The time has come to ask whether the passionate patriotism of our television channels is harming our national interests. Competitive shrillness is the trademark of most of our news anchors. When this shrillness is extended to Pakistan, the provocative, often insulting, language used is enough to make even liberal groups in that country angry and hurt; the jihadi groups will be energised to plot new terror strikes. On this side, the TV posturings make India's position with a difficult neighbour more difficult. Thus the needling ends up in a double disservice to India.
As soon as the American commandos sortied to Abbottabad and took out their enemy in a sovereignty-defying feat, our TV anchors worked themselves into a patriotic frenzy. The little screen screamed with headlines: 'Pakistan exposed completely'. 'Pakistan shamed before the world'. 'Pakistan's double game'. 'Pak lies uncovered'.
No sign anywhere of a measure of subtlety, some restraint, some maturity even, let alone journalistic professionalism. The attempt instead is to incite. Confronted before camera, India's army chief said Indian forces had the capability for any operation, a natural statement for an army chief to make. The Pakistani army chief responded the only way he could – that any misadventure by India would lead to serious consequences.
Our passionate patriots jumped in with the proclamation that what India said was right, but Pakistan took it out of context and over-reacted. More screaming headlines followed: 'Pakistan threatens India'. 'Kayani dares India'. 'Pak bluster or direct threat?' 'Pakistan's ridiculous reaction'.
From ridiculous headlines to incitement to direct action, it was a small step for passionate patriots. Why can't Indian commandos go into Pakistan and take out Dawood Ibrahim as Americans took out Osama? Instant panels were assembled to debate the issue. Eveready experts held forth on India's capabilities. A few sombre voices advised caution, but many egged Indian Government to do what America did. Among them was a former Intelligence Bureau chief.
How easily bravado can carry us away? We are a country where the Intelligence community could not even follow up explicit information on the 26/11 terrorists. Western agencies had given India the coordinates of suspicious boats moving towards Bombay. Even the mobile phone numbers of some terrorists were provided. Internal bickerings and/or plain inefficiency prevented our intelligence agencies from taking any action. But they can sit in a TV studio and talk big.
Besides, India is not America. Pakistan is in no position to take on America at any level. America publicly stated that more raids inside Pakistan territory would be carried out if necessary, and all that Pakistan could do was to swallow it.
India is utterly different. The American operation only embarrassed Pakistan. Any Indian operation of the kind will be taken by Pakistan as a declaration of war. Unable to take so deep a wound to their psyche, the Pakistani military may indeed over-react even if it means a suicidal operation for them.
The real irony is that the remotest possibility of any military strike by India is now ruled out because TV channels have discussed the action plans in the open. One channel even gave out details of India's special action units and their different capabilities. Imagine a panel discussion on CNN on the US Navy Seals' equipment, capabilities and plans ahead of the Abbottabad operation.
Pakistan is a lost state. It does not even know the reason for its existence, the violent separation of “East Pakistan” having wiped out what was supposed to have been the reason. It is ruled by the military half the time and by homegrown terror groups the other half. It does not even have an economy of its own. All it has is a notion of military pride. By lacerating that pride with a childish display of triumphalism, we only incite irrational behaviour. Above all, when TV channels imagine that they are duty-bound to lay down the foreign policy of a country, that country is in trouble. We need our country. We don't need immature news channels.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Others take care of their people, India takes care of lobbies
The endosulfan controversy is typical of India, of Indian politics, of Indian corruption, of Indian morality. There were 173 countries in the Stockholm Convention that debated whether or not there should be a global ban on this notorious pesticide. Of these 125 had banned it outright. All 47 of the remaining 48 sat on the fence and generally kept quiet. Only one argued vehemently on behalf of endosulfan. That one-in-the-world nation was India.
India was further isolated by the silliness of its arguments. It said, for example, that America's Federal Drug Administration ruled in 1998 that endosulfan posed no health hazard. The US has the most stringent and independent regulatory agencies in food and environmental matters and therefore American rulings are taken as a benchmark in the rest of the world.
