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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Strange Justifications

Strange Justifications

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published Published on Oct 28, 2011   modified Modified on Oct 28, 2011

-EPW

 

The Anna Hazare group’s foray into electoral politics exposes its shaky foundations.

The script of this drama was already written. A single issue campaign, focused narrowly on corruption in public life without a wider world view on the root causes of corruption or on the myriad other problems afflicting Indian society, had to come apart at the seams at some point. That moment arrived when “Team Anna”, as the people behind social activist Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign like to call themselves, decided that the recent Hisar assembly by-election was an appropriate site for testing an anti-corruption strategy. In a contest where the outcome was a foregone conclusion with the late Bhajan Lal’s son, Kuldeep Bishnoi, certain of victory, the Anna group chose to target the certain loser, the Congress candidate. The justification for doing this was strange. It was, they said, because the Congress president did not give a written undertaking that the Lokpal Bill would be passed in the winter session of Parliament. The fact that the prime minister had publicly given such an undertaking apparently did not count. And when asked how they chose to oppose the man with the cleanest public record, as compared to the victor and his nearest opponent, they argued that in the absence of the right to recall or reject, they felt compelled to target the only party that had not publicly committed itself to the Lokpal Bill. This is a convoluted justification for its anti-Congress ­campaign, and now deep fissures in the core group of Anna ­Hazare are out in the open. Two people have withdrawn from the team and several others have questioned the wisdom of the Hisar intervention, which appears to be the personal whim of one member of the core group, Arvind Kejriwal.

If the Hisar decision was not enough to cause strains, member Prashant Bhushan’s statement supporting a plebiscite in Kashmir has exposed the strongly contrasting and apparently irreconcilable perspectives within the group. Bhushan has had to face not just a physical attack by members of the Sri Ram Sene but hear counter views from colleagues, including from Anna Hazare, who has ­declared that he is prepared to fight another war against Pakistan and that Kashmir is “an integral part of India”. Such an outcome could also have been predicted. Once you proclaim that your views are those of the “nation”, as Anna Hazare and his group repeatedly did during the heady days of the anti-corruption crusade, you relinquish the right to proclaim individual opinions on a variety of issues including Kashmir, or to pursue individual strategies as in Hisar. This is the reality now haunting the Anna group.

Whether the team stays together or splits is not really the issue. The recent developments point to important lessons that civil society groups can learn. When there is a broad coalition on a single issue, it is better to stick to the common minimum agenda rather than attempt to widen it without first arriving at a consensual strategy. The Anna Hazare group’s one-point agenda was the passage of the Lokpal Bill. Part of this was achieved when the government agreed to table the bill in the winter session. What was the need to jump into the electoral fray even as this was pending?

Even if one argues that an election provides an opportunity to test the anti-corruption crusade, surely this ought to have been done by either backing a candidate who met standards of probity, or exposing the lack of it in all candidates. For instance, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), as part of its “Know your Neta” campaign, has investigated and published financial and criminal details of all candidates contesting an election. This, the organisation believes, is a step towards cleaning up the electoral process as it gives voters crucial information to decide whom to back if they want to go beyond party affiliation. Another strategy that is used is to find people with a clean record who can contest on an anti-corruption platform. For the forthcoming municipal election in Mumbai, a coalition of civil society groups calling itself ­Mumbai 227 is attempting to find “clean” candidates to contest all the seats. No such strategy was evident in the Anna group’s intervention in Hisar or in its proclaimed aim to do the same in Uttar Pradesh. The only party it continues to target is the ­Congress. Given the support it has received from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party, the ­question raised about the movement’s political leanings is ­perfectly legitimate.

Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption crusade, whatever one thinks of it, has certainly brought the issue of corruption centre stage. But to reduce this to a campaign against one party – thereby possibly paving the way for the victory of another – a stubborn insistence on only one law to deal with every aspect of corruption is to diminish the importance of the issue and the relevance of citizen involvement. Anna Hazare and his followers are in danger of squandering the opportunity presented by this growing awareness and demand for cleaner politics. There is no silver bullet for ending corruption. A law is only the first step. The greater challenge is its implementation and ensuring citizen involvement.


The Economic and Political Weekly, Vol XLVI, No.43, 22 October, 2011, http://beta.epw.in/newsItem/comment/190539/


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