Disconnected thoughts on Baba Ramdev, Jan Lokpal, Congress, Corruption & Democracy
Posted: June 13, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized 10 Comments »I have been watching from far all the activities that are happening recently and I have been having a lot of random thoughts on this subject. Since, they are now bursting through my mind, I need to vent them out. So, here are my thoughts in random order…
We are talking about wrong issues. Baba Ramdev is not the issue. He may be a clown or a social reformist, I don’t care. I care about the corruption in the government machinery and that the corruption is open and that nothing is being done about that corruption. Baba Ramdev being opportunist (if he is an opportunist) is inconsequential. Though I would have had more respect for him had he not broken his fast like this but that’s fine. Corruption in government machinery is more important for mind-share.
If you don’t believe in Jan Lokpal and don’t want to support it for that reason, fine. Then support something that you believe in. But don’t say that you don’t believe in anything. Please *do* believe in something and support it. Corruption is at a very high scale, something needs to be done. Different people need to take the route that suits their value system and their way of operating. That’s fine. In freedom struggle, some people went with non-violence and some with violence. They both made an impact. The ones who didn’t do either didn’t make any impact. Please believe in something, do it and make an impact. That’s much more important than finding faults with what others are doing. And by the way, if you believe that bribing traffic cops is the root of all corruption, please stop doing that. At least do your part.
Celebrities are disgusting. And I find them even more disgusting now. Most of the people debating about Janlokpal Bill have not done any social work in their life. They have not stood up with people for the cause of those people. Everybody has a right to debate on this bill but not everybody has a right to try and mould public opinion. If media is not mature enough to bring right set of people on debate like platforms, try self-restraint.
Democracy in India is a failure so far. Let’s accept that. From time & again, people have voted for wrong government. So much so that there is no incentive left for a party to have good intentions. People of India have not created an incentive for the government to be just and uncorrupt. And we are still not doing that. And it’s not just about the masses but also about the classes. Democracy has failed because people have failed to understand the conditions under which Democracy works. Democracy puts a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of people (remember: by the people), however, people in India want to shy away from that responsibility. The government should do this, corporation should do that, a leader should come blah blah.
Congress has failed again & again. Oh wait, I think they have succeeded again & again. They are pretty good at keeping the government stable. BJP had so much problem with the coalition government but Congress seems to be so much at ease. On the other hand, BJP has failed. It has failed to provide an alternative. With so much corruption erupting everywhere, BJP is not able to mobilize people against the incumbents.
JanLokpal is not a long term solution. It cannot be. What we need is a bottom up governance and not top-down governance. Top-down governance can work in a democracy only if there is a bottom-up pressure to make it work. JanLokpal is one more form of top-down governance. However, it’s an urgent need of our times. At this point of time, any bottom-up effort for governance is so easy to suppress (is suppressed) that people need some kind of support. That’s where JanLokpal fits. Over a period of time, it’s likely to get as corrupt as any other institution unless the reasons that have created corruption in the first place are rooted out. However, to root out those reasons, for the time being, something is required to ensure that bottom up movements reach some positive conclusion in a reasonable amount of time.
Democracy is not about electing a government. Or to put it better, Democracy is not only about electing a government. It’s about participating in the governance. Especially when the governance is lacking. If we limit the meaning of democracy to just electing the government, we’ll end up in a mess like this. A mess where all that matters to the political parties is to win election and not providing good governance. And when winning is all that matters, there are many ways to accomplish it. Ways which are probably far easier than showing good governance. In fact, winning always requires manipulation regardless of the quality of work that you have done in the past. Elections today are won by manipulation and that’s not democracy. So, in a way, Democracy has not failed in India, India has failed to truly adopt democracy.
So, where do you think the issue is? Baba Ramdev’s frivolity OR non-democratic nature of JanLokpal Bill OR the shamelessness with which Congress has allowed the propagation of corruption OR our lack of participation in governance? And once you have identified the real issue (as per your evaluation), what’s the first step you are going to take?
I support Jan Lokpal at this point of time where I feel somewhere at the top big corruptions can be monitored and possible create a fear to reduce it. If Anna and his team bring success to this where Lokpal is just not advisory team but has power to initiate prosecution of anyone found guilty then there is a big hope that corruption will be controlled.
But I am sure Congress top leaders would have formed another anti-JanLokpal committee to ensure that they are not drifted out of power because of all these issues.
And Manas you are correct to call Ramdev as opportunist. May be, he might have thought that team from Lokpal will not be part of govt. and BJP is weak to show their support, he is taking this opportunity to bring his party Bharat Swabhimaan Party into power and forming a govt. with collaboration with others. But Congress is far more cunning and has totally flopped this plans.
Unfortunately it seems to that Congress with the Administrative officers have successfully create an environment that bribing and corruption should take place. simplest example that brought this thought is PUC certificate. Not having a PUC certificate will fine you Rs. 1000. Would it be wise to give out Rs.1000 for small mistake where you forget to renew it? I have not seen a group of police and RTO with a PUC testing vehicle stopping people and forcing them to pay Rs.80 and get a certificate. Everyone is not perfect and will make mistakes and I agree he should pay for his mistake, but who know the cost of his mistake and whether he is paying his hard earned money goes in the correct pocket. Who know the receipt is a genuine one.
