India is born again ANNA HAZARE. For a generation used to a distant idea of Mahatma Gandhi, Google inspired images of Sardar Patel, Subash Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh and IPod feeds of India’s freedom movement, Anna Hazare has given not just freedom, but the idea of India a whole new meaning.
Anna Hazare has made a child of ten to a middle aged Indian of fifty believe in an old fashioned committed idea of India where passion for the country resulted in great deeds and deliverance. Anna Hazare has made this passion worth it. He, in a span of twelve days cut through the most incisive force that was holding the new India back. Cynicism. Anna Hazare, his principles and his grit has made two kinds of India join hands. The India of a bank clerk and the India of a NRI banker. The India of a retired school teacher and the Indian of an Ivy League professor. The India of the tiller of the land to the India of a Silicon Valley programmer. That has been Anna Hazares victory. The immediate issue of the government finally giving in and agreeing to the three contentious issues which Team Anna included in its Jan Lokpal Bill and treated them an non negotiable, was important. The ramifications of these three issues will make India’s anti corruption base much stronger. A citizen’s charter will basically mean that every time you go to a government office for a grievance reddressal, a babu will not ask you to come back next week. The babus response will no longer be mood or power driven but system driven. You will know how long it will take for each complaint to be addressed. Secondly, the inclusion of the lower bureaucracy is a huge step since most of common India does not deal with deputy Secretary level officers in their day to day work. The common man works with a tehsildar and a BDO and the lower level police officer. It is this level which must become accountable to the people of India. Thirdly, the institution of the Lokayukta at the state level will allow people in the rest of the country a Lok Pal equivalent in the Lok Ayukta with much more teeth. This will obviously not happen soon since the resolution by parliament will be discussed and studied by the standing committee. But unlike the Standing Committee’s of old, this standing committee will be well aware of the circumstances which has brought the Jan Lokpal bill from the drawing board and the drawing rooms of civil society to the halls of parliament. The rigors of this journey will not be forgotten on anybody of law makers. India has realised not just the strength of Anna Hazare but the strength of India. The earlier belief that the government will not be challenged by its people has gone for good. If Parliament is the final bastion for making laws, then the people of India have told parliament that it gets its supremacy from the people it represents. In all these years, this was only a notion. Anna Hazare has made this into a reality. Truly, today is historic. It is a birth of a new India. An India of real hope and of real strength. Anna Hazares movement has given India a democracy it always deserved but never quite had. Source: http://www.heraldgoa.in/newscategory/Edit/15
