LCCS – Revisited

A couple of months ago, I came up with this idea called LCCS (layman corruption control squad) whereby laymen like you and me, can enroll ourselves in a patrol which takes the responsibility of checking and reporting cases of corruption (check this blog for more details). I then deviated to talk about privatization etc. The comments that people posted on the blog brought a few interesting points, namely

1. The way things are today in India, who do we trust? Is there any place where the buck ends? Someone’s word we can believe in?
2. Why privatization? Or for that matter Consumer courts et al?

Privatization is entirely a different topic I have strong opinions on – I shall reserve that for another post. Let’s take LCCS for now. Here’s what I think

A couple of weeks ago, I was caught near koramangala by the traffic police for driving on the wrong side. As I was diligently filling forms and paying the money, some smooth talking fellow whisked off, leaving a hundred rupee in the inspector’s hands. Now, I wanted to do something right there – get the inspector pay for what he did. What do I do? I have been in many situations like these in my life and all the time, I wished I had the means to get these guys into the hands of law.

There’s a beautiful book called “The goal” where the author talks about a theory called the theory of deadlocks. Common sense - a system malfunctions because there’s a certain bottleneck. So, one makes the system efficient by progressively removing deadlocks. Let’s take a similar approach - What’s the deadlock in the situation described above? The police/the law enforcers – there can only be so many of them and one cannot imagine them being wherever there’s a problem. So, I came up with this idea whereby we, people who face this ordeal, can involve ourselves in spotting the law-breakers. Once you do that, the bottleneck shifts to the courts – the jury. If every case of corruption we spot goes to the sessions court and considering the backlog that’s already piled before every court – the purpose of the program is defeated. Come to think of it – most of these issues are one dimensional, involve petty crimes and don’t have any legal nuances. So, if we have a dedicated court (or any other form of jury) which can handle these issues speedily, the whole thing becomes much more efficient. Of course, appeals can still be made. But idea is that extra 1000-2000 rupees and oodles of time that one has to spend to do so, prohibits all these 100, 500 rupees cases.

Now, the questions

1. Does this solve all the problems? Clearly no! Corruption transcends a whole lot of levels. This just touches the tip of the iceberg. But, an idea that does SOME good is still good and worth it, don’t you think. The one thing that I like about this idea, if this works, it can bring about a change in attitude where a person believes he can do his share to clean evil rather than wait for The Hindu to print his letter to the editor. And if he doesn’t bother to do that, he has no right to complain.
2. How do you trust the LCCS courts or the people in the LCCS themselves? Now, this is a much deeper question – it’s about the basic premise on which the fabric of the society in woven. People are enlisted in the army – it’s based on the trust we have on them that we sleep safely. They have in their hands the safety of our nation. How do you think they recruit men in the army? How can be sure everyone in the army is indeed patriotic? We have the police, the customs, the income tax officials, the judges who maintain justice. Are these people perfect? Hell No! Not even close. Does it mean they should be chucked out of their jobs? And what do you think will happen then? The more I think about it, the more I realize we deal with every institution (even our neighbor or relative) with a mix of suspicion, contempt and trust. These emotions co-exist. We live in the hope that there are checks and balances which every institution is bound by and anyone can be questioned about his motive. LCCS is bound by the same checks and balances. If this has its disadvantages – so does everything else that’s judged in the eyes of reason.

But I agree that something has to be done to improve the overall accountability of the system. I would love to know any ideas you might have. LCCS doesn’t do that – LCCS handles a subset of the problems and has the limitations found in any system. And that delta change, personally, goes a long way. One day, we will have the perfect answer. Till then, all the ground we cover shall be in baby steps.

Do let me know what you think. Whether this will work – or most importantly, how to make it work! :)