Corruption and hypocrisy, it is said, should not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they sadly are today. So it is that in the modern Indian society, corruption, unfortunately, is deep-rooted and all-pervasive. This widespread corruption throughout the system is what gave birth to the idea of Lokpal, which literally translates to “lok” meaning people and “pala” meaning protector/caretaker. Thus, when coined together, the word Lokpal means an office/ organization/institution that checks and/or curb corruption.
Ombudsman in India
In India, the idea to establish an ombudsman and an anti-corruption body which will to look into charges of corruption against government officials has been going around for almost fifty years now. This thought of ombudsman got a definite shape and structure with the passing of the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill 2013 in the Lok Sabha on 18th December 2013. This ombudsman in India is known as the Lokpal or Lokayukta. It is basically a forum where the citizens can lodge a complaint against a public official, which would then be inquired into and the citizen would be provided with appropriate redressal.
The connection between LOKPAL and the Economy
Jurists and economists have generally studied the socio-economic effects of any new piece of legislation on the economy of the country where such legislation has been enacted and/or implemented. This is because the economy and legal system happen to be interconnected and interdependent.
With the enforcement of the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act 2013, Indian economists are optimistic that it will facilitate tripling of Indian GDP by 2025! Although such numbers make us optimistic about the said Act, we must not forget some key factors like how exactly is the GDP of the nation linked with corruption or how far the Act will go to check corruption. One of the ways of interlinking GDP and Lokpal is by linking decline in corruption indicators of economic development.
Here, we must remember that the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act is a relatively new Act which requires many modifications. On the face of it, one can come to the conclusion that even though the said Act might reduce and/or check corruption but it cannot eliminate corruption from the very root and therein lies a problem.
To take up just one hypothetical situation, let us find out how the said Act shall work at the grass root level in the informal sector which accounts for a whopping 91% of the total workforce. This informal work sector broadly consists of farmer and their helpers, labours, domestic staff, drivers, chaiwallah and sabziwallah.
In this hypothetical situation, if Lokpal is strictly imposed without simultaneous changes in the corresponding laws, we will find that the informal sector will be the biggest losers. This is because, the said sector is mostly illegal because they are not contractual workers. They are not protected under relevant laws like labour laws, licenses etc. Also, they do not pay any taxes to the government.
For instance, the local chaiwallah in order to set up his shop has to normally bribe the local police officer, local gang and/or political party officials, which he happily does to circumvent paying a fixed amount to the municipality to obtain the proper licenses. If there are strict Lokpal laws, it would become impossible for such chaiwallahs to set up shop and perhaps even drive him and his family to destitution or take up a life of crime in order to sustain himself and his family. In fact, as a result of Lokpal, his customers ranging from working people to day laborers, maid and drivers would suffer as well as they cannot afford to get their cup of tea from the expensive tea-shops.
So, from the aforesaid example we can deduce that corruption is intricately webbed in the social strata. Here, we can quote a study conducted by economists Nabamita Dutta, Saibal Kar and Sanjukta Roy wherein they combined the information on corruption with official data on employment in the informal sector and the results confirmed the intuition that corruption leads to a larger informal sector. It follows that reducing corruption via the Lokpal Bill without eliminating its sources would reduce the size of this informal sector.
Hence, it cannot be denied that there exists a causal relationship between corruption and the informal sector in India even though there are difficulties in measuring the proportion and equation between corruption and the informal sector. Studies like these point to the potentially harmful consequences of cracking down on petty corruption while doing nothing to address its root causes.
This is something that the advocates of Lokpal must bear in mind – that laws must change with changing times and keeping with the unique situation of the society under scrutiny. As a matter of fact, there is a massive informal sector in India that propagates corruption. Therefore, in order to tackle corruption through Lokpal, one must at first re-examine the socio-economic structure and factors which gives rise to such corruption. And, having once identified such causes, the same must be eliminated in order to achieve parity.
