It’s my way or the highway

V Pattabhi Ram


Most of us Indians have only heard of or read about Mohandas Gandhi. The man derisively dismissed as the half-naked fakir by the British was responsible for ensuring that the sun set on the British Empire. His reward: one, India’s Independence; two, his assassination by a religious fanatic; and three, unending ingratitude from a group that trusts a different version of history. Surprisingly the Mahatma revered across countries and continents never found resonance in his own country.

Three decades later, a neo-Gandhi, answering to the name JP, talked about bringing a total revolution. He galvanized the Indian middle class and triggered the chain of events that led to the eventual defeat of the Congress. The new government made up of JP’s chosen ones, where JP did a Gandhi in refusing take a role, was supposed to lead the country to a new path. No such thing happened as the quibbling nincompoops, many of whom are today part of the Saffron party and some perhaps in the Congress, ensured that the people voted the Congress back to power. JP died a disillusioned man.

And now, in 2011, an unlikely hero in Anna Hazare is seeking to emerge as a modern day Gandhi. There are no two opinions that the spectacular corruption that we have seen in recent months as also the grassroots corruption that the common man faces in his ritualistic existence has hurt us so much that Hazare is getting a resonance from the people. That is as it should be. It for sure is great that one man is standing up to be counted for the cause of a clean India.

But there in hangs a tale.

While no one can quibble with his end or his intentions, the means to the end is for sure questionable. And for a man who swears by Gandhi that’s a tragedy. For better or worse India has been a successful parliamentary democracy. The law is made in Parliament and not on the streets. The law is made by our elected representatives whom we have elected either by exercising our franchise or by choosing to stay away from the husting. And for those who have cast their votes to now come out saying, “we will frame the law; to hell with the parliamentarians” is neither fair nor legal.

It has turned into such a rotten pitch that one of the activists, apparently things have gone into the head, says that the parliament is not supreme; that the people are. The phraseology may be right but the context and the intent are clearly wrong. Hazare may be drawing the crowds; but the crowds don’t make law. The crowd wants a good law for sure but for Hazare to claim that he is the best law maker is a tad funny.

Hazare says he is being targeted and tarnished by the government. Hazare forgets that he and his chosen few have used choice epithets against politicians as also against the prime minister. To say, “it’s my way or the highway” is to show a reprehensible contempt for discourse and for democracy. The right thing for Hazare to do, since he seems to be gunning the government (soft option) more than anyone else, is to talk to the Opposition (the BJP and the Left) and bring about such far reaching changes that the final Bill resembles what he and his team call the People’s Bill.

If you don’t like this government, vote it out. If you don’t like all political parties, form one. India does not want dictatorship, howsoever appealing it might to some look to be. India’s problem in India is that the political parties are at logger head with each other; each wanting to score brownie points and thereby foolishly undermining the temple of democracy, the parliament. When Hazare first stormed on the scene in April, a friend of mine who wears his shirt saffron said that Hazare was a Congress plant; today, the Congress is saying that the thousands who are thronging Hazare’s fast are RSS plants!! Aside of ethics deficit we are seeing trust deficit.

I had said it earlier in these pages that what we need is not another law; India has enough laws. We are an over-regulated but under-implemented nation. Another superman with super powers is not the answer. We don’t want super inspectors. The answer lies in swift and expeditious justice and not in street like theatrics. For his stature and standing, Anna has been accorded the necessary respect; but he can’t take that as a licence to stretch things too far. The solution, I repeat, is not fasting for another law but fasting to make the judiciary work faster and smarter. And to tell people that they should not act bribe giver. For some to say its okay “I give bribe, I don’t bribe” is to be dishonest.

In the end Anna may win out because the Congress may extend the olive branch because it perhaps fears that the kind of anger that was seen in the streets of Egypt may happen here, more for bad than for good. But the process, sorry to say, would set out a poor precedent. To imagine that anyone who questions Anna’s process is against corruption is not simple nonsense but fantastic nonsense.