The wheels of the anti-corruption movement are turning in strange ways. It has to be acknowledged that anti-corruption sentiment was given momentum by the Anna movement. But it looked as if the movements dogmatism,political naivety,excessive statism and exaggerated sense of virtue would undermine it. In a certain sense,it has. However,we should not overlook this fact: in the year since the movement began,the political establishment has been close to shameless in using the weaknesses of the movement to avoid confronting some basic issues. The Lokpal bill is stuck for a very understandable reason: in its current form,it is the worst of all possible worlds. But at this juncture we should not let the weaknesses of the Anna movement disguise the perfidy large sections of the political class are playing on us. They are,to use the phrase from Macbeth,commending the ingredients of our own poisoned chalice to our own lips,using the critique of the Anna movement as cover to exacerbate the rot.
First,all politicians should not be tarred with the same brush and declared guilty. However,from this reasonable premise,politicians are beginning to conclude that all politicians are innocent. There was an initial flurry that looked like a cleaning-up process: a couple of chief ministers lost their jobs,if not their power; Suresh Kalmadi and A. Raja were in jail. But it would stretch facts to conclude that even a minimal clean-up job has begun. We all believe that,in part,a clean-up job has to be political: there has to be a credible signal from government that it is willing to govern on new norms. But quite the contrary has happened. The biggest power brokers in the system,at the heart of these machines of corruption and patronage,have gone to greater heights. It is also no state secret that given the uncertainties of the 2014 election,the demand for political war chests has increased.
Third,Anna has been accused of playing the politics of virtue,confusing innocence and good intentions with good policy. But Congress has consistently used the same argument of virtue to duck its responsibilities. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a virtuous man. Indeed he is. But that cannot detract from the fact that,at the very least,this government knowingly overlooked wrongdoing. When institutional arguments have been given about the roles and responsibilities of the prime minister and the cabinet,these have been silenced by the argument of virtue. In current parlance,innocence has acquired a new meaning: ducking of institutional responsibilities.
Fourth,the elite discourse around corruption has also done a nice cover-up job. It has deployed the oldest tactic in the world to skirt issues: abstraction. So absolutely everyone now in the system mouths a well-blown critique of crony capitalism. Ironically we are all against crony capitalists in the abstract,but we continue to throw a cloak over any particular act of crony capitalism,with the odd exception of a vernacular nexus like Bellary. The media initially pounced on an impressive number of zeros in the CAG reports. After that,in case after case,whether it is PPPs or natural resources,the media is shy of even reporting the bare facts,let alone pursue any serious impartial investigation. Politicians are against crony capitalism,citizens are against crony capitalism,even crony capitalists are against crony capitalism. But pursuing any particular one is made deliberately harder.
Fifth,there is the sheer hubris and arrogance of the state. You would have thought that,sobered by the outcry against corruption,the government would try to make a new start. Instead,it displayed arrogance in two forms. First,the top leadership still refuses to engage with the public in any serious way. Democracy is not just about seeking votes,it is about a form of public discussion. But the imperiousness with which the top leadership the Congress president and general secretary and the prime minister has hidden behind a cloak of virtue,avoiding a political confrontation with the problem,is breathtaking. But more than that,it is not easy for anyone to take on the state,which comes after its critics with full might,sometimes bordering on thuggishness. If nothing else,the Anna movement is trying to do something that is easier said than done: take on the state.
The critique of the Anna movement was premised on the self-correcting power of institutions. Admittedly,the old system is so defensive and entrenched that even minimal cleansing will take time. But it has to be said that the self-correcting powers of institutions we would like to defend have been in scant evidence since the Anna movement started. Even the usual incentives of adversarial politics,where you would expect the opposition to hold the governments feet to the fire,are not working because of the webs of mutual complicity.
The Anna movement has plenty of faults. But sections of the mendacious political class are using our own reasonableness to suffocate us. The rot deepens. The plot will inevitably thicken.
The writer is president,Centre for Policy Research,Delhi,express@expressindia.com
