Prime Minster Manmohan Singh and Anna Hazare's fast

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, replying to a debate in the Lok Sabha(House of the People), the lower House of the Indian Parliament, on August 25, on the issue of Anna Hazare's indefinite fast in support of  his anti-corruption Jan Lokpal bill, expressed his deep sense of hurt over the senior BJP leader Dr Murli Manohar Joshi's "personal attack" on him "as if I am the foundtainhead of corruption". Since I did not listen to the live coverage of the debate, I am unable to comment  on the actual contents and the context in which they were made. But my impresssion is that the opposition attack on the PM  is generally confined to his dismal failure as the head of the UPA govt to provide a responsive, sensitive and competent governance,  ensuring probity and incorruptability. Several scams have hit his govt over a few years, involving thousands of crores of public money; in each case, Dr Manmohan Singh was an indifferent, almost silent spectator, and not a prompt interventionist to stop the rot. No wonder, in the 2G spectrum allocation case and the CWG scandal, the accused, A.Rajan and Suresh Kalmadi, have claimed in the court that all their decisions had the approval of the PMO! The CBI(called by critics as the Congress Bureau of Investigation) and the Central govt took action against the culprits only after the opposition, media and public uproar-and, more importantly, the Supreme Court intervention.

In his August 25 address to the Lok Sabha, Dr Singh stated that "in the course of seven years as Prime Minister, I may have made mistakes. Who is above making mistakes? To err is human but to accuse me of evil intentions, of conniving at corruption, is a charge I firmly repudiate". Dr Singh might have had no "evil intentions" but there is no doubt that he was guilty of overlooking acts of criminality by his cabinet colleagues and other senior bureaucrats. Yes, "to err is human", but to err repeatedly is hardly human; it is criminal negligence.

Anna Hazare anti-corruption agitation captured nation-wide attention from early April, 2011, when thousands of young people responded to his call. The UPA govt after initial resistance and rejection, finally capitulated and agreed to form a Joint Drafting Committee(JDC), including Hazare and four of his associates to prepare an effective, strong  draft Lokpal bill for submission to the Parliament. After two months of discussions in the JDC, between the govt ministers and the Hazare team, the government members and Congress spokesmen started ridiculing the civil society representatives as "unelected and unelectable tyrants" who were out to subvert democracy and the Parliament. They did not remember their commitment to draft a strong Jan Lokpal legislation. After prolonged dithering and no movement for four months and the 10th day of Anna Hazare's indefinite fast in protest against the govt's apathy and arrogance, the PM stated in his speech of August 25 in the Lok Sabha that he was worried about the 74-year-old Gandhian's health. Responding to the PM's "concern", Anna Hazare thanked him and the Parliament for their appreciation of his idealism. But, he added, why this "worry" after so long and without any sense of urgency to resolve the issue, and listen to the voices  of the vast majority of the Indian people for a strong anti-corruption law? Delaying tactics were being used. There was no sign that a unanimous resolution would be adopted to discuss and accept his three minimum demands of having Lokayuts in the States, people's charter and lower bureaucracy to be covered by the bill. Finally, after several flip-flops, under the tremendous pressure of of the anti-corruption movement's vast nation-wide support, most opposition parties and even some Congressmen, the UPA govt. agreed to have an eight-hour debate in the Lok Sabha on August 27 which finally endorsed  Anna Hazare's three points. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, as the leader of the House, replying to the debate, summed up the "sense" of the House as positive, in favour of Anna Hazare's demands. This was widely applauded by the thumping of the deks by the members in place of the voice vote. Later, the PM sent a letter to Hazare conveying the Parliament's consensus; the latter thanked the Parliament and all supporters for what he called "half victory" and broke his fast the next morning(August 29, around  10 am). Thus, the first chapter of this historic people's struggle for clean, honest,  responsive government, has ended. Anna Hazare  mentioned that struggle for reforms in electoral system, including Right to Recall, people's participation in law-making through their elected representatives, education, etc., will begin in the next phase.       

