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