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| FAQs
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1. Is there need for launching Lok Satta as a political party when it has been so succeossful as a people’s movement?
Lok Satta today is the largest organization in India working for democratic reforms. The Lok Satta movement has brought about a few significant results in terms of governance and in other areas. It is true that people have pinned some hopes on the movement and want it to continue doing the good job. But what has become obvious is that the only result of the five-year periodic change of guard has been a change of players. What is needed is a fundamental change in the rules of the game.
The political parties don?t have a clear purpose or vision to bring about fundamental changes to the Indian body politic. Even if there is will, they have not the power. The political parties are caught in a vicious circle. I believe that, at the top level, some of the political parties want to bring some change. But they have become badly dependent upon the dubious elements and practices prevalent for their own existence. Candidates are spending huge amounts in elections. They pollute the entire body politic trying to recover that money. Political parties are finding it impossible to come out of the present political culture.
Both our economy and society have been moving forward making good strides. Due to the intrinsic strength in our society, in spite of the drawbacks in governance, our economy is surging forward with a growth of 8 to 9%. It could have been even better, but our social and economic development is being held back by our corrupt politics. With this, our vehicle of development has on one side the wheel of a jet aircraft while on the other that of a bullock cart. If we don?t correct it, our economy will be in shambles leading to more chaos.
It has become impossible for people to carry on any kind of commercial activity while withstanding competition without indulging in corruption. Right from allotment of land to industries, excise taxes, and payment of day to day taxes, corruption has become omnipresent. It has been proved through studies that in the absence of corruption, our economy would grow by at least 2 to 3% more. This is not a small number. Corruption in politics is holding back creation of wealth and employment.
All this is leading to disappointment with life for many. While a few are getting opportunities and are cashing in, a lot more find no space in the society for them, leading to heartburn. Villages and city slums are tragedy-struck with no way out for their peoples. The fate of an individual is decided by the chance of birth. Children from poor and lower caste households are deprived of good education leading to bleak futures. Their only hope for vertical social mobility, education, is not within their reach. While they are exposed, through the media, to dazzling lifestyles of a fortunate few, they see no way to escape out of their own dark and dull lives devoid of opportunities and hope. This is leading some of them to harbor resentment against society. This resentment and absence of a way out is leading some to adopt illegal ways for achieving wealth while the collective angst is leading some to take to violence in the name of annihilation of privilege and redistribution of wealth. The middle and higher classes feel insecure in this kind of atmosphere. They want the government to strengthen the criminal justice system and assure peace even by using force. But we need to realize that what we are witnessing is not merely a law and order problem. It is a social situation created by denial of opportunities to some sections of society. We need a strong political will to take steps to mitigate the grievances of the dissatisfied lot. This is utterly absent in the prevailing political culture.
In these circumstances, a new political party should mean not only the entry of a set of new faces into politics. We need to redefine politics and usher in a new political culture that recalls the political ethics of the likes of Gandhiji and Ambedkar. We can change the status quo when we prove that people are able to discriminate between good and bad and are ready to welcome a new political culture. Lok Satta has only responded to the clarion call. |
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2. How is the party going to win elections when it seems impossible to win without money and muscle? How do you plan to collect the required funds?
It is true that political parties need funds to make their ideas reach the masses, to create awareness about party activities and seek people?s cooperation, and for other such activities. However, the majority of present days? electoral expenditure is only to spend for unlawful activities like buying votes in elections, employing muscle power etc. The two should not be confused.
Due to the advocacy efforts of Lok Satta, basic changes have been made to the laws that regulate the collection of funds by political parties. Now political parties can receive funds openly from individuals and institutions and there is even income tax exemption for such donations. As a result, collecting election funds from the people within the guidelines of law is not difficult.
Unlawful expenditure in elections is a serious problem. However, the voters are forced to sell their vote for short-term gains while their long-term future is at stake. We have to wean away people from this habit. They have to be made aware that they can change their own lives using the power of vote and that there is a direct relation between their vote and the quality of life they get. Also 20 to 25% of the educated citizens have become alienated from the political and electoral processes. We have to make them participate in the electoral process. We have to mobilize the masses for this second struggle for freedom. |
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3. Violence, rigging, booth capturing, and use of force have become common place in politics. How is the party going to survive in such a political atmosphere?
