Anna and his flock and why I don't support them

The Janlokpal Bill is the one that is being debated. It envisages a body (called the Lokpal) which would try and judge cases related to corruption et al.

My issues with this are:

1. We have a judicial system in place, bringing that under the Lokpal ambit would make the Lokpal too powerful without checks. There is no guarantee that the Lokpal will be above corruption, is there? If the judicial system is not under the ambit of Lokpal, then we are lengthening the already long judicial process. Any pronouncements by the Lokpal would be challenged in the courts. This would be just a waste of money in setting up and continuing with a Lokpal body.

2. In any democracy, the investigative body and the judicial body have to be separate. As an example, I mean, the police can investigate but not pronounce judgement. The Lokpal does not have this important seclusion of the two. So they would be the people investigating and the same ones passing judgement even though fundamentally they would be different people but it is  the same body. That goes against the very essence of a democracy.

3. I do not support the route of emotionally blackmailing (through fasts) a law into place. The fast has gained notoriety as a "holier-than-thou" method to get things done. Debate and discussion is how it should move forward rather than a "give me toffee or I will cry" attitude.

On an aside, this has become more of a media circus than a real 'cause'. How is it that a lady called Irom Sharmila has been fasting for 10 years (yes that is correct) for a more important issue like repealing the Armed Forces Special Powers Act which is in effect in states in the North East and which calls for unnecessary and inordinate powers to the Armed Forces has never been highlighted?

4.  Coming to Anna Hazare (I will leave out Ramdev of "he who can cure homosexuality fame" because he is just not worth it).

His thoughts are in the right place. My issue with him is he has a certain point of view and ensures that is the only point of view. Before the Lokpal bill drama, he became famous for a village he transformed through various programs into a model village. One small thing, he banned liquor, cigarettes and everything else he considered a vice. Liquor shops were broken down and burnt and villagers found to be drunk were tied to poles/pillars of the temple and flogged, sometimes personally by Hazare. I am not saying liquor or smoking is good, I am saying these are personal choices not to be dictated by someone's decision of right or wrong, isn't that how the Taliban functioned? He is someone who campaigns for prohibition. I am not saying he is a bad man, his heart is in the right place and his intentions pure but he is not someone I would want as an extra constitutional judge. A democracy is not about 50%, 99% or 99.9% wanting something. Its about being that tiny 0.1% wanting something and still being accepted by the larger public.

Like someone wrote, "There is excitable talk now of the constitutional right to protest, but this is not something we like to give to Kashmiris, or bother too much when it is snatched from tribals or others on the margins of middle-India’s imagination."