LA NUIT BENGAL

The Telegraph, Editorial

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110522/jsp/opinion/story_14011424.jsp

The wise believe that everyone has two countries — France and her own. It is a relief to realize that the chief minister of West Bengal, the redoubtable Mamata Banerjee, is not an exception to this sage generalization. Her cabinet, announced after much drama very early on Saturday morning, will bring to mind the old French saying, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.’’ (“The more things change, the more they stay the same.’’) Change is, paradoxically, the guarantee of continuity. Ms Banerjee, it may be recalled despite the euphoria, had promised a small and compact cabinet. But she announced that her government would have 44 ministers. This is exactly the number her predecessor had in his cabinet. Under the existing law, West Bengal can only have 44 ministers since the upper limit for the number of ministers is 15 per cent of the total strength of the legislative assembly. Maximum leaders thus form maximum cabinets. Ms Banerjee has kept up with her rival. At the height of the Sino-Soviet dispute, the Chinese increased the alcohol content of the local vodka by a full percentage point to keep up with the Russians. Ms Banerjee has demonstrated that she is second to none in keeping up with the comrades. By forming a large cabinet, Ms Banerjee has violated a very elementary principle. What is good politics is not necessarily good governance. Even its critics will be forced to admit that the Left was good in politics, otherwise it could not have been elected seven times in a row. But the Left also ran an incompetent government, in fact, one of the worst in India. This resulted in West Bengal’s humiliating decline in all spheres. The point can be illustrated with a different example. The creation of numerical quotas through reservations makes for good politics as it brings electoral dividends, but it is certainly not good governance as it reduces the society’s and the country’s dependence on merit and competence. The largeness of Ms Banerjee’s cabinet is directly related to the largeness of her electoral success. Her triumph brings with it too many winners and too many expectations. To meet these expectations, she has, like her predecessor, chosen to address the demands of her party. Her party is only one of the stakeholders in the making of West Bengal. There are other stakeholders: most notably the people of the state. She has put the interests of one group of stakeholders above the others. This is the downside of a bloated victory. It has resulted in a bloated government. She would do well to remember that both Rajiv Gandhi and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had massive mandates that led to very high expectations, even outside the party. By failing to meet these expectations through good governance, they lost in subsequent elections. If Ms Banerjee overlooks these lessons, Bengal will not emerge from darkness.

Quality of Life: India vs. China

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/may/12/quality-life-india-vs-china/?pagination=false

By Amartya Sen

1.

The steadily rising rate of economic growth in India has recently been around 8 percent per year (it is expected to be 9 percent this year), and there is much speculation about whether and when India may catch up with and surpass China’s over 10 percent growth rate. Despite the evident excitement that this subject seems to cause in India and abroad, it is surely rather silly to be obsessed about India’s overtaking China in the rate of growth of GNP, while not comparing India with China in other respects, like education, basic health, or life expectancy. Economic growth can, of course, be enormously helpful in advancing living standards and in battling poverty. But there is little cause for taking the growth of GNP to be an end in itself, rather than seeing it as an important means for achieving things we value.

Dinodia/Stock Connection/Aurora Photos

Girls in a classroom in the Indian model village of Ralegan Siddhi, northeast of Pune, Maharashtra, 2006

It could, however, be asked why this distinction should make much difference, since economic growth does enhance our ability to improve living standards. The central point to appreciate here is that while economic growth is important for enhancing living conditions, its reach and impact depend greatly on what we do with the increased income. The relation between economic growth and the advancement of living standards depends on many factors, including economic and social inequality and, no less importantly, on what the government does with the public revenue that is generated by economic growth.

Some statistics about China and India, drawn mainly from the World Bank and the United Nations, are relevant here. Life expectancy at birth in China is 73.5 years; in India it is 64.4 years. The infant mortality rate is fifty per thousand in India, compared with just seventeen in China; the mortality rate for children under five is sixty-six per thousand for Indians and nineteen for the Chinese; and the maternal mortality rate is 230 per 100,000 live births in India and thirty-eight in China. The mean years of schooling in India were estimated to be 4.4 years, compared with 7.5 years in China. China’s adult literacy rate is 94 percent, compared with India’s 74 percent according to the preliminary tables of the 2011 census.

As a result of India’s effort to improve the schooling of girls, its literacy rate for women between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four has clearly risen; but that rate is still not much above 80 percent, whereas in China it is 99 percent. One of the serious failures of India is that a very substantial proportion of Indian children are, to varying degrees, undernourished (depending on the criteria used, the proportion can come close to half of all children), compared with a very small proportion in China. Only 66 percent of Indian children are immunized with triple vaccine (diphtheria/pertussis/tetanus), as opposed to 97 percent in China.

Comparing India with China according to such standards can be more useful for policy discussions in India than confining the comparison to GNP growth rates only. Those who are fearful that India’s growth performance would suffer if it paid more attention to “social objectives” such as education and health care should seriously consider that notwithstanding these “social” activities and achievements, China’s rate of GNP growth is still clearly higher than India’s.

2.

Higher GNP has certainly helped China to reduce various indicators of poverty and deprivation, and to expand different features of the quality of life. There is every reason to want to encourage sustainable economic growth in India in order to improve living standards today and in the future (including taking care of the environment in which we live). Sustainable economic growth is a very good thing in a way that “growth mania” is not.

GNP per capita is, however, not invariably a good predictor of valuable features of our lives, for those features depend also on other things that we do—or fail to do. Compare India with Bangladesh. In income, India has a huge lead over Bangladesh, with a GNP per capita of $1,170, compared with $590 in Bangladesh, in comparable units of purchasing power. This difference has expanded rapidly because of India’s faster rate of recent economic growth, and that, of course, is a point in India’s favor. India’s substantially higher rank than Bangladesh in the UN Human Development Index (HDI) is largely due to this particular achievement. But we must ask how well India’s income advantage is reflected in other things that also matter. I fear the answer is: not well at all.

Life expectancy in Bangladesh is 66.9 years compared with India’s 64.4. The proportion of underweight children in Bangladesh (41.3 percent) is lower than in India (43.5), and its fertility rate (2.3) is also lower than India’s (2.7). Mean years of schooling amount to 4.8 years in Bangladesh compared with India’s 4.4 years. While India is ahead of Bangladesh in the male literacy rate for the age group between fifteen and twenty-four, the female rate in Bangladesh is higher than in India. Interestingly, the female literacy rate among young Bangladeshis is actually higher than the male rate, whereas young women still have substantially lower rates than young males in India. There is much evidence to suggest that Bangladesh’s current progress has a great deal to do with the role that liberated Bangladeshi women are beginning to play in the country.

What about health? The mortality rate of children under five is sixty-six per thousand in India compared with fifty-two in Bangladesh. In infant mortality, Bangladesh has a similar advantage: it is fifty per thousand in India and forty-one in Bangladesh. While 94 percent of Bangladeshi children are immunized with DPTvaccine, only 66 percent of Indian children are. In each of these respects, Bangladesh does better than India, despite having only half of India’s per capita income.

Of course, Bangladesh’s living conditions will benefit greatly from higher economic growth, particularly if the country uses it as a means of doing good things, rather than treating economic growth and high per capita income as ends in themselves. It is to the huge credit of Bangladesh that despite the adversity of low income it has been able to do so much so quickly; the imaginative activism of Bangladeshi NGOs (such as the Grameen Bank, the pioneering microcredit institution, and BRAC, a large-scale initiative aimed at removing poverty) as well as the committed public policies of the government have both contributed to the results. But higher income, including larger public resources, will obviously enhance Bangladesh’s ability to achieve better lives for its people.

3.

One of the positive things about economic growth is that it generates public resources that the government can devote to its priorities. In fact, public resources very often grow faster than the GNP. The gross tax revenue, for example, of the government of India (corrected for price rise) is now more than four times what it was just twenty years ago, in 1990–1991. This is a substantially bigger jump than the price-corrected GNP.

