A minister in a state was last month convicted and sentenced to three years in jail after what is referred to as illegal mining. He appealed before the higher court just in time, before the supreme court came up with its latest act to clean up politics a little. Now Babubhai Bokhiriya, even after conviction, continues to be the water resources minister of Gujarat.

Bokhiriya is just an example. He has several cases including of attempt to murder pending against him, but by national standards he is a small fry. In Bihar and elsewhere, musclemen have fought elections from jail – and won. In Gujarat, after the 1985 riots, a jailed bootlegger contested municipal elections from five wards and won from each of them. Indeed, the headline figure is here: 162 out of 543 members of the Lok Sabha have criminal cases against them according to data collected by the National Election Watch and the Association for Democracy Reforms in 2009 (see full details here). That is every third member of the lower house. In other words, one-third of our lawmakers (counting lower house alone) are law-breakers.

This is the result of imperfections of democracy. Ideology, good governance and all that are just for the credulous lot, when it comes to winning power and retaining it, our political parties don’t take chances. If an influential criminal can deliver, he will be welcome everywhere. (Remember CCTV visuals of Gujarat MP Vitthal Radadiya brandishing a rifle at a highway tollbooth last year? He was in the Congress then, and given his hold over the Koli votes, he is now in BJP.)

So, it is not surprising that the contentious provision, section 8(4) of the Representation of the People Act (that protects MPs and MLAs from disqualification if they appeal before a higher court in three months) had come from parliament (where party bosses control the voice of members through whip). It is not surprising either that the central government (controlled by the same party bosses) sought to defend it in the supreme court. Now expect them to defend in one voice the provision and parliament’s competence to retain that provision.

It is not surprising either that in the latest Transparency International survey, Indians find political parties the most corrupt institution in India (read more here).

The political parties are the prime movers of our democracy, and our democracy will be only as value-based and people-oriented as these parties allow it to be. The most urgently needed reforms of our times are not economic reforms or judicial reforms but reforms of political parties. The catch-22 situation here is that party bosses are going to let that happen. They want transparency everywhere, but not at home (and hence their unanimous voice against RTI verdict from CIC). They want the rest of the country free of corruption but will vociferously protest if you ask them to reveal their sources of funds. When fingers are pointed at them, they drop all their ideological differences and unite to protect the turf.

The party bosses cannot be expected to clean up the stables; that initiative has to come from outside – CIC and supreme court, in two recent examples. Now it is up to a more aware electorate to build on the cleanup.