The second thing we must do is to observe the caution which John Stuart Mill has given to all who are interested in the maintenance of democracy, namely, not “to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or to trust him with power which enables him to subvert their institutions.” There is nothing wrong in being grateful to great men who have rendered life-long services to the country. But there are limits to gratefulness. As has been well said by the Irish Patriot Daniel O’ Connel, no man can be grateful at the cost of his honour, no woman can be grateful at the cost of her chastity and no nation can be grateful at the cost of its liberty. This caution is far more necessary in the case of India than in the case of any other country. For in India, Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship
~ BR AMBEDKAR in his address to the Constituent Assembly on 25 November 1949
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There are many ways of looking at Anna but perhaps this caution from Ambedkar best summarises our current problems. Bhakti is an emotion Anna’s followers have summoned in ample measure; scepticism or critical thinking is not an attitude they are familiar with. He may well be a saint but he is no Constitutional expert, nor does he seem to understand how a law is drafted in India. In the end, he is more or less doing the bidding of the people who surround him.
If there has ever been a succinct lesson in class in this country, it is playing itself on the stage where Anna is fasting. If you strip away the names and personalities, you find a retired IPS officer, a former IRS officer, a well-known lawyer, the son of a former law minister of India, all in reasonable physical shape, all avidly backing the Bill, and yet the person fasting is a 74-year-old retired driver.
The ideas Anna is fasting for are not his own. It is good we may ultimately get a Bill against corruption that has some chance of working. It is also good that this government and the Congress party have attracted due criticism. But there is a difference between criticising the Government and questioning the Constitution. Even if the matter is finally settled in a manner that doesn’t challenge the authority of Parliament, the ideas raised by Anna’s aides go beyond this movement and will surface again. And it is these ideas that need to be contested.
There is a difference between Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister, however incompetent, and the institution of Prime Minister, which after all has survived non-entities such as Deve Gowda and IK Gujral. There is a difference between individual MPs and a largely corrupt party such as the Congress and the institution of Parliament. When Kiran Bedi stood up on stage and said “Anna is India, India is Anna,’’ she was not just echoing that rather infamous slogan “Indira is India, India is Indira,’’ she was also reflecting the same contempt for the institutions of this country that was inherent in the Emergency.
CONSTITUTIONAL ILLITERATES
At the drop of a hat, Anna’s aides start quoting from the preamble of the Indian Constitution, “We the people of India…” Apparently this is where their reading of the Constitution stops. They do not even seem to understand that India is a representative democracy, not a direct democracy, and for good reason.
Defending the Jan Lokpal Bill, Prashant Bhushan and Arvind Kejriwal have both called for a referendum on the law. Bhushan has argued that technology now allows the possibility of direct democracy, as if it is an idea that has never been tried or examined in the past, as if an entire literature of democracy criticising the idea did not exist, starting with the ancient Greeks. Would anyone suggest that the Indian response to a terror attack on Mumbai be settled by popular sentiment in the immediate aftermath? And if only bills are to be voted on, does anyone really think that big corporations canvassing for a bill that concerns them directly would actually reduce corruption in this country? One election every five years, in the absence of State funding, is the source of most of the large-scale corruption in our society; imagine the effects of corporate canvassing for Bills that are to be voted on every few months.
In the end, the justification for the Jan Lokpal Bill lies in a few poorly conducted referendums that cannot be taken seriously and the numbers that turned out in support of the Bill at the Ramlila ground. But if bills are to be passed because 50,000 or even 500,000 people turn out, we are talking of anarchy. There are many who think that while the Government Bill is laughable, the Jan Lokpal Bill has serious problems too. The number of such people is by no means small, and it is they who are being stifled.
Writing almost 225 years ago, the fourth President of the United States and one of the architects of the US Constitution, James Madison, wrote against this very idea of direct democracy, of how it allows factions to flourish and how they can impose their will on everyone through such a process. The problem does not go away even if the faction imposing its view is in majority; it becomes a form of majoritarianism. What a Parliamentary procedure allows is for all voices to make their case, discuss and arrive at a bill through consensus, not a bill that is forced down everyone’s throats by one faction of the population.
