Anti-corruption crusade: The arrogance of power is killing democracy June 17, 2011 01:27 PM | Karan Kharb [image: Anna protest]
*Some Congressmen in the habit of mudslinging are trying to deflect focus from the anti-corruption debate by indulging in accusations against Anna Hazare and his team. Which other country has an unelected prime minister or, criminal cases against nearly a third of its elected representatives, and these same people are talking about democracy in peril from the unelected? * Congress Party spokesperson Manish Tiwari says, "Our democracy faces its peril from the unelected and the unelectable…." (13 June 2011) Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee labels Anna Hazare a tyrant! These Congressmen, who are habituated to mudslinging, have persistently indulged in hurling accusations at Anna Hazare and his team to deflect public focus from the Lokpal debate. First they tried to fabricate a CD over some registration of a plot against the Bhushans, which attempt fell flat. Now they are trying to get people to believe that Mr Hazare is working for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh/Bharatiya Janata Party and not for the masses. Only the corrupt, and not democracy, should feel threatened by such a mass movement. Democracy is the people, not the government. And let it be understood by the arrogant who occupy positions of power, that democracy is not their personal domain or a 'members-only club' where 'unelected' citizens have no role to play. If that were so, should we assume that Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose and the entire galaxy of our freedom fighters got away with their sins, and that Manish Tiwari would have prosecuted them for being 'unelected tyrants'. Such people must introspect and make a serious attempt to change their outlook. I have ten observations that could help analyse the government's perception vis-à-vis the ground reality, in the ongoing turmoil in the country's political field. 1. No other democracy in the world has an unelected prime minister apart from India, which is supposed to be the world's largest democracy. Which is probably also why it is being said that "our democracy faces peril from its people…" 2. No other prime minister or president of a democracy has been as silent or as invisible as is the case in India. 3. No other government in the civilised modern world receives orders from an extra-constitutional authority (10 Janpath) as obsequiously as the Indian government. 4. No other government in the civilised world has been seen staggering so indecisively, and so clownish, as our government has been. First, they tried to make fun of Anna Hazare; then, terrified at the overwhelming response to his call and the support for the anti-corruption campaign, the government caved in and set up the joint drafting committee for the Lokpal Bill. Unable to answer questions raised by the civil society members of Hazare's team, Pranab Mukherjee calls him a tyrant! Next, the top four in the government prostrate before Baba Ramdev, then beat up the yoga guru's supporters two days later. What kind of 'democracy' is this, and who is destroying it? 5. No other democracy in the world has as many as nearly a third of its members of Parliament (mainly the Lok Sabha) (about 162 plus Suresh Kalmadi, A Raja, Kanimozhi and now may be even Dayanidhi Maran and P Chidambaram) facing criminal charges ranging from trespassing to murder. (This is more than a 26% increase over the record of members in the previous Lok Sabha. There are nine ministers in the central cabinet who face criminal charges, one of them for 'theft'. (According to National Election Watch, 76 members of Parliament are involved in seriouscriminal cases. A total 522 cases are pending against various members of Parliament; 275 of these are under serious sections of the Indian Penal Code.) What more do we need to add, Mr Manish Tewari, that will imperil democracy in India. 6. India ranks at 87 in the survey on the 'International Perception of Corruption' conducted by the World Bank and IBRD, BertelsmanFoundation, World Economic Forum, Global Insight and Transparency International Berlin. India stands on level with countries like Albania, Jamaica and Liberia with an index of 3.3 (out of 10), that has fallen from 3.5 in 2007 and 3.4 in 2008 & 2009. 7. No sane government, other than a heartless, tyrant would unleash brutality against a peaceful *bhajan*-singing congregation of innocent men, women and children, as happened at Delhi's Ram Lila ground, late night on 4-5 June 2011. 8. According to media reports (*The Times of India*, Ahmedabad, 8 June 2011), India not only tops the list of nations having tons of black moneystashed away in Swiss banks, but its cache of black money ($1,546 billion) is far more than the combined total of the next four countries in the list of black money deposits namely, Russia, the UK, Ukraine and China ($1,056 billion). Contrast this with the poor farmers committing suicides, hapless pregnant women delivering babies at hospital gates, and destitute tribal masses fed up with a callous administration, seeking solace in a Maoist rebellion. 9. No other government can boast of so many scams as the UPA government. 10. Only the DMK appears to be ahead of the Congress (so far, at least) in the corruption race-so what if only a few of them have crash-landed in Tihar Jail! However, these are merely some facts of the reality, not something that Manish Tiwari and Pranab Mukherjee would like to believe. They, like some of their colleagues in government, are suffering hallucinations and illusions. In Mr Hazare, they see a heavily-armed warrior-'a tyrant'-at the head of an angry army of India's masses, charging ferociously straight into them. This scenario reminds one of Wordsworth's adolescent thief, who was fleeing with a stolen boat, but he felt the hilltop behind was chasing him so menacingly, that the farther he went the bigger the shadow became that loomed over him. For, the more the government tries to shoo away the Lokpal and the uproar over corruption, the more vigorous becomes the public outcry against corruption. Indian politicians could not have asked for more decent and loving enemies than Anna Hazare and his candle-wielding supporters, or Baba Ramdev, with his devotees practising abstinence and yoga. Arrogant governments in West Asia and North Africa are facing more violent and destructive uprisings. We have a choice to change peacefully. While the anxiety of those in power is understandable, they cannot avoid the problem by looking in the other direction. The tide is unstoppable. The people deserve and they are demanding an effective Lokpal, to rein in rampant corruption and they will get it, with the government's your co-operation, or the tumult will crush authoritarian arrogance and install people's choice. (*The writer is a military veteran who commanded an Infantry battalion with many successes in counter-terrorist operations. He was also actively involved in numerous high-risk operations as second in command of the elite 51 Special Action Group of the National Security Guard (NSG.) He conducts leadership training and is the author of two bestsellers on leadership development that have also been translated into foreign languages.*)
