By Firoz.T.Totanawala
The Bangalore Metro Reporter
THE BAD ROAD FOR A GOOD CAUSE!
ANNA MOVEMENT- A DANGEROUS TREND FOR DEMOCRACY
Anna Hazare has achieved a victory by forcing the government and the parliament to accept his demands. Despite strong reservations about Anna’s demands of enforcing his Jan Lokpal Bill, both the ruling and opposition parties held a special session agreeing to Anna’s demands so that he could end his fast. Anna Hazare’s unregistered NGO ‘Civil Society’ comprising of half a dozen retired officials and advocates have held the government and the parliament to ransom to achieve their goal. The Anna movement ably assisted by a large section of the electronic media, and print media is definitely a threat to the constitution and sovereignty of the country.
Nobody in his senses supports corruption but given the helpless situation one is in, they end up throwing their hands in despair. Corruption is not limited to Government officials and politicians, but rather the entire society including the Media is corrupt.
However, the society has been making efforts at curbing corruption. First it was Anti Corruption Bureau, then, it was vigilance commission and now Lokayukta’s and Lokpal. The Lokayuktas look after the corruption charges in the State Government and Lokpal is to look after Central Government. While many states have established Lokayuktas, the Central Government is yet to establish Lokpal.
It is this Lokpal that has become the epicenter of Anna Hazare’s movement. In the last twenty years, the Lokpal Bill was tabled in the parliament but for reasons unknown, it did not see the light of the day. Early this year, the UPA Government drafted a Lokpal Bill to fight corruption, but, the bill was not worth the paper it was typed.
It is at this point that Anna Hazare, a social worker from Maharashtra with some Gandhian values, came to the fore. He demanded a strong Lokpal Bill and soon a few self styled intellectuals like Arvind Kejrival, an RTI activist, Shanthi Bhushan, a former law minister, Kiran Bedi, a former police official, Swami Agnivesh etc. surrounded him. They convinced Anna to take the fight to the national level. Very soon, a draft ‘Jan Lokpal Bill’ was drafted by Shanthi Bhushan and his son Prashant Bhushan and they took the help of the Lokayukta Santosh Hegde who was hunting big fishes in Karnataka.
Once the draft was ready, Anna announced his ‘fast unto death’ demanding the implementation of his ‘Jan Lokpal’ bill. The managers of Anna movement had meticulously planned to create publicity hype by enrolling the services of few media channels and newspapers. The fast by Anna was sensationalized and Anna’s team started styling themselves as representatives of civil society.
Anna who is not even a matriculate does not understand the law or its implications and therefore the caucus around him completely took control over him and he literally has become a captive of the caucus. The caucus made him to announce fast unto death in Delhi from 16th August if his Jan Lokpal Bill was not introduced and accepted by the parliament. It is a common knowledge that by any stretch of imagination, the same could not be done as there are procedures. But, Anna made it plain that his Jan Lokpal Bill must be passed by the Parliament by August 30.
The electronic media, most of which were controlled by MNCs became a stake holder in Anna movement and instigated the people to back Anna movement. People who are helplessly suffering the cancer of corruption readily backed him. Anna’s caucus ensured that the movement spread to all cities and towns in the country. The media played the role of instigator and every move, every word and every gestures of Anna was played to the gallery. Anna was painted by the electronic media as the new avatar of Mahatma Gandhi. The RSS also entered the fray by supporting Anna. ABVP, the student wing of RSS, was romped in to get the school and college students to participate in the movement. The caucus used the hi-tech means like Face book, Twitter etc. to spread the movement among the educated youths.
The Government on its part tried its best to negotiate with Anna, but it was not allowed to talk to him directly and only Kejrival, Kiran Bedi and Prashanth Bhushan were available on his behalf. It is another matter that there was strong opposition to Anna team’s movement by many prominent people, but Anna team was adamant.
Anna continued his fast declaring that he will not end until his Jan Lokpal Bill is passed. The Anna team was not prepared to let the parliament debate the bill, referring to the Standing Committee and following other constitutional procedures. These demands of Anna team are definitely anti democracy. How one can dictate terms to the Government and parliament? They even asked their supporters to lay seize to MPs houses to force them to fall in line with Anna’s Jan Lokpal Bill. Finally, the Government and the opposition bowed to the pressure tactics, nay, sheer black mail of Anna team and held a special session of the parliament and agreed for incorporating Anna’s Jan Lokpal Bill!
Even here,
Anna team wanted the parliament to pass the resolution agreeing for Jan Lokpal Bill. But some of the veteran parliamentarians realised Anna team’s design and refused to accept this demand. Even the Government was not prepared to subvert the democratic and constitutional values to appease Anna who had completed 12 days of fasting. It was only on a humanitarian reason that is to save his life, the parliament, under pressure debated the issue and decided to go for a stronger Lokpal Bill. And Anna ended his fast.
Unfortunately, the fight against corruption has turned to be a fight against constitution and this is a very danger trend. Frankly speaking, thousands of people who participated in the agitation do not know for what purpose they backed Anna. Except knowing that Anna is fighting corruption, they do not know what actually Anna team wanted and how they would fight corruption! For thousands of college students who participated in the agitation it was merely a merry time.
Anna and his team cared two hoots for the office of the PM and the parliament. Manmohan Singh personally wrote a letter to Anna to end his fast assuring to do the needful over his demands and even the Parliament appealed to him to end the fast, but, Anna remained stubborn. He only listened to half-a-dozen of his close followers. He showed disrespect to the PM and even the parliament which is the symbol of India representing 120 crore Indians.
Forget about all these. Anna and his team have arm twisted the democratic process to achieve their goal and there are chances of they resorting to similar stunts in future to further their vested interests.
The offshoot of Anna’s triumph over the democratic traditions will be very dangerous in future if people of standing follow Anna line of agitation. Whether Anna and his teammates like it or not, there are many popular leaders who command respect from the people. What if they resort to Annagiri to achieve their demands?
For example, there are many tall leaders who are leading the separatist movement in Jammu and Kashmir. What if they undertake ‘Fast unto Death’ demanding ‘Total Independence’ to Kashmir, would the Government accept it? It goes without saying that they may have some justifications just like Anna team who were treating their Jan Lokpal Bill as sacred, despite many serious flaws in the Bill. Similarly, some leaders may undertake fasting demanding a separate state. Can the Government oblige?
What if the ‘Central Government Employees Union’s leaders sit on fast unto death, demanding repeal of Lokpal Bill? What if some fanatic Hindu organisations with some backing of few thousand people go for ‘Fast unto death’ demanding scrapping of minority status to Muslims and Christians, what will the Government do?
These people can create media hype. With the involvement of willing media both print and electronic, they can whip up emotions and even create law and order problems. What can one do in such cases? The way in which the Government surrendered before Anna and his team, has set a bad precedent.
Forget about it. Will the Jan Lokpal Bill ease out corruption? Arguably, it is only a mechanism to fight corruption. It is not the end but only the beginning. To eradicate corruption, the mindset of the people has to change first. Moreover the bill only scopes the corruption in Government department and corruption is not limited to Government employees and politicians. When compared to the corruption in corporate and other institutions in private sector including the NGOs, the corruption in Government pales into insignificance. It is indeed the private companies in the making and the volume and intensity can be understood with the 1.75 lakh crore 2G spectrum scam! Before we end, just please note that Anna and his team formed an NGO ‘Civil Society’ to fight against corruption. And interestingly or shockingly, their NGO itself is unregistered.
That is all.
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