Tyranny of Whips.

“Anna Hazare, Get Elected Then Speak” – The Argument Is Flawed.

Over the last fortnight I have seen many people questioning Anna Hazare’s methods. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told parliament on Wednesday that the protesting methods of Anna Hazare were "misconceived" and full of “grave consequences for our parliamentary democracy”. The ruling dispensation has even gone to the length of epitheting Anna’s movement as “tyranny of the unelected”. The correct method that the skeptics suggest is to get elected and then change laws. The argument is flawed.

We elect the candidates of political parties / Independents to the parliament for five years. These elected candidates are then supposed to form a government which heads the executive. As per the tradition of the parliament it is the government’s responsibility and prerogative to table the proposed laws to the parliament which are then debated and passed/rejected/amended.  After tabling the bills in the house, in case a further discussion is warranted the bills are transferred to the appropriate parliamentary select committees which have representation across the political spectrum, but headed by the ruling dispensation. A behind the scene consensus is built and the bills are again tabled for voting. Now the whips rule. The ruling dispensation issues whips to its MPs and the bills are passed.

The parliament of the world’s largest democracy is the least democratic institution of the country. It’s the place where the whips rule instead of the elected MPs. We have also seen that the elected representatives hardly have any power to propose new bills independently or jointly. God forbid, if one is a MP from an opposition party and wants to press for an amendment in some law then he must first develop a consensus amongst his own party then the opposition must put enough pressure on the ruling dispensation to table the amendment. Basically, he must forget about amending anything and better concentrate on creating enough shor sharaba in the parliament so that he is also noted by his electors. It is safe to conclude that, only those bills/ amendments are tabled in the parliament which are cleared by the cabinet. So, we have seen that we have a system where not all MPs are equal, Independent candidates are worst of as they have no powers other then MPLAD funds, and those MPs who form the cabinet are the plumpest of the lot. Imagine a country where individual votes were to be weighted according to the Income Tax slabs they fall in!! Yes, there is a provision for private member’s bill (PMB), whereby MP’s can introduce a bill for discussion in the parliament. Till 14th loksabha 96% of the PMBs lapsed without a single debate in the house.

 In the light of the above, where is the room for the argument “Anna Hazare, Get Elected Then Speak.”In fact, our democracy rests on activists like Anna Hazare who pressurize government, bring issues to the fore and force the MPs to also listen to something other than the party whips.  Our parliamentary democracy is in fact a tyranny of Whips. It forces MPs to forget about the people they represent. United States has a system where law making is completely separate from the executive. The proposed laws are presented to the congress by the congressmen, individually or jointly. Hence the argument ‘get elected then speak’ sounds more plausible in America than in India. Anna Hazare is absolutely correct when he says that it is the duty of the voter to put pressure on his elected representatives to listen to him and the Prime minister is absolutely wrong when he says that Annaji’s methods have grave consequences for our democracy. The Land Acquisition (Amendment) Act, 2007, Right to Information Act, Forest Rights Act and many other are the result of popular movements and pressure groups only. There is no other alternative that I see. Anna Ji is one ray of hope that we must follow. Whatever the pitch of the campaign may be it strikes a chord with me and many others. I don’t want corruption and I want the government to take note of it now. This is the moment. Let’s not let it go.

Travails Of UPA And Ramlila In Delhi

Act- I - Jan Lokpal

These are interesting times in Delhi. A time to taste the sweetest and the cheapest of the watermelons and the Arab spring. It’s all happening in Delhi. Delhi’s Arab spring began with Anna Hazare’s satyagrah for the ever so doomed lokpal, perhaps the longest languishing bill in the history of independent India. First tabled in 1962 and since then has been tabled 9 times and has failed to pass through Rajya Sabha. Over the last 49 years all the right minded citizens have supported it, the civil society is behind it, the popular opinion is behind it, all major political parties are behind it and endorse it ‘in principle’, top corporate honchos, film stars, sports personalities, senior babus’s and you name it... they support it. Alas!! For all the reasons better known to them... govt hasn’t passed it. After all, who would like to reform the system that has put one to the power?

In the era of gargantuan scams dwarfing the size of many economies and the retail trade of morality, Anna’s movement represented not only an apolitical moral force but also a forum for venting anger and continued frustration. Anna’s clean Image, rural roots and statesmanly demeanour made him a darling of Delhi’s bourgeoisie. The four days of fasting saw people from all walks of life, joined by the common strands of anger against govt and faith in Anna, queueing up for a "darshan" at Jantar Mantar. The satyagrah highlighted the issue of corruption in our society and presented the Jan lokpal as a panacea. And perhaps a panacea it is, in all senses of the word. Soon under the people pressure (some called it a blackmail) the better sense prevailed or at least it seemed so, as the govt announced a joint drafting committee for the reinvigorated Jan Lokpal bill.

