People ask me why I am not fasting with Anna

Anna Hazare seems to have captured the imagination of India and within a short period, everyone who is anyone is out on the street doing what they call "a second Satyagraha for a second Independence". This crusade has everyone hooking on and we had people calling Anna Hazare the second Mahatma. Indeed, we Indians are emotional in nature; we are forever frustrated with our Government and the moment we see a window or platform to hit back at the Government, we latch onto it. Anna Hazare is providing one such platform (a honorable intent) and look how everyone has found a satyagrahi in themselves. People kept asking me over past 3 days as to why I was not fasting with Anna for corruption free India and I told them I have my reservations about fasting. Its not that I cant bear hunger, maybe so, but the main reason is I don't believe that an important legislation like this could be achieved with a gun to the head of the Government.



First of all, I am all for action rather than re-action. Today, what we are seeing is a reaction to long years of governmental corruption. All these years no Anna told us not to pay bribes to get out of traffic tickets; no Kejriwal told us not to pay capitation fees for admits into centres of higher education. That's right, we started this wheel of mis-fortune. Someone amongst us; long long ago; started paying government servants "baksheesh" (gift) for getting their work done swiftly. Apparently they wanted to expedite the movement of their files and jump the queue. People who did not have grades to get into engineering and medical schools began to pay hefty sums to the management to procure an admit (despite lack of aptitude). People who barely knew what a vehicle was, procured driving licences. People who were not qualified to run for representation of local bodies began running for state representatives (MLA) and national representatives (MP) by bribing the voters into voting for them. In short, over the last 50 years, more so in the last 30, we slowly but surely esured that money power could buy almost anything in India. We did it, at first voluntarily and now, that its become endemic, we are forced to do it grudgingly. Somehow, Anna Hazare and gang seems to have forgotten the history and are gunning for the Government to make radical changes and in a haste. I want to ask a basic question to Anna, "would we have corruption in India had there been people unwanting to pay bribes"? If your answer is "NO" then instead of gunning for the government, you and your followers have a bigger problem i.e. educating the masses to not indulge in corruption, because even a Lokpal will not be able to stop corruption if both the bribe giver and taker are complicit in the crime.



People took notice of the "fast" because of the latest disclosures about huge financial mis-appropriation in governmental business. People are aware of this because of judicial activism by the Supreme court of India, the media going gaga over the "scams" and to a large extent by the Right to Information act (RTI). The time was opportune for Anna Hazare to begin his crusade, and people simply latched on. I agree to an extent that we must rid India of corruption, but the means are as important as the cause. The problem started from grass root and has reached the highest echelons of governance, in my humble opinion we must eradicate it the same way. Unless we stop paying bribes, we can never hope that installing a "Lokpal" or "super Lokpal" will help anyone. As long as there is one person amongst us ready to pay to get ahead of the line, there will be no use of Lokpal. Its mostly like polio or small pox, even one infected case risks manifestation of the disease called corruption. Its difficult, but its the only lasting solution. So if people are out on the streets hoping Lokpal will be the super man /woman who will cleanse the society, they are in for a shock. Anna and company went on and on about how corrupt the government was and how many people are coming out in the streets to support them in their crusade, I would humbly point out, "jitne log Jantar-mantar pe aaye, usse 3 guna jyada margin se Sharad Pawar saheb election jeete hain". My point is, we can keep arguing that the government is corrupt, but as long as the same people keep voting them back with huge margins, no one will listen to us. So if we want a change, target the voters, not the twittery and Facebook audience; the people who actually care to vote. Its all glitzy to walk into a studio and say "I want a change" and then when elections come around, go on a family vacation saying "how can my single vote change the system" . As long as people from Maharashtra keep voting for Mr. Pawar, they don't have a right to cry hoarse that he is corrupt. Likewise about Mr. A.Raja or Mr. Suresh Kalmadi, the list is long. So Mr. Kejriwal and Anna, if you actually care, nominate a few to fight elections and rid the society of the Pawars and Kalmadis rather than sitting on a high pedestal and fasting unto death.



Let me get to the crusade at hand; err the "Jan-Lokpal" as they call it. Yet another legislation, yet another institution and maybe yet another duplication of job description. People may not be aware that the provisions of the "LokPal" are already in our system. We have a Chief Vigilance commission, Central Bureau of Investigation, departmental vigilance, right to information, public interest litigation, ... the list is long. Our founding fathers and subsequent governments have wisely (or unwisely) provided constitutional provisions for the government to provide clean administration and for all of us to have legal redressal; also, mechanism for punitive actions against the slackers/or indulger of corruption. I may not be wrong in saying that we already have provisions what we want in our Lokpal, its just that we are not using them properly. Instead of strengthening the existing institutions like CVC/ CBI and provide them with more teeth to deal with new trends of corruption, we are running behind an elusive dream that somehow Lokpal is the solution to all problems. This is classic diversion tactics, we do not use what we have effectively and always go for new legislation to give a false sense of action to the common people. Who can guarantee that in a country where CVC/CBI etc have failed, a Lokpal will magically work. Isn't it better to use existing institutions effective by granting them more powers, than to create redundant institutions and they in turn keep fighting for jurisdictions, on the lines of the JPC and the PAC. Maybe; and this is a very teeny weeny maybe, we all jumped the gun and landed on this Lokpal bandwagon too early. So be it, only history will tell us if we were right. The Jan-Lokpal bill was drafted by Anna Hazare et. al. on December 10 2010. So lets not say we waited 42 years, we just waited 4 months and then got desperate and forced our government into submission by strong arm tactics. If we get this wrong, we are only ones to blame. For once, it wouldn't be fault of the government (sic). Moving on, let us get to the composition of the draft committee. Anna says, the government alone cannot draft the legislation as they are "sevak" and the citizen are "maalik". With no due respect to you sir, are we acting crazy?? Firstly, the government is "of the people", meaning the people who run this country are from amongst us and have as much of right on this country as common citizen, so don't call them sevak. Secondly, its "by the people; for the people", we have empowered the government with executive powers to run the country on our behalf. Again, Anna saheb.. they are not sevaks, we, the 1.2 billion of us have given them the authority to run the show. You cannot undermine 1.2 billion voices, its a travesty of democracy. You cannot hand pick a few people who do not represent anyone to draft a legislation and undermine the politicians who have won the right to run this country. Sore losers are we??? Today, if we set this precedent, tomorrow all factions of society would want to draft legislations to suit their needs, afterall, they are "maaliks" too. How would the government stop them. Do you see Mr. Anna Hazare, that you have opened up a can of worms that we have to pay- for, someday real-soon. To all the people who blindly fasted for 5 days, its easy to disregard the government and blame them for all our shortcomings, but can we take a solemn oath to never indulge in paying bribes to get ahead in life. If we cannot take that oath, then we should stop this charade and get back to work. The only Gandhi whom I respect once said, "be the change you want to see in the society" and if we as a society are not ready to be corruption free, maybe we don't deserve a Lokpal.



I would like to quote Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the father of our constitution "the first thing we must do is to hold fast to the constitutional methods. We must abandon civil disobedience, non co-operation and satyagraha. These methods are nothing but grammar of anarchy. The sooner they are abandoned the better for us.” I leave it your judgement Anna saheb, are you brewing anarchy??



So long....