In an interview to Nilekani said that the Lokpal Bill was not a “magic bullet” that would eliminate corruption in the country. It could, at best, serve as one of several measures needed to tackle corruption in a holistic manner.
He said, “I am not a great believer that if you pass a law, corruption will miraculously vanish. Nor do I think that creating a huge army of policemen will reduce corruption. You have to go back and look at the systems. I have spent 30-35 years working on how to make large systems work. You have to fundamentally analyse and improve the systems themselves. This (Lokpal law) is just one of the many many things that we need to do. I don’t think that it (Lokpal) is the only thing we should be doing.”
“I fully endorse the fact that they want to address the problem of corruption but I think they should look at it in a much more strategic holistic manner and not by just passing a law. This is absolutely uni-dimensional,” he said.
Efforts to undermine supremacy of Parliament and elected representatives in legislative matters were “extremely dangerous and completely wrong.
Mr. Nilekani, who in the world EVER said that the Jan Lokpal Bill was a magic bullet that would weed out corruption. I certainly don't remember any of the anti-corruption crusaders, and certainly not Anna Hazare to ever mention anything like that. If I have heard and read correctly, everyone clearly recognizes that a legislation or law cannot by itself weed out corruption. However, a strong law is certainly an absolutely necessary precondition in an effort to weed out corruption. Can anyone deny that you cannot really fight corruption if the law doesnt allow you to tackle corruption at levels at which it is most rampant?
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