Political Diary

New Delhi, 20 August 2011

India Aroused

ANNALILA TRAMPLES GOVT

By Poonam I Kaushish

India aroused-united and a traumatized Government catapulting. The country traversed this long road in a short span of a week. Led by a diminutive 74-year old Anna Hazare who triggered off a people’s tsunami of anger against corruption. Refusing to be cowed down anymore, Asli Bharat and Brand India merged as one in the nationwide fury against sleaze and won their second victory!

The issue is not the Government’s Lokpal Bill vs Anna’s Jan Lokpal Bill. Neither is it about the “Gandhi incarnate’s” form and method of his anti-corruption crusade. Nor is about Anna challenging the supremacy of Parliament. Importantly, it is all about our netagan’s eroding authority, lack of leadership, political will and initiative, refusal to be accountable coupled with atrocious handling. Thereby not only did our polity give legitimacy to Anna but also dug its grave.

Sadly, the powers-that-be continue to obfuscate the issue at large. Anna’s agitation is a manifestation of public frustration and anger wherein the aam aadmi feels cheated that those he put in power are stealing from him. The protests vary from students’ ire against capitation fee in educational institutions, babudom’s ghooskhori, women’s angst against rising prices, unemployment et al.

In their supreme arrogance our leaders mis-read the signs of street anger when thousands rallied behind Anna in April. So our silver-tongued netas bought time by inviting him to be a part of a drafting committee. After nine sittings the Government conveniently told Anna & Co: Sorry, your demand for inclusion of the Prime Minister, judiciary and MPs in the Lokpal Bill is simply unacceptable.

Resulting in Anna giving the Government an ultimatum: “I will fast from 16 August till the Jan Lokpal Bill is passed.” What followed was a series of disastrous miscalculations by the Government. Beginning with setting excessive restrictions on Anna’s hunger strike, arresting and lodging him in Delhi’s Tihar Jail with scamsters Raja and Kalmadi etc.

Then it resorted to technicalities, “How can the Government allow anyone to defy the law?” Ridiculed Anna “he is corrupt from head-to-toe.” Followed by silly assertions “a foreign hand and RSS are behind Anna's movement’. Sic. Instead of handling the issue politically it chose legalese. Worse, it failed to get the Opposition parties on board.

Faced with mounting public anger, the Congress-Government cut a sorry figure and removed all restrictions. Why did it not accommodate earlier? This belated measure earned both brickbats for their high-handedness and underscored their lack of courage of conviction when they catapulted to the Gandhian’s demands.

Clearly, this old man from Maharashtra’s Ralegan Siddhi has successfully tapped the dormant discontent and emerged as the Fevicol for a middle-class revolt against the ‘system’ which now seems at odds with the people it is meant for. This explains why students, housewives and the elderly have all spontaneously come out to stand up and be counted.

In the ensuing din and cutting across all barriers, India seems to be giving its political class a unified message against a system where corruption is so ossified that it has become second nature to pay for things which are people’s fundamental rights. The breaking point was the tide of mega scams wherein the Government acted only when the Supreme Court pushed it to act.  

Indeed the Prime Minister is right when he asserts that the Lokpal Bill is not a magic wand that will end corruption. Also true, that a few thousands chanting “I am Anna, I want change”, “this is a second freedom struggle” do not total India whole. At the same time Anna has never said that the Jan Lokpal Bill is a cure-all corruption baton. But definitely it is a tentative first step to at least contain sleaze. Nothing ventured it nothing gained.

The Government believes that “reason and logic” is on its side. Asserted a senior Cabinet Minister, “What's was the great hurry in starting the fast on 16 August? Why couldn’t Anna wait till Parliament and its Standing Committee debates the Lokpal bill? Anna has been invited to put his view point across”. When this fails to cut ice, it has now unleashed a broadside: Anna campaign runs counter to Parliamentary democracy, he is belittling Parliament and undermining its sovereignty.

Undoubtedly, Parliament' is supreme. None, least of all Team Anna has said it is. Typically, our polity ensconced in glass houses does not comprehend that it is not institutions or Parliament but the people who occupy these who have failed the people leaving a vacuum now being filled by civil society. Look how our Right Honourables daily subvert and vandalise Parliament from disrupting proceedings, scoring petty political points, abdicating their legislative responsibilities by guillotining Bills, adjournment etc.

Bringing things to such a pass that corruption and our netagan have become synonymous People see decades of refusal to bring an anti-corruption law as a self-serving ploy to serve their self-interests.  Manmohan Singh seven year tenure as PM is testimony to rising graft. Arguably, did it need a 74-year old man in a Gandhi cap for the UPA Government to realise that middle India was fast losing its patience with meaningless homilies?

Clearly, Parliamentary democracy and participative democracy have never been mutually exclusive. History tells us in 1975 Indira Gandhi’s Emergency crystallised into the JP movement when the people sought “true democracy”. With the benefit of hindsight the Congress should have dealt with Anna differently, but arrogance of power has robbed it of clarity of thought and reason. To differentiate between what is right and wrong.  

Our leaders either don’t know or are deliberately clouding issues. It is not Institutions but the Constitution which is Supreme. And before they berate civil society they need to look at what the Constitution states. It begins with one simple sentence: “We the people of India…”

Typically, the Government is using its brains when it needs to connect emotionally with Indian hearts. It is failing to read the writing on the wall: Anna has light an inflammable spark which our leaders can ignore at their own peril. The kids who grew up in the shadow of the Emergency are at the forefront of a new uprising to secure a better future, sans corruption.

Importantly, Anna is not the issue and the Government would be fooling itself if it makes him one. Instead it should focus on the question he has voiced: Corruption that is depriving people of the mind-boggling funds. The voice may be of the middle class but it is a cry of the aam aadmi and the deprived millions.

The Government can no longer put people off by promising to act. The Congress and the State need to be come up with a sophisticated response instead of the hackneyed, “Anna is crossing limits…calling MPs ‘thieves’ is equal to casting aspersion on Parliament itself.” The need of the hour is that the Prime Minister shows some statesmanship and his Ministers stop acting like bullies fighting to the finish.

The country needs a fine balance, not an insolent civil society or a tyrannical State. Manmohan Singh needs to find a via-media, come up with a workable solution, a willingness to acknowledge democratic dissent and signal its willingness to engage in meaningful dialogue to ensure normalcy returns fast.

Given the numbers on the street, the Government’s time starts now. It needs to come out of its splendid isolation and smell the coffee. The people want salvation from corruption gorging into India’s vitals. And our netas need to grasp: Power is not immortal! ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)