 "Prime-time revolution and the Anna Hazare phenomenon")
It is ironic. Just when the aura surrounding the original Mahatma is fading following the lurid disclosures in Joseph Lelyveld’s book on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, another great soul is rising in stature using the same techniques of satyagraha and coercion by fasting. If Gandhi fasted to bring India freedom, ensure communal harmony and fight untouchability, Anna Hazare’s fight against official corruption, apathy and the non-accountability of civil servants and elected representatives in no less cause celebre.
It is also ironic that Hazare’s decision to fast unto death to push for the adoption of his Jan Lok Pal Bill got its impetus from another “honest” man’s decision to oppose him: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Quite clearly, Singh’s honesty is tainted by the mulish obstinacy of a former bureaucrat who does not want to set a precedent on the anti-corruption Bill by allowing someone from civil society to influence it deeply. Singh is on the wrong side of history.
Hazare’s parallels with the other Mahatma are interesting: celibacy, for example. But unlike Gandhi, who had a tortured affair with celibacy (read Sudhir Kakar’s take on the Mahatma’s sexual obsessions), Hazare has shown no inclination to discuss his thoughts on celibacy. We only know from his biographical website that he decided at age 26 to work for the people and remain single. He married the cause.
The more important parallel is that both Gandhi and Hazare focus on village-centric development. Their ideal is the self-sufficient village. It is a lost cause, given the pace of urbanisation in India. Global trends show that urbanisation is the inevitable consequence of development in almost all societies. Despite offering poorer quality lives, cities are hotbeds of innovation and networking. They attract talent and people. There is no reversing the tide.
But if the idea of rural self-reliance still endures in our hearts, it’s because it reminds us of what we think we have lost in the process of development. In the urban context, when we think of self-reliance, we empower ourselves and break the shackles of dependence - dependence on crooks to deliver us development; dependence on a rogue bureaucracy to be accountable. This is where the Hazare fight against corruption and bureaucracy strikes a chord in Urban India, too.
The two defining moments in Hazare’s life (see biography) came when he read Swami Vivekananda’s views on service to society and when he had a near-death experience during the Indo-Pak war of 1965. Vivekananda’s formulation was simple: the purpose of life was to be of service to humanity. Which is why when soldier Hazare found himself the sole survivor in a Pakistani air attack in the Khemkaran sector, he reached a conclusion: his life had been spared because he had work to do among his people. His first foray (after he voluntarily gave up his army job) in the service of humanity began in his village of Ralegan Siddhi, a water-starved area in Maharashtra’s drought-prone Ahmednagar district. His efforts in galvanising the community to conserve water and achieve self-sufficiency have now been acknowledged as a replicable model for the whole state.
The RTI – and not the legal system – is currently the best tool available to ordinary citizens to demand information and seek justice. This is why babudom has been trying hard to defang the law. But civil society protests have temporarily managed to spike their guns.
But up ahead is the biggest of all battles: the Jan Lok Pal Bill proposed by Hazare to make civil servants and politicians accountable. His civil society version of the Bill would give the Lok Pal at the centre (and the Lok Ayuktas at the state level) not only the right to probe corruption, but also prosecute the guilty. The Lok Pal will have police powers, and an independent ability to probe malfeasance and corruption in public life.
The Manmohan Singh government has not covered itself with glory by proposing a watered down and toothless Lok Pal Bill (see contrast) whose recommendations would not have the force of law. Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Committee (NAC) may be more supportive, but Sonia herself has not been proactive in this regard. A dynast who is more bothered about her son’s succession and who looked the other way when the UPA government was busy helping her friend Ottavio Quattrochi go scot-free in the Bofors scandal, she too is on the wrong side of history.
As storms go, the anti-corruption tide will rise and fall. No movement can be sustained forever. Jayaprakash Narayan’s 1970s andolan didn’t go very far. Even though it catapulted a motley crowd of opposition leaders into power in 1977 after the internal emergency, the latter discredited themselves soon enough through their venal actions.
The chorus of support from film stars and opposition politicians for Anna Hazare’s cause already looks ominous. Film-stars may be iconic in public perception, but they are nobody’s ideals of probity and honesty. You may find an occasional saint among politicians, but corruption is not a Congress affliction alone. How long will it be before Hazare’s campaign is hijacked by people with a different ending in mind?
Hazare may well attain his immediate goal of getting the government to bow to his demands on setting up a joint civil society-government committee to draft an acceptable Lok Pal Bill. But his longer-term success depends on widespread change in attitudes to everyday corruption.
Reason: corruption is embedded in the system. The same middle-class protestors who shooed away politicians from joining the Hazare cause the other day also bribe cops to overlook traffic violations and pay speed money to obtain passports. There is an entire ecosystem thriving off corruption. The electoral system works on the basis of vote-buying, and the big scandals over land and public sector contracts are reflective of this electoral need for money, big money.
That’s the larger battle Anna Hazare – and all of us - have to fight. The Lok Pal Bill is only the first of the many challenges to be overcome.
Age 71 is not the right age to attempt a revolution. But then, Mahatma Gandhi started his Quit India movement in his seventies. Jayaprakash Narayan launched his Total Revolution from Bihar in his seventies. Ayatollah Khomeini presided over the Iranian revolution in his seventies. Clearly, there is no right age for championing an idea whose time has come.
Kisan Bapat Baburao Hazare, who turned 71 this January, is in august company.