Anna and his team give a hope that things will turn better and transparent from big and then to small.
Frankly, I don’t have an answer to your question – what’s the first step … ?
I truly wished I had, and I believe, that’s probably the case with many people around. Advent of Anna Hazare kind of showed the first step to all those people who wanted to do something, but were not able to decide what?!
I am not worried really about the local policeman asking 100 bucks from me. What I am rather concerned is the high profile corruption worth Billions of dollars! Yes, Dollars. Rupees is just too small to count !!
Its that corruption that I am scared of, and don’t know how to handle. I feel too powerless to take it head on.
Anna helped me find that power to and make me feel, there is something that can keep a check on it.
.. so democratic or not, I will still support the bill
A clearly written blog. It talks about various alternatives and finally leaves you with choices. I like this approach to writing than supporting one view or the other – atleast for this write up.
I tend to think not having people aligned is the bigger problem and that anything that doesn’t happen at the grass root level (with every individual) cannot create a transformation.
Sameer,
IMO, Jan Lokpal can only be a starting point and not the end. If we feel satisfied after this bill, nothing much will be achieved. In this environment, any institution can survive only for a short while without corruption. Eventually, corruption will get to it.
The main thing would be to take it as a start and carry the wave forward.
Nihar,
I kind of agree with you. It’s very hard to find an answer “what’s the first step”. But this question of mine is for those who don’t want to take Jan Lokpal bill as the first step. There are some people who can’t come up with a first step, don’t want to take the step shown by others and keep pointing out why all the other steps are wrong. IMO, they are just hiding their own laziness and ineptitude under the cover of statement “oh! I don’t think this is the right thing to do.”
Fully agree. At the end of the day, it’s a movement only when everybody is aligned to it.
I think the first thing we all must start doing is start voting. Removing corruption from system is going to be a long process. This fight is going to take years, like our independence struggle.
Removing/fighting corruption has to be the agenda of political parties going into elections. The government we have been having till date are elected by 50% voters. So the elected government was functioning the way they thought this 50% would like it to function.
Today government is not really bothered about all the hype and support all this issues(Anna/Baba) are getting for the very reason that most of them are not really going to elect or defeat them in the coming Lok sabha election.
It is not that we do not have leaders with a vision or wanting a clean democratic government. But for them to get ‘elected’ there good work is not the only merit.
So i feel in a democratic country all this questions are answered once in five years and that is the time when all must be united.
We all must start believing in ideology of one of the national parties, vote for the right(if not right, best of the lot) candidate. Once we start doing this, there will be a definite change in the government that will be elected after 3/4 elections.
Few examples from what i have done in past: for some reasons i have never gone to agents for doing following things: 1. learning and permanent license for 2-wheeler, passport (twice) and last and most important, changing my car registration from Pune to Bangalore (twice once in 2005 and 2011).
Now for the last activity i have wasted atleast 3 days per iteration. some people told me its not worth it.
but then i believe if we go to agent, then we dont have a right to talk against corruption.
coming to ur comment about “indian people selected wrong govt” is it true?
Point is what the average indian believe? my personal impression is, if we go around avg people are really ok with what politicians do and they dont have a lot of sense about corruption. what they really care is, does the promises in their area are done or not. To give a example: when suresh kalmadi wins in pune, every election time he distributes money / sarres in poor areas. People are happy with it.
in some other cases the representative is of a perticular caste which is in majority in that area and people feel that they can approach this guy.
This may not be true for urban middle class since for most of them, they don’t relate to elected representative in their area.
Let me give you a example. I currently stay in Thippasandra and i dont know who is elected in my ward. its difficult for me since i am not a kannadiga. But when i am in pune, i stay in Model colony (a pretty decent area). We know elected representative for the municipality from our ward. The elected person takes meeting every month in a near by park to discuss problem. also this person even comes / calls us for any issues. Things like water pipeline or garbage collection.
These are random thoughts. Jan lokpal is good but what all of us should work is to make government processes which matter to us more efficient. Eg RTO, house registration electricity department and local municipalies. Unfortunately we dont have focus on this. If we become more and more local, this will make political parties deliver at ward level and also make govt officials more efficient. For india we have huge scope to computerise and make processes efficient. This can generate jobs and make life easier for people.
if we want to tackle corruption like 2G or defence deal, its impossible since in any political system (american or iranian) kick backs @ highest levels are un-avoidable.
Harshad,
I had to go through your comment multiple times to fully absorb it. You have made some important points and I agree with most of them. The only thing that I don’t agree with is accepting corruption at the highest level. Actually, corruption flows from top to bottom. The temptation at the top is highest because the stakes are highest there but that’s where it’s most critical to control it.
BTW, your personal commitment to not giving in to corruption is exemplary.
These Congressmen are great frauds . They know very well to tackle these kind of situations. Now they are beating around the bush and making all the propaganda that RSS,VHP etc etc are with Ramdev Baba and trying to defuse the situation. They are not coming to the most wanted point ; bringing back the black money. Please make note of the names who are opposing Baba Ramdev during these days “They will definitely be in the Swiss Bank Black list”.