But India cited American authority only to mislead. In 1989, a decade before the purported FDA ruling, the US Fish & Wild Life Service had said that endosulfan was fatal to endangered fish species. In 2007 the US Environment Protection Agency began a review of pesticide policies and decided, in 2010, to phase out endosulfan. The industry lobby said this was not a ban,but only a deregistration. The fact was that Bayer, the first and principal manufacturer of the pesticide, closed down its American factory. The only remaining factory, an Israeli company, started winding down as per the phase-out period allowed by the Government. The pesticide, it was declared, “poses unacceptable risks to farm workers and wild life”.
In America and Europe, in China and Japan, scientific studies lead to fairly quick policy decisions. In India about 80 expert study teams have reported on the Kasargod victims of endosulfan, examining everything from breast milk to male reproductive systems. Yet the Government kept saying that expert studies were needed before a ban could be considered. Sharad Pawar was the sole fighter for endosulfan initially. Later the Prime Minister and the green warrior Jairam Ramesh joined him. What was going on?
It is true that excessive and careless use of pesticides led to the tragedies in Kasargod (where children are born with horrible defects) and in Punjab's Bhatinda area (where cancer is endemic). Civilised societies impose responsibilities on the industry as well as on government agencies to ensure proper and controlled use of poisonous chemicals. In Bhatinda what steps did the industry and the Government take to guide farmers many of whom could not even read the instructions on the packets?
The Kerala Government's lapse was even more reprehensible. Irresponsible aerial spraying of the lethal chemical was carried out by a government undertaking, the Plantation Corporation. Was any official of the Corporation booked for the offence and punished? The state's case against the Central Government would have been stronger if it had held its own offenders accountable.
Perhaps we should not be surprised at Delhi's defence of the indefensible and its indifference to India's isolation in the world. India already has a shameful record of bowing before multinational lobbies. Drugs that are banned in Western countries become easily available in our country. Field trials disallowed in America are carried out on unsuspecting Indian patients. Genetically engineered products must be so labelled in other countries. In India there is no such rule because the GM lobby has “persuaded” the authorities against it.
Many things happen in India that cannot happen in countries concerned about public welfare. The needle of suspicion must naturally point to the possibility of corruption. We hear pesticide lobby's arguments from the mouths of government leaders. We hear arguments in favour of chemically engineered brinjal from agricultural experts who have received lucrative research grants from GM companies. World opinion has now forced India to agree to a phase out of endosulfan over the next 11 years. Given the hold the lobbies have on India's power structure, there is no guarantee that the phase-out will work as transparently in India as it did in the US. Scepticism is in order when decisions about poisons in our water bodies and soil and food chains are in the hands of people like Sharad Pawar.
India was further isolated by the silliness of its arguments. It said, for example, that America's Federal Drug Administration ruled in 1998 that endosulfan posed no health hazard. The US has the most stringent and independent regulatory agencies in food and environmental matters and therefore American rulings are taken as a benchmark in the rest of the world.
But India cited American authority only to mislead. In 1989, a decade before the purported FDA ruling, the US Fish & Wild Life Service had said that endosulfan was fatal to endangered fish species. In 2007 the US Environment Protection Agency began a review of pesticide policies and decided, in 2010, to phase out endosulfan. The industry lobby said this was not a ban,but only a deregistration. The fact was that Bayer, the first and principal manufacturer of the pesticide, closed down its American factory. The only remaining factory, an Israeli company, started winding down as per the phase-out period allowed by the Government. The pesticide, it was declared, “poses unacceptable risks to farm workers and wild life”.
In America and Europe, in China and Japan, scientific studies lead to fairly quick policy decisions. In India about 80 expert study teams have reported on the Kasargod victims of endosulfan, examining everything from breast milk to male reproductive systems. Yet the Government kept saying that expert studies were needed before a ban could be considered. Sharad Pawar was the sole fighter for endosulfan initially. Later the Prime Minister and the green warrior Jairam Ramesh joined him. What was going on?
