So all the brouhaha and all-sound-and-fury-signifying-polarised-opinions-all-round about Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption jihad is done and dusted and the eternal inertia that is the Indian way has reasserted itself, and one can but heave a sigh of relief and wave away the dust that drifts down. A lot of newsprint, rhetoric and righteous indignation doing the rounds about the whole shebang, and Facebook was rife with arguments that begged one to once more unto the breach. I decided to join’em.
I am an unabashed Anna supporter. I support the idea of getting rid of corruption, I support the idea of changing the way things are done in this country, I support the idea of having system that works for me rather than despite or against me, I support the idea of getting what I was promised in the Constitution without having to take recourse to extra-constitutional methods and I support the idea of having a level playing field where a meritocracy can be formulated.
Inasmuch as this is something one dreams of along with Shangri-La and sleeping with Salma Hayek, I still would like to believe, in the bottom of my cynical black heart, that we can come upon such a Utopia. And Anna and his Jan Lokpal Bill is an attempt. It may not be perfect, but it seeks to bring under its purview everyone who could affect us with their corruption.
One of the biggest complaints against the Anna Campaign is that the Jan Lokpal Bill does not conform with the democratic processes that are prevalent in the country After all, they say, this is the largest democracy in the world, the most vibrant, the most participated in, the most visible. It may have faults, they say, but it works. Anna, ostensibly, wants the Lokpal to be outside the ægis of our democratic institutions. Ah, therein lies the rub.
Because if our democratic institutions have given us one thing, it is the devil’s choice. When the Congress fights the BJP, it’s like trying to choose between shades of black – the lesser of the two evils. We try to analyse their merits – or the lack of various iniquities – because neither is inherently better than the other; but we have no choice, so we choose either. Nobody in the country trusts the democratic process. All this "democracy" they talk about is the concept in its ideal form - vox populi vox dei and all that. But the reality is that democracy today is rife with realpolitik. The manoeuvrings of politicians for more power, seats and the positions that guarantee them the power to be corrupt is what democracy is about. People want to get elected to make more money.
The French Revolution was not democratic. Neither was the Soviet. Dandi wasn't. Nor was MLK.
If things aren't working – and this much-vaunted "democratic process" definitely isn't – there needs to be a shakedown. Our esteemed "elected representatives" have been sitting pretty knowing that all of them are different faces of the same evil. That complacency needs to be shaken. They need to know there's another way things can happen. Until we redefine, or at least restructure, our democratic institutions, nothing will change; none of us will bother with working the democratic processes from the inside for fear of being tainted, or at the least tarred by the same brush. In that light, we need a shaking up, and we want to give this power to people we know have not been tainted with the corrupting influence of "democracy". This isn't violent, it isn't anarchist. Anna is just quietly telling them things need to change.
But anyway, all this talk about ‘democratic processes’ and ‘elected representatives’ is just propaganda. These democratic processes are not an end in themselves, they have been formulated to make our lives easier. Now it seems that these 'processes' are more important than the people they were made for. And the people that they were made for don’t want it any more.
The Jan Lokpal Bill may not conform to constitutional processes – because those processes have failed us. The Bill seeks to give the power to those appointed by means that may be extra-constitutional but definitely not undemocratic – if so many people in the country support Anna; isn’t that democracy? It wants a collegium of eminent citizens – people we respect: Nobel Laureates, Magsaysay Awardees, people of good standing and respected throughout the community – to have a say. They believe that this may work. It may not, but it’s a start. And it’s a sign of the helplessness and desperation of us that we want to do away with the very processes that were to make our lives better. That public will has been now given a focal point by the Hazare movement.
The other, more strident, complaint against the Anna campaign is that of those who rattle their jewellery; there seems to be a sense of distaste for the delicately nurtured for the song-and-dance that the Hazare movement had become; the unsightly crowds, the rampant pandering to the television cameras, the larger than life imagery of Anna himself and even the Warholian quarter hour for Dr Naresh Trehan. Yes, it was a spectacle and yes, the media – especially the electronic sort – willy-nilly lent themselves to (ab)use. But the cornerstone of every movement is communication; whether the Goebbelsian/Modiesque sort that justifies pogroms or that of Martin Luther King, Gandhi or Ataturk.
To reach out to people, to speak to them, one needs a mouthpiece; Anna’s was NDTV. And Team Anna figured out how to do it with aplomb. They were not reaching out to the ivory tower dwellers of Amrita Shergill Marg or Walkershwar, they were talking to the people in Ghatkopar and RK Puram, the people who watch India TV and have to pay through the nose and other bodily orifices for services they should not have to.
So now we have a national movement, and a national debate and a national will to change the inertia of rest with which we have been cursed. Whether you like them or not, Anna, Kiran Bedi, Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and the Bhushans are here. Whether you like them or not, you can’t ignore the necessity which brought them out. There is a need to change the status quo. If you don’t like the way they do things, then go do something yourself.
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