If indeed Anna’s aides are interested in changing the Constitution, it is difficult but not impossible; there is a set procedure and they are welcome to follow it. It is unlikely they will do so—it would mean testing the long-term strength of this movement, which for the moment is certainly fed as much by television as it is by public anger against corruption in the country right now.
PUBLIC MOVEMENTS IN THE TIME OF TV
In the middle of one of the umpteen television discussions on the issue that have become the norm after eight in the evening, Arnab Goswami of Times Now interrupted his panelists to say, “Gentlemen, gentlemen, this is becoming too complex, let us return to the question at hand.’’ The problem lies with this simple assertion. The ideas we are discussing are complex, they have to be, but we would rather set them aside and return to the ‘question at hand’, which could be: are you for the Jan Lokpal Bill, is this a TV revolution, or other such simplifications. And answers that tend towards nuance, which suggest a yes and no, maybe, perhaps, depends on the circumstances, reflecting areas of grey, have to be shouted down—”Gentlemen, gentlemen, this is becoming too complex.”
The discussions operate in a world where all answers have to be a yes or no. Having been guilty enough of a few TV appearances myself, I find the procedure starts with a phone call, where my views are sought on the matter. I find that the person on the other side loses interest as soon as my explanation extends beyond a single statement. “Sir, does that mean you are for or against?’’ is the inevitable question.
The result of such informed discussion and the 24-hour breathless coverage from the Ramlila ground has certain consequences. In his recent book on the internet, The Filter Bubble, Eli Pariser describes a 1982 experiment carried out by political scientist Shanto Iyengar: ‘Over six days, Iyengar asked groups of New Haven residents to watch episodes of a TV news program, which he had doctored to include different segments for each group.
Afterwards, Iyengar asked subjects to rank how important issues like pollution, inflation, and defense were to them. The shifts from the surveys they’d filled out before the study were dramatic: ‘Participants exposed to a steady stream of news about defense or about pollution came to believe that defense or pollution were more consequential problems,’ Iyengar wrote. Among the group that saw clips on pollution, the issue moved from fifth out of six in priority to second.’
Now consider the impact of sustained uncritical coverage of the Jan Lokpal Bill for over six days, interrupted by nothing else, and you can draw your own conclusions about what we are seeing today.
I AM ANNA
I, thankfully, am not, but this identification with Anna and the consequent self-admiration of all those who have turned out in such numbers to support the Jan Lokpal Bill, is largely an exercise in hypocrisy.
Consider this session of Parliament. Among the bills that could come up or are in the process of being drafted are the Food Security Bill, Communal Violence Bill and Land Acquisition Bill. I feel that each of these bills is at least as important as the Jan Lokpal Bill. As far as I can tell, the vast majority of the people who are gathered at the Ramlila ground in the name of participatory democracy have not bothered to read the drafts or discussions related to any of these bills.
When they decry the politics of the day, when they express their frustration about how democracy functions in this country, they seem to believe they stand apart from the procedures that make a democracy work. If they could go back and see how the Right to Information legislation was passed, they would understand the process of consultation and consensus that goes into drafting a law in our representative democracy. No Constitution in the world, no system of democracy, participatory or not, can do much about a citizenry who refuse to act as citizens, do not engage with the legislative process and then turn out like petulant children who have let their anger against corruption degenerate into a tirade against the very systems that ensure the accountability of the government of the day, however venal.
Over and over again, young men and women have endorsed the stand taken by Anna’s aides that the Bill must be passed by the end of August. This government may be stupid enough to capitulate, but we should not shy away from the consequences of such demands. Like parrots, these people have repeated what they have been told from Anna’s dais, that the Centre has had 42 years and that is enough time. But if successive governments have not passed the Bill, it is not an argument against Parliamentary procedure or the need for a consultative process where even the voices of those who disagree with the Jan Lokpal Bill are heard.
A movement that should have been about pressuring the Government to bring an effective Lokpal Bill, a perfectly valid demand in our system, has been made into an instrument for the ill-thought-out views on democracy of a few people surrounding Anna. Fast or no fast, there is much more to India than Anna.
