-organised and well-connected making unsubstantiated claims to represent the people?

These questions are important because the worthy citizens rallied by that protest appear to be united by nothing but their antipathy to the way things are and their common sense of betrayal by those that India elected. Their solutions,certainly,are absurd. The Lokpal,as envisioned by five of them on the drafting committee,is an overweening,unconstitutional monster empowered to police and adjudicate anyone,fitted out with contempt of court powers. But who set up these people to decide for the rest of a diverse country? And what stops another interest group from hijacking legislation for their own ends,say a group that wants reservation in jobs and higher education or some other self-serving petition? These demands acquired critical mass because it was an easily understood middle-class issue,and excitable television anchors decided it was a picturesque cause. Its apolitical emptiness makes it easy to relate to,and easy to commandeer.

Electoral democracy involves filtering the demands of diverse publics through representative institutions. Without this mediation,and the inbuilt checks and balances of executive,legislature and judiciary,direct agenda-setting by the people can lead to many passionate errors as witnessed around the world. The Lokpal agitation touched a real chord in its despair about the political system how entry is a by-invitation-only affair,how elections are skewed by money and power,etc. That is difficult to deny,and equally important to reform. Certainly,elections alone are small consolation without constitutional arrangements meant to check the accumulation of power we need a democratic government,and we need a deliberative government. The only way to adjudicate between competing demands is a system where one ambition counteracts the other. But the truth of the matter is that a democracy is only as good as its institutions. And to make democracy more meaningful,we need to keep chipping away at the problems that show up in these institutions not to debunk those institutions for the lure of self-certified men and women of the people,for that is the way of dictatorships.