Anna Hazare has a case

Isn't it queerly coincidental that of late corruption in high places has come under sharper focus both in Pakistan and India? Here in Pakistan the Supreme Court is wrestling with a non-co-operative executive to bring to book the guilty for their alleged role in many a mega-scam, with officials consistently refusing to be helpful to the court on one pretext or the other. And in India, it is the anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare who is once again on a warpath to obstruct a phony anti-corruption legislation being pushed by the Manmohan Singh government.
Hazare enjoys massive backing of the Indian civil society and political opposition, and a remarkable track record, to effectively challenge the government - he had forced the Congress-led coalition government to go along with his proposal that a bipartisan committee be set up to draft an anti-corruption bill. In April, he had broken his fast-unto-death only after the government set up the committee but then broke away from the committee saying that the government was not sincere in investigating corruption in high places like the prime minister's office.
Now that the Manmohan Singh government has tabled the anti-graft legislation, under the rubric of Jan Lokpal Bill, Hazare and his comrades-in-arms have gone on another fast-unto-death protesting that the proposed law falls short of their demand that PM's office also be brought under its purview.
The Manmohan Singh government has rejected Hazare's position insisting that the supremacy of parliamentary democracy doesn't brook such a bar; something like we have in Pakistan in the name of constitutional immunity against prosecution of people in high elected offices. How this controversy plays out both in Pakistan and India, people on both sides of the border would be interested in knowing.
No doubt, corruption by political leaders in connivance with corrupt officials is endemic in the developing countries; paradoxically, a trend that became popular after they gained independence from colonial rule. Mr Clean, that Manmohan Singh until recently was believed to be, is in hot waters over a number of corruption scandals mostly involving his colleagues or their proxies in private sectors.
Being conscious of public anger over rampant corruption in government offices, both civil and military, Prime Minister Singh had rated incidence of rampant corruption as India's most serious challenge in his Independence Day national address. We didn't hear this from our prime minister in his Independence Day speech. Even when Pakistan has risen by many notches on the Transparency International's perceived corruption index and is now rated as one of the most corrupt countries there is hardly a hint that the government is serious in combating this menace.
While in India a campaign similar to Anna Hazare's to bring back money stashed away in foreign banks by Indians has forced the government to act accordingly, in Pakistan, however, the Supreme Court order in an identical case is resting for the last year and a half in the bureaucratic cold storage.
The so-called constitutional immunity from prosecution available to the holders of high government offices - a legalistic pretence the executive both in India and Pakistan seems to be employing to escape accountability - is no more relevant to modern-day statecraft. As it draws legitimacy from the medieval axiom that the 'king can do no harm', the immunity claim ceases to have any context when we have no kings.
On the other hand, it is quite normal now that the erring heads of state and government are held accountable for their corruption by the courts. We say the corrupt should be punished irrespective of the position they hold, and right now and not after they have left the office. Nothing so injuriously eats into the vitals of a society than unpunished corruption in the high offices of government. We may be having clashing perceptional mismatches with Indians in very many ways but we stand by Anna Hazare and wish him victory in his war on corruption in our neighbourhood - for, we think it would help our case, albeit vicariously.