India’s most eminent citizens demand strong anti-graft measures

Implicitly supporting activist Anna Hazare's demand for a strong lokpal bill, a group comprising 14 of India's most prominent and respected entrepreneurs, technocrats and jurists on Monday wrote an open letter to the government expressing alarm over a "governance deficit in government, business and institutions" and urging the "need for urgent passage of a well-crafted lokpal bill by Parliament".

The G14, as it is known, comprises Wipro founder Azim Premji, HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh, N Vaghul of ICICI Bank, industrialists Keshub Mahindra, Jamshyd Godrej and Anu Aga (a member of the National Advisory Council), former Hindustan Lever chairman and now MP Ashok Ganguly, former Reserve Bank of India governors M Narasimham and Bimal Jalan (now a Rajya Sabha member), retired Justices B N Srikrishna and Sam Variava, Yezdi Malegam who crafted some major reforms in the Securities & Exchange Board of India and the RBI, member of the prime minister's Economic Advisory Council AVaidyanathan, and banker-turned-social worker Nachiket Mor.

The group had written a similar 'open letter to our leaders' in January, pointing out a ''growing governance deficit'' and ''galloping corruption'' and urging rapid reforms in government and administration.

The industrialists write, ''The lokpal bill is one small but critical step in the national task of weeding out the plague of corruption in India. This draft lokpal bill is intended to address episodic corruption, but is unlikely to have any significant impact on the day-to-day corruption which is insidious and demeaning.''

The letter pointed out that there was a ''strong nexus between certain corporate houses, politicians, bureaucrats and power brokers", and called it "one of the greatest threats to the Indian economy". It called for "urgent action on land, judicial, electoral and police reforms", and said both ''the giver as well as the receiver of a bribe" should be punished.

Clearly putting its weight behind the demand for a strong anti-corruption ombudsman, the group said, "August 27, 2011 (when Hazare ended his public fast) marked a high point by the historic debate leading to the 'sense of the house' in Parliament on the lokpal bill. The event reinforced the inviolable primacy of the Indian Constitution. It was also an event of relief and reassurance to the vast and silent majority who constitute India's core civil society."