For all those friends of mine who have been whole-heartedly supporting the current movement :
The urban middle-class is going to actually make use of its voting rights, had there been a General Elections scheduled this year end :) The joke of Democracy in India is largely due to this critical mass of educated population with a Chalta-hai attitude never having cared for who and what is running the country they are surviving in.
The Anna Hazare movement is changing this space very rapidly. At least the metropolitan middle-class is now AWARE of the politics around. Thanks to media, it can clearly see for itself why all Political Parties are opposing the proposed draft bill. And for the mass movement…. Anna’s aura has gone above Political System in India. WE, THE PEOPLE…. As one of the foremost legal fraternities spoke that “THE PEOPLE” comes ahead of anything else even in our CONSTITUTION. The PEOPLE(of course a scarce populace) are in fact driving the movement. There are various persons with various suggestions. When wrong output is coming out of a right system in place, it’s time to replace or correct the system.
I initially hesitated, but later completely agreed with Shri Nandan Nilekani when he replied Sagarika Ghose on CNN-IBN that a holistic approach has to be thought out and Jan Lok Pal is just one of them.
Jan Lok Pal will give the dragger in the common man’s hand, which is required for the expected services and in many cases for his/her survival. But at the same time does it save the non-corrupt govt official who is dragged into the net by his superiors? Can the draft-panel committee highlight these necessary appendices to the bill?
And of course we have the saintly people like @atul_kulkarni who want to point out that what we are proposing is to fix the output. The source is our mind.
The mood of frustration is right for all the parties; for the delay that the current Govt is costing itself. Delay dilutes the movement. Moreover Indian Masses are well-known for their forgiving & forgetting nature. A lull of 4 months from now and all the pressure will go to square one !
IAC has their rendering of the Comparitive Study between the Govt tabled Lok Pal and their ones at this place.
Got hold of a good article by Ashutosh Varshney in the Indian Express today where he is talking of how our cities have been estranged from the electoral space and under-served by politics. Though he recognizes the aftermath of such non-holistic and non-visionary movements which may ripple into a fascist and nazi like movement experienced by modern human civilizations in Europe. Loved to hear that our Country is almost the World’s first which has maintained Universal Franchise(right to vote for all adult homo sapiens) without an industrial revolution.
For all those who are yet to be aware of the RTI history, do read this article before crediting anyone for the same. The drafts by Aruna Roy and others can’t be discarded.
Have been always fascinated by the concept of a super council which governs the state. Rome & Yadavas are classic civilizations to be studied. Our local CHS functions more or less like a democratic system and we experience so many inefficiencies in such a system. No doubt the majority wins, but many times the minority has a good intellectual & visionary proposition which the short-sighted majority doesn’t care for.
Does the Urban Middle class have the guts to make it to the Parliament and handling the heavy job responsibility rather than thinking they are dreaming big keeping the ideals of either Ambani or a Narayan Murthy.
May Anna live long !
(Edited by kibin)
Nice write up Kris. Thanks for linking all these interesting analysis.
ReplyDeleteI hope that people are able to see that a more practical and pragmatic approach is needed to achieve an effective solution to this. Being emotional might not be the best path of action.