Making janlokpal most productive for people of india

Transforming Political office –stock of highest private return to a stock of highest public return – through Janlokpal movement

Keypoint: Janlokpal movement for strong lokpal bill is very very important but underutilization of  its potential. Also real lokpal bill may never happen with a narrow focus on demand for lokpal bill since our gametheory approach shows no payoff to a corrupt regime if it cooperates in creating strong lokpal bill (coz no one signs its own death warrant)

Sujat Kamal ( to be read with earlier note on Game theory approach to lokpal)

Potential and hidden value of Janlokpal India against corruption

• Elections can be fought and won on shoe string budgets-thereby catalyzing electoral reforms

• Change of Maximum/unimaginable economic value can be had with relatively minimal effort- just by focusing vote on single agenda Corruption not rhetoric

• Other governance reforms (police,judicial, transparency in large government contracts )of high but difficult to impute value will be easier to push through

• Focusing janlokpal only for lokpal bill is very very important, but would be underutilization of  Janlokpals huge potential.While lokpal bill will be a big addition towards anticorruption reform, large % of corrupt politicians and billions stolen every year, limited resources of lokpal under most generous assumptions  means politician, bureaucrats will still take risk just as athletes take risk with performance drugs hoping to escape detection given huge payoffs (see appendix/annexure 1 on payoff under various reform situations. C and D are related since with fewer corrupt politicians,other matching complementary anticorruption reforms may be easy to get through)

• Janlokpal movement’s fullest value will become available to public when it can clean up loksabha of corrupt MPs-more the better or hope for a civil war. This is possible because of its votebank potential (Do Janlokpal followers in some cities approach average votes polled for loksabha MPs?- if yes how many, how much gap remains in other cities?)

What should Janlokpal movement do?

• As payoff matrix below shows-lokpal bill may be  easier to pass when fewer corrupt politicians are in power, power of lokpal bill would be greater fewer the percentage of corrupt politicians-Hence important to create voice in the parliament .Catalyzing effect of getting 2-3 dozen Clean MPs in parliament should not be underestimated.  In extreme situation even with a strong lokpal bill but  all 548 corrupt MPs, very few MPs will get punished
• Focus on consolidating peoples awareness into a single point Votebank-key word will always be Corruption- it hurts everyone
• Develop and track followers database by city or narrower aggregation unit to work out possibility of electing its approved Candidates- 40/548 seems feasible while over 100 would be ambitious but doabale. Data base collected should dictate strategy
• Develop model pledge (see Annexure 2) for its approved anticorruption candidates
• Use celebrity  power to increase and focus power of janokpal into a single votebank. (urban areas may be easier to win where certain established politicians have destroyed their own political image)
• Create and on-lend its symbol/other resources  to chosen candidates for electioneering magnetically drawing votes from “anticorruption Vote-bank” for specified time (till elections won or until MP violates code of conduct )
• Let us all become ambassadors by garnering/focusing votes of our colleagues/staff/friends/relatives on Corruption-India’s only problem
• Other ideas??????

Annexure 1:

Payoff to corrupt politicians under various reforms situations

Matrices below shows what a corrupt politician gets if his crime is detected or not detected. A corrupt politician can be risk taker or risk averse. For purpose of demonstration we assume a complete risk averse corrupt politician

Scenario A: Corrupt country dominated by politician as in a banana republic/dictatorship-everyone in power is corrupt and risk taker

	Non detection	detection
Corrupt and complete risk averse	0	0
Corrupt and risk taker	100	0

Scenario B1: Corrupt country with strong lokpal bill and many corrupt politicians (India is here??)

	Non detection	detection
Corrupt and complete risk averse	0	0
Corrupt and risk taker	100	20*

*Combination of many corrupt politicians and huge black income means conditional expected income (due to low chance of being caught in pool of loads of  bad fish) is still positive ,will decline as nos of corrupt politicians in parliament declines

Scenario B2: Corrupt country with strong lokpal bill and many corrupt politicians (India may be here shortly if lokpal succeeds)

	No detection	detection
Corrupt and complete risk averse	0	0
Corrupt and risk taker	90	-20

Scenario C: Corrupt country with strong lokpal bill and fewer corrupt politicians if Janlokpal approved and screened candidates get in parliament

	Non detection	detection
Corrupt and risk averse	0	0
Corrupt and risk taker	70	-50

Scenario D: Corrupt country with strong lokpal bill and fewer corrupt politicians and governance reforms and transparency facilitated by janlokpal voice in parliament

	Non detection	detection
Corrupt and risk averse	0	0
Corrupt and risk taker	30	-50

Annexure 2:

Model pledge for anticorruption movement supported MPs

• MPs agree to disclose income and assets at time of seeking Janlokpal blessings and every six months after being elected MP/MLA
• Agree to disclose jobs accepted giving 50% or more increment to any member of family including nieces, nephews
• Agree to disclose biz contracts and values involved-signed by wider family, new business entered
• Agree to disclose names of parties offering any monetary inducements for favours before (any sting operation etc reveals such information)
• Agree to donate at first 2-6 months income for advertising purposes-for and against his /her performance report card
• Agree to push anti corruption reforms in parliament
• Will not joining any party without written consent of janlokpal
• Will not accept any ministerial post/other similar posts without approval of janlokpal
• No replies given by janlokpal within x week will constitute approval
• Agree to make public any information public if not censured under Government Secrecy Act
• Push multipronged reforms agenda and communicate in public/media roadblock/people blocking such reforms
• Agree to sign and reply to annual performance reports
•  

Revisiting game theory based prediction of Lokpal bill/anti-corruption reforms

Will govt ever sign a credible Lokpal bill-Game theory approach to Lokpal bill

this article was posted via scribd.com on www.twitter.com/sujatkamal9 on June 4 by a coincidence the night before attack on Ramdev hunger strike at ramlila grounds

Lokpal bill and Black money: Why we may be looking down the barrel of Anarchy and new political structure before real lokpal bill emerges

Civil society options→ Politicians ↓options	Moderate stance	Aggressive stance
Delay	Fizzle out or dud version of  lokpal	Violence, anarchy, loss of power but not necessarily leading to lokpal bill
Cooperate	Weak version of lokpal bill( loss of black political income)	harsh version of lokpal bill (loss of wealth,income,luxuries)

1 it should be clear that politicians will play the “delay” version as it leads to best outcomes. Even with loss of power under “ delay-aggressive stance”

2. With full cooperation by politicians it is a dead end for them . Since loss of income, wealth ensues added with punishment. And eventual loss of power, jail term since they may be disqualified from contesting. Hence cooperation comes with no benefit absolutely unless provision is made to implement lokpal bill prospectively.

3. Politicians best hope is moderate stance of civil society. However given the transparency in its conduct, constitution of people involved, bribing civil society is not an option. But moderate stance is ruled out since Lokpal bill mooted by Govt itself was moderate and present response of civil society is reaction to a dud lokpal bill drafted/proposed by government

4. Hence we are looking at two possible outcomes. A. Violence, escalating anarchy. B. Elections that will throw up different political structure of new set of service oriented MPs. It is likely in next elections we may see many more new faces if present on/off agitation stretches for few months before one of UPA partners pulls the plug. This is the opportunity that people must grab since it is better to have a political set up where Lokpal is never needed.

5. We may be looking at 2 year process culminating in dramatic changes in India’s governance structure /commitment. (Astrologically also we are also looking at dramatic changes in next 2 years starting now).So don’t be fooled 2^nd time by Governments nod on lokpal bill