Expenditure on what is somewhat misleadingly called the “social sector”—health, education, nutrition, etc.—has certainly gone up in India. And yet India is still well behind China in many of these fields. For example, government expenditure on health care in China is nearly five times that in India. China does, of course, have a larger population and a higher per capita income than India, but even in relative terms, while the Chinese government spends nearly 2 percent of GDP (1.9 percent) on health care, the proportion is only a little above one percent (1.1 percent) in India.

One result of the relatively low allocation of funds to public health care in India is that large numbers of poor people across the country rely on private doctors, many of whom have little medical training. Since health is also a typical example of “asymmetric information,” in which the patients may know very little about what the doctors (or “supposed doctors”) are giving them, even the possibility of fraud and deceit is very large. In a study conducted by the Pratichi Trust—a public interest trust I set up in 1999—we found cases in which the ignorance of poor patients about their condition was exploited so as to make them pay for treatment they didn’t get. This is the result not only of shameful exploitation, but ultimately of the sheer unavailability of public health care in many parts of India. The benefit that we can expect to get from economic growth depends very much on how the public revenue generated by economic growth is expended.

4.

When we consider the impact of economic growth on people’s lives, comparisons favor China over India. However, there are many fields in which a comparison between China and India is not related to economic growth in any obvious way. Most Indians are strongly appreciative of the democratic structure of the country, including its many political parties, systematic free elections, uncensored media, free speech, and the independent standing of the judiciary, among other characteristics of a lively democracy. Those Indians who are critical of serious flaws in these arrangements (and I am certainly one of them) can also take account of what India has already achieved in sustaining democracy, in contrast to many other countries, including China.

Not only is access to the Internet and world opinion uncensored and unrestricted in India, a multitude of media present widely different points of view, often very critical of the government in office. India has a larger circulation of newspapers each day than any other country in the world. And the newspapers reflect contrasting political perspectives. Economic growth has helped—and this has certainly been a substantial gain—to expand the availability of radios and televisions across the country, including in rural areas, which very often are shared among many users. There are at least 360 independent television stations (and many are being established right now, judging from the licenses already issued) and their broadcasts reflect a remarkable variety of points of view. More than two hundred of these TV stations concentrate substantially or mainly on news, many of them around the clock. There is a sharp contrast here with the monolithic system of newscasting permitted by the state in China, with little variation of political perspectives on different channels.

Freedom of expression has its own value as a potentially important instrument for democratic politics, but also as something that people enjoy and treasure. Even the poorest parts of the population want to participate in social and political life, and in India they can do so. There is a contrast as well in the use of trial and punishment, including capital punishment. China often executes more people in a week than India has executed since independence in 1947. If our focus is on a comprehensive comparison of the quality of life in India and China, we have to look well beyond the traditional social indicators, and many of these comparisons are not to China’s advantage.

Could it be that India’s democratic system is somehow a barrier to using the benefits of economic growth in order to enhance health, education, and other social conditions? Clearly not, as I shall presently discuss. It is worth recalling that when India had a very low rate of economic growth, as was the case until the 1980s, a common argument was that democracy was hostile to fast economic growth. It was hard to convince those opposed to democracy that fast economic growth depends on an economic climate congenial to development rather than on fierce political control, and that a political system that protects democratic rights need not impede economic growth. That debate has now ended, not least because of the high economic growth rates of democratic India. We can now ask: How should we assess the alleged conflict between democracy and the use of the fruits of economic growth for social advancement?

5.

What a democratic system achieves depends greatly on which social conditions become political issues. Some conditions become politically important issues quickly, such as the calamity of a famine (thus famines tend not to occur at all when there is a functioning democracy), while other problems—less spectacular and less immediate—provide a much harder challenge. It is much more difficult to use democratic politics to remedy undernourishment that is not extreme, or persistent gender inequality, or the absence of regular medical care for all. Success or failure here depends on the range and vigor of democratic practice.¹ In recent years Indian democracy has made considerable progress in dealing with some of these conditions, such as gender inequality, lack of schools, and widespread undernourishment. Public protests, court decisions, and the use of the recently passed “Right to Information” Act have had telling effects. But India still has a long way to go in remedying these conditions.

In China, by contrast, the process of decision-making depends largely on decisions made by the top Party leaders, with relatively little democratic pressure from below. The Chinese leaders, despite their skepticism about the values of multiparty democracy and personal and political liberty, are strongly committed to eliminating poverty, undernourishment, illiteracy, and lack of health care; and this has greatly helped in China’s advancement. There is, however, a serious fragility in any authoritarian system of governance, since there is little recourse or remedy when the government leaders alter their goals or suppress their failures.

The reality of that danger revealed itself in a catastrophic form in the Chinese famine of 1959–1962, which killed more than 30 million people, when there was no public pressure against the regime’s policies, as would have arisen in a functioning democracy. Mistakes in policy continued for three years while tens of millions died. To take another example, the economic reforms of 1979 greatly improved the working and efficiency of Chinese agriculture and industry; but the Chinese government also eliminated, at the same time, the entitlement of all to public medical care (which was often administered through the communes). Most people were then required to buy their own health insurance, drastically reducing the proportion of the population with guaranteed health care.

In a functioning democracy an established right to social assistance could not have been so easily—and so swiftly—dropped. The change sharply reduced the progress of longevity in China. Its large lead over India in life expectancy dwindled during the following two decades—falling from a fourteen-year lead to one of just seven years.

The Chinese authorities, however, eventually realized what had been lost, and from 2004 they rapidly started reintroducing the right to medical care. China now has a considerably higher proportion of people with guaranteed health care than does India. The gap in life expectancy in China’s favor has been rising again, and it is now around nine years; and the degree of coverage is clearly central to the difference.² Whether India’s democratic political system can effectively remedy neglected public services such as health care is one of the most urgent questions facing the country.³

6.

For a minority of the Indian population—but still very large in actual numbers—economic growth alone has been very advantageous, since they are already comparatively privileged and need no social assistance to benefit from economic growth. The limited prosperity of recent years has helped to support a remarkable variety of lifestyles as well as globally acclaimed developments of Indian literature, music, cinema, theater, painting, and the culinary arts, among other cultural activities.

Yet an exaggerated concentration on the lives of the relatively prosperous, exacerbated by the Indian media, gives an unrealistically rosy picture of the lives of Indians in general. Since the fortunate group includes not only business leaders and the professional classes but also many of the country’s intellectuals, the story of unusual national advancement is widely and persistently heard. More worryingly, relatively privileged Indians can easily fall for the temptation to focus just on economic growth as a grand social benefactor for all.

Some critics of the huge social inequalities in India find something callous and uncouth in the self-centered lives and inward-looking preoccupations of a relatively prosperous minority. My primary concern, however, is that the illusions generated by those distorted perceptions of prosperity may prevent India from bringing social deprivations into political focus, which is essential for achieving what needs to be done for Indians at large through its democratic system. A fuller understanding of the real conditions of the mass of neglected Indians and what can be done to improve their lives through public policy should be a central issue in the politics of India.

This is exactly where the exclusive concentration on the rate of GNP growth has the most damaging effect. Economic growth can make a very large contribution to improving people’s lives; but single-minded emphasis on growth has limitations that need to be clearly understood.

1. 1

   I have discussed this issue more fully in " How Is India Doing? ," The New York Review , December 16, 1982; in (jointly with Jean Drèze) Hunger and Public Action(Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press, 1989); and in Development as Freedom(Knopf, 1999). ↩

2. 2

   I discuss this in "The Art of Medicine: Learning from Others," The Lancet , January 15, 2011. ↩

3. 3

   I am grateful to Lincoln Chen, Jean Drèze, and A.K. Shiva Kumar for helpful discussion of this and related issues. ↩

Breaking Fast

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/breaking-fast/773642/0

So Indian TV watched Egypt, and decided Al Jazeera led a revolution, and wanted one for themselves. Meanwhile, the World Cup ended; the IPL had not yet started; nobody wrote a book this week attacking a national idol; but, fortuitously, a Gandhian activist was fasting in Delhi for relatively abstruse changes to draft legislation. Excellent, they exclaimed! We’ll televise a revolution, even if there isn’t one. As Sagarika Ghose on CNN-IBN asked: “Is Jantar Mantar going to become Tahrir Square?” before mumbling “...as someone has asked,” showing impressive self-deprecation in not naming herself.

