A counter view

I am not Anna Hazare
Samar Halarnkar, Hindustan Times
August 17, 2011

Outside a Sufi shrine on a ramshackle south Mumbai street, a large poster above the main door flaps in the monsoon wind. “The one who gives or takes bribe is liable for hell,” it says, quoting verse 786/92 from the Islamic scriptures called Hadees Sharieff. “Viva! Viva! Viva! A 101 gun salute to Young India,” goes an enthusiastic tweet from Lt Gen HS Panag, a former Indian Army commander, living in Chandigarh.
If there were questions about the affiliations of the anti-corruption movement started by Kisan Baburao Hazare, or “Anna (elder brother)” as we know him, they were overlooked by most doubters after his clumsy arrest.

To first vilify and then incarcerate, a few hours after Independence Day, a frail, peaceable 74-year-old anti-corruption crusader in Tihar, a jail that symbolises the end of the road for the corrupt leaders, the rapist and the terrorist is to be beyond foolish.

The latest avatar of Anna’s six-month-old movement transcends class, religion and profession, and it is purer than before, as Mumbai’s BJP chief Raj Purohit found on Tuesday when he and his cohorts, waving party flags, were heckled into leaving.

So, they gather, traders, mothers and clerks, lighting candles at India Gate in New Delhi, as their grandfathers and grandmothers did 64 years ago to watch their nation awake to light and freedom.

So, they gather at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan, where once millions gathered to push India towards that freedom, Hindu and Muslim shopkeepers and college youth in jeans and Gandhi topis that say in Marathi and English, “I am Anna Hazare”.

So they gather at Freedom Park in Bangalore, quickly stepping out during lunch breaks at their technology companies, to join what Hazare calls the “second freedom movement”. It is hard not be swept up in the euphoria of the democratic moment.

But let me tell you why I will not wear a Gandhi topi, light a candle, or join the “second freedom movement”. Let me tell you why I do not want be Anna Hazare.

First, I find it hard to associate with the extreme passions at the core of this movement, a Bill to create a powerful anti-corruption ombudsman.

Hazare’s edition of the proposed law, the Jan Lokpal Bill, the people’s version, has flaws and those who support it blindly must recognise them. There are contentious issues, too many to mention here, including fuzzy definitions, inadequate separation of judicial and police powers, and possible prosecution of bribe givers.

These can be resolved, but there cannot be an our-way-or-no-way approach to negotiations.

Second, while the government was idiotic in accusing Hazare of “being steeped in corruption from head to toe” and autocratic in its actions against peaceful protestors, there is nothing to suggest a new Emergency is at hand.

This is a protest, not a revolution. I sense a lack of emotional proportion and a troubling hypocrisy from a middle class that refuses to get as moved to action by graver things, such as the murder of female children, child labour in homes, hotels and factories, or poverty outside our car windows.

There is excitable talk now of the constitutional right to protest, but this is not something we like to give to Kashmiris, or bother too much when it is snatched from tribals or others on the margins of middle-India’s imagination.

Have we ever stood by Irom Sharmila Devi, the Manipuri woman who has been on a hospital bed for a decade, force fed through tubes because she is on a hunger strike to have a draconian security law removed?

Third, the lokpal could be a useful institution, but as Karnataka’s Lokayukta is demonstrating, existing institutions only need strengthening. In the brouhaha over Hazare, it has largely escaped national attention that former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa has now sought anticipatory bail after cases of corruption were registered against him.

A lokpal is no panacea for reforms and governance.

“Anna Hazare says bring back the black money. Do u know what will happen if (R) 1,456 lakh crore comes back?” asks one popular sms. India will “financially” be “number one”.

Each village, we are told, will get R100 crore; there will be no need to pay electricity bills or taxes for the next 20 years; petrol will cost R25, milk R8; India’s borders “will become more stronger (sic) than the China Wall”; we can build 28,000 km of “rubber road (like in Paris)”; houses for 100 million people; 1,500 “Oxford-like universities”; 2,000 free hospitals.