It is true that excessive and careless use of pesticides led to the tragedies in Kasargod (where children are born with horrible defects) and in Punjab's Bhatinda area (where cancer is endemic). Civilised societies impose responsibilities on the industry as well as on government agencies to ensure proper and controlled use of poisonous chemicals. In Bhatinda what steps did the industry and the Government take to guide farmers many of whom could not even read the instructions on the packets?
The Kerala Government's lapse was even more reprehensible. Irresponsible aerial spraying of the lethal chemical was carried out by a government undertaking, the Plantation Corporation. Was any official of the Corporation booked for the offence and punished? The state's case against the Central Government would have been stronger if it had held its own offenders accountable.
Perhaps we should not be surprised at Delhi's defence of the indefensible and its indifference to India's isolation in the world. India already has a shameful record of bowing before multinational lobbies. Drugs that are banned in Western countries become easily available in our country. Field trials disallowed in America are carried out on unsuspecting Indian patients. Genetically engineered products must be so labelled in other countries. In India there is no such rule because the GM lobby has “persuaded” the authorities against it.
Many things happen in India that cannot happen in countries concerned about public welfare. The needle of suspicion must naturally point to the possibility of corruption. We hear pesticide lobby's arguments from the mouths of government leaders. We hear arguments in favour of chemically engineered brinjal from agricultural experts who have received lucrative research grants from GM companies. World opinion has now forced India to agree to a phase out of endosulfan over the next 11 years. Given the hold the lobbies have on India's power structure, there is no guarantee that the phase-out will work as transparently in India as it did in the US. Scepticism is in order when decisions about poisons in our water bodies and soil and food chains are in the hands of people like Sharad Pawar.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Corrupt politicians on a sabotage mission
Svengali was a fictional character and Rasputin a real-life one. One used hypnotism and the other psychic faith-healing to gain enormous power over others. The two words are today part of the English vocabulary. They mean a person of evil intent who manipulates others to achieve what he wants.
Suddenly dozens of Svengalis and Rasputins and Mantharas and Sakunis are on the march in India. The air is choking with conspiracy and intrigue, plotting and scheming and arrant manipulation. What is behind this bizarre frenzy is obvious. The political class is scared that the ongoing anti-corruption campaign may succeed. At any price they want public opinion to be defeated so that the cosy system that allows politicians to plunder the country can continue.
And see what they have achieved. A determined, cleverly executed campaign to discredit the committee has succeeded to a large extent. A petition has challenged the committee's constitutionality. In Maharashtra Assembly, Sharad Pawar's NCP and the Congress together have demanded an inquiry into charges of corruption against Anna Hazare and his trusts.
Most importantly, the toughest members of the committee, the Bhushans, have been morally damaged. The Sakunis and Rasputins must have calculated that if somehow these men could be compromised and ejected, it would be a powerful message to the other members of the committee and to civil-societywallahs in general.
It is surprising that the Bhushans, men of great legal acumen, did not foresee this turn of events. In the first place, there was no imperative need to include both father and son in the committee. It is true that they were best equipped to push civil society's positions through in the discussions of the committee. But they should have known that demolition squads were lurking in the shadows and diplomatically withdrawn one Bhushan from official limelight. Certainly, they should have shown more caution in handling their property matters. Lack of attention to details merely supplied sticks to their enemies to beat them with.
But these indiscretions were no reason to subvert the basic issue of drafting a meaningful anti-corruption bill. By using the Bhushan issue in conspiratorial ways, the political manipulators not only diminished important members of the committee; they distracted attention from the committee's task itself and cast shadows on its future working. If this is the intensity with which they assault members involved in drafting the bill, what diabolic plots will they hatch when the bill comes up for discussion in Parliament?