Congress diatribe against Anna Hazare

The ruling Congress party seems to have lost its dignity and mental balance in deciding to mount a rabid diatribe against Anna Hazare personally, calling him corrupt, less than two days before his scheduled fast against corruption and for a strong Lokpal bill. Using its most foul-mouthed, crude,  spokesman to attack Hazare in a language a civilised person will not use even for a street urchin, the Congress party gave the impression of desperation and panic in the face of the rising tide of nation-wide support to the anti-corruption movement of the 74-year-old Gandhian. The Congress foot soldier Manish Tewari tried to flog a dead horse of Justice Sawant's report, allegedly accusing Anna Hazare of various acts of corruption. Tewari clearly devoid of any prick of conscience, used the phrase "A Company" for Hazare and his associates, on the lines of the mafia don Dawood Ibrahim's "D Company".  What one can say about such lunacy and total bankruptcy of ethics and sensitivity! Forgetting traditional Indian ethos of respect for elders, Tewari was deriding  the person who was his father's age and whom his Prime Minister had earlier invited to join the Joint Drafting Committee alongwith his four colleagues for preparing a common draft of the proposed Lokpal bill. The PM had accepted the demand of Hazare under tremendous public pressure despite his initial opposition to the latter's indefinite fast.

Yet, within a few weeks, when the popular agitation receded due to the government's flexible stand, the ruling party reverted to its duplicitous stance and started questioning the legitimacy of the Hazare movement and its demand for a srtong Lokpal. They even attacked the group for being undemocratic and even fascist. The die seems to been cast and the earlier chasm between the two sides was back. First, the police refused the Hazare side permission to assemble at Jantar Mantar to start his fast from August 16 that he had threatened if the Jan Lokpal bill was rejected or its pro-people provisions were not incorporated in the govt bill. Later, the Anna team agreed to shift to any venue in central Delhi. A park named after Jaya Prakash Narayan was offered which they accepted. Then, started another of game of weakening the agitation with all sorts of undemocratic and unconstitutional  conditions like the fast could be only for three days, the attendance cannot exceed 5000, etc. When Anna rejected these conditions instantly and wrote to the PM against the govt's "dictatorial" and emergency-type stand, Dr Manmohan Singh washed his hands of the issue and told Hazare to approach the Delhi police directly as if the police was autonomous. Singh himself forgot what he had said on the Ramdev episode in which the police had used cruel methods to evict the peaceful protestors from the Ramlila grounds:"There was no option" but  the police action!

However, without waiting for the problem to get sorted out amicably, the senseless ruling party unleashed a ferocious assault on its opponent-Anna Hazare. It also forgot that its State govt. of Maharashtra had formed an investigating committee under Mr Sukthanker to examine the Justice Sawant report and it had given Hazare a clean chit. Thus, is it not a fraud on the Indian people to use a rejected report to malign Anna Hazare who is proving a thorn? Does it behove a grand old party of stalwarts like Gandhiji, Sardar Patel, Pandit Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Lal Bahadur Shastri and others? Does it not suggest a terrible degeneration?         

Indian Police brutality

The Indian police brutality that is often on display in the streets of the country-in the capital, UP, Maharashtra, and elsewhere, to tackle peaceful protests by resentful citizens, is a notorious phenomenon. Two latest incidents of the police high-handedness relate to Delhi and Maharashtra. In Delhi, the police mobilised in large numbers to deal with the BJP youth demonstration against corruption in which a large number of young people from all parts of India participated, went berserk. They did not spare even a polio-afflicted young leader from Bihar. The TV images of the incident provided the tell-tale evidence of the police mercilessness. The standard practice is to deny that excessive force was used as they did in the case of the forcible eviction of Baba Ramdev and his supporters with lathis and tear gas past-mid night in early June, 2011.

In Maharashtra, the Kisan protest of water supply from a dam, was handled even more ferociously: TV coverage showed how the police were firing into the demonstrating farmers to kill, resulting in the death of three. Contrast this with the riots in London and some other British cities recently where no one was killed in police action even though the scale of looting, arson and destruction of property was colossal. Some may say that the UK police was too soft. But, the fact remains that the situation was brought under control in a couple of days with large scale arrests of the criminals and raids of their houses to recover looted property. Our police appears like a brute force, a trigger-happy one, without mercy, that too in a democracy! Who is to blame? The buck must stop with the police leadership, lack of training in modern, civilised ways of policing, winning public goodwill and cooperation. The political bosses must also share the blame for police excesses on common people who are supposed to be the masters in a democratic system.