It is a mistake to deride such dreams, as the Congress’ smug, condescending, vitriol-spewing functionaries have been doing. The email, text and other messages that have gone viral across large swathes of urban India represent a nation’s daily frustrations, unfulfilled aspirations, stalled reforms and shoddy governance.

They represent all the things that exhaust those of us who — unlike the Congress’s arrogant, loose-talking ministers and the power elite — cannot jump lines or buy our way out of: rising prices, woeful transport, education and health facilities. They represent all that India desperately wants — and wants now.

It is clear that India’s rise over the last 20 years has been despite the government, not because of it. Only now, after the reforms of 1991, are we seeing some urgency.

Awaiting a stalled Parliament are 35 pending bills, 32 new bills and discussions on blockbuster reforms, including the Goods and Services Tax, the Direct Tax Code, the Land Acquisition Bill, and yes, the Lokpal Bill. Anna will be free soon.

He will continue to focus attention on what he must, but India has much, much more to discuss

I was sent the above by Anik Basu to represent a counter point to why I support Anna.
This blog was started because news papers published whatever they wanted according to the editorial policy of the owners. We all know that the Hindusthan Times is run by the Birlas who always support the party in power.
The Telegraph supports the Congress party.
By far, I have found the Times of India is more balanced in its views.
My favourite paper was always "The Statesman" which I started reading in class VIII in school, thanks to Mr. Lobo, who inculcated the habit in us by bringing the paper to our class. Unfortunately, criticism of Indira Gandhi during the emergency and its high principal of giving news only and not creating news and also not printing nude pictures of women on its back pages which was demanded by the masses, took its toll. It gradually reduced its pages and is now past its glory.
I suppose I am politically conscious because of that habit although I do not support any political party. My support or criticism is always issue based.
When a person uses "cohorts" and "Raj Purohits"in his article, it shows he is completely against one party and favouring another no matter how he wants to appear balanced by first criticising his favourite party.The words used are in bad taste.
If the BJP supports any issue does it make it unsupportable by the rest of India. Does not the BJP belong to India? Are they not affected by corruption. Note there is a difference between the BJP MPs and the people who may be supporting the BJP. The MPs do not support Anna although they would like to take the benefit of Anna's movement by dislodging the congress. But the BJP workers support Anna. Hence the BJP MPs are as far removed from its support base as the congress is from its people.The BJP and all other MPs have all participated in the loot of the nation so I do not expect any of the MPs to support Anna Hazare.
He speaks of being idiotic in accusing Hazare of “being steeped in corruption from head to toe”
It was not an idiotic. It was a calculated very move just as they have been using theCBI and Enforcement Directorate to defame Swami Ramdeo. Just as they are using the CBI to harass Jagan because he has dared to go against the party. It is the habit of the party in power at the centre to harass people who may go against it. The Congress does it, the BJP does it. That is why they want to retain control of the CBI and other investigation agencies. and which Anna wants to remove from their power so that they can truly work independently without government interference.
The author has objections to "children lighting candles at India gate like their grandfathers". He however misses the point that even the grandfathers are lighting the candles now as they did 64 years ago.
He says "there was nothing to suggest a new emergency was at hand." However, the governments action in arresting Swami Ramdeo at 1.00 am and breaking up a peaceful gathering using lathicharge, tear gas shells and burning the tents was nothing short of Emergency behaviour. The veiled threat of the PM in his Independence Day speech warned Anna that he behave or he would receive the same treatment.His arrest at 7.00 from his flat, before he could set out had set in motion of the government carrying out its threat.The government took him first to the police hostel and then to Tihar Jail to keep company with Suresh Kalamadi and A. Raja.What an irony? Accuser and accused in the same jail
What the government did not bargain for was the strong reaction from the people who took to the streets.
He says "This is a protest, not a revolution. I sense a lack of emotional proportion and a troubling hypocrisy from a middle class that refuses to get as moved to action by graver things, such as the murder of female children, child labour in homes, hotels and factories, or poverty outside our car windows."
He, like the government, are mixing up the forest for just a few trees. They are failing to see it is a revolution and so taking a very casual view of it.A protest occurs only in one or two place, not the whole of India. Old, young and the children, all castes, all religion, all professions,all sex, male, female and neutre, all states, all language speaking people are participating. And yet he calls it a protest. He mentions a few other things which should be bothering them but for which they are not agitating. He forgets that those very things are because of corruption. Poverty, tribal problems, beggar outside you car window, these are all the result of corruption Wealth is being concentrated in a few hands with the result others remain poor.
He wants to compare this agitation with the right of Kashmiris.The Kashmiris are protesting to leave India because they are muslims and are being instigated by Pakistan. You cannot compare their agitation with the agitation of a nationalist like Anna who loves is country. And yet the author compares, shows the bankruptcy of his arguments.
He again compares Irom Sharmila Devi, the Manipuri woman's, agitation with this revolution.This is again against the context.If Manipur is in India, everything has to be done to protect the integrity of India.With China breathing down our necks, we cannot allow the north-eastern states and Kashmir unfettered freedom to do what they want.
I agree with him regarding the Lokayuka in Karnataka. But does he not know how difficult it has been to remove Yedurappa or has he forgotten. Even after removing him he retains power because his replacement is beholden to him. Gujarat has not been able to appoint a Lokayukta for the last 10 years, for whatever reasons. Each party is trying to gets its own appointed candidte selected. so that the Lokayukta will favour it. The Karnataka Lokayukta is an exception because unfortunatley for Yedurappa, he happened to be Justice Santosh Hegde, who could not be influenced.

