The PM keeps repeating his statement ‘govt has no magic wand against
corruption’. Well, why don’t they ask Suzy? Suzanne Arundhati Roy is a
single-window system for all your problems. In a post titled India’s worst
journalists I had stated: “She is India's only global journalist. Be it a
politician, a minister, head of state, saints, print journals, tv channels,
everyone relies on her to deliver considered and scientific opinion on
everything. And she never fails. Be it literature, nuclear threats, dams,
environment, maoists, naxalites, mining, rocket science, environmental problems
on the moon and mars, saving martians from pollution. She knows everything!”
But we will come back to Roy a bit later.
While there is a huge support for Anna’s anti-corruption movement there
are also a good number who criticise him for undemocratic ways adopted by him.
It’s hardly possible to have a mass movement without its critics. Some of them
are quite fair in their criticism but some are extending the Manish Tiwari line
of dialogue, with a bit more sophistry though.
Sample some excerpts from this one from C.P. Bhambhri in a piece called
‘Spreading Canards….’ From The Pioneer:
A democratic system of
governance cannot survive or, for that matter, thrive if people are conditioned
in believing that every ‘elected representative’ is corrupt and misuses his
power to appropriate public resources………Historical evidence clearly shows that democracy
can be subverted and sabotaged by anti-democratic military Generals or fascist
and Nazis like Hitler of Germany or Mussolini of Italy or General Franco of
Spain or near home General Ayub Khan of Pakistan if the ‘public mood’ turns
against electoral process which is projected as villain of the piece because
democracy is labeled as a breeding ground for corruption.
First of all, I am yet to hear anyone, I repeat anyone, even remotely
saying that every elected politician is corrupt. No, not even Anna Hazare says
that. If there is anger against politicians as a community it still doesn’t imply
that all politicians are corrupt or misuse power. It is fair, though, to
believe that a majority do misuse power in some way or the other. The ‘maoists
and anarchists’ comment by Manish Tiwari is still fresh but here is someone just
putting it differently with subtlety by invoking Mussolini, Franco, Hitler and
Ayub Khan. So the canard is now flowing both ways. Democracy was never meant to
be a breeding ground for corruption, Mr. Bhambri! Unchecked power and greed are
breeding grounds for corruption. If those in the ruling class can’t find the conscience
to fight corruption, people will have to defy parliament. We are still lucky
that unlike the Mideast people haven’t pulled out guns and swords. So Bhambri’s
imaginary threat to democracy is as much a canard that he accuses the
protesters of spreading.
Anna Hazare is leading
an anti-corruption movement that has a fascist overtone because even
Parliament, which represents political diversity of India, is being commanded
to accept the so-called Jan Lokpal Bill drafted by Team Anna. Parliament is the
pillar of Indian democracy and every Bill gets democratic approval or rejection
on the floor of both the Houses of Parliament….The demand to ‘accept’ their
Bill or ‘face’ public anger which is manipulated by undertaking emotive steps
like ‘fast-unto-death’ is not justifiable……It is bizarre, to say the least,
that Anna Hazare is adopting coercive methods to achieve his goal. He is
challenging the constitutional and legal rights of elected representatives to
perform their legitimate functions.
There is definitely truth in stating Anna Hazare is pushing Parliament
a bit too far by forcing the JLP and imposing deadlines. As bargaining chips protesters throw up the weirdest demands. But really, he has
only half the blame to share. If the govt itself constituted a joint team to
draft the Lokpal bill, then the right thing to do would be to present a bill
that is drafted through consensus. They could have taken longer to reach that
consensus. Playing tricks on the civil group and presenting a unilaterally
drafted bill is bound to force such agitations, especially after the extreme
step of arresting Anna, lathi-charging protesters earlier and displaying
extra-ordinary arrogance. Very few people in print or TV are actually
discussing the merits of both bills or the many versions of bills that are
floating but instead focused on which side will blink first. This is the
Bhambri version of Anna’s fascist approach. Parliament and government deserve
to be respected. But the moment the government becomes arrogant, extremely
corrupt and intolerant, it is the duty of citizens not to tolerate the
intolerant and corrupt. Throwing out a corrupt and intolerant government is not the same as
throwing out democracy. We have seen state and central governments thrown out
before on many different issues. All this ‘holiness’ about parliament can only
go so far!
There are reports today that around 26 MLAs from Andhra have quit over
the CBI raids on Jagan Reddy. Why is it that these raids are happening only
now? Was the Congress totally unaware of the corrupt YSR Reddy government? This
is hardly the behaviour of a government that people should tolerate. There are
lines that shouldn’t be crossed in a democracy. But it’s usually the government
and politicians that cross those lines first. Helpless citizens keep watching endlessly.
Someday, the protests were bound to get threatening. It is not people who
started the Franco and Hitler trend. In this case it is the government that
started it and will now have to pay the price for it.
That brings us back to sister Suzy. She says ‘I am not Anna’ in an
article in The Hindu. Thank God for small mercies. Frankly, you wouldn’t mistake
her or her ideology for Anna even if you met her under a nuclear mushroom glow.
She calls the whole JLP draconian. In the whole rant against Anna Hazare and
the JLP she does not provide one single clause in the JLP that she finds
draconian. She does not challenge anything in the JLP. The entire exercise is
to merely poke holes into the character of Anna. The strange part about such
lunatics is that they believe that anyone who stands up and fights for a cause
should also fight for causes that are dear to their critics. Where does such sick thinking
come from? Only from sick minds like Arundhati! So here is the sample from her
article which should tell you everything that Anna isn’t:
Who is he really, this
new saint, this Voice of the People? Oddly enough we've heard him say nothing
about things of urgent concern. Nothing about the farmer's suicides in his
neighbourhood, or about Operation Green Hunt further away. Nothing about Singur,
Nandigram, Lalgarh, nothing about Posco, about farmer's agitations or the
blight of SEZs. He doesn't seem to have a view about the Government's plans to
deploy the Indian Army in the forests of Central India.
Well, to be honest, not everyone is as bright as Suzy to be
knowledgeable about every single problem that confronts us. I sometimes wonder
why the PM doesn’t talk to her. Is there any problem on earth or the universe
that Suzy can’t solve? Because he didn’t talk about Nandigram he shouldn’t talk
about corruption! Because he didn’t talk about Posco he shouldn’t protest about
corruption! Because he didn’t talk about Singur he shouldn’t talk about
anything! If you observe carefully there is only a thin line dividing the
Bhambris and the Suzies. If the PM cannot find a magic wand why don’t they talk
to Suzy! Anna’s ‘emotional blackmail’, as some people call it, can always be matched
by Suzy’s emotional nonsense!
