Seeing images of a stubborn Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev
conjures up images of India’s long struggle against imperi-alism and
domination to break the shackles and emerge a free nation. Sixty-four years
later, we find ourselves in a similar fix. Mahatma Gandhi pioneered the
method of fasting to get his way and everybody else is just following the
field guide he left behind.
Corruption, or the C-word, has become a huge phenomenon,
managing to stay in the news for more than six months now. The whole Lokpal
campaign has been reduced to nothing more than both sides duelling to the
death in an attempt to impose their methods of mitigating the C-word. Thanks
to Anna Hazare’s defiance and the widespread support he has received from
seemingly blind intellectuals, a game-changing bill has degenerated into
nothing more than a legal and organised witch-hunt. Heads are going to roll
for better or for worse, whether it is “Jokepal” or the real deal.
Much as they’d like to overlook it, it takes two hands to
clap and, similarly, it takes two to give and accept a bribe. The
inconvenient truth lies in the fact that bribes are not paid by officials to
themselves but rather are paid by greedy members of our own society just so
they can skip all the queues.
Look into the future: Nine men, a confederacy of dunces,
wielding supreme powers, getting judges and prime ministers alike to cower
in fear before them. A witch-hunt; India engulfed by a newfound passion
against corruption. In Nazi Germany, people often made calls to the Gestapo
(secret police) accusing their rivals of being anti-Nazi. The same will
happen in India; each one accusing the other of doling out bribes. It would
become a new trick that schoolkids played: call the “Lokpal Hotline” and
accuse your teacher of giving a bribe and then watch with joy as she is
whisked away.
Millions of people are employed by the government. All of us
have our own fatal flaws; some are greedy, some opportunistic. Though we
accuse the government and bureaucracy of being slow and ineffective, we
wouldn’t last a minute in their positions and with the workload they bear.
Sometimes we have to be cruel to be kind. In this case, cruel would mean
allowing them to get away with a single corruption-related offence because
they are irreplaceable and their day-to-day tasks are inconceivable to the
“common man”.
Anna Hazare called the bill in its current form “fractured”
but how can it be so if it is not yet born? At best, it can be said that an
initial ultrasound has revealed certain deformities.
We cannot have a Lokpal dominated by just one side: Anna
Hazare representing the “common man” with the “imperialist” government on
the other side. Anybody who doesn’t see eye to eye with the Gandhian finds
himself pushed into a corner and silenced. Branded undemocratic and
unpatriotic, his right to freedom of speech is transferred to another vocal
supporter.
In the 1950s Senator Joseph McCarthy purged alleged
communists, inciting fear in the minds and hearts of millions of Americans.
If we look closely, we see the same thing happening in India today. In his
book The Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote: “All warfare is based on
deception.” If the Hazare team claims that the government is ‘misleading’
the people, what gives Hazare and the janata the credibility to make
such claims and to lead the people in the opposite direction? In the middle
of all this we have the opposition who, true to their name, support anybody
who opposes the government regardless of whether they make sense or not. But
being a political party, when in crisis, they will develop an uncanny urge
to stick together and make a decision that is in the interest of “Indian
Democracy”.
Albert Einstein, when asked about Gandhi, said: “Generations
to come… will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood
walked upon this earth.” More than 50 years have passed and it seems that Mr
Hazare is eager to take Gandhi’s place on banknotes and on the walls of
government offices. No doubt in his 30 years of peacefully crusading against
the system Anna Hazare has done his share of good for the village and state.
But in the end, Mr Hazare must realise that India is not an enlarged version
of Ralegan Siddhi. India is not a one-baker, -butcher, -barber nation. It is
a diverse nation with people from every caste and speaking every language.
The Hazare team must remain cautious and careful, for if the bill is to have
true power, it must reach every village, be a part of every panchayat, or
else it will be just another one of the thousand bills drafted in the
history of India. The government is an integral part of this step, for no
other single body has the expanse and influence throughout the nation.
It takes two hands to clap. For every hand that taketh there
is a hand that giveth. Why not penalise the briber and not the one who is
bribed? Why not penalise both? A. Raja is in jail while Niira Radia is not.
If you are ever caught by a police officer, would you rather go to the
station and collect your licence later or pay a small “token of your
appreciation” for the man’s work, get your licence and drive away?
In the end, it must be said that neither side is wrong but
also no side is right. The best way to go about it is to inculcate values
against corruption at an early age and not by holding somebody at gunpoint
and threatening them if they do accept bribes. We are not under British rule
and as Mr Kejriwal has let his tongue conveniently slip and urged us to
“take to the streets” and “keep the fire burning”, we are left wondering if
the people have been caught in a war they don’t have the time or inclination
to fight.
In the end, we Indians are left with the schoolboy’s dilemma
of whether to be popular and do as the “cool side” (Hazare) directs us or
dare to be different and build our own opinions from the facts known to us.