There is a rather uncivil campaign afoot to discredit the role of civil society in co-authoring the Lokpal bill draft. While some serious commentators and members of the NAC have pointed out reasonable doubts and genuine misgivings,the bulk of the criticism has been centred on a series of platitudes and banalities based on the supposed lack of legitimacy of the civil society members themselves.
When Anna Hazare reminds everyone that the people are sovereign,the argument thrown back is that this unelected tyrant is taking on the democratically-elected representatives of the people. This deliberate attempt to use the very essence of democracy against itself is disturbing.
Another oft repeated argument is that elections are a great leveller. Yet look at peoples choices: between Mulayam Singh and Mayawati in UP,Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu,Madhu Koda and Shibu Soren in Jharkhand. People dont really experience more honest governance. And while the financially compromised B.S. Yeddyurappa government of Karnataka and that of morally compromised Narendra Modi in Gujarat can quote electoral numbers to cite their political legitimacy,it is the pressure of some citizen groups that prevent them from claiming universal acceptance and moral legitimacy. Those who challenge the moral authority of civil society members must be warned that the same question can be asked of them,when they question an Amit Shah or a Madhu Koda.
Money,sycophancy,nepotism and self-serving interests have choked all pathways of our electoral processes,from tickets to portfolio allocation. Then why,pray,should we citizens outsource our right to ask questions and seek answers to our elected leaders?
One puerile argument being bandied about is that the government should not have hobnobbed with non-state actors from the outset. If so,how will this or any other government explain why they ever had any dialogue with Syed Ali Shah Geelani? Why did Rajiv Gandhi sign the Assam Accord with the agitating All Assam Students Union in 1985,for it was only after the accord was signed that their members formed the Asom Gana Parishad and blended into the electoral canvas? Why did the Indian government engage with Laldenga in 1986 when he had fought a secessionist war against the state?
I wonder what those who castigate Anna Hazare and his ilk as hunger-striking blackmailers would call Potti Sreeramulu,who fasted for Andhra Pradeshs statehood in 1952. He died on March 16; the news spread like wildfire and created a mass uproar. On December 19 that year,Jawaharlal Nehru announced the formation of a separate Andhra state.
If peaceful assembly and street agitation in order to express outrage or discontent against any existing practice or system is termed as blackmailing the government,then we might as well cease to call ourselves a democracy. Team Anna might have demonstrated a novel approach to pre-legislative debate and drafting but the fact of the matter is that all bills presented in Parliament are made with the national and state level consultation by government officers of civil society groups,NGOs and stakeholders.
The much-delayed Womens Reservation bill was backed by more than 35 womens organisations which put pressure on parliamentarians to pass it in the Rajya Sabha. Aruna Roy,Sandeep Pandey and Arvind Kejriwal gave up brilliant and profitable careers not to get elected,but to lead campaigns for the RTI and the NREGA. Academic and activist Madhu Kishwar has helped formulate state policy for rickshaw-pullers,street vendors and hawkers,and says peoples movements are an inherent part of democracy and serve to strenghthen it.
The government can either dampen the prospects of this nation by presenting a watered-down version of the Lokpal bill in the monsoon session,or be on the right side of history forever by taking credit for it,in what would be the watershed moment for the worlds largest democracy,and its biggest battle so far.
The writer is an independent mediaperson and is associated with the Anna Hazare-led India Against Corruption
