Corruption and Anna Hazare

The word corruption has taken up a lot of media space of late, and everybody has little else to speak of. It is as if the government and Anna Hazare, and, if the television visuals are to be believed, more than half the country are locked in a severe battle. The government has stopped doing what it is entrusted with — that is, govern, and is holding meeting after meeting to tackle the ‘known citizen'. While millions rally around Anna, I am at a loss to decide which side I am on, or, whether there is a side at all? I feel kind of isolated and out of fashion, and worse, unpatriotic, for not joining the majority. (As somebody said, if the principle of majority is to be upheld then our national bird should be the common crow and not the rare peacock, and our national animal ought to be the rat, which is aplenty and not the vanishing tiger).

Is the mass media colonising public conscience like the Roman crowds in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar? So I decided not to join the majority, but take time and reflect for a while on the issue. I believe that corruption spreads out into a tree and fills the sky, but has its roots deep in the soil of its origin. Even the little short-cuts we use at home to get things done are fertilizers for the malaise. I have “blackmailed” my child and coerced her into eating food: if you eat this, I shall tell you the story of the evil stepmother. The story of the evil stepmother itself is a kind of brainwashing. I ‘kidnapped' her conscience every time I instructed her to say I am not home, when I anticipated an unwelcome phone call. I have bribed her, promising to buy her something she craved for if she scored better grades. In doing all this, I was actually embossing corruption on her little, white mind. I guess I am not the only parent who has committed such ‘crimes.'

India has become one of the most corrupt countries, and although every Indian is aware of it, and although there are laws to prevent it, nothing ever happens. Can a bill cure this deep-rooted malaise? There are laws against the acceptance of dowry, but does that prevent people from demanding and offering dowry? This in no way implies that all bills are ineffective. It is said that that government is the best that governs the least. If so, why submit ourselves to more governance? Then wherein lies the solution?

I am reminded of a little folktale: a poor man went to the court to recite to the king a poem he had composed. At the gate, he was accosted by the guards and denied permission to enter the court. He was permitted entry only on condition that he give them 50 per cent of whatever he received from the king, which he gladly promised. On the way he was apprehended by the chief of guards and the minister who demanded 25 per cent cut.

The poor man finally found himself in the presence of the king. He recited the poem, and the king was delighted. He ordered that the man be given 100 gold coins. But the poet refused the reward of the gold coins and asked the king to give him 100 lashes instead. The king was astounded, and insisted on the reason for such a strange reward. The man then told him about the promises he had made to the guards, the chief of guards and the minister.

The king was shocked to know that people who were directly in his service are so corrupt. He punished them and rewarded the poor poet. This is a little story from our huge reservoir of folktales, and there are numerous variations, and the wisdom is there for all to

Why Libya is not Egypt or Tunisia

It's a slap that echoed around the world — and without exaggeration, struck fear in the hearts of dozens of regimes across it. Every cliché from ‘forest fire' to ‘dominos' to a ‘house of cards' has been used in the past weeks to describe what's happened in West Asia ever since 24-year-old Mohammed Bouazizi was pushed around by a policewoman in Tunis. The slap was reportedly the final straw of humiliation for the vegetable seller, already weighed down by inflation and the responsibility of caring for his mother and six brothers and sisters. Bouazizi protested in the most horrific way imaginable, setting himself on fire. That fire grew unbelievably quickly and within a couple of weeks claimed Tunisian President Zinedine Ben Ali's position and forced him and his family out of the country. The pictures of hundreds of thousands swarming Tunis's main boulevard were dramatic, yet had this been the end of it, the world could have moved on.

Except within days, crowds were gathering at other capital city centres in the region, and then another — Tahrir Square in Cairo, the Pearl roundabout in Manama, the University main square in Sana'a, and on and on — until about 20 contiguous countries saw mass protests. After Ben Ali, it was Hosni Mubarak's turn to go, and the next may be Bahraini Prime Minister Shaikh Khalifa, or Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. In many places like Jordan the people were given assurances that the current rulers would not seek a re-election. Other regimes have tried to throw money at the problem. The Emir of Kuwait simply handed out bonuses of 1,000 dinars (about $3,000) transferred to every bank account, the Saudi Arabian King Abdullah injected $37 billion in pay rises and grants to students — many Gulf countries have raised oil and fuel subsidies, Tunisia promised 1,00,000 new jobs, while even Muammar Qadhafi offered to recharge mobiles with 100 Libyan Dinars each time someone sent an SMS out in praise of him.

To put Libya in the same basket of other ‘revolutions', though, would be a mistake. To begin with, each of the countries that are seeing demonstrations has more or less weathered them. Often, because the ‘real' power has been not the head of government, but someone else. In Iran it is the Mullahs; in Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait, it is the monarchy that holds the key. In Bahrain, it is the Crown Prince Salman bin-Hamad Al-Khalifa, who has been able to broker peace with the protesters who want the Prime Minister (the King's uncle) to go.

