This put me in mind of the Justice Sawant Commission report, in which the name of a clean and pious philanthropist I happen to know was featured. However, the account given in that document might be considered to raise questions regarding the probity of, or indeed to defame, that worthy and his family. I won't give you specifics but the link is here.
Hazare has already been put through the mill- and, whether we like it or not, found unclean. Yet he persists with his campaign- that too at the national level. Why? From the Commission's findings, it becomes clear that he and his trusted associates did not comply with mandatory procedures laid down for the voluntary sector. However, the question must be asked- can an honest unbiased person, with experience of the voluntary sector in rural areas- really read the Sawant Commission Report as holding Hazare to have acted mala fide and purely for his own fiduciary gain? Incompetence, arrogance and stupidity are scarcely out of place in a grass-roots activist- especially a self-professed Gandhian. The very word 'brashtachar', or corruption, points to a falling away from a previous high standard. Mad dogs pointlessly biting each other and barking are not examples of 'corruption'.
The other problem- viz. how a voluntary grass-roots movement can prevent 'entryism' by tainted people- is more serious and must be addressed by Civil Society. Clearly anti-corruption Crusades, as well as the proposed office of Lok Pal, are a great way to extort money and build a political base. Billions of 'bahiskrit samaj' (excluded Society) people in village areas are wholly reliant on subsistence Anti-Corruption campaigning. The question that naturally arises in this context, bearing in mind recent very promising developments in for-profit Microfinance, is whether astute Venture Capitalists like Vinod Khosla, working perhaps with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, can pro-actively engage with and catalyse the vast market for, and potential capital gains from, for-profit Anti-Corruption Campaigning, properly benchmarked for Environmental Sustainability, Emotional Subsidiarity and Incontinent Transparency.
The bottom line, however, remains-and this is the National Tragedy in which Anna Hazare is playing the part of Hamlet- is that we have a model of rural Development and Empowerment which institutionalises corruption, stupidity and availability cascades of the silliest sort. Thus, if there is a way forward, it is to be found in Modi's Gurjerat, not Hazare's Maharashtra. Otherwise, yet more momentum will be given to the great rural past-time of everybody forming his own Brashatachar Andolan and filing f.i.r's against everybody else in the village for assault, battery, anal rape, abetment to suttee, being pissed on from a great height, having one's land encroached on, not washing hands after doing tatti etc, etc.
The greatness of Anna Hazare is he finally ran away from the village and came to Jantar Mantar and sat down and declared a tatti bandh and humbly fasted till he got something or the other which would keep him out of the mad-house of N.G.O overpopulated Indian villages and their tremendous moral integrity and pure Gandhian values.
The extract from the Comission's report given below features a complaint by an aggrieved bus-conductor who started up his own Brashtachar Virodh outfit. Truly, we so called 'liberal' middle-class Indians have much to learn from Hazare and his ilk about the real meaning of 'Hind Swaraj'.
5 comments:
P.Sainath in top form on the Lok Pal bill-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qfAyDVogxc
I like the story about the grocery shop owner who received not one not two not three not four BUT FIVE certificates for promoting Prohibition. How can this guy not be a bootlegger?
'Thus, if there is a way forward, it is to be found in Modi's Gurjerat, not Hazare's Maharashtra'- Modi's model has high level of institutionalised corruption.
@Anon- yes, but Hazare seems to have got Sharad Pawar on the run, whereas Modi appears to be going from strength to strength. I suppose this comes down to Modi being confined to Gujerat whereas Pawar went off to Delhi.
When we consider how great men like Mahatma Gandhi single handedly defeated his own tremendous sexual urge, or how Vinobha Bhave single handedly solved all of Bihar's problems thus permitting him to leave that State worse off than he found it, or how Jay Prakash Narayan single handedly brought about 'sampoorna kranti'- Total Revolution of 360 degrees, or how Anna Hazare single handedly beat up drunks after tying them to a pole, or how Swami Agnivesh single handedly rooted out child labour inside his own body (he is actually a meat-suit operated by Pappu and Guddu, who are not children but midgets with large families of their own)our eyes mist up with tears and heart goes out to the trillions of rural people who are being subjected to rape, sodomy, fellatio and cunnilingus at the hands of all and sundry. Civil Society must speak about this. Personally I blame culture of consumerism or consumering of the culture like wot that Mallika Sarabhai is showing on disco floor.
The harmonious construction doctrine may permit a sort of uneasy co-existence between the Judiciary and the office of Lok Pal however two evils become apparent
1) that successful road-maps to reduce corruption emphasize getting rid of ambiguities and areas of institutional friction. Harmonious construction doctrine itself arose out of a dirigiste Economic policy where the presumed univocity of the Public Sector, to which the predominant 'commanding heights' role was given, could be held to provide a justification for the doctrine. Clearly, if the Public Sector has a limited role and moreover if policy objectives (which, if limited, must be conflicting) have their own policy instruments then no such univocity can be construed to obtain. In this case, surely, the entire doctrine should be abandoned. Thus, sooner or later, conflict between the Judiciary and the LokPal's office (unless it is rendered ineffective) becomes inevitable.
2)If harmonious construction means treating the Lokpal as a sort of amphibian- part of the Executive some of the time and independent of it at others- the question naturally arises as to hybrid actions initiated jointly with Govt. Agencies or the Judiciary. To what extent do such hybrid actions or bodies share this amphibious nature? At root, the Lok Pal agitation is premised upon the axiomatic 'Independence' and purity of the office it proposes. Yet, not content to be an amphibian the Lok Pal wishes to be a sort of ouroburos, a snake swallowing its own tail, investigating its own independence. Might not this chimera prove more adaptive and end up swallowing up everything else?
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