By Seema Duhan,
Upsurge of people against the issue of corruption in the recent times and spawning of distrust in the citizenry on the political system within this country has resulted in the formation of an alliance or ‘civil society’ that passes with the names of ‘Team Anna’ or ‘Anna’s campaign’ and so on as claimed by the constituents themselves. Since long, like all my fellow citizens I am also watching this film occasionally rolling fast and sometimes slow. At times, I paused or rewound to grasp and understand the situations that led to its emergence and how it’s shaping up. Not a denying fact that the level of corruption (financial, political, social) seems to be at its epitome and there is a revolting-emotional urge in everyone to contain and curb it. A sense is prevailing as if one gets spun on and on between the spokes of the cyclical tyrannical system. One feels disheartened, where to go, how to go and who to approach for the remedies of grievances that one is meeting endlessly. Is the situation this much hopeless? Yes, indeed it is.
I have been engaging with my friends and acquaintances and feel that a lot of water has flown down to rip the scenes apart and to comprehend them as much as possible with in the ambit of our cerebral limits. All across, we also find ourselves divided on many fronts and aligning on many other points. And here I find it vital to state that individual expressions are as important as the one of a large congregation of people. It is incomprehensible to me to sacrifice the difference in opinion of one for the sake of larger conscience of masses or of minority in numbers in the favour of majority in numbers. There is indeed need to keep ears close to as many expressions as possible in a democracy and see what constructive can come out. The ways of expressing actions and thoughts can be innumerable and to certify one to be better over the other because majority of the population is following so, I, personally find it arrogant and lack of willingness to give space to alternative mediums of looking at picture.
The statement of “objects and reasons”1 of the Lokpal Bill of Anna Hazare and group begins with the quote from the former Secretary General of United Nations, Mr. Kofi Anan – “Corruption is an insidious plague that has a wide range of corrosive effects on society. It undermines democracy and the rule of law, leads to violations of human rights, distorts markets, erodes the quality of life and it allows organized crime, terrorism and other threats to human security to flourish.” It speaks a great deal about how pervading is the menace and in India, we know it has become way of life. Prof. Arun Kumar2, explains how black money and practice of hoarding have been eating into the economic system. It is not the black money that has been stashed in the banks oversees but the one that is in circulation as a lubricant within the economic system here. Augmenting it are the practices and policies that have facilitated in the sprouting of middle men in day to day dealings who better are known as ‘agents’. Agents for reservation of tickets, agents for getting made your passport, agents for getting house loan and agents for getting jobs, agents for this/that to say the least. These are few of the jobs which are legally present but then there are few others about who I always get confused. For example, if one has to get a ration card made or need to get a driving licence or any other legally necessary document. She goes to ‘Notary’ where she is told about the documents she will need like few affidavits, then some attestations etc. and then she finally will have to submit with the relevant department or authority. Now within this jumble of taking services of various people to get all the paper work done – she ends up paying exorbitant fees infused with ‘tip’ in subtle way or ‘bribe’ in explicit sense. What to do with such a system that is so intrinsically woven with corrupt practices? Similarly, on larger canvass let’s take the case of SEZ. SEZs are the units which have legal ground for their establishment that was passed on the floor of the Parliament. Everyone knows that the clauses of SEZ’s in every possible manner provide agar medium for culturing the growth of corrupt moulds. I could not find any possible mechanism in the entire analysis3 of Lokpal Bill of Anna Team (find it here) to address such issues. Similar is the issue with real estate business, the industry which has seen incredible growth as a result of opening of the economy in early 90’s. It amazes me to see how these days a small piece of land can command exorbitant value and this has led to despair among larger population to even dream for a minimum required expanse of shelter of one’s own. In the sector of real estate development which is largely guided by private investors, the role of government departments is diminished to mere token job of assigning legal status to the unit/area under development by a real estate company or an agent until one plans to have shelter in government built colonies or sectors etc. Similarly, Government of India has signed nuclear treaties with USA, Russia and rushing to sign with many other countries. According to the tenants of those treaties, GoI will be acquiring land from the land owners by coercion or by consent but there is stink of different kind of corruption which will have direct implications on the existence of the people in that specific area.
Many people repeatedly are arguing that for the last 48 years this Lokpal Bill is pending in the Parliament and now no more delay can be tolerated. It has to be passed now and no other option available. Well, as far as my understanding of contemporary political history goes, 64 years of the history of Democratic Republic of India can be divided into two halves – pre liberalisation history and post liberalisation present. Prashant Bhushan, a leading human rights lawyer and one of the brains behind pulling the campaign though diagnoses it well, that in the pre liberalisation regime ‘Licence Raj’ was the cause of red tapism and bureaucracy but was not as intense as the present nexus of corporate-politics-bureaucracy. The menace of that bygone era of pre 90s could be effectively contained by fixing the accountability of the officials-politicians which could be easily addressed by the lokpal bill. However, in the post liberalisation much of the large scale corruption practices are the outcome of crony capitalism for which appallingly the remedy suggested is old in the form of proposed draft of Lokpal Bill. These days, the system has circuits of corruption are legally imbedded in it and hence the draft falls short in cracking down upon the holy trinity of corporate-politics-bureaucracy.