In Egypt, it is not the monarchy, but the military that fulfils that role. Many now say the Tahrir Square protests may have pushed Mubarak out, but the real break came some months earlier, after he rigged elections and proposed his son a successor, and the army felt he had broken his contract with it. That may explain why, in a move without any precedent worldwide, the Egyptian military put out a statement clearly supporting the ‘legitimate struggle of the people', and refused to open fire on the protesters. The ‘M' factor of the power behind the seat of power has in fact led to a strange scenario — where pro-democracy protesters are targeting their Prime Ministers and Presidents, but not their Army or royalty.

Libya's Qadhafi, and as a result, Qadhafi's Libya are different. Col. Qadhafi seized power in 1969 when, with the help of his own militia and the backing of other tribes, he deposed King Idris. In the decades that followed, he never disbanded his own militia that remains loyal personally to him. He also never allowed his army to be strengthened, spending more resources on building a strong intelligence network instead, that has kept a closer eye on revolt within the country than on an attack from outside. In addition, his sons command their own battalions, and his Al Qadhadfa tribesmen hold key positions in the government and the forces. Despite his comic utterances, Qadhafi's grip on his government is so tight that Indian officials dealing with getting clearances for evacuation flights from Libya, reported the sense that he was personally deciding every landing permit himself.

Also, unlike Egypt and Tunisia, Libya is less susceptible to pressure from the outside world. In his bestselling book, ‘The Prize,' Daniel Yergin calls oil Qadhafi's 'jackpot', detailing how the country's vast reserves of crude ensure that Qadhafi has had less to worry from the West cutting ties with him, than the West has to worry if he decides to shut off his pipelines to the Mediterranean. To add to that the IMF now estimates that the Central Bank of Libya has about $110 billion in international reserves, enough to cover at least three years of imports.

Meanwhile as talk of sanctions and a no-fly zone gain ground in the international community, it must also be remembered that before Qadhafi's rehabilitation in recent years, he spent decades as an international outcaste. After he was charged with ordering the bombing of two planes — one French and the other American — that left 400 dead in the 1980s, Libya fell under and withstood strict sanctions till 2002. Qadhafi's own home was bombed, a fact he won't let anyone forget, even as he stood to give one of defiant speeches last week from one of the shelled buildings still preserved from that era.

Qadhafi understands the symbolism of that and many other gestures that frighten both the West and his own people. His bombing of key oil-terminal towns and opening artillery fire on protesters are far more serious than the surreal scene in Cairo's Tahrir Square, when pro-Mubarak riders on camels and horses rode in to attack the crowds.

Clearly the revolt in Libya may have begun as a copycat effect of regional unrest, but its leader Qadhafi will have more to do with scripting how it ends — whether he digs in for a long and bloody civil war or in the chaos he will leave behind after.

Ambedkar Vs Anna

Following Dr. Ambedkar's example, Team Anna should use constitutional methods and enhance people's faith in them. Otherwise it will convey the message that only coercive and unconstitutional methods work.

A group of people, with placards showing Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, staged a demonstration in Delhi a few days ago against Anna Hazare's proposals on the Lokpal and the methods used by his team. More often than not, Dalits look with suspicion on any attempt to tamper with the Constitution. Team Anna has, however, suggested that its Lokpal bill would benefit Dalits more than anyone else. This led me to look at Dr. Ambedkar's position as compared to the mode of agitation being deployed by Anna Hazare and his team.

In his last, visionary speech after the submission of the drafted Constitution on November 25, 1949, Dr. Ambedkar warned of three possible dangers to the new-born democracy. These related to social and economic inequalities, the use of unconstitutional methods, and hero-worship.

Dr. Ambedkar first pointed to the contradiction between equality in politics in the form of one-person-one-vote and the inequalities in social and economic life. He argued that for political democracy to succeed, it needed to be founded on the tissues and fibres of social and economic equality. He warned that we must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment, or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy. Although we in India are trying hard to reduce the vast inequalities that exist, the working of political democracy is already under heavy stress due to discontent in some parts of country.

Dr. Ambedkar's second, and more important, warning in the present context related to the methods to achieve social and economic objectives. He urged the people to abandon bloody as well as coercive methods to bring about change. This means abandoning methods of civil disobedience, non-cooperation, coercive forms of satyagraha and fast. Referring to the use of these methods during the British period, Dr. Ambedkar observed: “When there was no way left for the constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods.” But using them since that period, in his view, was “nothing less than the Grammar of Anarchy.” He advocated that “the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us as a nation.”