And just who are these self-appointed devas fighting to save the country from presumed asuras?. Sharad Pawar, Amar Singh and Digvijay Singh are men who had always promoted narrow group interests at the cost of the country. Reckless abuse of power marked their years in office. Pawar, true to form, stayed behind the scenes. But only he would have dared to conjure up the idea of slinging mud at Hazare himself. Amar Singh was intensely aggressive in his TV performances this time. Not only was he acting out his declamations with unusual gesticulations; he exploded into sudden bursts of shouting, as though loudness of voice was an argument. Digvijay Singh, also animated and extraordinarily partisan, tore into Baba Ramdev asking about his wealth and whether he was paying taxes. He was bigotted enough -- and ignorant enough -- to cast aspersions even on Santosh Hegde, the most honourable of them all. The relentlessness of this senior Congress general secretary’s attack on the committee also raises doubts about Sonia Gandhi’s honesty in telling Hazare that she supports the campaign against corruption. Does she really?
In any case, what right do rejected politicians have to pose as moral interrogators calling others to order? What is their own record? They could not have made more obvious their eagerness to safeguard the prevailing culture of corruption. If the current bill-drafting exercise is discredited and derailed, this generation's last hope of controlling corruption will have been lost. It is a loss even the Amar Digvijays of our country will regret some day.
Suddenly dozens of Svengalis and Rasputins and Mantharas and Sakunis are on the march in India. The air is choking with conspiracy and intrigue, plotting and scheming and arrant manipulation. What is behind this bizarre frenzy is obvious. The political class is scared that the ongoing anti-corruption campaign may succeed. At any price they want public opinion to be defeated so that the cosy system that allows politicians to plunder the country can continue.
And see what they have achieved. A determined, cleverly executed campaign to discredit the committee has succeeded to a large extent. A petition has challenged the committee's constitutionality. In Maharashtra Assembly, Sharad Pawar's NCP and the Congress together have demanded an inquiry into charges of corruption against Anna Hazare and his trusts.
Most importantly, the toughest members of the committee, the Bhushans, have been morally damaged. The Sakunis and Rasputins must have calculated that if somehow these men could be compromised and ejected, it would be a powerful message to the other members of the committee and to civil-societywallahs in general.
It is surprising that the Bhushans, men of great legal acumen, did not foresee this turn of events. In the first place, there was no imperative need to include both father and son in the committee. It is true that they were best equipped to push civil society's positions through in the discussions of the committee. But they should have known that demolition squads were lurking in the shadows and diplomatically withdrawn one Bhushan from official limelight. Certainly, they should have shown more caution in handling their property matters. Lack of attention to details merely supplied sticks to their enemies to beat them with.
But these indiscretions were no reason to subvert the basic issue of drafting a meaningful anti-corruption bill. By using the Bhushan issue in conspiratorial ways, the political manipulators not only diminished important members of the committee; they distracted attention from the committee's task itself and cast shadows on its future working. If this is the intensity with which they assault members involved in drafting the bill, what diabolic plots will they hatch when the bill comes up for discussion in Parliament?
And just who are these self-appointed devas fighting to save the country from presumed asuras?. Sharad Pawar, Amar Singh and Digvijay Singh are men who had always promoted narrow group interests at the cost of the country. Reckless abuse of power marked their years in office. Pawar, true to form, stayed behind the scenes. But only he would have dared to conjure up the idea of slinging mud at Hazare himself. Amar Singh was intensely aggressive in his TV performances this time. Not only was he acting out his declamations with unusual gesticulations; he exploded into sudden bursts of shouting, as though loudness of voice was an argument. Digvijay Singh, also animated and extraordinarily partisan, tore into Baba Ramdev asking about his wealth and whether he was paying taxes. He was bigotted enough -- and ignorant enough -- to cast aspersions even on Santosh Hegde, the most honourable of them all. The relentlessness of this senior Congress general secretary’s attack on the committee also raises doubts about Sonia Gandhi’s honesty in telling Hazare that she supports the campaign against corruption. Does she really?
In any case, what right do rejected politicians have to pose as moral interrogators calling others to order? What is their own record? They could not have made more obvious their eagerness to safeguard the prevailing culture of corruption. If the current bill-drafting exercise is discredited and derailed, this generation's last hope of controlling corruption will have been lost. It is a loss even the Amar Digvijays of our country will regret some day.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Beyond Amul Baby, there is a war coming
Having to wait for a whole month to know who will rule key states like West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala is not just unfair; it is cruel too. Prolonged anxiety will cause severe stress syndromes. It is true that a couple of truly delectable items were provided by the campaigners for us to chew upon as we wait. Mamata Banerji employing beauticians to do pedicure-manicure-facials is, in historical terms, a revolution. It's her way to out-revolutionise the professional revolutionaries of the Left Front. Let's hope that a presentable Mamata will win Bengali hearts so that the Railway Ministry can at last be rescued from her.
