Warning: it is a long post. I know there is corruption in our country but there is a process and a procedure, which is democratic. This fast is subverting democracy by not letting procedure take its due course. It in fact helps delegitimize democracy.
Having accepted this view, then other arguments flow. By not following due procedure, it boils down to personalities and clout. Here comes the backstory of Anna and who are these people who support Anna, their motivations, their ideologies or lack of it, and their willingness to engage deeper or the lack of it. I started out thinking what I stated above. But now, I realised something. Before going into that, some background: I was inducted into the whole ‘when you grow beyond a certain size, you need proper processes and procedures to function’ mantra when I joined the IT industry. It made sense, and it still makes sense. But the process needs people, and I am yet to see a place where processes can replace people completely. Rather it is a balance, swing too much on either side and you are in for either a dilbert-like scenario or a 'tending toward arbitrary' one. >From the conversations I have had with people, people factor overpowers processes and procedures in the Government. What do I mean? To build a Metro in Bangalore, for instance, my friend an activist points out that there was no proper consultation, processes and procedures followed. The Government blindly went ahead and the corruption that ensued is for all to see. Another friend, a former consultant to the Government at a fancy consultancy said the Government told you what the conclusions of your study had to be and your job was to fit the data. Yet another acquaintance got the Government to do some good for a certain locality, something that would have never taken off the ground had it followed procedures. A lady who cooked at people’s houses said she had to contact the local leader to get her divorce finalized. There are processes in place, but it is the wheeling dealing of people that actually gets things moving. Now the wheeling dealing is in full view. It is not happening behind scenes but in front of me. Anna is holding a gun to the Government, something done behind many closed doors. Have some dope on a particular Government official, your tricky land deed is done. Rather, there is democracy – the place where there is a balance between people and processes and then there is ‘democracy now’ – where the balance is tilted toward people. What kind of people? Income inequalities mean people who own 25 acres of land in the heart of Mumbai have a stronger say in what’s happening rather than a farmer in Vidarbha. I am not in the mood to continue with these examples – Sainath and Krugman give you ample literature on how democracy suffers when there is inequality at this scale. Apart from income inequality, there is another inequality familiar to those conversant with the whole ‘reputation economy’. There is a search engine called Topsy where the number of retweets signifies the reputation of a particular tweet – pushing it to the top of the heap. Anna has managed to swing the reputation economy to his side. And so he has the clout. Some reason(s) for popularity of the cause: A comforting abstraction: This cause is for a faraway change. I have already assumed the mantle of the righteous, so I don't need to change. I am the affected party, the victim. And my enemy, the other is an abstract concept. It is not the Government, the people, a certain corporation or my own habits. Even though corruption maybe because of these factors, by focusing just on the abstraction, it is easier to deal with. Moreover, it is an abstraction that can be dealt with another abstraction, the law. So it is not 'messy', in the way fighting against displacement by corporations or siphoning off of social spending by the Government. The (un)real "other" Chetan Bhagat made my father think being a writer is not half as bad because of his bank balance. My uncle, a small businessman, told me once in a conversation that no deal gets reported in the paper unless it runs to millions or billions. And then came the number to top all numbers - 176 000 crore. You have a culture where capital is supreme and the person who is making the most money is the corrupt politician (a mistaken assumption, yes, but the public face of the 2G scam is Raja not Ratan). And so, the ire can be focused on the Government. We don't denigrate corporations as being corrupt - we only denigrate politicians. Am not saying politicians should not be flayed, jsut that corporations don't share the stage. Given this, there is a concrete 'other' to focus on - the Government. Again, not a particular person. The level of abstraction is just right to give the 'other' an image without messy details. And hence the nature of this protest: Simplistic There's an unease among many at this protest. The issue has been made simplistic to sustain the appeal. If you ask people to read the entire bill, come up with pros and cons and debate it, you won't have any followers. Rather, it is an SMS poll. Are you for the bill or against? Are you with Anna or against? It is easier to reach out through binaries, but how far will that get it. Long ago, when Arun SHourie's book was banned, there was a panel discussion. He asked one of the panelists, have you read my book? And the person replied, no, but this is the age of specialisation. I have read what others have written about the book. And Shourie said it is pathetic that an intellectual has resigned to second hand knowledge. No one likes working hard, unless there is some incentive. So, people were happy leaving the writing of the bill to Anna and team. I don’t support Anna’s methods. I don’t support those contractors’ methods who got the deals during CWG. I don’t support Tata’s methods which came out during the 2G scam. But on the whole, my position now has changed: I know there is corruption in our country but there is no balance between people and procedure, which means there is a lack of democracy. This fast playing the existing system. It helps to make transparent the status quo – there is no real democracy. On the Lokpal Bill: I haven’t seen any study so far that says bringing in an Ombudsman makes the system more corrupt. Rather, the Lokayukta in Karnataka has brought about a dramatic change. So I think there have to be Lokayuktas in every State. Lokpal is like a Lokayukta for the Centre. The provisions of the bill: From reading the bills and discussions here’s what I think: In most cases, such as the Selection procedure, what’s to be done with CBI, and prosecution, I don’t agree with the Government bill. In the Jan Lokpal bill, I am ambivalent about including judiciary and PM and scope. Aruna Roy’s bill is yet to be uploaded, so there is no way to compare it all. But do my views matter? No.
