Skepticism is justifiable. Utopia is difficult to imagine, pen down in a book as fiction let alone trying to achieve such a community. Human Beings ( not just Indians) generally are a set of confused individuals, so confused that, sometimes when anything they think may lead to some sort of resolution of their internal and external conflicts as individuals, they tend to Vehemently pursue such a path. Corruption I believe has many facets, as we all might already be aware of. Corruption Of Mind and of course Corruption in Action. This Jan LokPal bill which Anna Hazare and his team of Many Individuals, was made with a very simple objective in mind. To "decrease" corruption in Action Causing Monetary Loss to the the common man, and to "reduce" high level corruption so that even if 40 % (random number) is eliminated, the benefits would "trickle" down to affect a whole wide population. They made a draft which is extremely ideal, and very difficult to put in practice as a whole. There are many fallacies in the bill, but I have not once seen Anything Made my humans which made me truly believe and Spit out "perfect". Perfection is subjective and has no limits. So Now , any sort of compromise between the govt. and the individuals who came out with this draft would result in an anti corruption law which is strong' Er 'and BETTER than that proposed by the government. the draft proposed by the government was "joke", to be very mild.
the whole process of getting a strong Lokpal ( ombudsman , a Scandinavian concept i guess ) started way back in the 1960's. Now Anna Hazare didn't have a great support when he started out. He didn't have Convoluted , brainwashing Ideas which changed people's minds and made them come on to the streets in protest. He simply , along with his team, To be correct, got the "timing" right. Scam after scam of millions and millions of tax payer's money getting looted, was a subconscious trigger which just needed a voice from outside to blow people's minds into coming onto the streets To show support and their anger against the Governance. The solution given by team Anna appealed to them more than what "baba ramdev " had in store ( which shows why The former's "White" mail worked and not the latter's)
The movement going on in our country which has given us a clear message: people are no longer willing to accept present status quo - that corruption in many areas has almost become a way of life. People in higher position have a tendency to get away...there are cover-ups...where accountability norms are not very high and the average man has to confront corruption as a way of life.
People need not be educated, literate even to understand some simple facts like the reason why there are no good roads in villages, scarcity of water, electricity shortages, scarcity of subsidized grain due to a corrupt public distribution system, delayed or sometimes non- allotment of ration cards, passports, driving licenses so on and so forth. Where is all the money which is being allotted for such developmental activities disappearing? why are there only Ghost works in panchayats?
Now how can this lokpal be helpful , well, when our constitution was made, there were three institutions created a executive, judiciary and a legislative and many other constitutional bodies to keep a check on each other , to bring in accountability and efficiency in the system. One such law which would increase this efficiency is A strong lokpal.
of course there is also a debate, about what is this lokpal over the course of time become corrupt, it is a high possibility, but there are provisions in the lokpal itself to let a simple Indian citizen to have the power to get the members of lokpal under its own gambit. It would be wrong to be so highly pessimistic.
after all we know from science that Entropy is Inevitable. its Impossible to achieve a Machine with 100% efficiency. Its just not Possible.
Lokpal would not and cannot Eradicate corruption.
A simple example is when a mother Promises a Reward for her child , if he performs well in his exams. Its the child's duty to study, do well in his exams, and the reward is Knowledge and a certain level of Satisfaction attained after achieving excellence. Why then a need to an incentive. Corruption of this sort is so innate, So Human..., that it would be ridiculous to say corruption would be eliminated from Indian Society or for that matter any other society.
all societies run on laws, and these laws from time to time are brought in to bring stability, a balance between the So called Good and the So called Evil.
Always Something is better than Nothing, Me being a ardent Supporter of bringing about a strong and effective lokpal, also noticed, that this movement, not only made people come fighting on the streets with a distant belief that their participation in this movement would bring about a change, with no incentive whatsoever ( like food, money ... referring to election rallies ) but also Infused in them a Patriotic Zeal, a Wish for a better and stronger India, which was lacking or maybe used to only come out when say india won the world cup and may be the last time i saw such a united ( majorly ) india [ not just a media hype, a personal experience] was may be during the kargil war or not even during the 26/11 attacks...
they didn't want to topple the govt. not even did Anna Hazare and his team would ever dream of that.
India's Achievements to Become a world power to be reckoned with, in just 64 years after her independence would obviously not have been possible without Good governance and Administration to a certain extent ( could have been better but still)
everyone ultimately knew, that to get such a bill to be passed, would require telling the people in the parliament to hit their own feet with a hammer ( is this the way the hindi saying goes ?... anyway )
I would Not use the term Inertia instead i would like to call it slow acceleration, because, you can see around, somethings ARE happening... they are changing... India is Becoming a Better place to stay.
Where else in the world could you have such a peaceful Struggle in order to achieve something Constitutionally ? No where...! not even in the united states of america ( always plagued by conspiracies of some sort or the other)
We have a long way to go, But as You Pointed out Correctly, Ultimately the change we require Nationwide Should start with A change within us as individuals.