I agree with the author that the 1450 lakh crore black money lying in foreign banks cannot be brought back because the government has signed a "Prevention of Double Taxation" agreement in May 2011.One part of the agreement says that the Swiss authorities will not have to disclose anything regarding money deposited in Switzerland, prior to May 2011.So all Indians and the Supreme Court can forget all the previous money which was stashed away in the Swiss and other banks. The government at one stroke written of that amount.
So all the politicians, bureaucrats, industrialists and film stars can live "Happily Ever After", nobody will chase them for their ill gotten wealth.
In conclusion I would request everyone who reads this blog to watch the go to the site given below, watch the clip and let me know whether you want an end to corruption
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1714109831035&comments


I had sent my rebuttal to Samar who had written the above article.I have given below his letter to me and my reply

Radheshyam sharma,
I do not write according to the diktats of my newspaper's owners. Never have. Never will. Oi know this is hard for you to believe but integrity is something you do not seem familiar with.
Whether Congress or BJP, I see little difference in these parties. Both harbour corrupt people and have done nothing to stop it.
You are obviously a blind BJP supporter so it is futile to get you to argue rationally; I see you have freely twisted what I have said.
Still, if you are politically aware, as you claim to be, you should know that your party in the past tried to put Anna in jail and Prashant Bhushan whom they now praise, was derided by your party as a Maoist and traitor. Pretty laughable.
As for your dismissal of those unlike you, manipuris and Kashmiris, as being unworthy of freedom, all I can say is people like you will destroy this country in trying to make it a Hindu Pakistan
Don't bother to respond. I won't be reading it.
Best Regards,
Samar

Samar,

I don't care whether you read my rebuttal but I have said in my mail I am a supporter of no political party and I have also criticised the BJP as well as the Congress.
I would rather say that your blinkered vision does not allow you to see any further than the congress although you claim to present a balanced view.
If anyone does not support the congress you start thinking that the BJP is behind it like earlier the CPM used to think the CIA was behind every mischief which befell India.
Anna Says no political party is supporting him and today only some nine parties have decided to support him.
The BJP is not one of them.
And yet you see the hand of the BJP.
I feel sorry for your biased vision.

Best regards
Radheshyam Sharma