The real campaign gems of this election came from Kerala, though. Rahul Gandhi tied himself up in knots by ridiculing Achuthanandan for his age, 88, while swallowing the age of Karunanidhi, 87, because Karuna is a Congress ally. Achuta hit back in a manner that Rahul Gandhi will not forget for the rest of his life. He raised his voice to a sarcastic pitch and described the Congress princeling as an “Amul Baby”. That tag at once went into the political lexicon of the country even as it reverberated across the land.
All that is fun, but what about the serious business? For the first time in recent years, political parties in Tamil Nadu employed bribery openly and in defiance of election rules to buy votes. The Election Commission's own officials seized Rs 50 crore in currency notes as they were about to be distributed to voters. Five or six times that much money must have actually gone into voters' hands.
This is a throwback to the primitive practices of Bihar-UP in the early elections when booth capturing was a fashion. The disturbing element this time is that the Election Commission saw what was happening but was unable to prevent a great deal of illegalities. The Chief Election Commissioner openly admitted that money-flaunting had become a major problem in Tamil Nadu and that the party in power was the principal culprit.
The electoral fight vitiated by such blatant malpractices is not going to help the state, whoever wins. The silver lining is that it will add more voices to the cry for electoral reform. This is already part of the agenda set by the Anna Hazare movement. Anti-corruption legislation will have little meaning without a parallel arrangement to ensure crook-proof elections.
Getting that arrangement in place is going to take a major war. The Government agreeing to give independent civilians a role in drafting the Lok Pal Bill was a minor victory for public opinion. Perhaps the Government calculated that, once the emotionalism of a fast unto death was dissipated, things would be easy to manipulate. Reports of divisions in the Hazare camp seem to justify this reading.
Hazare is no magician and his ideas are not the final solution to all our problems. But it would be a mistake on the part of the Government and of politicians in general to underestimate the public anger over corruption. The string of scandals in recent times culminating in the Commonwealth Games and 2G spectrum and Hasan Ali cases have created a national mood the politicians can ignore only at their peril.
Decent Indians are trying to cleanse the country of the malignant politics that has attacked it in recent years. They are doing this through peaceful, constitutional means. With remarkable faith in the constitution, for example, Binayak Sen's case was pursued until the Supreme Court largely undid the injustice that was meted out to the doctor in the name of justice. This case underlines yet again that what we need are institutions we can rely upon rather than institutions vested interests can manipulate. The incredible spontaneity with which public opinion roused itself when Anna Hazare provided an opportunity should convince the politicians that they cannot be “people's representatives” and continue to ignore people's sentiments. The corrupt must go not to assemblies and Parliament, but to jail. There can be no more fooling of the people.
The real campaign gems of this election came from Kerala, though. Rahul Gandhi tied himself up in knots by ridiculing Achuthanandan for his age, 88, while swallowing the age of Karunanidhi, 87, because Karuna is a Congress ally. Achuta hit back in a manner that Rahul Gandhi will not forget for the rest of his life. He raised his voice to a sarcastic pitch and described the Congress princeling as an “Amul Baby”. That tag at once went into the political lexicon of the country even as it reverberated across the land.
All that is fun, but what about the serious business? For the first time in recent years, political parties in Tamil Nadu employed bribery openly and in defiance of election rules to buy votes. The Election Commission's own officials seized Rs 50 crore in currency notes as they were about to be distributed to voters. Five or six times that much money must have actually gone into voters' hands.
This is a throwback to the primitive practices of Bihar-UP in the early elections when booth capturing was a fashion. The disturbing element this time is that the Election Commission saw what was happening but was unable to prevent a great deal of illegalities. The Chief Election Commissioner openly admitted that money-flaunting had become a major problem in Tamil Nadu and that the party in power was the principal culprit.
