Do we really support the Lokpal Bill?

Anna Hazare has made some great noises and started a great process.  The government has buckled under the pressure to offer us the passage of the Lokpal Bill, which, when it comes into law, will allow us to prosecute the corrupt, rather quickly, and effectively, depending upon the final draft that comes into force.

This doesn't mean we will suddenly see corruption go away.  It means, if we want, we can prosecute without the usual hindrances.  It will still take considerable effort to use the Lokpal to put away corrupt individuals.

The urban middle class of India is the most politically inactive but fashionably righteousness conscious demographic of this country.  It is a mindset, indeed, and we are mad about a lot of things, but unwilling to unleash that anger on anything that will get something done.

So, how about including a small clause in the Lokpal bill that makes it a crime to notice a crime and not report it?  After all, corruption, as we call it is a bloody crime.  It is thievery, blackmail, denial of rights to people coming through the fair competition route, and anti-national to the core.  So, let's bring in a healthy dose of the words "crime" and "criminal" into this revolution!  In other words, if you pay a bribe, you're a bloody criminal as much as the pig who takes bribe - for whatever reason!

Unless we, the people of India are under threat of being prosecuted for a criminal offence, we will not report crime like we should.  So, how about making this Lokpal Bill include us and our brothers and sisters across the expanse of this nation of India not just responsible but actually culpable to the crime of corruption?  Should it not be our duty to report crime?  How about enforcing this duty as well?

Blackmail is a crime, and bribery more often than not, is blackmail, when demanded for a legal procedure.  If the procedure is illegal - well, that is already a crime, isn't it?  We seem to treat corruption as some kind of common cold, while murder, rape and other more spectacular deeds are more like heart attacks!  This must change.  If it is illegal, it is a crime against the nation's rightful progress, and a bloody crime against the nation.

Why do we suddenly want more laws?  The Lokpal Bill is just another law coming into effect, isn't it?  We already have plenty of mechanisms that we have eroded, ignored, or abused, like the Vigilance Commission.  Why is the Lokpal going to be any different?  Legislation is not going to solve any problem we face in India.  Enforcement can.  We are not good at this.  The first step to enforcing any law or prevent the escape of those breaking the law is reporting.  We need at the very minimum, a robust reporting mechanism, that should not be reserved for spectacular crimes.

Can we please let the Lokpal drafting committee know that it should be legally incumbent and binding upon the citizenry to report crime?  After all we are, by virtue of half the members of this committee being from civil society, absolutely responsible for making it work, whether the government does its part or not!  Also, when the government would love to prosecute its citizens for not reporting, it would have to acknowledge the crime as having taken place, and will have to prosecute the other side as well!  What a beautifully binding marriage this!

The most spectacular crime, by the sheer scale of practice, that most Indians participate in, is apathy.  If we support the Lokpal Bill's passage, we should have no problem accepting an anti-apathy clause as well.  What do you say, flag wavers?  Ready to do some real work?

- BSK.

Gay Sex Immoral? Says who?

Says the Central Government of India, no less!

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080066818

The Centre does not want homosexuality decriminalized! I wonder who the geniuses are who criminalized it in the first place! And now the Centre is showing its reverence to another archaic law.

{{"It (decriminalising homosexuality) may create breach of peace. If it were allowed, then evils of AIDS and HIV would further spread and harm the people. It would lead to big health hazard. It would degrade moral values of the society," Additional Solicitor General P P Malhotra contended.}}

Breach of peace? Oh, yes, this must be it! All the bombs going off must be due to our homosexual people really getting it on these days!

Big health hazard? To "the people"? It isn't as if homosexuals suddenly became "people", right? So, who exactly are we talking about here? Whose health? I would like to ask this moron if he considered urinating and defecating on streets very hygienic and uplifting to the moral fibre of our society. Surely those are not criminal acts?! Degrade the moral values of the society? - Why does this sound like it came right out of an essay competition in a government school? This is precisely the kind of sentence that would get kudos from incompetent slobs allowed to infest the mechanisms of institutions set up to reach idealistic goals without a thought for applicable truths.

This is precisely the kind of carpet under which the essence of India can get swept under, to be forever suppressed by moral policing that doesn't fool anybody but can hurt everybody. This calls for an outrage among all Indians who respect the Indian constitution and our fundamental rights. If we have freedom of expression, then this is an attack on our freedom of expression, no less.

Just because two people of the same gender express their feelings for each other through their physical act, how in heaven's name can it "harm the people"? Is it even conceivable that I look at two homos making out and I suddenly decide to pounce upon the nearest member of my own gender? What morals are we talking about here?

We have an Additional Solicitor General, no less, applying his value system to keep a law that already violates fundamental human rights? Doesn't this fool know India is a signatory to all the Human Rights Declarations in the world? Just because homosexuals are in a minority doesn't mean the rest of us have a right to make them criminals. Moreover, even if it was what is being claimed here, would criminalizing homosexual acts deter the birth of people who are oriented towards homosexuality? This is plain old interference and must not be tolerated at any level.

In fact, this is no different from criminalizing being handicapped! "Hey, look at that guy limping in public! Jail him!" People don't choose to be handicapped, you idiot! And they don't choose to be homosexuals or heterosexuals either. It is just the way we are who we are! Other people's sexual orientation, and indeed preference, if there were such a thing, should not become our business or the business of the government or any kind of collective.

This is not a matter that should be legislated, leave alone enforced. Just because it may be embarrassing to some of the old fashioned coots in government, we cannot stop our country from embracing reality and moving on towards a just and equitable society. We just cannot get into these archaic and barbaric notions of good moral behaviour. We cannot be standing in the sidelines watching the rights of our countrymen and woman get trampled.

After all, we are a country that quietly practices dowry, bride burning, untouchability, casteism, cronyism, corruption, bribery, and various other forms of absolutely illegal, anti-national acts. Which act of homosexuality ever hampered another person's existence like any of these do?

{{Countering the contentions of the gay right activists, the government said that such behaviour is not a natural trait but a reflection of a perverse mind.}}

A perverse mind! I wonder how this guy knows! - How is the Additional Solicitor General even qualified to make a comment like this, leave alone a counter argument? Not a natural trait? If you say so, God! Who is this idiot in this position? A reflection of a perverse mind? Let's see whose mind is perverse here. People who want to go about their business without needless persecution or those who want them to lead secretive lives just to preserve their human rights?

The funny part is, I have never seen or heard of homosexual people anywhere in the world ever arguing for equality's sake that heterosexuality must also be criminalized! As far as I can see, they are not bothered by heterosexuality. So, they must have perverse minds! If they had normal, argumentative, politically sharp minds, they should be asking for this, shouldn't they?

{{"Homosexuality is a social vice and the state has the power to contain it," the government contended.}} A social vice? You mean like smoking and drinking and beating up the wife and gambling and all those silly things people do socially? So, it's no big deal, right? A social vice? Aha! All along I thought this was a moral issue! Sorry Solicitor General, I got all mixed up! For a moment, I thought you were being serious. Phew! Good one!