The Real Issue, A Surreal Solution
By Anand Teltumbde
09 May, 2011
Countercurrents.org
India scarcely may have had such a momentous month. In quick succession to the “India on top of the world” euphoria created by the World Cup win came the “India Wins War against Corruption”, brought to us by 73 years old Gandhian crusader from Ralegaon Siddhi, Anna Hazare and of course his soul mates. His 98 hours fast unto death at Jantar Mantar in Delhli to demand a civil society participation in drafting the Jan Lokpal bill made the government crawl into accepting all his demands. More than the win, the manner in which this fast enthused and galvanized young people across the country in idealistic fervor was indeed encouraging. It was the first time in two decades that anyone had been able to mobilize support on the issue of corruption on such a large scale. Indeed, the mobilization of nationwide opinion against ‘scam a day’ kind of corruption is a great feat this episode accomplished, but to think of it as a solution, actual or potential, is rather trivializing the issue. And if it was not to be a solution, one must look into whys and whyfores of this remarkable presentation.
Not What Meets the Eye
The Lokpal Bill is based on the concept of Ombudsman in western democracies, who oversees the conduct of public servants. The first draft of the bill was presented in 1969 and was even passed by the Lok Sabha. However, by the time it reached Rajya Sabha, the Lok Sabha was dissolved. Thereafter it was presented in 1971, 1977, 1985, 1989, 1996, 2001, 2005 and 2008 by various governments but remained unpassed for some or the other reason. There was thus an agreement on having a Lokpal in the political class. The current UPA had promised in its election manifesto to implement it. The bill was accordingly put up before the national consultative committee formed under the chairmanship of Sonia Gandhi. Meanwhile there has been pressure from various civil society groups for including their representatives in the drafting committee alongwith politicians. It had its effect; the working committee on transparency, responsibility and control had decided on 26 February to review the bill and in its meeting on 4 April had consultations with the representatives from the civil society under the leadership of Aruna Roy. It had discussions on the drafts prepared by the civil society groups and reached agreements on many a point, others being slated for further review. After this the next meeting was scheduled on 28 April. In this context, the sudden decision of Anna Hazare to go on an indefinite fast smacks of something else being behind the entire episode.
What is that something may not be easily known. But the way the fast happened, the manner it was hyped and was concluded within just four days had something unusual to it. It may be surmised from what it accomplished and for whom. Before the fast the scams getting exposed in rapid succession had dipped the credibility of the UPA government to an all time low. Its usual boast about economic management was also not working; inflation being out of bound, manufacturing showing up sharp decline and the economic growth being re-estimated downward. The situation was pregnant with something big, the peoples’ protests in African and Middle East being the ongoing inspiration. In such a situation, while the government would love to have a throttled protest erupt; the opposition, not being in position to directly mobilize masses because of skeletons in their own cupboards, could be satisfied with a proxy win of the kind the fast achieved. Nothing substantial has happened which would not have happened otherwise. The scam exposing by the media has suddenly stopped. The attention of the public is effectively deflected to the parleys of the joint drafting committee for the bill. There appears not much disagreement over the drafts now. The government has scored that it would bring in an effective anti-corruption mechanism as people wanted. The opposition revelled that the government was kneeled down on the corruption issue. Anna Hazare became instant Mahatma and others became the heroes in the ‘second battle of freedom’. Who appears to have lost is people; people of India as in 1947.
Megashow of Media
The manner in which this protest was orchestrated in the electronic media should certainly create suspicion whether all this was not preplanned even after conceding that the media desperately needed some TRP-raising blockbuster between the world cup and the IPL. Media went far beyond its usual hyperboles and spread white lies that it was the biggest people’s upsurge in post-independence period. Leave apart the countrywide anti-corruption movements led by Jaiprakash Narayan and VP Singh, Jantar Mantar itself has witnessed far bigger rallies than the crowds collected around Hazare. But nobody ever took their note. No scribe ever reached or a TV camera cared to focus on when thousands of tribals gathered there demanding the implementation of the forest act. The media that made mahatma of Hazare has systematically ignored another Gandhian Irom Sharmila, who has been on fast from 4 November 2000 for the just and concrete demand of annulment of Arms Forces Special Powers Act that has turned Manipur and other NE states as virtual military cantonments. Indeed it was essentially a media show; proving its prowess that it can make or unmake the world for us.