The electoral fight vitiated by such blatant malpractices is not going to help the state, whoever wins. The silver lining is that it will add more voices to the cry for electoral reform. This is already part of the agenda set by the Anna Hazare movement. Anti-corruption legislation will have little meaning without a parallel arrangement to ensure crook-proof elections.
Getting that arrangement in place is going to take a major war. The Government agreeing to give independent civilians a role in drafting the Lok Pal Bill was a minor victory for public opinion. Perhaps the Government calculated that, once the emotionalism of a fast unto death was dissipated, things would be easy to manipulate. Reports of divisions in the Hazare camp seem to justify this reading.
Hazare is no magician and his ideas are not the final solution to all our problems. But it would be a mistake on the part of the Government and of politicians in general to underestimate the public anger over corruption. The string of scandals in recent times culminating in the Commonwealth Games and 2G spectrum and Hasan Ali cases have created a national mood the politicians can ignore only at their peril.
Decent Indians are trying to cleanse the country of the malignant politics that has attacked it in recent years. They are doing this through peaceful, constitutional means. With remarkable faith in the constitution, for example, Binayak Sen's case was pursued until the Supreme Court largely undid the injustice that was meted out to the doctor in the name of justice. This case underlines yet again that what we need are institutions we can rely upon rather than institutions vested interests can manipulate. The incredible spontaneity with which public opinion roused itself when Anna Hazare provided an opportunity should convince the politicians that they cannot be “people's representatives” and continue to ignore people's sentiments. The corrupt must go not to assemblies and Parliament, but to jail. There can be no more fooling of the people.
Monday, April 11, 2011
People's notice to crooks: Change or Go
Television has spawned many evils. One of them is the animal called 'party spokesperson', a species that is found only in India. By occupational necessity, they are motor-mouths; just turn the battery on and they go blabbering nonstop. They are also robotic; they see and hear and speak nothing except what their creators have programmed them to see and hear and speak.
Spokespersons come in different shapes, colours and sizes. The only feature that is common to all is pompousness – the air that they know all that is there to know and those who disagree with them are blockheads. Look at the staring eyes of Abhishek Singhvi, the self-assured expression, the tilt of the head, and look at the laboured seriousness of Manish Tiwari, his tone, his style and you'll know at one that if Ravi Varma were to do a portrait of “Arrogance”, these would be his models. They never ever seem to understand the mood of the people before whom they pontificate every day. The most glaring example of this disconnect is the insensitive, overbearing and insolent manner in which Singhvi and company reacted to the Anna Hazare phenomenon.
It's a conspiracy, they said. The Government is being black-mailed, they said. “This is a free country, anyone is free to go on fast”, said the pompous Tiwari in his pompous accent. This poor Gandhian “has been instigated” to go on fast, said the haughty Singhvi. They are misguiding Hazare as they misguided Jayaprakash Narayan... And so on and on.
It was the Government that misguided the nation. JP's movement in the 1970s electrified the people because they were feeling suffocated by the Indira-Sanjay Gandhi autocracy. Hazare's initiative electrified the people because it offered a faint hope of fighting corruption which had broken all conceivable boundaries. Both became spontaneous people's movements because both held out the promise of desperately needed change.
The fact is that people are angry. Not only because gargantuan corruption has devoured the country; they are angry because the corrupt seem to flourish and the Government shows no sign of sincerity in combating the evil. A few officials of the Commonwealth Games have been arrested, but someone is protecting Suresh Kalmadi. Some officials who helped pilots get fake fitness certificates have been arrested, but who is protecting the top guns? Who is keeping former Chief Justice Balakrishnan in the Human Rights Commission? Who forced the CBI to mess up Quattrochi's court cases and to release his London funds?
Above all, why is Sharad Pawar still strutting about like Mephistopheles buying up other people's souls? Despite those land scams in Maharashtra, the duplicate World Cup, the rotting foodgrains and the endosulfan victims, he was one of the ministers handpicked to oversee the anti-corruption bill. No greater proof is needed to establish the Government's dishonourable intentions – and the validity of Anna Hazare's demand that the anti-corruption bill be drawn up by a joint committee that will also include people of integrity from outside the government.
