India Insight

It wasn’t long ago that social activist Arvind Kejriwal called India’s parliamentarians “rapists, murderers and looters“. After making no bones about his hatred for India’s politicians during his anti-corruption movement, the former Team Anna member may soon be breaking bread and rubbing shoulders with the targets of his scorn now that he has decided to enter politics.

Kejriwal’s first test could be the assembly elections in Delhi next year. Will his rhetoric translate into votes? Will his party succeed in overthrowing a state government that has been in power for nearly 15 years in the capital? (Please participate in our poll on Arvind Kejriwal. Our question: will his new party be able to make a political impact? At the moment, “yes” votes outnumber “no” votes by nearly two to one.)

If you go by his “vision document“, the idea of a government run by the people gives an impression that parliamentary democracy is somehow a different thing. The former Magsaysay Award winner wants citizens to make decisions on budget, commodity prices and lawmaking. While there is no doubt that his ideas hint at a disorganized system of governance, it’s a college student’s version of idealism and it won’t transform India’s government.

It’s premature to dismiss his party, but his promise of passing the Jan Lokpal anti-corruption bill within 10 days of being elected sounds ignorant. The bill has been pending for decades, leading me to wonder what secret ace Kejriwal is carrying up his sleeve.

We don’t know how many candidates Kejriwal’s party will field, or how aware they are of parliamentary procedure — including knowing how many people you need present to pass bills. How will they work with belligerent opponents? Will he bypass parliament all together and seek popular referendums on bills? Maybe he’ll revisit the constitution?

So it has come to an end for now. A fast by a 74-year-old man sparked nationwide protests against the political class in the world’s largest democracy and forced a government, already suffering from graft charges, even further on the backfoot. While we are on the issue of sporting analogies, let’s ask ourselves, how many of the statements made in media and civil society, about the UPA government scoring own goals and making unforced errors, are justified?

To start from the top, a few days before Anna Hazare started his fast against the government’s reluctance to table his and his team’s version of a key anti-corruption bill, called the Lokpal bill, the government’s PR machinery made one blunder after the other.

It allowed a Congress spokesman to use rather strong language on TV against Hazare. And later statements on record by union ministers Kapil Sibal and Palaniappan Chidambaram did nothing to turn the tide of public opinion increasingly turning against the government at its inability to crack down on rampant corruption.

By Annie Banerji

He came, he saw and he took the Congress-led government by storm with his 12-day fast against corruption at Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi that became the epicentre of a national crusade.

But just a few days later, Hazare’s plea to hundreds of thousands of supporters to do more than just cheer him on and instead change their attitude to corruption looks to be bearing fruit.

Sipping coconut water and honey, 74-year-old Anna Hazare ended a hunger strike on its 13th day on Sunday when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government caved in to the demands of the veteran social reformer as parliament backed anti-graft legislation that met many of his demands.

A few months ago, Kiran Bedi visited the Thomson Reuters office in Bangalore as a guest speaker to mark International Women’s week and also to address us on corporate ethics and governance. It was also the day when some of us heard of a man called Anna Hazare and a bill called the Lokpal.

“A few of us activists, like Anna Hazare, if you’ve heard about him…,” began Bedi. “He’s called the Gandhi of Maharashtra,” and she continued further, enlightening us about the anti-corruption bill and the support and impact this man can provide.

“Anna Hazare is known to be very effective in the past,” she said. “Whenever Hazare has sat on a fast, the Maharashtra government gave in and he got the right kind of laws.”

Whether one supports the principles of Anna Hazare or not, there is no denying the movement has managed to strike a chord with people from almost every section of society.

The frustration with corruption has breached its maximum level, and that alone awakened the so-called political activism among Indians.

However, a few high profile incidents on the streets of New Delhi may damage the cause of the activists.

By Arup Roychoudhury

The events that transpired since Anna Hazare first went on a fast in April, when the word “Lokpal” was embedded in the minds of people throughout India, seem to have given Hazare’s protest a very one-dimensional view — that of black versus white.

The Indian press corps, across medium and languages, may have also contributed to the polarisation. Most seem to have taken a pro-Hazare stand with little or no coverage given to any counterviews.

However, this is still being seen as essentially a political movement, with many angles and viewpoints to it. And, like many political movements, chances are it will probably end in a compromise rather than “victory” for either the ruling Congress coalition or Team Anna.

“Shoe polish, sir?” That was a quote your correspondent was not expecting to record as he paced through the crowds protesting in New Delhi in solidarity with Anna Hazare, the 74-year-old poster boy for India’s fight against endemic corruption.

Among the waving flags, painted faces and punched fists of thousands of mostly students and young professionals on Wednesday, were beggars, trinket-sellers and shoe-shiners plying their trade seemingly indifferent to the din around them.

The sight gave pause for thought as to how far the spiralling protests against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s scandal-plagued government have trickled down to an underclass of hundreds of millions of Indians living below the bread line.

India’s ruling Congress party offered cash for votes to pass a crucial 2008 confidence vote in parliament, a secret U.S. state cable released on Thursday said, embroiling Manmohan Singh’s beleaguered government in yet another corruption scandal that risks further opposition attacks on the graft-smeared coalition.

File photo of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh speaking to the media after his government won a vote of confidence in parliament in New Delhi July 22, 2008. REUTERS/B Mathur

The secret U.S. state department cable obtained by WikiLeaks and published by The Hindu newspaper on Thursday details a conversation between a senior Congress party member and a U.S. Embassy official surrounding the payment of almost $9 million by a government facing a crucial confidence vote to members of a regional political party to secure their support.

An open letter from a group of 14 eminent citizens, quickly labelled the “G-14″ and blaming corruption as one of the biggest threats to India’s growth story, may be a case of a glass half empty, half full.

The letter was signed by leading industry figures, including Azim Premji, head of software giant Wipro, the chiefs of vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra, the HDFC mortgage lender and ICICI Bank.  It also includes former central bank governors and senior judges.

They called on investigative agencies to clamp down on corruption and say a recent slew of graft scams, like the 2G scandal which may have cost the government up to $39 billion, have “deeply hurt the nation”.

The sad story of Kallol Sur caught my eye over the weekend, a local official who apparently hanged himself after blowing the whistle on corruption in India’s flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

According to The Sunday Express , Sur, a block development officer — a local bureaucrat — in the eastern state of West Bengal, complained of “immense political pressure” after exposing graft in the scheme.

Sur had apparently first uncovered corruption by officials from the ruling Communist Party (Marxist), and then by others from the opposition Trinamool Congress.