Fasting and democracy

Gautam Adhikari in this article makes three points:

• Democracy in this largest of all democratic nations seems to be working fine "at first glance"
• there's a lot that happens in the way we conduct our political life in between elections that is deeply disturbing
• Anna Hazare's fast-unto-death is a clear instance of misunderstood democracy...it's blackmail

I am left quite disturbed by the first, agree with the second and really chirped up at the third. Let's take this one by one.

Our democracy "working fine"??!!! Sure, we vote regularly, throw out parties in power, etc etc - but are these the only indicators of a fine working democracy? Criminals as lawmakers, dynasties in politics, corruption in legislatures - surely these could also be indicators of the "fineness" of our democracy.

Aren't these disturbing enough? Do we need to look at only those things that happen between elections to be disturbed?

Anna Hazare's fasting as blackmail - absolutely. And thank God for it. And it worked. For more than four decades, there has been a shortage of political will to combat corruption. On the contrary, first there was a tendency to turn a blind eye to it - witness that famous and witless request to 'Thoda kuch de do (Give him a little something)" in the case of Dharma Teja. During the Licence Raj, corruption was institutionalized. Now, of course, we have cabinet ministers in jail - not a proof of the fineness of our democracy, but more of the independence form political interference of our investigating agencies and the judiciary.

During the latest round of skirmishes between Anna and team and the Government, the reluctance of Government to do anything serious about tackling corruption had been totally apparent. If an attempt to show the will of crores of Indians, sick and disgusted and dismayed by corruption to an unresponsive Government is blackmail, so be it. Let's do it a lot more!!

Thank GOD she ain't Anna!

One of the biggest problems about the media blitz around Anna Hazare is that one is exposed to a barrage of comments, views, opinions, etc from 'experts', 'commentators' and self-appointed guides of perception that our fecund country breeds like rabbits. Hence, whether one likes it or not, one comes across stuff like "I'd rather not be Anna" by Arundhati Roy in the Hindu.

There are a set of assertions in this article which foxes me in this context of the fight against corruption:

• "the Maoists and the Jan Lokpal Bill have one thing in common — they both seek the overthrow of the Indian State"
• "‘The People' only means the audience that has gathered to watch the spectacle of a 74-year-old man threatening to starve himself to death if his Jan Lokpal Bill is not tabled and passed by Parliament"
• "...we've heard him say nothing about things of urgent concern. Nothing about the farmer's suicides in his neighbourhood, or about Operation Green Hunt further away. Nothing about Singur, Nandigram, Lalgarh, nothing about Posco, about farmer's agitations or the blight of SEZs. He doesn't seem to have a view about the Government's plans to deploy the Indian Army in the forests of Central India."
• "He does ... [support] Raj Thackeray's Marathi Manoos xenophobia and has praised the ‘development model' of Gujarat's Chief Minister who oversaw the 2002 pogrom against Muslims."
• In Anna's village community in Ralegan Siddhi, there have been no Gram Panchayat or Co-operative society elections in the last 25 years

Frankly, as a concerned citizen of India and a patriot, and on the face of it, at least as intelligent and well-aware as Roy, I can't figure out why these assertions find place in her article.

My line of thinking one this subject is simple: Indians are sick and tired of corruption. We want it out of our system and we know it won't disappear with a waft of a magic wand. But a start needs to be made somewhere. Anna Hazare is a rallying point for our dismay and disgust, this movement is our starting point and our new-found conviction that we can indeed do something about it.

I don't associate Anna with any other cause or issue, and as far as I can recall, I don't think that in the last few months, he has tried to grab our attention for any other purpose either.

So, why does Roy drag in things like suicides in his neighbourhood, or about Operation Green Hunt, Nandigram, Lalgarh, farmer's agitations, SEZs, the Government's plans to deploy the Indian Army in the forests of Central India, Narendra Modi, Marathi Manoos, Ralegan Siddhi... (I am sure Roy could have thought of a million other issues if she had put her mind to it). Why does Anna or anyone else for that matter have to have a point of view on all the issues that face our country? More important - having a point of view is easy, Roy shows us how extremely easy it is; she probably has thirty of them before breakfast - why should Anna or any one person be expected to do something about all of these issues?

He has picked on one, been able to mobilize support and attention to the extent of getting an extremely unwilling Government to finally get on its knees and cry uncle. Is this why Roy uses the phrase "overthrow of the Indian State?" If yes, since when is this ridiculous UPA Government equal to the Indian state?

Anna stands for the move to eradicate corruption - hopefully there will be other Annas who will take up and champion the other causes that Roy has listed, and do something about them, beyond just talk. Let's not expect one person to do everything - in our country of a billion plus people, there will be more Annas.

One other thing - since when is Roy the arbiter of who or what is "the People"? How did she come to the conclusion that the 'the people' only means what she wishes it to mean? Come on Roy, we Indians are infinitely more intelligent than you seem to give us credit for. Here's a story about people who did not gather to watch Anna fast, but went a little beyond that.

From the start of the latest round of Anna vs the UPA, the Congress has attempted at character assassination. Manish Tiwari said that Anna was “neck deep in corruption”. Since then, interestingly, there has been a retraction, and there has been reports of Tiwari being dragged to court for defamation. There was a news item that Anna was a deserter from the Indian Army; this attempt also backfired. Maybe there were other attempts as well - I don't recall.

In David Lean's classic "Lawrence of Arabia", there is this classic one-liner: "Is he your tongue?" I am tempted to ask Roy the question "whose tongue are you?"

A few days ago, I read this article by Ajit Balakrishnan, which left me scratching my head in bafflement. "Dazed and confused" about sums it up, not to say more than a little worried about the implications of his article.

Balakrishnan referred to the writings of Mark Granovetter, and Leela Fernandez in his article. Since I have not read either author, I will not comment on their theses that Balakrishnan has quoted, with obvious concurrence.

The following questions came to my mind after reading this article:

* Is Balakrishnan trying to tell us that, as we understand it, is OK? That this is the way of the new world, and this is what we will have to live with?
* Is he trying to tell us that there is no corruption, and what we call "corruption" exists only as the figment of our "New Middle Class" imagination?
* Is it an attempt at obfuscation, an attempt to shift attention from the attempts to reduce corruption, by bringing in a "larger picture", quoting a pair of writers from American universities to support this stance?
* Is this article a part of the larger campaign under way to scuttle the Lokpal Bill and the people who wish to make it happen? The various parts of this campaign have so far included attempts to 'smear' people in the Lokpal Bill Drafting Committee, challenge the legality of the Government notification, and other tactical ploys.

I must state that I am old-fashioned enough to believe that "corruption" is bad for our country and for us, and must go. I also believe that the standard understanding of the word "corruption" is good enough for me - I don't need a new definition of this word. Simplistic, but there it is.

While it is interesting to note that the word now appears to be (according to Granovetter and Fernandez) a part of the arsenal of words in a new class war, there is the reality of activities which the Oxford online and the Merriam-webster online dictionaries define as below:

Oxford:

* dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery
* the action or effect of making someone or something morally depraved.

Merriam-Webster:

* impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle : depravity
* inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (as bribery)

If any reader could throw some light on how one should decode Balakrishnan's article, given my bias, I should be most grateful.