Manipulation of election results through booth capturing and use of force used to be rampant at one time. But it has subsided to some extent due to the strict oversight of the Election Commission in recent years. Also people have grown more aware and now have greater understanding of the polling process thanks to the media. Also rigging has become difficult as it is not possible for a person to vote now without having some kind of an identity card. We need to take this process forward.
Lok Satta has long come up with solutions to substantially improve the integrity of the voters? list. For example, the post office, which is within the reach of the common man, has been made the nodal point for preparing the voters list. Appeal against discrepancies lie at the next level. The implementation of this is fairly recent, starting in 2005. |
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4. How is the party going to be different?
This is a very important question. We cannot hope to bring in a new political culture just by voicing slogans about it. We have to practice what we preach, within the structure of our own party and be the change that we want to bring into politics, in general.
We have to concentrate on two issues:
1. How we organize our party and run it.
2. What will be the party?s policies and how we empower people towards achieving the objectives? What targets we aim to achieve through our actions.
We have taken the following steps for addressing the above two issues.
• The Party is organized in a completely democratic manner right from the village level. Leaders will be elected by voting through a secret ballot. We have evolved our own constitution to abide by and our own independent mechanism that will organize internal elections periodically in a fair and objective manner.
• All decisions to be taken in a democratic and transparent manner.
• To preclude the possibility of dictatorship rearing its head at the top level, the top level leadership should be elected on the widest possible basis. We need to be extra careful in electing the top leadership as it affects the morale of the whole party.
• Provisions are made in the party constitution even to recall elected leaders if necessary, especially the top leadership.
• Candidates for elections will be selected not in the name of the party high command, but by members of the party or by representatives of the party through secret ballot.
• To accept donations only in the form of checks. To use the funds for lawful activities. Otherwise, we too will become a part of the problem.
• When it comes to the day-to-day work of the party, we should take up only those issues that are relevant to people?s lives. Politicians should not use public forums to cause inconvenience to ordinary people by bringing their lives to a standstill or to clean their dirty linen.
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5. What are the steps you are taking to prevent opportunists and corrupt individuals from entering your party?
Those people who agree with the ethos of the party are called upon to join the party. These individuals should have the commitment to bring in a new political culture. We have firm ideas on collection of funds and election expenditure. These high standards alone will keep many of them out.
Despite this, mistakes might happen. Then, we need to take disciplinary action in a democratic manner to show the erring leaders the door. Mechanisms to prevent individuals from swerving from the righteous path may not be completely successful but I am sure we will be successful 95% of the time. To take care of the remainder of the cases, we have a strong self-correcting mechanism. |
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6. What is the position of Lok Satta on G.O. 610?
| Lok Satta categorically wants G.O. 610 to be implemented. The decision to reserve employment in a region to the residents of the same region was taken with the intention of doing justice to all the regions of AP, especially Telangana. This will help in improving the sense of unity among the peoples. It is fully possible to implement it without doing injustice to the residents or employees of other regions. |
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7. What is the position of Lok Satta on Telangana?
Population wise, the average district in our country is bigger than most countries in the world. So when the people of a few districts feel they want a separate political identity to fully focus their concentration and resources on their own problems, there is a prescribed constitutional and legal procedure.
But the real issue now is how to make the lives of the masses better? How to make them partners in creation of wealth irrespective of their birth. How to make politics useful to the public? How to create opportunities for every generation to fully grow to their potential and successfully work out their aspirations? How to bring quality education and health within the reach of everyone? To achieve these, we need decentralization and devolution of power. Governance should be within the reach of the people and should start at their doorstep to address their issues. We need governance at different levels like the district and city, starting right from the village and mandal level. Just a change of the capital city, the name of the state, or the chief minister would not affect the real issues. If people want a separate state, we can achieve it. But even if we don?t get it, we have to find ways of making the lives of the masses better.
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8. What is the stance of Lok Satta on the irrigation projects in Telangana?
