Anna Hazare's "revolution" is not without flaws

I’ll allow others, more eminently qualified than me, to speak on this one, before I say anything.

Wrote Tavleen Singh, well-known columnist, in her weekly newspaper column:

“Without reading the Jan Lokpal Bill that Anna Hazare is trying to ram down our throats, actors, writers, social activists, television anchors and sundry other supposedly educated Indians leapt on to Anna’s bandwagon… If they had bothered to read the draft that Hazare’s Leftist advisors have drawn up, they would have noticed that its worst flaw is that it is undemocratic in the most frightening way. It is not an ombudsman that it seeks to create but a despot with the powers to investigate, judge and punish anyone he suspects of corrupt practices… This is the way of totalitarian countries. It is not India’s way.”

Neera Chandhoke, professor of political science at the University of Delhi, stated in an article in a prominent national daily newspaper:

“Certainly corruption is a major issue and needs to be fought, but according to procedures and norms, and in keeping with the mandate of the Constitution. The country is not Ralegan Siddhi, where alcoholics are flogged to make them give up their ways. India is democratic, and in a democracy even guilty people have rights. Anna Hazare may have earned the status of a big brother, but no democrat can allow him to turn this Lokpal into another big brother right out of the pages of George Orwell’s projected nightmare.

More worrying are the political beliefs held by this gentleman. He wants corrupt people to be put to death! In a civilized society, surely, the very idea of capital punishment is anathema. What gives cause for even more anxiety is the extraordinarily low opinion that this Gandhian has of the very people who had rallied around him during his fast. “Ordinary voter [sic] does not have awareness” he is reported to have said in a meeting with the press. “They cast their vote under the influence of Rs 100 or a bottle of liquor or a sari offered by candidates.” Does not contempt for the ordinary Indian citizen defy the very rationale of democracy, and that of its major claim to legitimacy, that of equal moral status?” asks Prof. Chandhoke.

In another article, Madhu Kishwar, founder-editor, ‘Manushi’, and professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, says:

“Our politicians have indeed failed us, so have many others — the judiciary, the police, the bureaucracy and religio-spiritual leaders. Many of these worthies are no less venal than the worst of our politicians. No politician can get away with corruption and crime without the collaboration of the bureaucracy, police and the judiciary…

Let us remember that Mahatma Gandhi, Jayaprakash Narayan, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and B.R. Ambedkar all fought elections. Those who claim to draw inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi cannot afford to be so self-righteous. The arrogance of “tyaag” is no less dangerous and corrosive than the arrogance of money and power. If the movement is ready to welcome celebrities who may well be evading taxes and bypassing laws, why single out elected representatives? Merely making the Lokpal a supra-government body and giving it full powers to make its own appointments will not ensure that the institution becomes worthy of the trust reposed in it…”

An editorial in The Indian Express titled, ‘Rs 100, a sari, a bottle’, with the sub-head, ‘That’s all Hazare says a vote means. Who gains from such disdain for democracy’, states:

The line between this disdain for the voter that Hazare expressed and the belief that he can nominate a committee to draft a bill is clear and damning. This institutionalizes the contempt for established parliamentary democracy that Hazare has revealed, one he shares with those in the Indian urban elite who do not trust a state that rests on the votes of the poor and “illiterate” — votes they imagine are cast thoughtlessly and for a bribe… If 80 crore Indians — the number of voters — are so corrupt as to be bought for Rs 100, which Jan Lok Pal will clean things up?”

Need I say more? Is Hazare’s cure worse than the disease? That is what the ordinary Indian citizen needs to ponder over, cutting through all the hype and frenzy generated by a fawning media that looks for a new hero every day.