OLDER COMMENTS FIRST
27 COMMENTS
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Well Thought-Out and Intense Piece; eloquently written as well.
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Thank you, Mr Bal. And thank you, Open. For the past week, the gushing, naive to the point of being misleading TV coverage has been sickening. As you have pointed out, these champions of democracy have dismissed any opposing view; one of them I recall, said, you are with us or with the government. Broadcast journalism, print journalism less so, has reflected this blinkered debate — while rabid anchors railed against ministers, it almost seemed that they were would not dare or brook any criticism of Team Anna. As I write this, Ms Bedi has turned to rabble-rousing with ugly jibes and theatrics — with an exhausted septuagenarian Gandhian looking on. The tightrope walker and Ravan fancy dressers at Ramlila Maidan are all part of the deal called democracy, true, but let's not choreograph it.
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Excellent article.
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Hartosh, I have been reading your columns for a while and admired you for your blunk views even though how much contriversial they are. But this article seems to follow the same lines of Vir Sanghvi aritcle about appeal to MMS. I now understand you are Mouth Piece of Cong and nothing else. The situation would have never happened if they UPA have drafted a bill which was strong enough to tackle corruption. Even for a moment we assume Govt passes there bill what use is a law if it doesn't benefit the common man i.e. the poorest of the poorest. Sorry to say you have lost your credibility.
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If there ever was a time to have lessons on Constitution or foundations of Democratic theory, now is hardly that time. Both Govt Machinery and Fix-it-in-a-hurry crowd are locked in a battle to out-maneuver one another and out-muzzle the discourse. It is hardly the time because the issue has taken on the colors of popular dissent, a common man's angst against organized, institutional machinery, purely due to govt highhandedness and inability to be responsive. We shouldn't be trying to talk reason in front of a raging bull and in no way should we be pandering to this bull.
Instead of detours about Gandhian Halo or what not, for which media is largely responsible, or personal attacks, focus should remain on the objective - getting those in power to listen to needs of people. And, on this front the first step would be to have a govt that can handle dissent, an institutional machinery/police that can deploy soft persuasion skills than employ brute force methods on it own people. In this day and age of non-stop tele and twitter, the administration that represents us needs to upgrade its social and PR skills.
Policies are not made on the streets amidst shouting fest from megaphones or in a process opaque to the public. And so, it is incumbent on the government and the media to create the necessary environment that is conducive for transperency and a reasoned debate about policy. Can we trust the govt to deliver on this front? And I wonder who is regulating the media from making everything into a free-for-all fest?
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Hartosh you are not alone in expressing anguish regarding TV discussions and Arnab. Sharad Yadav has echoed your views in Lok Sabha and entire parliament hailed him, an indication of indirect support. The issue is just like Dalit-Upper caste debate. For years TV had shown government propaganda now for a change people are loving civil society propaganda. One may bring issue of 'reverse-discrimination' here (earlier Dalit's used to suffer now, some claim that the other party is suffering; similarly earlier government used to manipulate media in its favour now the public has got this advantage. This may continue for some time till better sense prevails). However, we can rely on a 'robust commonsense' of our illiterate, semiliterate and literate citizens that they, in spite of pro or anti government propaganda (or efforts to suppress or bring out the fact), can make out right from wrong. We, who live in realm of tv and newspapers sometime feel frightened that the 24x7 channels and partisan media are taking us to an undesirable destination but thanks to those millions who do not watch or read these and rely on their 'sixth sense'. The information helps in decision making but when too much information is there one is brought back to the square one. Advertisement Gurus have a technical terms and theories on this. So do not worry about those who devote hours watching live TV and its discussions. Another worry has been expressed repeatedly that none of the journalists have cared to address, including your magazine. It is- Yielding to civil society pressure would set up a wrong precedent and tomorrow anti-social groups will raise similar demands by bringing equal number of crowd on roads. Do you seriously believe that? If so are you sold to the idea that only a handful of people in the country are sensible and masses are so illiterate that can be brought to roads to agitate on an issue that is against democracy or sovereignty of nation? Do you believe that even if this happens no one will support the government if it tries to deal with such an anti-national or anti-people or anti-democratic or communal protest firmly? This country has seen several incidents of rifts but better sense has always prevailed and people have risen to take side of truth and righteous irrespective of caste, creed and religion. Can you see that RSS in a country populated by Hindus is always on a defending posture?