Look, TV channels are entitled to run whatever stories they want, even try to appropriate “movements”, as in “Citizens against Corruption — a CNN-IBN campaign.” It is far from certain, though, when they cross the line between chasing a story and finding one where there isn’t even a hint of it. Do a few hundred people in Jantar Mantar qualify as a revolution? In fact, anywhere, do we get a real sense of what the people-to-TV camera ratio is there? The pictures don’t deceive. But correspondents and anchors reaching for words to describe a moment they want to create come perilously close to doing so. IBN’s round-up was particularly worrying: Pallavi Ghosh informed us that “an Anna wave has swept the nation,” although the shots accompanying this were of the same few dozen at Jantar Mantar. Priyanka Gupta, in Kolkata, tried to claim a dozen people on Park Street were a lot for a city where a protest against out-of-tune Rabindrasangeet could get three lakh to the Maidan. Raksha Shetty in Mumbai stood next to a photogenic little group of well-heeled youngsters that she informed us was a crowd.

Arnab Goswami, on Times Now, pre-emptively struck against this allegation. He attacked an unsympathetic journalist on his show for implying that this was “just some television show going on.” Of course not, some superbly heeled young chap from Mumbai agreed: “This is not a media revolution... I am not a fool, I am an MBA graduate. I have left my posh job at an MNC to join this revolution. You can test my intelligence any way you want. I can tell you, this is a revolution of the people.” Please, nobody hire him for a marketing job.

Which brings us to the crass classism that has coloured TV’s debate and reporting. A random, superlatively heeled type in a Gandhi topi informed us on Times Now’s News-hour, angrily, that “these people are not like people at a political rally. They’re actually educated people, taking out their time.” Yes, agreed someone named Bharat Dabolkar, apparently a very busy actor: “Lots of professionals adjusted their daily schedule.” My, my, the revolution is totally upon us.

Newshour’s host seized upon this. “The groundswell is there!” he declaimed to the Nation. “This is spontaneous!” (Spontaneous = following appeals from a dozen news channels.) “These are not people turning up for 50 rupees and a bottle of liquor!”

The comfortable, contemptuous, self-congratulatory middle-classness of the coverage and TV’s chosen representatives of the protests were truly depressing. Meghnad Desai to Sardesai, shouting over chants of “Bharat Mata ki Jai” at Jantar Mantar: “The quality of our MPs is very low.” Right, perhaps we need a few peers, my lord. A panelist on Times Now, differentiating these rallies from others: “We pay taxes, it’s our money.” Chetan Bhagat, who otherwise managed to actually raise the quality of every debate he was in, and he was in them all, said one of the bills was like a “rubber stamp that you get at the airport”, inadvertently revealing that he lived the sort of life where you never saw rubber stamps except at airports. Swapan Dasgupta wryly declared that the crowd was diverse, “from all sections of the middle class.”

Neutrality, of course, was dumped by Times Now long ago, but CNN-IBN seemed to have decided to Times Now-ify itself, too, with Sagarika Ghose asking people to “fight”, and asking Anupam Kher, “Will you leave your comfortable life and sit with Anna?” (Kher replied, “People have to speak up”, which is certainly true on IBN, if you want to be heard above the anchors.) Ghose then asked Barun Mitra: “Why should you cast aspersions on the people’s movement?” Because you invited him on your show to do so, ma’am.

Really, if TV says so, it must be a revolution. All we need is Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Wait! Breaking news! Talat Aziz is reciting poetry on Times Now! Yes! It’s Faiz! The revolution is here!

Until the IPL, of course.

When the media gets hold of a cause

By Sreelatha Menon Lok Pal may be the first step towards the formation of new institutions, as the old ones get ineffective Sreelatha Menon / New Delhi April 10, 2011, 0:57 IST http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/sreelatha-menon-whenmedia-gets-holda-cause/431642/ Recently, Pappu Yadav, former member of parliament, went on a fast-unto-death in a Patna jail to show support for Anna Hazare’s fast against corruption. Yadav, who faces murder charges, demanded that corruption be weeded out of society. Also Read Related Stories News Now - Realty, Auto weighs on the market - Banana fibre paper for lasting currency notes - LG India unit sees revenue up 25% in 2011, 2012 - Sun Pharma up 3% on tie up with Merck & Co - Industrial output growth slows to 3.6% in February More The case of television channels vying with each other to support the “people’s movement” against corruption is also similar to Yadav’s impulse to show support for a cause. Incidentally, the media did not lose a wink of sleep when Lepchas were fasting in Sikkim against the taking over of their sacred valley and rivers by the government-aided private companies to build hydroelectric plants. Later, the courts thwarted this without much assistance of the media. The media did not lose sleep when last month between March 11 and March 16 in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh’s Koya commandos, the Central Reserve Police Force and CoBRA battalions burnt more than 300 houses, raped five adivasi women and killed five men in Timapuram, Morpalli and Tarmetla villages of Dantewada, accusing them of being Naxalites (even Naxals don’t deserve to be raped and killed). It also never raised the plight of missing persons in Kashmir whose court cases are stuck in the home ministry for want of permission to proceed against officers. Anyway, with or without the patronage of the media, the masses are angry with politicians and sooner or later they would get wise enough to get angry with the media too, for taking a stand only when it suits them. Meanwhile, the achievements of the people who backed Hazare have been substantial. They have got a gazette notifying a joint committee, including people’s representatives to draft a Bill against corruption. Also, the Bill once passed, would guarantee quick action against the corrupt. People have embraced these remedies following a total loss of faith in the governance system, comprising elected people and selected bureaucrats. While there is no guarantee that vested interests won’t creep into these joint committees, there is an advantage in the presence of activists who have an expertise in the law of a particular subject. For instance, the seed bill now in Parliament, if drafted in partnership with farmer groups would have provided an outcome that would have helped the farmers rather than the seed industry, as it is feared to do now. What the Lok Pal promises is a short cut to justice. For public servants (such as the government employees, judges, armed forces, and members of Parliament) can also be prosecuted for corruption under the Indian Penal Code, 1860, and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. However, these require the investigating agency (such as the CBI) to get prior sanction of the central or state government before it can initiate the prosecution process. Lawyers wonder if an all-powerful Lok Pal would endanger democracy. For instance, now the judiciary and legislature keep a check on each other, but once the Lok Pal comes with powers to try government members and judges, it would be putting too many powers in one basket. Says lawyer Sanjay Parikh: A system has to be in place to ensure that the cure does not become worse than the disease. Also, the Lok Pal cannot break the nexus between the government and the private sector and restore the trust of the people. However, an ombudsman like God, is an attractive idea and as decades would go by, there may exist one for each sector, for example for real estate (drafted by home dwellers rather than the real estate companies), one for educational institutions, one for health institutions, one for labour rights, etc. The lesson to be learnt is that new institutions would replace the old, if the latter don’t prove effective and accessible to the people.

Hazare meets a wet blanket

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Hazare-meets-a-wet-blanket/H1-Article1-683304.aspx?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4da139a29d8f6745%2C0

by Shiv Viswanathan

Sociology as a vocation is often depressing. The ideas and theories one proposes go against the conventional grain. The recent events around Anna Hazare put me in that mood. The media are acclaiming the movement. TV commentators in particular have gone ecstatic with a ringside seat to revolution. Words like 'Ground zero' and comparisons with the recent demands for democracy in Egypt and Tunisia give India a feeling of global togetherness. Yet the more I watch it, the more puzzled I feel. Spontaneously, I am all with its demands. But sociologically I feel something does not make sense. What we are watching is a sociological simulacra, an imitation of a social movement that looks more authentic than the original.

The recent scams, the epidemics of scandals have left middle-class India tongue-tied. What is worse is that there seems to be no mechanisms either for outlining the truth or bringing the criminals to justice. Our institutional systems seem too slow or appear to be in the hands of corrupt politicians. Reform becomes an invitation for oxymorons. Politics seems to be a desert between India's achievements in sport and India's capability in technology. Our democracy seems to be emptying out in our ability to handle corruption.