Dr. Ambedkar's third warning related to “hero worship.” He was immensely concerned over the political culture of “laying down the liberties at the feet of great men or to trust them with powers which enable them to subvert their institutions.” He believed that there is nothing wrong in being grateful to great men who have rendered life-long services to the country. But there are limits to gratefulness. No man can be grateful at the cost of his honour, and no nation can be grateful at the cost of its liberty. This caution is far more necessary in the case of the people of India than in the case of any other country, for in India, bhakti, or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in politics, unequalled in magnitude to the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world, argued Dr. Ambedkar. He went on to add that bhakti or hero-worship in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul, but in politics, bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.

These views of Dr. Ambedkar also evolved through a much deeper commitment to constitutional methods and their use in the anti-untouchability movement during the 1920s and the 1930s. The 1920s and the 1930s saw a series of agitations led by Dr. Ambedkar to get public wells, tanks and Hindu temples opened to “untouchables.” In the present context, recalling two such incidents is very relevant, namely, the agitation for access to a water tank in Mahad, and for entry into the famous Kalaram temple in Nasik. In both cases, Dr. Ambedkar was up against violent high-caste Hindus, with the British sitting on the fence.

Dr. Ambedkar started the Mahad agitation in 1927, but the “untouchables” got access to the tank only in 1937 through a court order. The people of the high castes had managed a court order to ban the entry of “untouchables” into the tank on the grounds that it was a private tank. Dr. Ambedkar accepted the court order and discontinued a second march to the tank. But he fought through the courts and got justice in 1937, almost after 10 years. He did this using legal instruments and a peaceful mass movement, without the coercive means of fasts and hunger strikes.

Similarly, the agitation for entry into the Kalaram temple went on for four years, from 1930 to 1934. He discontinued the agitation in 1934 following opposition by priests, notwithstanding the support extended by Gandhiji. But he fought a legal battle, along with a peaceful agitation, for the next four years, and in 1939 ultimately secured entry to the temple for “untouchables.”

During the 1920s and the 1930s, Dr. Ambedkar combined mass mobilisation with legal methods in the anti-untouchability movement, but never allowed unconstitutional and coercive methods to take hold, despite instances of violent attack on “untouchables.” Once he came face to face with Gandhiji with the latter's fast-unto-death and he had to compromise on the demand for a separate electorate with what is the present-day political reservation. Coercive means forced him to surrender the demand for a separate electorate, the consequences of which are visible today.

Team Anna should realise that the Indian Constitution provides ample opportunities for advocacy, through discussion and lobbying with parliamentary Standing Committees, Groups of Ministers, the Ministers concerned, the Prime Minister, courts, and above all through a peaceful agitation. With several political parties on their side, the possibility of reaching a middle ground is high. Experience with constitutional means shows that civil society activists, through their constant struggles, have persuaded the two successive United Progressive Alliance governments to acknowledge several basic rights and convert these into laws. The right to employment through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the right to information, rights under the Forest Act, the right to education, and now the right to food, are some of the revolutionary measures that civil society has been able to accomplish through constitutional methods. It is an opportunity for Team Anna to use constitutional methods and enhance the faith of people in these; otherwise Team Anna will convey the message that only coercive and unconstitutional methods work.

As Dr. Ambedkar observed, due to certain aspects of Indian culture our people are highly vulnerable to hero-worship. How a yoga teacher could convert yoga devotees into religious devotees and finally into political supporters within a few years' time is a classic example of what hero-worship and bhakti can do. Another religious preacher has threatened that he would use his religious followers for political end which he thinks does not require discussion with them as they follow him in whatever he tells them to do.

Anna and his team should recognise that for a new democracy like ours, which is operating within the framework of undemocratic relations based on the caste system, constitutional methods and social morality need to be cultivated and promoted with a purpose. The Lokpal Bill is too important a piece of legislation to be passed under threat and unreasonable deadlines. All its aspects need to be discussed with extreme care and with consensus among all sections. Dalits have begun to express concern about its implications for them. In a society where the anti-caste spirit and prejudices are present in abundance, they feel that given its proposed wide-ranging powers, it may be misused.

The Commissioner for Scheduled Castes reported about 11,469 complaints by Dalit government employees during the period from 2004 to 2010 that were linked to caste prejudice. Several thousand more complaints under the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, such as giving “false or frivolous information to any public servant and thereby cause such public servant to use his lawful power to the injury or annoyance of member of SC/ST” are waiting for justice. Therefore, Dalits have begun to seek safeguards against the complaints emanating from caste prejudices in the Lokpal Bill. I think the government has rightly brought the bill for an open discussion before the Standing Committee that comprises MPs from all parties, so that the Bill is discussed by all sections in a peaceful milieu and not under duress and force.

Anna Hazare knows that the road to social change is a difficult one. He helped Dalits in a number of ways, including by repaying loans taken by Dalits with contributions from villagers. Yet he could not bring about fraternity between them — Dalits continue to stay in segregated localities in his village. Corruption, like untouchability, is deeply embedded in the social fabric of our society. Therefore, besides legislation its eradication requires changes through education and moral regeneration.