The movement has given us many things. One of the intangible benefits may be finding a new artist for Sony's Comedy Circus. I used to thing that years of Police services takes away an artist from you but was relieved to see the performance of ex-IPS. It was also a new experience to see cinema artists come out of cinema screen and rehearse film dialogues on Ramlila maidan. There were few other by products of this Samudra Manthan. I hope you know the story of Samudra Manthan (churning of milky ocean) and that it yielded an urn of poison (halahala) as well. It is people's choice to either go for poison or for the Amrit (necter of immortality).
'Know how' of beginning, sustaining and ending a big public movement was lost. I hope those who were parts of this movement and also those who have watched it from outside must have learned many lessons regarding what to do and what not to do. It is hard to digest both success and defeat. Those who are on forefront should visualize all possibilities and should devote equal time on educating people and putting forth the central idea of movement. This time around the first part was under represented. Little effort was made on educating people as how they should conduct during movement.
Yes, you are right in showing mirror to the society but as a part of reader I assure you to have faith in citizens of country as whole. They will not disappoint the nation and the world.
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An amazing article. I am glad to say, I am NOT ANNA but, an INDIAN.
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Let us take a bird's eye view to see another picture. Never in the history of humankind have situations been so unusual & urgent. People are stressed & desire immediate relief like ` INSTANT COFFEE `. The act of living with Dignity is challenged by obstacles everywhere. However grand and historical this DEMOCRACY is, it does not satisfy the common man anymore since it has failed to deliver simple and obvious solutions to provide relief from the oppression of corruption. The Ana Gana Mana movement just makes the angst visible and heard. Adjustments and interventions are necessary if we wish to restore sanity in our lives. Our support systems are in need of mending without delay.
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The people’s version of the Lokpal bill was finally debated and accepted by our parliament today. The Lokpal bill has been brought forward and quashed eight times before over the years; and the recent version that this Congress government tried to hurriedly pass had about as much teeth as a newborn baby. While many consider this a great victory for the people, India stands deeply divided on the bill. http://www.vaishwords.com/2011/08/there-is-something-rotten-in-state-of....
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The rationalist in me completely sympathizes. But I admit being totally overawed by the fact that one man has dragged the pachyderm that is the Indian government 'by the hair' (to borrow a phrase from Mr. Goswami) to face up to legislation that it has been successfully ignoring since 1968.
While I agree with the author's views in theory he does seem to be worshiping the constitution - exactly what he doesn't want the public to do to an individual. In a country where a written constitution is one of the only signs of progressiveness/unity, I COMPLETELY understand it and I have always felt that way. But not in this instance. 1.2 billion people cannot be constitutional experts - that expectation is elitist to begin with. And the insistence on following procedures is slightly naive when the perception is that procedures are used by those most familiar with them to shield themselves from those who have no recourse to anything remotely legal. I don't think the govt is stupid for capitulating at all - this wasn't a peaceful movement by any means. Lurking behind is the threat of escalating violence if Anna Hazare died from his fast. No human life is worth endangering for the sake of due process. And lastly, where the author lists all the other important bills that will be taken up in Parliament this session, he fails to mention that all those bills have interested political parties championing them. Civil society and the public had to get involved in the case of the Lokpal Bill only because every major party was against serious anti-corruption legislation. (BJP was content to ride the anti-Congress wave while opposing Anna Hazare's version of the bill. The Govt's stance actually toughened in the negotiations after the 'All-Party Meet').
I definitely disagree with the content of the Jan Lokpal Bill and the monstrous bureaucracy it will entail. I know that putting down the rulebook even for a second in a volatile place like India is a mad slippery slope. But to maintain buy-in for the parliamentary process, the parliament and constitution need to occasionally overcome vested interests to work for the people rather than the other way around.
