It is amusing, that the country
which has the distinction of being home to the largest number of hungry people
in the world should be shaken by the threat of hunger by a few. But that is
what has been happening since Mahatma Gandhi forged this into a weapon.
Interestingly, Gandhi referred to it as a fast, not hunger strike, which it
actually was. A fast has a religious undertone, as Ed Cole, the founder of the
Christian Men’s Network in the United States, candidly stated: “A fast is not a
hunger strike. Fasting submits to God’s commands. A hunger strike makes God
submit to our demands”[1]. What India Against Corruption (IAC) staged as indefinite
fast is nothing less than a hunger strike, Anna Hazare with his team tried to make
parliament of India submit to their demand of Jan Lokpal bill. When he withdrew
the fast he passed ultimatum to the parliament to pass the bill by august 15
and warned that if the bill is not passed he would go on fast again.
The Team Anna mobilized support
of middle class population across the towns of India. The launch of campaign
was well timed, it launched after exposure of series of scams at the centre and
across the states of India. With much hype from media people instantaneously plunged
into the anti corruption crusader’s movement. Lakhs of supporter flocked at
Jantar Mantar for the fast on the call of Anna, an ardent Gandhian. The government
finally agreed to introduce the Lokpal bill in the parliament. But government
failed to please team Anna with its version of bill.
The IAC certainly brought the issue of corruption center
stage. But it was focused narrowly on corruption in public life without a wider
world view on the root causes of corruption or on the myriad other problems
afflicting Indian society, had to come apart at the seams at some point. Anna targeted
only political and bureaucratic class as perpetrators of corruption. The team deliberately
ignored the trading class, private corporations, hawkers, middle class for whom
corruption is an inevitable part of life. A middle class employee offers a
bribe to regularization of his land. A hawkers pays his hafta to the cop for
paying illegally encroaching on the foot path .A corporate employee bribes cops
to save on his fines for jumping the signal. A company bribes to evade tax. A
local trader charges more than MRP for the products. Aren’t they perpetrators
of corruption? Team Anna envisaged that targeting hawker, trading class, Private
Corporation, employees along with political and bureaucrat will strangle the
movement. In a way the strategy did work these classes doled out huge donations
and supported the movement by fasting and staging protests with Anna.
Many critiques asked Team Anna why don’t they get elected to
parliament and pass the bill if they feel they are representing the aspiration
of entire nation. The critiques were correct to an extent. Even Team Anna knew
that they will never be able form a government even as a coalition. This became
evident when Team Anna stayed out of U.P election and now their mulling over
Gujarat election. But Arvind Kejriwal who scripted the drama of IAC launched
his party recently. Now what one has do is to wait and watch how many seats the
anti corruption crusader, who claims India to be with him will win.
Anna
misled Lakhs of people by proclaiming that a Suo motu Ombudsman can be a magic
wand to end corruption. May be high school dropout was not aware of Lord Acton’s
dictum “power tends to corrupt but absolute power corrupts absolutely”. What if
lokpal and other perpetrators of corruption form nexus? Should we then
introduce “Super lokpal” to monitor lokpal ? Introducing Lokpal without social
reforms is never going eliminate corruption we have to reform the social
practices. Politicians and bureaucrats are same crop from the society. Branding
them as perpetrators of corruption is unfair. They share same morals like other
citizens. As long as people demand delivery of services by bypassing laws,
corruption can be never eliminated. The target population and strategy has to
be different. The social movement should start with reformation of grass root
that is nothing but people of the society. Organizations like India Against
corruption have to make people pledge not to bribe any official to bypass law
for delivery of any service. A civil society rather than politicizing the movement
for personal gains has to conceive
movements like “zero currency” by 5th pillar, which distributes
notes to citizens to give to any civil servant they come across that asks for a
bribe.
A bill
can never be passed without parliamentarians will. Aruna Roy campaign for right
to information reassured it. With Sonia interest in the bill, the dream was
translated to reality. The bill was passed in 2005 and the amendments to fill
the lacunas are being debated now. Team Anna should have also adopted a similar
strategy rather than getting insulated from political class for being adamant
on their version of bill. Civil society should never be in business of making
policy; this task is best left to elected representatives who can be made accountable
to the people, at least during election. More important, the making of policy
demands open, accessible and public deliberations. No civil society
organization can possibly provide the conditions for such wide spread
discussion .Civil society , it must be stressed, is in the business of creating,
fostering , nurturing and reproducing and informed public opinion that can be
brought to bear on making and implementation of policy.[2]
[1] Anand Teltumbde, ‘Fasts, Hunger
and Hunger Strikes’, Economic and Political Weekly, 2011
<http://www.epw.in/margin-speak/fasts-hunger-and-hunger-strikes.html>
[accessed 4 November 2012].
[2] Neera Chandhoke, ‘Whatever Has
Happened to Civil Society?’, Economic and Political Weekly, 2012
<http://www.epw.in/perspectives/whatever-has-happened-civil-society.html>
[accessed 4 November 2012].