We have to rightly utilize every single drop of rain as farmers in India largely depend on the monsoons for irrigation. In addition, we need to thoroughly map the productivity of the soil and plan watershed schemes. We have to concentrate these schemes in those areas where there are water resources in plenty but are lying unused. If there is excess water there, we can then send it to upper riparian areas.
We are mainly utilizing the waters of the Krishna. We need to harness Godavari too. We need to build a project on Godavari near Icchampalli.
We need to subsidize widely for alternative irrigation methods like drip irrigation. Also we can build industrial colonies to utilize the flood water from the Musi and near the Krishna between Mahaboobnagar and Kurnool.
We can use our water resources not only for irrigation but also for industrial development. We are losing heavily due to the neglect of the politicians as they seem to be more interested in bagging construction contracts to their kin than in helping the people at large. |
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9. What is the policy of Lok Satta on subsidies?
Subsidies are necessary in some areas to ease the life of the common man. The problem here is: There are only limited economic resources at the command of the government. The money that the governments in our country are spending is mainly the money taken on loan from various sources. They have to spend this money judiciously for various programs and needs.
For example, the common man is spending out of his capacity for the education of his children. So the government can come forward and allocate funds to make quality education free. In the same way, health. But it is ridiculous to think of providing television sets to people as has been done by the DMK party in Tamilnadu even as the people have no access to basic amenities like toilets. These kinds of subsidies are detestable.
In the case of subsidies like one kilo rice for two Rupees and free electricity, we have to make the process more efficient to avoid wastage of resources and to see more people benefiting from them.
We have to adopt constructive policies to decrease expenditure on unnecessary subsidies. Unfortunately, subsides have become a tool in the hands of petty-minded politicians to be used for electoral gains. |
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10. What is the stance of Lok Satta on economic liberalization, privatization, globalization, and World Bank policies?
If an advice is useful to the people at large, it is the policy of Lok Satta to follow it irrespective of where it comes from and discard it if it affects the people adversely.
Our experience in the past years has shown that public sector does not mean people?s sector, but is the private domain of a few big people. The government seems to work only for these big shots and as a result many of our industries in the public sector perform below par.
When the State is the only player it becomes a monopoly. We know from experience how monopoly burdens the consumer. One well-known example used to be the telecom sector. So if there is genuine competition in the market, products and services automatically improve and at the end of the day it is the consumer who emerges winner. If this coincides with the recommendations of World Bank, so be it.
But if someone says it would do us good if we privatize education and health, we should turn down the advice even if it comes from The One Above.
So it does not matter who says it. We should bank on our own good sense to determine what is good for the country. The decisions taken should not compromise our sense of self-respect.
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11. What is the position of Lok Satta on naxalism?
| Naxalism is not merely a law and order problem. Its roots lie in a social situation created by denial of opportunities to some sections of society. It will continue as long as hearts burn with a sense of injustice. But violence will never mitigate the problems or better the lives of the masses. We cannot stop naxalism with force. We have to formulate definitive policies to create opportunities for everyone to fully grow to their potential and successfully work out their aspirations. Reorganizing the governance and formulation of policies for this end will be a major theme for Lok Satta. |
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12. What is the stance of Lok Satta on reservation?
Unfortunately, this is a zero-sum game. When the combined opportunities available remain constant, then even if one community gains, the others have to lose. We need to solve this problem with equanimity by evolving mutually acceptable and practicable solutions.
It is a fact that for thousands of years, some sections of Indian society have been oppressed in the name of caste. Individuals of some castes have been deprived of dignity as human beings and access to basic education. The social stratification has been so deep that even now we can correctly estimate 80% of the time the future of a child based on the caste and economic status of its family. Caste still decides the future of most children. Accepting this fact is the first step towards finding a solution.
People crying hoarse for meritocracy should understand that to be called meritocracy, children are not competing on equal terms. Some of them have access to good schools and all the resources and supportive households while others don?t.
In this background, we have no way but continue the reservations for some more time. But limiting ourselves to just providing reservations and treating different castes as vote banks is abominable. We have to take some more steps to address the centuries-old problem.