Media’s prowess in shaping public opinion and their movements was noted long back by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky in their ‘Manufacturing Consent’. The flood of news channels and cyber media has precisely done this in manufacturing this movement of the middle classes and facebook generation. Their collective dissent however is explained by Michel Chossudovsky in his ‘Manufacturing Dissent’ as the necessity of corporate houses and elite class to maintain the voice of dissent as a part of the system at a level where it does not become a threat to the latter. The system thus needs Hazares for its own legitimacy. It was not for nothing that the corporate bigwigs like Rahul Bajaj, Adi Godrej, Pawan Goenka, Sunil Munjal, and FICCI’s Rajeev Kumar and Assocham’s Dilip Modi among many others had rushed in support of Hazare at Jantar Mantar. Not just the moral support, they actually funded the show. As per the Times of India (14 April) Jindal Aluminum contributed Rs 25 lakh; Surinder Pal Singh, Rs 10 lakh; Ramki, Rs 5 lakh; Good Earth Trust of Eisher, Rs 3 lakh; Duggal, Rs. 3 lakh; HDFC Bank, Rs 50,000. Out of the total sum of Rs 82.88 lakh collected, Rs 46.50 lakh (56.10 percent) has come from the capitalists.
The MBA Revolution
It was astounding to see how an elementary educated Gandhian could appeal to our wi fi generation in cities, mostly belonging to MBA types to come spiritedly on their mailer groups and social networks. This is the generation that is elated by the progress made by neoliberal India in terms of GDP growth, its imminent demographic dividend and dream of India becoming a super power. They cannot see this inspiring India’s image being sullied by the strings of cases of corruption by politicians and their accomplices in bureaucracy. They already disdain politics as it is associated with the underclass who cast their votes on the basis of caste, community or bribes in the form of cash and booze. They would rather do away this universal franchise business and bring in the corporate model for the governance of the country. After all, it is they, the corporate people, who have brought the country to the current glory from the ignominy of nearly three decades signified by the hindu rate of growth. Fed on the superficial course on socio-political environment as a complement to their main course on business strategy, they would be least expected to know that it was always the corporate–politician joint venture at the saddle in policy making that produced the hindu rate of growth of yesteryears or the near double digit growth of recent years. People of this country barely figured in their game.
Confronting Corruption
The entire tenor of the discourse has been as though the corruption was confined only to the bureaucrats and politicians. The capitalists, who actually oiled the greed of these people and promoted corruption, the people from film industry, which primarily runs on black money, the babas who amassed massive wealth with a camouflage of donations of ordinary people, 78 percent of whom are supposed to be living off Rs 20 a day, including some politicians were seen among the supporters of Hazare. Naturally, there was not a single word spoken against them. With a backdrop of Bharatmata, as found in the RSS publications, the context of support from various RSS functionaries, Hazare’s praise for Modi, the entire show wore a thick tinge of Hindutva. The placards of ‘remove reservations’ were part of the show till end. Actually, corruption as rent giving/seeking has been an integral part of the hindu social order, which sanctioned differential statuses to people and commensurate rent. The implantation of capitalism on the base of caste feudalism made corruption as a part of the accumulation process. But the corruption of the kind we encounter today is the product of neoliberal policies of the government. It opened up flood gates for rent seeking in disposing of ‘public’ in favour of private. Its social Darwinist ethos that celebrates accumulation of wealth by private individuals as a virtue and reflection of entrepreneurship and innovation has been the real fillip to corruption. Actually, corruption becomes the legitimate return for entrepreneurship, economic or political, for neoliberals, which is why neoliberals like Manmohan Singh remain unmoved by the clamour over it. No one heard a word against these policies in the Hazare show.
There is no doubt that the Lokpal as wanted by the ‘civil society’ will be installed soon. Only naïve can think that he will be able to scratch corruption. It would be one more institution added to a plethora of them, which itself could be prone to add to the existing problems as the syndromes of ‘Thomases and Balakrishnans’ indicate. However, it will certainly create an illusion of having the institutional solution in place. When the rising indignation of people could rapidly shape radical politics, which can only arrest corruption through the structural overhaul of the system, it will confuse them into believing that the solution can come from within the existing one. Indeed, the surreal solution the Hazare show offered to the problem of corruption will surely fool people as many time before.
Dr Anand Teltumbde is a writer, political analyst, and a civil rights activist with CPDR, Mumbai. Contact: [email protected]
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