However, the real cat and mouse (a game where no one knows who’s after whom), begins now. First comes, a volley of baseless, senseless and slanderous accusations on the civil society members of the drafting committee, the slanderous coterie being led by none other than his holiness Baba Ramdev. Then came, the “CD Gate” and the mighty bureaucracy, trampling everything which was put forward by the civil society members of the drafting panel. After the entire storm, it looked like the coalition of the willing would not hold. Baba Ramdev parted ways and vowed to open another flank of black money against the government.

Act – II - Black money.

It was an unseemly sight. First, the government lost all moral authority by its complicity with corruption. Scams after scams proved that the political class had abdicated its role. Civil society steps in to fill the vacuum. Hunger strikes begin. And the government of an aspiring superpower, instead of behaving like a government, succumbs to blackmail after blackmail. The “Baba” arrives. Practically all of government that matters shows up in attendance. God forbid if the Baba curses them (gives them a “shrap”). 

 Then there was lipstick for the soiled face. First abdicate responsibility, then cravenly submit and then call it responsiveness. Two days before Baba Ramdev announced his dharna against black money, our responsive government and with its responsive ministers sleepwalked to the airport, to lay bare into the feet of Baba Ramdev before he could catch his private jet - A baba who advocates death penalty for economic offences, whose views on sexual minorities border on the fascist and wants a ban on high-denomination currency notes– 1000, 500, 100, as a measure to check black money. This was not enough to avoid the curse of Baba so our responsive government followed him to the finest of the hotels that the capital has.

The Endgame

 Despite all the responsiveness shown by the government and various shady, behind the door deals baba continued with his satyagrah, after all, a lot of political currency was at stake. With all the yogic currency, that the baba has, to assemble a crowd of 50000 proved no big deal. Now the responsive government and its responsive ministers were scared, so they decided to turn autocratic. 65 years back, the British left them with a gift called “police”, so they decided to use it. The police did what it had learned from its parents- At the midnight, "the Police" raided the Ramlila ground when most Satyagrahis were sleeping, and left 70 wounded souls - The unarmed and hungry souls were protesting peacefully with their mentor, as they had always done in their yoga camps. “The Police” obviously do not understand these things, because the British never taught them so. Dressed in a ladies suit, baba decided not to give his arrest, as is the tradition of satyagrah, but to flee. Unfortunately police nabbed baba, and threw him out of the capital.

4 day since the raid, the government is in a state of paralysis. It does not know where its foot is (It only hopes that it is not in its mouth). Government has charged baba of holding political rallies, gathering 50000 people, amassing wealth, selling medicine, doing yoga and what not- as if these were crime and as if it did not know all this when its ministers were following him to airports and five star hotels. There is a morally insidious vacuum in the government and a self styled civil society is asserting its own stake in the power pie. Certainly these are interesting times in Delhi… we should follow Baba Ramdev’s old advice: ...take a deep breath.

Anna Hazare: The Man And The Superman

The Man

He calls himself a fakir — a man who has no family, no property and no bank balance. He lives in a 10ft x 10ft spartan room attached to the Yadavbaba temple in Ahmednagar's Ralegan Siddhi village, 110km from Pune and wears only khadi. Soldier, thinker, change master, man of steel and the last action hero... That is Anna Hazare for you. A self made man, a florist, a driver... the most eligible bachelor, this saint from Relegan Sidhi, Maharashtra, has been there and seen it. Born to an unskilled laborer, he obviously did not get what we call a "head start" in life. Anna's grandfather was in the army and was posted at Bhingar when Anna was born. He died in 1945 but Anna's father continued to stay at Bhingar. In 1952 Anna's father resigned from his job and returned to his own village i.e. Ralegan Siddhi. At that time Anna had completed his education upto 4th standard and had six younger siblings. It was with great difficulty that Anna's father could make two ends meet. Anna's aunt (father's sister) took Anna to Bombay.