Enter Anna Hazare, an old-style Gandhian. An ex-army havaldar who has introduced social reform in his village combating alcoholism and advocating drip irrigation. He is a Gandhian who believes in development and has the Magsaysay award to prove it. Hazare, who has been around on the fringes of the development debate, becomes an archetypal Gandhian. He decides to fast unto death if the Lokpal Bill is not passed.

The prefix 'Gandhian' always intrigued me. The word is used loosely. Even scholars who study Gandhi call themselves Gandhian. People influenced by Gandhi, involved in politics or social work, dub themselves Gandhian. All they imply is an ascetic life and an honest character. The complexity, the diversity, the chaotic nature of the Gandhian experiment is a distant memory. These Gandhians are simplified versions of the original. But the simplification is crucial. They are easy to grasp. They have a single-point value. Their morality is unquestionable, their social work visible; they become vectors of a middle-class dream.

Their message is simple: a fast unto death until the Lokpal Bill is passed. In four days, the fast is termed 'the second war of Independence'. People are galvanised and the media see in Hazare the makings of the second JP movement. Oddly there is little memory here.

The styles of politics are so different. JP worked with -isms and parties and fought both authoritarianism and corruption. Hazare's movement is anti-politician. His movement refuses to let any politician grab presence on the dais. Uma Bharati had to beat a hurried exit. The movement seems to be anti-politically political. Yet it encourages visitors from Anupam Kher to Meghnad Desai, who turns press conferences into quick tutorials. It is almost as if the movement originates on Page 3 with approval ratings from fashion designers, movie directors and the city glitterati.

There's a wonderful middle classness to it. Professionals drift to it; housewives, students, young professionals, a coterie of NGOs provide the voices for it. Although it's a mix of generations, there is a preponderance of youth. It almost appears a part of the new demographic dividend, a more youthful idea of politics. It conveys the right mix of professionalism, lifestyle and a need for a deep sense of integrity.

There is almost no sense of the usual agitations, with the violence of lathi-charges or arrests. This demonstration seems different. Politicians from Sonia Gandhi to Narendra Modi approve of it and the BJP and the CPI(M) express support. Yet to those who have watched Nav Nirman, or the Emergency campaigns, this one doesn't look like a movement. It's more like a happening.

The candlelight rituals publicised by Aamir Khan's movie and the Jessica Lall campaign also provide a difference in style. The excitement is high. An India proud of its democracy pans its politicians. There is something surreal about the amiability, the bonhomie. Even the answers sound like something from a market survey, endorsing Hazare like a brand name. He could have been a piece of toothpaste or a pair of shoes.

The space within which it is enacted seems magical. It is carnival time but it reverses no categories. It does not threaten the regime, triggers no violence. It's almost playful as a spectacle. It appeals to a whole beyond parties, claiming a politics outside politics. It is an invitation to a temporary utopia where actors enact new rituals of hope, new possibilities of empowerment.

The closest I can get to it is to say that it reminds me of the great millennial movements. These were usually led by prophets and these Christ-like figures promised a new reign of prosperity. The Anna Hazare movement as the Second Independence movement has shades of milleniality with those joining caught in an ecstasy of empowerment. The Millenialists felt bullets could not harm them and here protestors feel that authority can't touch them. They feel they are at the roots of law, creating law for a new era.

As a simulacrum, it seeks a different code of revolution through reform, of realism through innocence, by legislation through tantrums, appropriating Gandhian idioms. It seeks to create history without a sense of history, forcing global affinities where there are none. One meets it with a sense of celebration and doubt because standard categories do not quite capture the nature of this happening.

Shiv Visvanathan is a social scientist. The views expressed by the author are personal.

Why the difference in two languages? The Trinamool Congress should clarify its stand on SEZs

http://sanhati.com/articles/3434/

April 10, 2011

Press release by SEZ-birodhi Prachar Mancha

Original Press Note [PDF, Bengali] »

It is well known that the Trinamool Congress has come so close to the corridors of power in West Bengal today, mainly because of the valiant resistance of the people of Singur and Nandigram against land acquisition and special economic zones (SEZs). Naturally, the people have an expectation that the Trinamool Congress would take a strong and pro-people position on SEZs and stop SEZs in West Bengal if it comes to power. We were happy to see that in the recently released Bangla edition of the election manifesto of the Trinamool Congress, it is clearly stated under the “establishment of land-bank” section in p 16 that “SEZs would not be allowed in West Bengal”. However, we were amazed, and alarmed, to find that not a single word has been written about SEZs in the English version of the election manifesto! A reading of the English version of the manifesto makes it abundantly clear that the English version has been addressed to the corporations and the chambers of commerce, whereas the Bangla version is full of pro-people promises. That is why the English version does not contain any statement about stopping SEZs. Possibly because this has come to public notice, the English version of the manifesto in the Trinamool Congress website has been renamed as “vision document”, although the pdf file is still named as “manifesto_english”.

The hypocrisy and double standards of the parties of the CPI(M)-led Left Front regarding SEZs is well known. Although these parties express their strong opposition to the SEZ policy at the national level, more than 50 SEZs are either running or are in various stages of the approval process in Left Front-ruled West Bengal. By passing the first SEZ act in the country (West Bengal SEZ Act, 2003), two years before the SEZ Act was passed by the central government in 2005, the Left Front government has appeared as the path breaker in the issue of establishing SEZs in India. The barbaric attack by the Left Front government on the people of Nandigram in order to acquire land for the SEZ of the Salem group has exposed its pro-capital and anti-people position to everyone.

We are concerned to see that the Trinamool Congress is following this same path of double standards. We demand that the Trinamool Congress adopt a clear stand on SEZs and maintain a consistent position in both the English and Bangla versions of its election manifesto. We appeal to all the people to demand that the candidates of various parties in their constituencies clarify their stand on SEZs. We call upon everyone to build up a movement to stop SEZs and cancel the SEZ Act which threatens the country’s sovereignty and the livelihood of its people, because only a peoples’ movement can force the established political parties to cancel this disastrous policy.

With greetings,

Arjun Sengupta/ Jayanta Sinha

Joint secretaries
SEZ-virodhi prachar manch
Contact: 9007386136

Buddhadeb promises industry at Singur

http://www.hindu.com/2011/04/11/stories/2011041156421200.htm
Special Correspondent

— PHOTO: PTI

West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee being greeted by an elderly woman during an election campaign meeting in Kolkata on Sunday.

KOLKATA: Reasserting the Left Front government's commitment to industrialisation in West Bengal for opening up job opportunities, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee vowed on Sunday to set up industry at Singur from where the Tata Motors' small car project was relocated in October, 2008 in the face of a prolonged agitation led by the Trinamool Congress.

Addressing a meeting of Left workers in the Jadavpur area, from where he is seeking re-election to the Assembly, Mr. Bhattacharjee said the relocation of the Nano project had been costly for the State, but “that would not stop the setting up of factories in West Bengal.”

“When the eighth Left Front government takes over I will set up a factory at Singur which will be among the largest in the State,” he said.

“We will then see if they [the Trinamool] have the courage to resist it,” he said, while asserting that the next Left Front government would not tolerate moves to obstruct the setting up of industry.

Food security

Mr. Bhattacharjee reiterated that the Left Front government would continue with its work towards consolidating the agricultural successes achieved in the past and ensuring food security for all, even as it took forward its plans for more industrial growth.

He pointed out that his government had made no mistake in initiating the industrialisation drive which was essential for the State. Nearly 27 lakh youth were studying in various educational institutions in the State and they expect to be employed. This was only possible with the setting up of more factories.

No child's play

The Chief Minister, who has been ridiculing the call for “change” by the Opposition, said it was not “child's play.” People were well aware who would take the State forward and know which political dispensation, if it came to power, would spell doom for West Bengal.