• Quality education and health to all for free. Lok Satta wants politics to revolve around these two issues.
• Students who would benefit from reservations should also be provided with coaching for higher education like we are doing for the civil services examinations.
• Applying the creamy layer concept to stop candidates from affluent families from reaping the benefits of reservation. Allowing them would deprive genuinely deserving candidates.
• Economically backward families: There are many poor families in non-reserved castes. We may not provide them reservations constitutionally as it is social backwardness that is the basis for reservation in our constitution and not economic backwardness. But no child shall be deprived of education because of want of money. The government should provide scholarships to such children be it school or higher education.
After implementing the above steps for a few years, we can start reducing the reservations by 0.5% or 1% periodically.
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13. What is the stance of Lok Satta on grouping of SCs.
This is a complicated problem. We need to unite the downtrodden classes to fight for their rights. But we cannot overlook when some of them allege that those who are in a somewhat socially advanced position are reaping most of the benefits. Overlooking this would nullify the whole basis of reservation. We have to think rationally and adopt a three-pronged strategy:
1. We need to invest huge resources for providing the most backward sub castes with good primary and higher education.
2. At least for some time, we have to organize the SCs in all the southern states into groups as done in the case of the BCs. Dividing the two groups population wise is like cutting them into two parts. Instead, we need to do justice to both the groups. For instance, if the SCs are made up of two groups A and B, 55% and 45% respectively, we could allot 45% of the total SC reservations to group A and 36% to group B and keep the rest open to both categories.
3. We need to give importance to the most downtrodden of the lot in higher education, training, and employment.
It is reprehensible to rabble rouse between the two communities and sit back and watch. Instead, Lok Satta Party is committed to working towards enabling such mutually acceptable and win-win solutions.
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14. What is the stance of Lok Satta on reservations in the private domain?
The role of private sector is huge and has been growing rapidly in our country?s economy. We cannot simply force them to give jobs to the downtrodden classes. All they need is employees with the requisite skills. The following tasks need to be undertaken for reservations in the private sector.
• There is a need to bring in an act ? ?The Equal Opportunities Act.? Even when there are people with skills and competence in the downtrodden classes in required numbers, if there is evidence that a private firm is discriminating, it should be slapped with a huge penalty as a deterrent to others.
• As a policy, all children of the lower castes should be given professional training in close partnership with the private sector.
• For the above to succeed, we need an estimate of how many jobs will be on offer in the next five years in different areas. This needs to be revealed from to time by the managements in the private sector.
• The civil society needs to play an active part in its implementation. As they constitute the market, they can bring pressure and boycott the products of the erring companies showing discrimination. When their revenues are at stake, private companies cannot help but fall in line. |
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15. What are the steps to be taken by Lok Satta for social and economic empowerment of women?
Just like caste and economic status, gender has become a ground for discrimination. Perhaps it is the broadest and most severe of all discriminations. It is the basic policy of Lok Satta to see that no child will face discrimination based on the chance of birth. As part of this, Lok Satta will catalyze concrete outcomes in four important areas:
1. Education and health:
• Every girl to have access to free and quality education and healthcare irrespective of economic means and background.
• Toilets to be constructed for every home to protect the dignity of women and to ensure good health and hygiene.
2. Economic:
• All families without fixed assets to be provided with land with urban facilities that has good scope for rise in value.
• Ensuring equal wages irrespective of gender.
• Sale and public consumption of liquor to be strictly controlled.
• Women belonging to self-help and micro finance groups to be provided with the necessary skills and training and exposure to marketing facilities.
• Increasing the incomes of poor women.
3. Social:
• To ensure protection against domestic violence by providing accessible justice and family counseling centers.
• Fast track courts to ensure speedy justice.
• Young women to have access to counseling in health and marital issues.
• Women moving to cities for better educational and employment prospects to be provided with secure and comfortable boarding.
• To ensure safe environment without sexual harassment for women inside and outside of home and at workplace.
4. Political:
• Women candidates and winners of local body elections to be given adequate training.
• To take definitive steps towards guaranteeing adequate representation of women in legislatures. |
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From JP's Desk