Anna studied upto the 7th standard in Bombay. He took up a job after the 7th standard in consideration of the economic situation back home. Anna's father at Ralegan had to work as a daily wage labourer and found it difficult to sustain his family. He was slipping deeper and deeper into debt. He had to sell off one part of his land and mortgage the other. Anna started selling flowers at Dadar (Bombay) in order to make his living. But Anna's working at somebody's shop for Rs. 40 a month was not enough. An entrepreneur par excellence that he was, soon, he started his own shop and even brought two of his brothers to Bombay. Gradually Anna's income went up to Rs. 700 to Rs. 800 per month. (not bad in 1960!!!!)

The Angry Young Man

1960s were amongst the most momentous years in his formative life perhaps, for, it was this time that he would be escaping arrest from police (for a street brawl) and would also get to see world beyond his imagination as he would join the Indian army. A duration of amazing lows and perhaps personal highs too. Away from the freewheeling world of his own and away from friends and family Anna contemplated suicide, but, would stave off his idea, for it would not help his sisters get married.  

 During the Indo-Pak war of 1965, he was driving a military vehicle somewhere on the western front when he saw a Pakistani plane flying low overhead. He and his colleagues jumped out and took shelter in the nearby bushes, Iying flat on the ground. The truck was blown off, all his colleagues were killed but Anna miraculously escaped unhurt.

Once again he had a miraculous escape when he was posted in Nagaland. One night, underground Nagas attacked the military post and killed all the inmates. By providence Anna had gone out to answer nature's call at that time and hence he was the lone survivor. These two events had a deep impact on Anna's mind. He realised that his life was not to be wasted. God had considered his life to be precious, otherwise he could have been killed along with his colleagues. Believe you me gentlemen, army can do it to you…

The Saint

"Call to the youth for nation building" by Swami Vivekananda in a book-stall at the New Delhi station would change Anna forever. Vivekananda's thoughts gave meaning to his life and he decided to devote the rest of his life working for the society. He read many more books by Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Acharya Vinoba Bhave. So deep was the impact of these books on young Anna that he urged his parents to go ahead and arrange the marriage of his younger brothers, as he had decided to remain a bachelor. The new found desire to live beyond his narrow self interest later drove him to seek voluntary retirement from the Army and come back to serve his own village.

In 1975 he completed 15 years of service in Army, a statutory requirement for being entitled to a pension. He sought retirement and finally in August 1975, he got relieved from the Army and came back to Ralegan Siddhi for good.

His first target was his own village. It was a miserable and barren place with insufficient rainfall and lacking any economy.It also suffered from freequent droughts.

 The year was 1975. Launching watershed development programmes, he persuaded people to change their ways and managed to transform the barely breathing village to one Mahatma Gandhi would have been proud of.He used his savings for developmental work of the village. "I asked them to take an oath banning liquor, excessive grazing by cattle and felling of trees. Another oath was to have small families with men undergoing vasectomy," he recalled during an interaction. He motivated villagers into voluntary labour. Canals and bunds were built to hold rainwater which solved the water scarcity problem and also increased irrigation possibilities in the village. 

The Change Master - Superman

Since 1975 under Anna’s leadership, Ralegan Siddhi, has been an evolving as an epitomisation of the Gandhian idiom of a self-sufficient village as an elementary unit of social organisation.  Also an important characterisitic of the economic and social transformation of Ralegan is that it has taken place based on the principle of self-help and is concomitant with ensuring social equity, an ideal that is happily at variance with the current fancy for "free market ideals" and "trickle-down economics".  Ralegan has been hailed as a model village, therefore, with characterisitic bureaucratic simplification attempts are being made to "replicate" the Ralegan miracle.  Inconsiderate, the Ralegan experience is extremely relevant for its central tenet, that with the right moral basis and with reasonable inputs, the collective genius of the people is capable of significantly addressing its own needs.

For many years now, Ralegan Siddhi has been a byword for model development. His achievements have won him many awards like the Indira Priyadarshini Vrikshamitra award, the Krishi Bhushana award, the Padma Shree, Padma Bhushan and the Ramon Magsaysay award, Care International of the USA, Transparency International, Seoul (South Korea) also felicitated him. 

Had he been a lesser mortal this would have been enough for him. Today at at the ripe old age of 72, this jihadist has declared a jihad against corruption. He has decided to sit for a fast unto death…. And support him we must gentlemen.

Refrences:

Ralegan sidhi: A model for village development by Dr Ramesh Awasthi & Dasharath K Panmand
http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~venu/ANNA/message.html
http://annajihazare.blogspot.com/
http://m.economictimes.com/PDAET/articleshow/7893236.cms
http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2006/06/anna_hazare_the.html