Often, we come across news such as, so and so piece of information derived from intelligence agency sources points towards the involvement of particular individuals belonging to specific community in anti-national activities. This is not an example I am constructing in air, but these are the issues of everyday anxiety for the people living in North east or Kashmir or Central India or Muslims, Sikhs and Christians in this country, who together form a good bulk of the population. To mention this point of concern is not to say that they are not grappling with corruption. They surely are, but for a lot of individuals, pain of losing life matters more than the pain of losing money while it’s exactly contrary for lot other people who are not going through such issues of life and death on daily basis. Here, the pertinent question is how to make these intelligence organisations accountable and known to the citizens of this country? These are the organisations whose job is chiefly to keep eyes on people to check if anyone is ‘anti-national’ a term which again, I find quite vague one.
Yes, many would assert now, “Do we need to talk about all the issues right at this time?”, “Or that, my statements are highly sceptical and full of criticism and such anti-campaigns are creating fiasco which will not lead this country or society anywhere but back to square one situation”. Well true we do not need to discuss all the issues at a time. But corruption is an issue which if one starts looking minutely will be forming intrinsic relationship with a large number of issues related to the existence as citizens and issues of discrimination of various sections. In such a situation to extract out one dimension of corruption, putting it in the sterilised isolated conditions and then say that this is the virulent form of corruption which needs to be dealt with immediately and rest of the matters can wait or will be considered lately seems uncalled for from a group of individuals who proclaim to be resonating with the emotions of larger population of this country (I don’t have any idea where such a referendum was sought). It is vital to understand that in their own words this measure of Lokpal is not a perfect antidote even for the isolated idea of corruption that they have extracted out to experiment with. Therefore, one needs to be cautious before building up expectations from a piece of legislation to wipe out corruption completely.
Apart from the draft of Lokpal Bill proposed by “Team Anna” what else is there in the campaign that appears vicarious? Actually a number of things such as, felicitations4 of Sri Sri Ravishankar from the dais on the insistence of Kiran Bedi; calling this campaign as ‘apolitical’ by Arvind Kejriwal but large scale mobilisation of corporate media with the aid of corporate supporters. Ironically, in the interview with Karan Thapar, Kejriwal went on to claim that all the politicians are corrupt5 in this country which on rendition suggests me that since approximately 50 percent of the voters in this country vote during any election therefore all of them go for corrupt candidates, least to say. Out of 50 percent, 20 percent are absolutely for the corrupt politicians because any winning candidate garners support of approximately 20 percent voters compared to other fielded candidates. Now these sweeping statements are worth to be given thought vis-à-vis leadership of campaign. Interestingly, his statement finds echo with the ‘Youth for Equality’6 – an anti-reservation campaign which was showing hallmark of its derogatory practices by carrying brooms in hand and sweeping the road outside the Tihar Jail in the wake of outrageous picking of Anna and team members from their houses by the Police a day before to scuttle the scheduled protest.
Great deal of ink has been spent in writing the analysis in support and against the campaign. And my analysis of the writings of sceptics is that they are not against anything that leads to making of a progressive society or against the expression of political aspirations of large flocks of people across the country or significantly in many parts of the country. It’s surely a healthy sign that people are agitated and somehow gearing up their conscience to be channels on their own. Nevertheless, the worry of sceptics is for the larger ploy. The want is of course for the movement to be more and more inclusive and that it has to address various issues grappling this land mass so that momentum of energies and spirits can be sustained longer for systemic reforms like that of political economy, electoral reforms, judicial reforms, land rights, anti-discrimination practices etc. However, such a move seems to be missing and exclusivity of the movement is much starker. This is where I differ from Nivedita Menon7 who in her article drew parallels with Tahrir Square protests. Tahrir Square protests were surely devoid of leaders as was vibrating in the international media but there was no dearth of varied issues that people were discussing. Those who had been following the happenings might have noticed how enthusiastically and lively debates were taking place on the issues of women rights, neo-imperialism, economic structure, state and religions and so forth. Similar was the case with the freedom struggle of India. A plethora of issues were taken up then and numerable deliberations were churning all across. With this movement, what seems important is ‘ones’ position regarding acceptability of the sanctimonious position of Anna Hazare – ‘a hero’ and his methods over the issue itself. Therefore, if I don’t agree to consider him as my hero, I might be easily passed as anti-national and this positioning I find really troublesome. The cult of hero and abandoning all the legitimacies at the disposal of his actions because he is overarching everything else surely doesn’t go down with my philosophy of ethics.
To me all those actions that can lead to fragmentation of the power of the state and strengthen the roots of democracy are of significant value and if Lokpal is one of the ways, not the only way, I would like to welcome it. But treating the malady in the branches doesn’t cure the root. Malady can occur again and again then. Punishing the corrupt will not deter people from being involved in corrupt practices; it will be merely a ‘first aid’. There is need for sincere and serious efforts to treat the foundations even if it’s about financial irregularities because we cannot afford to keep on criminalising each and every person.
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Seema Duhan blogs at http://seemaduhan.blogspot.com/