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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Team Anna Hazare's calls to redraw the lawmaking process spell anarchy

Team Anna Hazare's calls to redraw the lawmaking process spell anarchy

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published Published on Dec 14, 2011   modified Modified on Dec 14, 2011

-The Economic Times

 

The movement against corruption that the erroneously labelled 'Gandhian' Anna Hazare has spearheaded has had some positives. For one, it brought into sharp focus wide public anger against the malaise of endemic corruption. Two, it reaffirmed the role of civil society members in intervening and shaping public discourse. And, three, it generally shook up a system inert to, if not actively resistant to, any genuine measures to tackle that malaise. But the Anna Hazare phenomenon also represents an unwholesome denigration of politics.

It also represents a challenge to, even an undermining of, the supremacy of Parliament. In umpteen pronouncements, Anna Hazare has displayed the myway-or-the-highway sort of undemocratic attitude reminiscent of authoritarianism and a vigilante-style notion of justice that is part of the problem.

One reason why forms of vigilantism - even at the level of a mob lynching, say, a thief somewhere - exist in society is that either justice is seen to be elusive or justice delivery mechanisms are seen to be dysfunctional or, worse, hostile to people's interests. Changing that state of affairs calls for reforms on various fronts. But calls made by Team Anna members at the recent fast-protest at Jantar Mantar apparently widening the scope of the movement against corruption to one which seeks a redrawing the process of lawmaking, and delivering it to 'the streets' are at one with that vigilante sentiment.

Ending a dysfunctional state of affairs is a wider task, of which tackling corruption is a part. A key measure is to reform the way politics is funded, a reform the entire political class, including the Opposition, which sided with Anna Hazare at the Jantar Mantar fast, must collectively take up. The Opposition as well as Anna Hazare has every right to target the Congress party, since it is the major constituent of the government and faces primary responsibility to pass the Lokpal Bill. But, clearly, corruption isn't solely confined to the parties in power. Democratic politics, including building consensus, is what can work. Not forms of vigilantism or moral posturing.

The Economic Times, 14 December, 2011, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/team-annas-calls-to-redraw-the-lawmaking-process-spell-anarchy/articleshow/11100987.cms


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