Mr. Bhattacharjee, travelling in an open-hooded jeep, waved out at people lining the streets and shook hands with some, even as hundreds, holding aloft flags of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and chanting slogans in support of him and the Left Front, marched down the roads and lanes criss-crossing the Jadvapur area in the southern fringes of the city.

He spent several hours in the morning and evening on the campaign trail there.

In the Thakurpukur-Behala area, a massive ‘padayatra' was taken out by Left Front workers and supporters in which Biman Bose, chairman of the Left Front committee and the State secretary of the CPI(M) participated.

Articles on Anna Hazare's Campaign by Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Bobby Kunhu Aditya Nigam

At the Risk of Heresy: Why I am not Celebrating with Anna Hazare

http://kafila.org/2011/04/09/at-the-risk-of-heresy-why-i-am-not-celebrating-with-anna-hazare/

At the risk of heresy, let me express my profound unease at the crescendo of euphoria surrounding the ‘Anna Hazare + Jan Lokpal Bill’ phenomenon as it has unfolded on Jantar Mantar in New Delhi and across several hysterical TV stations over the last few days.

This time around, I have to say that the print media has acted (upto now) with a degree of restraint that I think is commendable. Partly, this has to do with the different natures of the two media. If you have to write even five hundred words about the Jan Lokpal bill, you run out of platitudes against corruption in the first sentence (and who can speak ‘for’ corruption anyway?) and after that you have to begin thinking about what the bill actually says, and the moment you do that, you cannot but help consider the actual provisions and their implications. On television on the other hand, you never have to speak for more than a sound-byte, (and the anchor can just keep repeating himself or herself, because that is the anchor’s job) and the accumulation of pious vox-pop sound bytes ‘against corruption’ leads to a tsunami of ‘sentiment’ that brooks no dissent.

Between the last NDA government and the current UPA government, we have probably experienced a continuity of the most intense degree of corruption that this country has ever witnessed. The outcome of the ‘Anna Hazare’ phenomenon allows the ruling Congress to appear gracious (by bending to Anna Hazar’s will) and the BJP to appear pious (by cozying up to the Anna Hazare initiative) and a full spectrum of NGO and ‘civil society’ worthies to appear, as always, even holier than they already are.

Most importantly, it enables the current ruling elite to have just stage managed its own triumph, by crafting a ‘sensitive’ response (ably deployed by Kapil Sibal) to a television media conjured popular upsurge. Meanwhile, the electronic media, by and large, have played their part by offering us the masquerade of a ‘revolution’ that ends up making the state even more powerful than it was before this so called ‘revolution’ began. Some people in the corridors of power must be delighted at the smoothness and economy with which all this has been achieved. Hosni Mubarak should have taken a few lessons from the Indian ruling class about how to have your cake and eat it too on Tahrir Square,

We have been here before. Indira Gandhi’s early years were full of radical and populist posturing, and the mould that Anna Hazare fills is not necessarily the one that JP occupied (despite the commentary that repeatedly invokes JP). Perhaps we should be reminded of the man who was fondly spoken of as ‘Sarkari Sant’ – Vinoba Bhave. Bhave lent his considerable moral stature to the defence of the Internal Emergency (which, of course, dressed itself up in the colour of anti-corruption, anti-black marketeering rhetoric, to neutralize the anti-corruption thrust of the disaffection against Indira Gandhi’s regime). And while we are thinking about parallels in other times, let us not forget a parallel in another time and another place. Let us not forget the example of how Mao’s helmsmanship of the ‘cultural revolution’ skilfully orchestrated popular discontent against the ruling dispensation to strengthen the same ruling dispensation in China.

These are early days, but Anna Hazare may finally go down in history as the man who - perhaps against his own instincts and interests – (I am not disputing his moral uprightness here) - sanctified the entire spectrum of Indian politics by offering it the cosmetic cloak of the provisions of the draft Jan Lokpal Bill. The current UPA regime, like the NDA regime before it, has perfected the art of being the designer of its own opposition. The method is brilliant and imaginative. First, preside over profound corruption, then, utilise the public discontent against corruption to create a situation where the ruling dispensation can be seen as the source of the most sympathetic and sensitive response, while doing nothing, simultaneously, to challenge the abuse of power at a structural level.

I have studied the draft Jan Lokpal Bill carefully and I find some of its features are deeply disturbing. I want to take some time to think through why this appears disturbing to me.

The draft Jan Lokpal bill (as present on the website Indiaagainstcorruption.org) foresees a Lokpal who will become one of the most powerful institutions of state that India has ever known. It will combine in itself the powers of making law, implementing the law, and punishing those who break the law. A lokpal will be ‘deemed a police officer’ and can ‘While investigating any offence under Prevention of Corruption Act 1988, they shall be competent to investigate any offence under any other law in the same case.’

The appointment of the Lokpal will be done by a collegium consisting of several different kinds of people – Bharat Ratna awardees, Nobel prize winners of Indian origin, Magasaysay award winners, Senior Judges of Supreme and High Courts, the Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, the Chief Election Commissioner, and members of the outgoing Lokpal board and the Chairpersons of both houses of Parliament. It may be noticed that in this entire body, only one person, the chairperson of the Lok Sabha, is a democratically elected person. No other person on this panel is accountable to the public in any way. As for ‘Nobel Prize Winners of Indian Origin’ they need not even be Indian citizens. The removal of the Lokpal from office is also not something amenable to a democratic process. Complaints will be investigated by a panel of supreme court judges.

This is middle class India’s dream of subverting the ‘messiness’ of democracy come delightfully true. So, now you have to imagine that Lata Mangeshkar (who is a Bharat Ratna), APJ Abul Kalam (Bharat Ratna, ex-President and Nuclear Weapons Hawk) V.S. Naipaul (who is a Nobel Prize Winner of Indian Origin) and spectrum of the kinds of people who take their morning walks in Lodhi Garden – Supreme Court Judges, Election Commissioners, Comptroller & Auditor Generals, NHRC chiefs and Rajya Sabha chairmen will basically elect the person who will run what may well become the most powerful institution in India.

This is a classic case of a privileged elite selecting how it will run its show without any restraint. It sets the precedent for the making of an unaccountable ‘council of guardians’ something like the institution of the ‘Velayat e Faqih’ – a self-selected body of clerics – in Iran who act as a super-state body, unrestrained by any democratic norms or procedures. I do not understand what qualifies Lata Mangeshkar and V.S. Naipaul (whose deeply reactionary views are well known) to take decisions about the future of all those who live in india.

The setting up of the institution of the Lokpal (as it is envisioned in what is held out as the draft Jan Lokpal Bill) needs to be seen, not as the deepening, but as the profound erosion of democracy.

I respect the sentiment that brings a large number of people out in support of the Jan Lokpal Bill movement. but I do not think there has been enough thought given to the implications of the provisions that it seeks to make into law. In these circumstances, one would have ordinarily expected the media to have played a responsible role by acting as a platform for debate and discussion about the issues, so that we can move, as a society, towards a better and more nuanced law. Instead, the electronic media have killed the possibility of any substantive discussion by creating a spectacle. It is absolutely imperative that this space be reclaimed by those who are genuinely interested in a serious discussion about what corruption represents in our society and in our political culture.

Clearly, there is a popular rage, (and not confined to earnest middle class people alone) about the helplessness that corruption engenders around us. But we have to ask very carefully whether this bill actually addresses the structural issues that cause corruption. In setting up a super-state body, that is almost self selecting and virtually unaccountable, it may in fact laying the foundations of an even more intense concentration of power. And as should be clear to all of us by now, nothing fosters corruption as much as the concentration of unaccountable and unrestrained power.

I am not arguing against the provision of an institution of a Lokpal, or Ombudsman, (and some of the provisions even in this draft bill – such as the provision of protection for whistle-blowers, are indeed commendable) but if we want to take this institution seriously, within a democratic political culture, we have to ask whether the methods of initiating and concluding the term of office of the Lokpal conforms to democratic norms or not. There are many models of selecting Ombudsmen available across the world, but I have never come across a situation where a country decides that Nobel Prize winners and those awarded with state conferred honours can be entrusted with the task selecting those entrusted with the power to punish people. I have also never come across the merging of the roles of investigator, judge and prosecutor within one office being hailed as the triumph of democratic values.

