Recently we all Indians witnessed a very incredulous situation in our country. I am talking about the hunger strike of notable social activist Anna Hazare. Many people gave various reactions to that event; amongst them some were in favor of Anna and his team while some others were against. Here I am putting my reflections on all those reactions just for the study of them. Primarily three trends were witnessed, one group was talking that parliament is supreme and this act of forcing it to do something by making hunger strike is against the principals of democracy. Other trend suspected that Anna’s movement is representative of NGO people and through this agitation they are trying to undermine and marginalize parliament authority and so there they showed resistance to the movement, making it a prestige issue. Third trend discussed the problem of corruption.

I shall take all these three trends and give my observations on them for the benefit of my readers of this blog. First trend says parliament is supreme and nobody can dictate terms to it but instead the parliament shall dictate on all law making procedures. Here I observe that, as I had already in one of my previous posting told, that there are two types of democracies and they are, natural democracy and constitutional democracy. Parliament is manifestation of the constitutional democracy and Anna’s movement is the manifestation of natural democracy. Our father of the nation Gandhi also worked in this natural democratic ambience. Since they belong to totally different types of democracies any comparison in them is not justified. We should understand that natural democracy is the root out of which constitutional democracy grows. And so it is very clear that natural democracy supersedes constitutional democracy. Anna Hazare’s excellence in the movement I consider as the excellence of the natural democracy. Characteristics of natural democracy are, it grows on streets and public places, such as Ramlila ground, of the place and not in any house, and it is the collective desire of the people that demands this democracy, there are no particular leaders for it and it grows on funds donated by people voluntarily from ordinary public. We see that in Anna’s movement all these characteristics are present. In short natural democracy is the cry of the people and is not guided by any planned work of manipulation by some group as we see in constitutional democracy. As for expression of the movement we see in many places is often gripped by violence and so this form of democracy is generally decried by intellectuals however, it continues to pop up itself when circumstances demand. That means creation of constitutional democracy is due to this possibility of violence and to avoid it. However if the movement is peaceful like the one Anna lead, this form of democracy is the best to give expression to people’s desires.

Critics of this, show fear that if such agitations are allowed to cow down Upper House wrong forces may take advantage of that; I do not think that is possible and for that I need not go any far, we have an experience of recently held hunger strike of Ramdeo baba for the same cause as Anna. That was discarded by police as it was not genuine movement. I shall trust police intelligence in deciding just movement and wrong one and that shall settle this fear. Our police intelligence is good for that provided politicians do not interfere. So I feel this fear is ill founded.    

Second trend suspected that Anna’s movement is representative of NGO people and through this agitation they are trying to undermine Government and so there they showed resistance to the movement. This reaction was seen in most speeches I saw on Saturday when MPs were talking on the bill. I think this trend is very widely distributed amongst the MPs and they feel assaulted if they concede to the strategies of NGOs. Initial resistance to Anna was mostly due to this misinterpretation of the movement. As for this particular movement is concerned it was not a handy work of any NGO but only one person Anna, I say this because it was openly debated amongst many Social liberties groups that there was voluminous difference in the thinking of many members or activists of that NGO. Particularly Aruna Roy and the JP group very openly passed comments against Anna’s style of work and they gave enough expression to that whenever they talked about Anna and the movement against corruption. This observation clearly showed to me that Anna’s movement was not part of Social liberties people but only of most confident persons of Anna. We should mind that that group never claimed to be a part of Social liberties group. Looking to this it becomes clear that the second trend was hitting in the bush most foolishly. As I see people like Lallu prasad were in the forefront in that, I am not very surprised at that since we all sensible observers know well that Lallu is a joker. He entertained the Upper House with his funny talk but it looked that chair person Mrs. Vyas was not happy the way this clown was blaring loudly.

The third trend concentrated on the issue of the movement, corruption. They rightly pointed out that Lokpal bill and any act made under it is not final solution to the problem, I have already voiced it in my posting earlier. But this ritual of passing the bill in this direction is important to create atmosphere for the required improvement. Rahul suggested giving it constitutional position but that was like talking of theory while we are more interested in practical immediate solution.

Now it is time for all of us to be introvert and contemplate on the mentality that causes corruption; it, be big scam or cases of forced bribe by an income tax officer or a ration card department clerk. In my posting I have suggested a simple solution of a web site; my readers may go to that and read it. See Lokpal –1 and Lokpal -2. I am working on this subject to suggest some point to make this bill more effective, and shall come with it soon.

So long as we feel that corruption to benefits me is alright and that troubles me is wrong, we shall never be able to eradicate corruption from our society. Laws do not help unless we honestly implement them with the sense of devotion. Onus is ours, and not parliament, to eradicate corruption from our society.    

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Ashok Kothare’s Blog

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