Some times, one has a lurking feeling that our bureaucracy-administrative and police-have not yet emerged from the colonial mindset. Their contempt for the hoi polloi is persisting, surfacing in their ill-treatment and arrogant behaviour. Among our first Prime Minister Nehru's several failures, indifference to administrative reforms, including those dealing with the  police, can be considered high on the list. Unfortunately, even his successors largely ignored these. We are paying a heavy price for that negligence.

Prakash Jha's film "Aarakshan" on reservations

Prakash Jha's latest film:"Aarakshan"(Reservations) that was viewed by an Examination Committee of the Central Film Certification Board (commonly known as Film Censor Board), comprising a representative each of SCs, STs and OBCs, before it was certified for universal exhibition after one or two minor cuts like removing the word "dalit", has triggered a major controversy in the media. The culprits for raising needless passions alleging anti-dalit nature of the film, are their socalled custodians like the head of the Commission for Scheduled Castes and others. The film-maker in his interviews with the media has been insisting that the his film is not against dalits. Hypothetically speaking, even if the film diapproves of the open-ended continuation of reservations, Prakash Jha has every right to do so in a democracy.

It is common knowledge that the beneficiaries of the reservations-particularly the creamy layer, and their political patrons, have developed a vested interest in the indefinite continuation of this privilege at the cost of other deprived and disadvantaged Indians who do not have the SC/ST/OBC tag. Why, for instance, the children and grand children  of a top level bureaucrat or diplomat, who had been to foreign schools and colleges for studies, should be entitled to reservations, even for promotions? Is it fair and just? Why should the accident of birth in a BPL family,  even though it may be a Brahmin or an upper caste one, deprive its child with merit an opportunity for reservation? Is it not time to discard caste-based reservations in favour of economically, socially, educationally weak Indians? 

Dr Zakir Naik's Peace TV

The Peace TV channel, set up by the Islamic Research Foundation headed by Dr Zakir Naik, a Mumbai medical doctor-turned Islamic scholar and evangelist, had disappeared from the Karol Bagh cable network(Punjab Vision), following the I&B Ministry directive that unregistered channels like the Peace TV should not be shown. Hence, I was surprised to notice that Dr Naik's channel has suddenly made a comeback; and occupying the number one slot. Has it got registered as required under the rules? Or, is it still continuing to function without the official registration? My reservations about this channel relate to its star preacher's orthodox and fundamentalist interpretations of the Quran which, in this day and age, seem totally obscurantist and provocatively parochial, hence, unacceptable.

In its earlier incarnation, Dr Zakir Naik's main emphasis was on the supremacy of Islam in comparison to other faiths. It was the Allah's own divine dispensation for the emancipation of humanity. To cover up his Islamic zealotry, he invited spiritual leaders of other faiths like Shri Ravi Ravi Shankar to his congregations where his followers would ask loaded questions on Hinduism. Once, I heard Shri Shankar ticking the questioners off, telling them to respect other faiths in equal measure. The basic motive of Dr Naik seemed to find fault in the approach of leaders of other faiths vis-a-vis his interpretation of Islam and to belittle them. 

I still cannot get over the shock of his strong opposition to mixed marriages:Momins(Islamic believers) marrying non-Muslims(non-believers) when he was asked about it in a question-answer programme. The logic used by him to reject mixed marraiges was most ridiculous and bizarre. First, he said how can a two-wheeler run smoothly if one wheel is from a bicycle and another from a truck. Although he did not clearly spell out the ownership of the wheels, it was clear that the truck wheel-being superior belonged to the momin and the bicycle one to the non-Muslim. Another negative argument given by him: The momin partner will go to heaven after death, whereas the non-momin partner will to hell.

In his current appearance, I watched Dr Naik reiterate his unambiguous disapproval of Muslim marrying non-Muslim as "haraam"(illegal). He quoted the Quran in support of his thesis. In his August 1 night session, he performed another most offensive and provocative act: He presented a number of men and women who, announcing their Hindu names and surnames, declared  that they have converted to Islam. Is this legally permissible and religiously, socially acceptable to project conversions on TV channels? Will Indian Muslims accept it if Hindu religious channels follow the example of Dr Naik's channel and show Muslims embracing Hinduism? Is Dr Naik not playing with fire and fuelling inter-community conflict? Should he not be disowned by his co-religionists?