Nothing serves power better than the spectacle of resistance. The last few days have witnessed an unprecedented choreography of the spectacle of a united action. As I type this, I am watching visuals on Times Now, where a crescendo of cheesy ‘inspirational’ music strings together a montage of flag-waving children speaking in hypnotic unison. This kind of unison scares me. It reminds me of the happy synchronized calisthenics of the kind that totalitarian regimes love to use to produce the figure of their subjects. And all fascist regimes begin by sounding the tocsin of ‘cleansing’ society of corruption and evil.

When four Bombay page three worthies, Rishi Kapoor, Prithwish Nandy, Anupam Kher, Anil Dharker conduct a shrill inquisition (as they did on the Newshour on Times Now) against two co-panelists, Meenakshi Lekhi and Hartosh Singh Bal simply because they were not sounding ‘cheerful and celebratory’ (Anupam Kher even disapproved of their ‘body posture’) I begin to get really worried. The day we feel self-conscious and inhibited about expressing even non-verbally, or silently, our disappointment in public about a public issue, is the day when we know that authoritarian values have taken a firm hold on public discourse.

Of course, there are other reasons to get worried. All we need now is for someone, say like Baba Ramdev (one of the worthies behind Anna Hazare’s current campaign) to go on a fast on Jantar Mantar in support of some draconian and reactionary measure dear to him, backed by thousands of pious, earnest television supported, pranayamic middle class supporters.

Having said this, lets also pause to consider that it’s not as if others have not been on hunger strike before – Irom Sharmila has been force fed for several years now – but I do not see her intransigence being translated into a tele-visually orchestrated campaign against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. The impunity that AFSPA breeds is nothing short of a corruption that eats deep into the culture of democracy, and yet, here, moral courage, and the refusal to eat, does not seem to work.

The current euphoria needs to be seen for what it is – a massive move towards legitimizing a strategy of simple emotional blackmail – a (conveniently reversible) method of suicide bombing in slow motion. There is no use dissenting against a pious worthy on a fast, because any effort to dissent will be immediately read as a callous indifference to his/her ‘sacrifice’ by the moral-earnestness brigade. Nothing can be more dangerous for democracy. Unrestrained debate and a fealty to accountable processes are the only means by which a democratic culture can sustain itself. The force of violence, whether it is inflicted on others, or on the self, or held out as a performance, can only act coercively. And coercion can never nourish democracy.

Finally, if, as a society, we were serious about combating the political nexus that sustains corruption – we would be thinking seriously about extending the provisions of the Right to Information Act to the areas where it can not currently operate – national security and defence; we would also think seriously about electoral reform – about proportional representation, about smaller constituencies, about strengthening local representative bodies, about the provision of uniform public funding for candidates and about the right to recall elected representatives. These are serious questions. The tragedy that we are facing today is that the legitimate public outrage against corruption is being channeled in a profoundly authoritarian direction that actually succeeds in creating a massive distraction.

In all the noise there has been a lot of talk about cynicism, and anyone who has expressed the faintest doubt has been branded as a cynic. I do not see every expression of doubt in this context as cynicism, though some may be. Instead, I see the fact that those who often cry hoarse about ‘democratic values’ seem to be turning a blind eye to the authoritarian strains within this draft ‘Jan Lokpal Bill’ as a clear indication of how powerful the politics of cynicism actually is.

I hope that eventually, once the din subsides, better sense will prevail, and we can all begin to think seriously, un-cynically about what can actually be done to combat the abuse and concentration of power in our society.

Allow me to pick and choose my revolutions. I am not celebrating at Jantar Manta tonight. Good night.

Of a Few, By a Few, For the Few: Bobby Kunhu

http://kafila.org/2011/04/10/of-a-few-by-a-few-for-the-few-bobby-kunhu/

I am distinctly uncomfortable with predictions – using either scientific or unscientific tools. For me it smacks of charlatanry – from astrology to psephology to stock market speculation. But with the charade that was unleashed for the past few days on news television by the mainstream media and of course at Jantar Mantar and a few other town squares across the “mainstream” Indian political landscape by Anna Hazare’s fast – I did dare to make an attempt – both at prediction and more comfortably with dissent. I foretold the outcome of the fast tableau at an emergency meeting that was convened by some co-travellers at the Salem Citizen’s Forum to debate on whether and how to show solidarity to Anna Hazare.

For a cricket obsessed national psyche reeling in the inebriation of the recent world cup victory – Anna Hazare was pitted to win this match comfortably – I was willing to place my bet on my prediction. And here I am trying to reckon the how and why of this prediction for me and the numerous friends and acquaintances who have been trying to rope me into joining facebook groups and sign electronic petitions in support of Anna Hazare’s crusade (or is it revolution?). And others who were indignant at my facebook post of Manu Joseph’s irreverent article or at Sudeep’s post in his diary.

Win-win

Well, it is not just Anna Hazare and his team who won this match comfortably. All actors who joined the show have won the match. Everyone – the “civil society” that sat on fast at Jantar Mantar and other places, the Corporate media, the glamour world, the Government, political establishment of all hues and shades – everyone who bothered to join the game. It was like bathing in the Ganges during the Maha Kumbh – everyone’s sins were washed away. And of course nobody in their right minds regardless of political affiliations or ideologies could take a position “for corruption”!!! A veritable Bush-ian position — either you are with Anna Hazare or you are with corruption. And yes, India Incorporated has won the match and it is time for celebrations!

The timing of course was impeccable. The drama was enacted exactly for five days in the interregnum between the cricket World Cup finals and the first Indian Premier League match leaving no scope for other infotainment distractions!

The timing also seems to be impeccable for reasons apart from TRP. India Inc. was facing a credibility crisis and the crisis had managed to drag the office of the most iconic representative of the lot – Dr. Manmohan Singh into every dreadful business. And then every representative of India Inc. seemed to be at the receiving end of the crisis – corporate houses to media icons. From Kashmir to Tamil Nadu – Manipur to Chattisgarh – people in the margins seemed to be mobilizing themselves trying to take their fights into their own hands. Mere cricket was not enough. A more serious national diversion was required – a diversion that would also help in subverting the multiple simmering discourses on democracy.

So what happened?

Anna Hazare announced a fast-unto-death – hold your horses – demanding that “the government agrees to form a joint committee comprising 50 per cent officials and the remaining citizens and intellectuals to draft the Jan Lokpal Bill,” – nothing less, nothing more. In other words Anna Hazare announced a fast unto death till people he thinks are qualified for the job are included in the group that is responsible for a legislation that is within the incumbent Government’s agenda. And going by the tenor of his letter to the Prime Minister dated 6th April 2011 is anything to go by, he would also like to have a say in the composition of the committee/Group of Ministers that has oversight over the process of this particular legislation.

So, what Mr. Hazare is praying for is a corruption free India and he hopes to get there through his version of an Ombudsman Legislation and he is on a hunger strike to ensure the composition of the team in charge of setting this legislation in place. Well, this throws up more disturbing concerns. Physically he conducted this prayer in the backdrop of a buxom picture of Bharat Mata bejeweled to the hilt including the proverbial crown standing on a white flex board Indian map!

So, Mr. Hazare and his friends went on hunger strike to realize this prayer with the blessings of the likes of Baba Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravishankar. This was one particular dais that was truly homogenous in its caste-community-class composition. I was reminded of the historian Bipin Chandra’s analysis attributing the onus of thrusting the Hindutva Right on the Indian political mainstream on Jayaprakash Narayan and his anti-emergency coalition.

What was the response?

