Lokpal Bill: Anna's movement signals dawn of 'unreasonable' hope
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The year 2011 has been a mixed one - a year of high inflation and low Sensex; low rupee and high fiscal deficit; low FDI and high interest rate; a strong Anna and a weak PM; a weak ruling party and a strong opposition; strong focus on corruption and a weak draft of the Lokpal Bill; high decibel levels and little transaction in Parliament.
So what will 2011 be really remembered for?
Perhaps it will be remembered best for being the year of Anna - a year when for the first time in corruption ridden independent India, the issue of graft dominated the national centre stage.
Six decades after independence, after spending trillions on education, health and food, and yet leaving two thirds of our people hungry, illiterate, unskilled and bereft of basic medical care, we finally learnt to get seriously angry.
It took us that long to figure out that each of the three constitutional columns holding the giant roof over our nation - the legislature, the executive and the judiciary - has been corroded to the core by the rot of corruption, leaving the columns visibly shaky.
And it is the legislative column that Anna chose to take in his ageing but firm grip and give a good shake; and the political system has been shaken indeed, as the roof threatens to come down.
The shaking has done the nation a world of good. For once, urban India came to realise that the columns supporting the national roof need fixing urgently - more urgently, perhaps, than the most dilapidated of buildings in Old Delhi.
The ruling party, realising that it may be politically inexpedient to take the status quo on corruption for granted, tried to introduce a weak Lokpal Bill, even as the opposition found it expedient to sit alongside Anna for the cameras, but sabotage a sensible constitutional status to the Lokpal - torn between an Anna-given opportunity to land a lethal blow to the UPA and being wary of what it could mean for them, if and when they come back to power.
The executive and judiciary could barely stop giggling at the hapless legislature, as if corruption had never touched it at all.
What about Anna himself?
What does he believe in? That, sticking another column (constitutional or not) namely the Lokpal, without seriously fixing the other columns, will provide adequate support to the national roof ? How will the new column escape the rot that afflicts the other three?
What if, like our judiciary, it ends up retaining a semblance of goodshape at the top, as for example, the Supreme Court, but rots at lower levels? Wasn't it unreasonable of Anna to stick to his one-point Lokpal agenda, as if the Lokpal is the one-stop solution to corruption at all levels? Hasn't Anna been unreasonable? Valid questions, these.
To answer these questions, we merely need to realise that Anna's stand on Lokpal is like the Dandi march of Gandhi or his bonfire of permits in South Africa. The Lokpal Bill will eradicate corruption only as much as Gandhi's salt revolution got us our freedom, or his bonfire in South Africa helped end apartheid. The demand for Lokpal, like the Dandi march, or the bonfire of permits, merely symbolises the desire to stem the deep rot of corruption, and is only the starting point.
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