The Government has had the good sense to accept that demand, however belatedly. To that extent, what we have witnessed is a historical triumph of democracy. But this is just a beginning. The Lok Pal Bill may now be expected to get enacted with sufficient teeth in it. The real challenge will come when it begins to get implemented.
Will the evil forces that compromised other instrumentalities like CBI and CVC subvert the new act as well? Will the Lok Pal be able to smoke out every Mephistopheles in the system and hold him to account? A few kings of corruption must go to jail, only then will the world know that we have a system that does not condone the plundering of public money. There is reason to be hopeful because what we have just experienced is an unprecedented awakening of public opinion, especially of youth power which distinguished itself by remaining peaceful throughout. This is a new India, a maturing India.
The message cannot be clearer: Change must come to India, and a political class that cannot handle change wisely must go.
Spokespersons come in different shapes, colours and sizes. The only feature that is common to all is pompousness – the air that they know all that is there to know and those who disagree with them are blockheads. Look at the staring eyes of Abhishek Singhvi, the self-assured expression, the tilt of the head, and look at the laboured seriousness of Manish Tiwari, his tone, his style and you'll know at one that if Ravi Varma were to do a portrait of “Arrogance”, these would be his models. They never ever seem to understand the mood of the people before whom they pontificate every day. The most glaring example of this disconnect is the insensitive, overbearing and insolent manner in which Singhvi and company reacted to the Anna Hazare phenomenon.
It's a conspiracy, they said. The Government is being black-mailed, they said. “This is a free country, anyone is free to go on fast”, said the pompous Tiwari in his pompous accent. This poor Gandhian “has been instigated” to go on fast, said the haughty Singhvi. They are misguiding Hazare as they misguided Jayaprakash Narayan... And so on and on.
It was the Government that misguided the nation. JP's movement in the 1970s electrified the people because they were feeling suffocated by the Indira-Sanjay Gandhi autocracy. Hazare's initiative electrified the people because it offered a faint hope of fighting corruption which had broken all conceivable boundaries. Both became spontaneous people's movements because both held out the promise of desperately needed change.
The fact is that people are angry. Not only because gargantuan corruption has devoured the country; they are angry because the corrupt seem to flourish and the Government shows no sign of sincerity in combating the evil. A few officials of the Commonwealth Games have been arrested, but someone is protecting Suresh Kalmadi. Some officials who helped pilots get fake fitness certificates have been arrested, but who is protecting the top guns? Who is keeping former Chief Justice Balakrishnan in the Human Rights Commission? Who forced the CBI to mess up Quattrochi's court cases and to release his London funds?
Above all, why is Sharad Pawar still strutting about like Mephistopheles buying up other people's souls? Despite those land scams in Maharashtra, the duplicate World Cup, the rotting foodgrains and the endosulfan victims, he was one of the ministers handpicked to oversee the anti-corruption bill. No greater proof is needed to establish the Government's dishonourable intentions – and the validity of Anna Hazare's demand that the anti-corruption bill be drawn up by a joint committee that will also include people of integrity from outside the government.
The Government has had the good sense to accept that demand, however belatedly. To that extent, what we have witnessed is a historical triumph of democracy. But this is just a beginning. The Lok Pal Bill may now be expected to get enacted with sufficient teeth in it. The real challenge will come when it begins to get implemented.
Will the evil forces that compromised other instrumentalities like CBI and CVC subvert the new act as well? Will the Lok Pal be able to smoke out every Mephistopheles in the system and hold him to account? A few kings of corruption must go to jail, only then will the world know that we have a system that does not condone the plundering of public money. There is reason to be hopeful because what we have just experienced is an unprecedented awakening of public opinion, especially of youth power which distinguished itself by remaining peaceful throughout. This is a new India, a maturing India.
The message cannot be clearer: Change must come to India, and a political class that cannot handle change wisely must go.
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