Anna Hazare vs the Govt of India: A story that is going all wrong

This is probably one of the most difficult posts that I am attempting to make.  To most that would seem ridiculous.  What is the difficulty all about?  The Government of India is being Fascist and denying the people the right to protest.  So where is the difficulty? Well I wish the issue was as simple as that, but the truth is that it isn't. One clarification before I proceed further.  I am NOT a supporter of what the Government and the Congress Party are doing.  Now that this particular thing is out of the way let me just get on with it.  Those of you who are familiar with my blog I have always argued that Team Hazare does not constitute Civil Society.  I will not repeat that here except for one crucial point which may figure further in the post.  Hazare and his team have not taken into consideration or consultation a really wide cross section of the people to qualify to be called the torch bearers of Indian society.  It has been an esoteric group of less than ten people who have drafted the Jan Lokpal Bill and the main instruments of the drafting have been Shanthi Bhushan and Prashant Bhushan and I am not fully convinced of their intentions. The same goes for Ramdev who sidles with this group for his own sake.  While Arvind Kejriwal may have been a successful activist who was involved in the movement that led to the passage of the Right to Information Act, we all know that it has already been rendered toothless.  As an aside let me tell you that Pakistan passed the Right to Information Act, before India did and that too during the regime of Parvez Musharaf.  

My reference to the Right to Information Act is to point out that movements can demand something, find it and then see it lose its teeth over a period of time.  In one of my earlier posts I had written that why are we assuming that the Lokpal will be immune to things like corruption.  Is it that all other offices have been created with the intention of ultimately making them corrupt?  The Lokpal is an ombudsman and offices of ombudsman in different spheres of public activity.  Banking, insurance claims, content of newspapers have all got ombudsmen overseeing their functioning.  But very rarely does anyone know what can be an issue that can be taken to an ombudsman and how to go about doing it.  There are two issues that are facilitating corruption in India. First is the nature of the politics of the country and the second is nature of the bureaucracy.  This may seem like an irrelevant interlude in my discussion of the Lokpal, but the fact is that they are most crucial to understanding why I say that movements see changes that become impotent very soon.

First let us deal with nature of politics.  The first thing that we must understand is that all Indian politics is now money and muscle.  The latter facilitates the acquisition of the former.  How many people who have neither can make any impact on Indian politics?  Politicians need henchmen who will execute things for them.  The execution can sometimes be literal as it happened yesterday in the case of lady Right to Information activist in Bhopal when she was on her way to protest against corruption. There are threats of literal execution if someone becomes a thorn in someone else's flesh.  The Lok Satta Party in Andhra Pradesh which was launched with fanfare in Andhra Pradesh as a credible alternative to the Congress and Telugu Desam Party has sunk without a trace except for its high profile chief Dr. Jaiprakash Narayan who makes noises every once in a while.  He too gets some media attention due to his having derived some clout and identity of having been an IAS officer before he resigned and took a plunge into politics.

And that brings me to the bureaucracy.  Red tape perhaps is an understatement.  Several times in my life I have seen people not helping someone even when they have no work to do.  The Indian psyche is strange.  People do not help others when they can and that is most evident in the bureaucracy.  People in the bureaucracy have a different understanding of the expression public servant.  It is to be understood normally as a government functionary who serves the people.  In India though a public servant is one who is served by the public.  People join the bureaucracy with the intention of wielding power and minting money.  All offices of government are misused for that purpose.  This bureaucracy is the interface between the people and the government.  The interface and the end are out of the reach of people.  What makes politicians, bureaucrats and film stars one class of people is the fact that they are there because of the people but yet are inaccessible to those very people.  So what can you expect from a system that is constructed solidly on moral corruption.  Can one fight economic corruption when the whole system and its fabric is tainted by moral corruption.

That is why I am sceptical of Hazare and his team's efforts.  Why are they targetting only economic corruption?  Why are they not trying to cleanse politics first?  Why are they not launching grass root level movements and target panchayat and district level officials and politicians?  It is true what the Prime Minister said about not having a magic wand to cleanse the system at one ago.  But why is the government behaving like a fascist one by denying Hazare the right to protest?  In fact, the government by arresting Hazare made him a hero and suddenly elevated his status.  The means adopted fall in line with what I have said here.  Intimidation and threats.  First they tried to say that the man was corrupt himself.  Then they used police force. There must be better ways of dealing with a man who is being unreasonable and stubborn.   This has now become a battle between two parties both of which claim to represent people, while in reality people are just bystanders.  Even when members of Team Hazare visit various parts of the country, they behave like superstars.  Therefore I am not convinced of them or their intent.  But I am convinced about the government.  It is obviously senseless.  Yesterday's events have proved that much.  That it is also shielding corruption is perhaps the world's worst kept secret.  Here there is no denying its transparency.  Otherwise how else will one explain Kapil Sibal's blatant statement of zero sum situation when the 2G scam broke out in the country?  My only certain conclusion is this: the country will not change until and unless there is a reform more fundamental than the one that is being suggested by Team Hazare.  Irrespective of what happens to the Hazare movement, you can be sure that the fruits of that will be available only to other politicians and their support structure. The common people will see and feel no difference, for in their lives there will be none.

P.S.  I wrote this in a bit of a rush.  I have also not proof read it.  Please excuse all the errors that you encounter, except the sensical ones.  Thank you.