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no comments....shame on u ppl
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If Hartosh thinks that a wrong precedent has been set, he is living under seriously wrong notions about the greater indian society that went about it daily work while the Anna agitation was on. If there is seperatist movement tommorow comprising of even say thousands of manipuri seperatists, there will be another few 10,000s manipuris who live in the rest of india who will not take part in it, another 100,000 other indians who will oppose it and the rest will be indifferent, in such a scenario the Indian Government will not be under the sort of pressure that they to pass the lokpal bill.
Finally the layman on the street is not expected to be a constitutional expert to understand the bill but rather needs to find selfless indivduals like Anna Hazare who they can rely on because he has the conviction to lead them in the right. Hartosh is being politically incorrect by stating that Anna's age & past profession which for some reason should be filtered before that someone can lead by example in this case, fasting.
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As for coverage to the cause, it would only serve the interest of the dismal incompetent government if the issue was somehow diluted with other issues. As it is it would never serve to address the smaller issues anyway no matter how much coverage those issues had in the face of the current interests.
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This is a prefect rational and comprehensive view on this Anna gig!
Good one, keep writing such nuetral and more logical articles. Thanks
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This is a prefect rational and comprehensive view on this Anna gig!
Good one, keep writing such nuetral and more logical articles. Thanks
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This is a prefect rational and comprehensive view on this Anna gig!
Good one, keep writing such nuetral and more logical articles. Thanks
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W.r.t. the Bills being tabled along with the Lokpal Bill, there are organisations like PRSIndia that actively retrieve draft Bills, prepare notes and briefs on them that the common man can understand. Various state government websites are now releasing drafts of Bills and amendments for comments to the public, the stakeholders. And we are all esteemed stakeholders in the nation.
Ask questions. Sure, we can't follow the Lok Sabha channel all the time so we can't know what's going on. But as with a friend, a lover, or a colleague - you ask more questions so you know what's going on, so you know that you're on the same page as the other person, and so you can come to trust them depending on the opinion you form from their answers.
Ask questions, and if they don't answer, dog, pursue, goad. But this? This is just puerile. And will very soon come back to bite us in the collective butt.
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Mr Bal,
I have a few questions to ask.
You quipped that the mass at the Ramlila Maidan did not bother to know or to read or to understand other drafts that were to be table in parliament in this session.
Were these bill tabled even today? Take my word, they will not be. The Parliament could & should nave gone through their sked business any way. Why it did not?
Did the agitators obstruct in any way, to table these bills?
Why is there a decades of apathy (43 long years!) that this Lokpal bill non finding it's way through these houses since 1969?
your fears echoing Bar BR Ambedkar,s caution on hero worship are placed out of context.
Did India produce any such dictator til date in last 65 years?(with honorable exception Mrs Indira Gandhi, who imposed on us the only emergency till date!)
You are misleading. The Congress carries her legacy. It is yet to apologize to this great nation for that breach of holy constitution.
The Lokpal you fear will turn out to be a dictator?
Or the frail, poor 74 year old Anna Hazare you fear to turn into a dictator?
He has no political ambitions nor he wishes to dictate a Guv like Sonia Gandhi (or even like Raul Vinci AKA Rahul Gandhi!) where they take no responsibilities of the failures of their Guv but puppet leaders are scapegoats and punished.
Anna has nothing at stake. Some ppl in team Anna may have political ambitions but they appear to take a strenuous hard route to achieve their goal. The outcome of this movement will benefit Indian democracy a great dael.
It is difficult to prove 2 plus 2 = nothing. (Even sometimes answer 3 is okay!)
Nothing kills like ignorance. You are trying to kill a substantive movement by ignoring it. But on the other hand the ignorance (& tolerance) of ppl towards corruption has caused in the growth of this demon to this stage that a movement to eradicate this demon is being termed as dictatorial, undemocratic or as a threat to democracy.
You are right.