Obviously the Prime Minister expressed his dissatisfaction over Anna Hazare’s decision to go on a fast without forgetting to assert his profound respect for the man. Others soon joined the bandwagon. From the ruling United Progressive Alliance allies to the opposition National Democratic Alliance all of them joined the Anna Hazare choir and aptly expressed disgust over the prevailing state of (corruption) affairs. Left parties — mainstream as well as others, could not resist it either. Team Anna Hazare got its first wicket when Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar quietly resigned from the Lokpal bill related group of ministers (there has to be at least one resignation in the recipe for revolution). And once everyone had their fair bit of airtime at the crease – the Government threw in the towel. It accepted almost every demand that team Anna Hazare made and celebrations are afoot with India Inc. on that glorious road to that exhilarating freedom from corruption. At the end of five days of high drama everyone is happy with this victory to democracy and ready to live happily ever after.

So, what am I cribbing about in this hunky dory script of universal happiness?

What qualifies as corruption?

Firstly, the notion of corruption itself in the imaginations of both Anna Hazare’s version of the Lok Pal Bill and that of the Government’s seems to be in tandem – very simplistic and all that it would require to set things in correctional mode would be a school”master”ish cane – oops legislation. In other words, given the quantum of punishment and stringency of the legislation, the Lok Pal will ensure that from the Union Telecom Minister to the lowly Train Ticket Examiner will desist from taking bribes and more importantly everyone from the greedy telecom companies to the eager railway passenger will forthwith stop trying to bribe them regardless of their greed or need. This imagination of corruption somehow seemed to suit everyone who joined the Anna Hazare bandwagon from Lalit Modi to Barkha Dutt to Rahul Bajaj. Because this imagination would effectively prosecute Madhu Koda & Raja, while Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram would remain the knights in shining armour. Somehow the forces or agencies that facilitate structural spaces in which corruption thrives represented for me by the present composition of the Union Cabinet seems to be outside the ambit of these collective imaginations of corruption.

The freedom fighters

Next, the question of agency. Anna Hazare himself dubbed his hunger strike as the second freedom struggle – and of course – his corporate media promoters sold the idea to all like-minded wannabe freedom fighters. Though I am not sure of the numbers, a few hundred or even thousand people expressing solidarity was projected as the entire nation on the road to revolution and this was repeated over and over again reminding one of the adage that a lie repeated often enough becomes truth.

In what can only be described as complete lack of imagination and an insult to both the peoples of Egypt and India – the hunger strike was dubbed as India’s Tahrir Square! The joke is that one of the Anna Hazare acolytes who turned up for the Salem Citizen’s Forum meeting wanted the forum to take up the cause because the local Tamil media had totally ignored the hunger strike!! So much for the national character of the strike.

But Barkha Dutt did one better. She did a special show of The Buck Stops Here on Anna Hazare at Chennai and her voiced reason for the choice of location being 2G scam having become the buzzword for corruption. To add insult to injury – she declared her profound love to the Tamil people! If only she had done a little bit of homework or watched her own channel, she would have realized that the 2G scam hardly plays any role in the Tamil Nadu voters’ choice. Though, corruption does figure in the priority list of the Tamil Nadu voter – but a corruption that neither she nor her colleagues in Corporate Television media would acknowledge and rather would gloss over.

The fences that feed on the crops

Now, at the culmination of the hunger strike drama – a committee has been notified to draft the Lokpal bill. The composition of the committee itself reveals the seriousness of the drama. The government representatives include P. Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal – lawyers who have represented the interests of Corporate India as individuals (board members) and lawyers in and out of power. The lesser said about the process in which the civil society representatives were arrived the better – for there was hardly a process and all of them are all active participants in the Anna Hazare drama.

In 2003, as the editorial coordinator of the Citizen’s Report on Govrnance and Development (a full-time civil society position), we celebrated the marked shift in the social composition of the Parliament which many of us saw as deepening of democracy. In 2011, a motley bunch of homogenous people claim to be the sole representatives civil society and the Government of the day conveniently recognizes them – it smacks of a shift towards an oligarchic dispensation swinging between a Prime Minister who prefers not to face direct electoral challenges and a self-appointed civil society messiah.

What is even more bizarre and insulting is the repeated argument that there is no one else in the country more eligible to take on corruption than Anna Hazare. The argument insults the multitudes that have been carrying on their struggles in various parts of India.

Overriding the Constitution

More than that the drama insults Constitutional mechanisms and processes thereunder – thereby insulting the very notion of “We, the People”. The need for a Constitutional process is to ensure institutional transparency and accountability. Whatever might be the pitfalls of political culture of transparency in India – the only institutional mechanism of making day to day governance accountable are the Constitutional processes. For instance the Right to Information Act is applicable only to State actors – so regardless of the Government notification and the bona fides of the actors concerned – how do Citizens ensure accountability from the self-appointed civil society guardians – or are they so sacred as to remain outside the scope and need for accountability.

In what can be termed an ironic twist – the draft Jan Lokpal Bill brings in newer categories of eligibility to the selection committee for appointment of Lokpal – Magsaysay Award winners and Nobel laureates of Indian origin. I keep wondering why these awards and why the insistence on “Indian” origin (I hope Sonia Gandhi reads this). Maybe it is mere coincidence that many of the faces that have appeared in this drama have a Magsaysay award tucked under their belt (and a sacred thread over their shoulder).

Meanwhile in its enthusiasm for a corruption free India and prescriptions for stringent punishment and easier prosecution– Anna Hazare and team seem to have no qualms in sacrificing precious civil liberty provisions inbuilt into the criminal justice system and prescribed by the Indian Constitution. While Baba Ramdev, one of the mentors of Anna Hazare’s crusade advocates capital punishment for the corrupt, the draft bill itself blurs the line between investigation and adjudication. It makes the Lokpal a super cop with adjudicatory and delegated legislative powers.

If the Jan Lokpal bill is accepted – it would achieve what the Malimath Committee on Reforms of Criminal Justice System could not – subversion of the Criminal Justice system. At the risk of repetition, I would point out that the bulldozing by Malimath Committee could be stopped because that committee and the implementation of its recommendations were subject to Constitutional procedures. What would emerge would be another draconian legislation which would be used to hound and prosecute political dissent – this time “corruption” would replace “terrorism” and “Maoism”. And this time the law would be presumed to have the sanction of a purported civil society.

Of a lesser concern is the fact that Republic India’s record at social reforms through criminal legislations has been abysmal – if in doubt – look at the implementation of the Dowry Prohibition Act or the SC/ST Atrocities Act. Dowry is as prevalent as ever while India Inc. continues to lynch Dalits and dispossess Adivasi

Who Loses?

The major casualty in this whole drama was democracy itself. Through short cuts and “royal avenues”, the power goes back into the hands of a select few, undoing a process of over sixty years of democratization of the country. Those few decide what is in the best interest of the country, and what is not. No prizes for guessing the class and caste composition of this select few.

Tailpiece

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is in for stiff competition for the next Bharat Ratna from Kisan Bapat Baburao Hazare – a very difficult choice indeed between before the nation. Or are we looking at two awardees next season? That could be a fitting “double climax” for the viewers of live Indian English Television!

‘Anna Hazare’, Democracy and Politics: A Response to Shuddhabrata Sengupta

http://kafila.org/2011/04/10/anna-hazare-democracy-and-politics-a-response-to-shuddhabrata-sengupta/#more-7311

In an earlier post, (hits to which have broken all records on Kafila), Shuddhabrata Sengupta has raised some extremely important points in the context of the media-simulated coverage and celebrations around the ‘Anna Hazare’ movement. I agree with the central argument made by Shuddha – which is about the authoritarian, indeed totalitarian implications of the proposed Jan Lokpal Bill (though, as many commentators to the post have pointed out, the Bill really remains to be drafted and passed in parliament).

I have no doubt whatsoever that any demand that simply seeks a law of the sort that has been raised by the movement (even in the proposed form), is completely counterproductive. Indeed, it is naive. Matters like corruption or communalism cannot simply be legislated out of existence through tougher laws. Inevitably, they will lead us up to China type situations where you will end up demanding summary trials and executions. Even in the best of cases, a law and state-dependent mode of addressing such problems, adds to the powers of a corrupt bureaucracy. I also agree with his (and Bobby Kunhu’s) criticisms of some aspects of what they have both chosen to designate as ‘mass hysteria’ of sorts – I certainly do not agree with this description but that need not detain us here. I am interested in something else here and that has to do with the way the movement has struck a chord among unprecedentedly large numbers of people – mainly middle class people I am sure, but the support for it is not just confined to them. In fact, on the third day of the dharna at Jantar Mantar I received an excited call from a CPM leader who works among the peasants in villages of northern India in the Kisan Sabha, about the response to the movement he had encountered in his constituency. I doubt that this was a support simulated either by the government or by the electronic media.