It is truly a threat to the prevalent system (of silent FUNCTIONAL ANARCHY!!) that calls itself democratic, that has come to a pass where it tried it's best to kill the movement in it's ante-natal stage!
The white collared thinkers and opinion makers are, most of the times, on the sides of rulers. You can't be blamed.
You are sold out. Shame on you.
( I express due apology for my last comment lines.)
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K.B. Hazare has merely mobilized the masses (YES, THE MASSES) to wake up from the slumber (explained below) and think of what is the right thing to do. Governmental subversion of Constitutional processes does not invite such skeptical remarks/articles, but those from the Indian Polity do. This is because out of an unprecedented row of instances of the former, the latter are but a few/handful and thus stand out as a sore thumb in the eyes of people who stand to gain from the Economy of Corruption.
Complacence of the Indian Polity has led to the Rise of a Democratic Oligarchy and has resulted in Parliamentary Despotism. Our elected no longer represent the electorate's interests, primarily due to the electorate's self-induced slumber. However, when the spell of this slumber is broken a stalemate is reached; where the "representatives" do not want to yield to the political supremacy of the Polity, refuse to work in the interest of the People, but merely find it their duty to continue their control of the State, wield their powers without paying heed to the purpose of its grant. The disturbing fallacy then results and eclipses the bright sun of democracy where the means to the end become the end unto themselves. The Electorate on the other hand of such a stalemate seeks accountability, compliance and a return to the call of duties of the State.
History teaches us the drastic fall outs of such stalemates - The American Revolution (primarily a fight against virtual representation, the "No Tax Without Representation" Slogan) and the Indian Struggle for Independence (Purna Swaraj - complete self rule), both bringing about a re-institution of the Grundnorm (narrowly construed as a nation's Constitution).
The current Political Stalemate has now forced us to consider our options, whether to re-institute the Grundnorm, that has served us so well during the era of judicial activism, or retain this archaic machinery only to be reoiled with enactments that bring about transparency, accountability and honesty and weed out corrupt grime that has made the running of this leviathan politically, socially, and economically inefficient.
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This is the most elitist article written about the LokPal debate (both for and against). It has so much contempt for common man and middle class, even our politicians look good compared to the author. They understand the public better and less arrogant than the author.
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There goes the demographic dividend. If a bunch of idealistic (yet autocratic) group can thrash an inept government, wait for the day in future when a crazy with a cause comes on to the tv screens live.
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Hubris, Hartosh.
RSX is correct - this is a seriously arrogant article. And ignorant.
If there was an ounce of truth in your spluttering diatribe on the parliamentarians, the press and the people, you'd be the first in line to lead the next revolution.
You sneer at the 74 year old driver, ignoring the bearded journo from a small-time magazine pretending he sits on a high pedestal.
Hubris.
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I am glad to see this article. Ill informed people who can get together and form an opinion at an age when TVs transform from Sun TV, Star TV to "Anna TV", cannot undermine the Constitution. Wish I can see a day when we educate this nouveau riche illiterate middle class.
I agree to the Author's perspective of the "Yes/No" answer hunting class of people who cannot hold an effective dialogue.
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Your comment "74-year-old retired driver" is extremely snide and replete with arrogance. For your information, Mr. Hazare had served in the military gallantly and has won numerous honours. Also, before this Lokpal campaign Anna Hazare has been striving to achieve probity and rectitude in public life. His various non-violent campaigns have earned this "driver" the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award.
I think because the Open magazine took a contrarian stand against Mr. Hazare earlier in April , it is forced to defend an indefensible position.
On a personal note, Mr. Hartosh Bal your articles have always been very incisive. Unfortunately, you seem to have got it wrong in this case.
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Excellent article. Kudos Mr. Bal. Couldn't agree with you more
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This one of the best articles I have read so far on the Anna movement! Very well explained!
Its a shame that media managed to hype the issue and take away what could have been a great move for an effictive anti-corruption law!
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It is satisfying to know that there are still sane voices around. Our democracy and constitution is too precious to be played around by media. I hope a lot of people read this article. It is easily the correct perspective on the subject.
ASHOK
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