On 30th January this year, when many of us were participating in a largish demonstration in Delhi demanding the release of Binayak Sen, precisely on that day a huge demonstration was held on this issue of the Jan Lokpal Bill. The fact that all the usual suspects like us were there at the Binayak Sen demonstration, meant that there were innumerable others, not the usual suspects, who were there at this other rally. Yes, some people could have been in both places, but by and large, the presence at the two rallies was very different. And there was no ‘media-simulated mass hysteria’ at that point. If Arnab Goswami and Times Now (and other TV channels) have now picked up the issue, that can be read as trying to appropriate a movement that was gathering strength independently of them. (By the way, it is also instructive to see the anger of the demonstrators at India Gate against Barkha Dutt in the video postes by Anirban in a comment on Shuddha’s post.) And if one looks at the cast of characters who have been associated with the mobilization, there are many (including Anna Hazare himself) who have been working tirelessly in villages and towns across the country. And while I hold no brief for Anna Hazare or the others, to reduce the entire movement to a media-simulated, anti-political middle class urge is to completely misread the signs.

What is disturbing in Shuddha’s post is the attribution of a kind of conspiracy where, apparently, UPA government and the electronic media have been complicit in ‘orchestrating’ this movement. I think this claim not only does not stand up to any actual scrutiny of facts on the ground but is, on the contrary, based on the mode of reasoning that is a staple of political rhetoric:

“We have been here before. Indira Gandhi’s early years were full of radical and populist posturing, and the mould that Anna Hazare fills is not necessarily the one that JP occupied (despite the commentary that repeatedly invokes JP). Perhaps we should be reminded of the man who was fondly spoken of as ‘Sarkari Sant’ – Vinoba Bhave. Bhave lent his considerable moral stature to the defence of the Internal Emergency (which, of course, dressed itself up in the colour of anti-corruption, anti-black marketeering rhetoric, to neutralize the anti-corruption thrust of the disaffection against Indira Gandhi’s regime).”

This passage is then followed up by a reference to the regime sponsored mass mobilization of the cultural revolution in China. Suggestions like these are taken to new heights in Bobby Kunhu’s post when he says:

“The timing also seems to be impeccable for reasons apart from TRP. India Inc. was facing a credibility crisis and the crisis had managed to drag the office of the most iconic representative of the lot – Dr. Manmohan Singh into every dreadful business. And then every representative of India Inc. seemed to be at the receiving end of the crisis – corporate houses to media icons. From Kashmir to Tamil Nadu – Manipur to Chattisgarh – people in the margins seemed to be mobilizing themselves trying to take their fights into their own hands. Mere cricket was not enough. A more serious national diversion was required – a diversion that would also help in subverting the multiple simmering discourses on democracy.”

What is the evidence for any of these claims? Give me any event, and I can guarantee you that I will cook up a conspiracy scenario (of the kind that Shuddha and Bobby do) with circumstantial ‘evidence’ of this nature. Our discomfort at certain kinds of mobilization cannot and must not become a reason for us to pass off that discomfort in rhetorical claims about the mobilization.

It is interesting that Shuddha and Bobby Kunhu posit this movement as one that is directed against democracy, in terms almost identical to those of Pratap Bhanu Mehta. Mehta argues:

“But the claim that the “people” are not represented by elected representatives, but are represented by their self-appointed guardians is disturbing. In a democracy, one ought to freely express views. But anyone who claims to be the “authentic” voice of the people is treading on very thin ice indeed. It is a form of Jacobinism that is intoxicated with its own certainties about the people. It is not willing to subject itself to an accountability, least of all to the only mechanism we know of designating representatives: elections.”

This can be said of any movement and any popular struggle; indeed, Mehta has made it his vocation to argue for liberal, procedural democracy every time there is a mass movement. From Mehta’s point of view – and from the point of view of the powers-that-be – this is a perfect argument for their intention is absolutely clear. They do not want the boat rocked under any circumstances. Every form of dissent must be tamed and brought within the ambit of the rotting structure of the parliamentary system, under whose sign every single act of fleecing of the people has taken place – Suresh Kalmadi, Sheila Dikshit, the Bellary brothers, the heroes of the 2G spectrum scam (and of course the Nira Radia folk!). We have been silent witnesses to the political system - to which Mehta sings paeans and whose virtues Shuddha seems to have suddenly discovered – lying prostrate before the marauders and looters of public money. Now, I understand where Pratap Mehta is coming from but Shuddha, when you say the following, I am stumped:

“Finally, if, as a society, we were serious about combating the political nexus that sustains corruption – we would be thinking seriously about extending the provisions of the Right to Information Act to the areas where it can not currently operate – national security and defence; we would also think seriously about electoral reform – about proportional representation, about smaller constituencies, about strengthening local representative bodies, about the provision of uniform public funding for candidates and about the right to recall elected representatives. These are serious questions. “

Electoral reform! And who will contest the elections, dear Shuddha? The same lot who from the Right to Centre to Left have now distinguished themselves by their service to corporate capital and their fleecing of the public exchequer? Here you almost begin to sound like a bourgeois policy-maker (or political theorist) advising saner and more responsible methods. I am also surprised that you find the threat to democracy coming from a movement that makes its demands to the government and the parliament, and makes them in the most peaceful, non-violent manner possible! After all, it is the parliament and the political parties that will have to draft the Bill (or give the draft the final shape) and pass it in parliament. What can be more democratic than that? For even the people behind the current draft of the bill know that this cannot but go through a period of negotiation, scrutiny and democratic debate, if the Bill has to become law.

I think it is also important to underline that for many years now, in India at least, issues have been posed outside the domains where formal politics takes place. Think of all the important issues that have been raised over the last two decades: the question of land acquisition, mass displacement of populations, nuclear energy, communalism and the anti-communal struggles, Right to Information, Forests Rights Act…none of these issues, have either been raised or even debated in parliament except under mass pressure. Was there even a squeak from the worthies of Left and Right who populate the parliament and legislatures, each time the height of the Sardar Sarovar dam was raised? Was there a squeak when innumerable villages and towns like Harsud and Tehri, drowned for the sake of the luxurious consumption of the metropolitan middle classes? So, your sudden faith in the system and its democracy, and your claim that only those who contest elections can be really ‘representative of the people,’ really surprises me.

The current movement, to me, is only a sign of the fact that there is no faith any longer in any of the institutions of parliamentary democracy among large sectors of the Indian population. Increasingly, their issues emerge through those whom you and Mehta dismiss as the ‘self-appointed representatives of the masses’. Indeed, I fear that if movements of this kind are also dismissed, and with the political class long out of reckoning, there is really no other option that the large masses of people will be left with except to support non-democratic Maoist-type outfits. I cannot help recalling here the long debate on Maoism that we had on Kafila where I had, among others, argued about the efficacy of democratic struggles in stalling many an SEZ project. Not one of those struggles Shuddha, had the prior permission of the state and its certification of being led by a “legitimate elected representative” of the people. They were democratic struggles nevertheless, at least in my sense of the term.

Mass movements throw up their own leadership, and sometimes the pulse of the masses is sensed by a charismatic leader. To de-legitimize this phenomenon by claiming the formal electoral process as the only reflection of democracy is to limit democracy to its most formal liberal procedural version. I think we need to remember that the Right to Information Act itself, is a product of a movement which has indeed gone far beyond the confines of a purely liberal provision and has invited some of the most violent reprisals from the those whose corrupt practices it affects. People have been killed – often with the connivance of political parties and their leaders – for using the provisions of the RTI. These people have no other recourse but work with ‘self-appointed’ leaders – usually a term deployed by power for those who have not received the official stamp of approval by the state.