Anna Hazare may be a man of character & integrity and I'm not questioning his commitment towards the 'desire' of eradication of the corruption.
But here the issue is not about honesty or dishonest..
Centralization of power has been the major catalyst for corruption, whether it's India, China etc.. May be, many of us not aware of the fact that China is more corrupted state (at higher levels) than India and indeed, in spite of the existence of stronger laws/bills than the Jan Lok Pal (they have death penalty for corruption). The more decentralization of power becomes, the lesser the chances of power being misused and "this is the law of nature". On the contrary, the current Jan Lok Pal bill wants all the independent institutions (CBI, Judiciary etc.) to come under one hat and clearly running into the risk of becoming authoritarian.
Inequality is another aspect inbuilt into our system. All these notions about who can command more resources have become part of our value system, and then our political system. Both are supported by our economic system. These constitute the basic structure of the society. It is this structure that keeps the poor poor and the rich rich. So, this/there has to be a fight(s) against the structural violence and should not end till the structure start to change to bridge the gap between two extremes.
It's nice that youth, especially from cities are rendering their sympathies and support to the Jan Lak Pal bill.. but how many of them have read the 30 pages of Jan Lok Pal bill and understood the detailed implications of it on Administration, Judiciary and Parliamentary institutions ?
How many of these also walked to the polling booths, when elections are conducted. In all Indian metropolitan cities, the average polling percentages never crossed 40% (majorly from Auto waala, lower working class, poor people, rigging etc.) and that's the status of social responsibility of the corporate driven young India and private working class in India.
For governance to improve, good politics must be in command. Populism can only mobilize people; but politics empowers them. Civil society has the right and responsibility to seek a responsive state, not shun politics, nor seek to replace it through prime-time populism.
Changing the status of politics/bureaucracy from bad to good, may be a complex and long process in a democratic polity like ours, but we shouldn't constantly hate politicians/bureaucrats and resort to short-cut methodological solutions. In fact, we must inspire ourselves to change from begging status to demanding status and earn the militant attitude of reacting to the socioeconomic issues at the ground level, with long term goals.
We've a major tendency to blame the politics/politicians and 'always' tried to correct the 'state/raajyam' by bringing new bills/acts, which are indeed needed ("like Lok Pal bill"). However will not produce any desirable results, unless until we parallelly bring reforms in the institutions ('vyavastha').
But here the issue is not about honesty or dishonest..
Centralization of power has been the major catalyst for corruption, whether it's India, China etc.. May be, many of us not aware of the fact that China is more corrupted state (at higher levels) than India and indeed, in spite of the existence of stronger laws/bills than the Jan Lok Pal (they have death penalty for corruption). The more decentralization of power becomes, the lesser the chances of power being misused and "this is the law of nature". On the contrary, the current Jan Lok Pal bill wants all the independent institutions (CBI, Judiciary etc.) to come under one hat and clearly running into the risk of becoming authoritarian.
Inequality is another aspect inbuilt into our system. All these notions about who can command more resources have become part of our value system, and then our political system. Both are supported by our economic system. These constitute the basic structure of the society. It is this structure that keeps the poor poor and the rich rich. So, this/there has to be a fight(s) against the structural violence and should not end till the structure start to change to bridge the gap between two extremes.
It's nice that youth, especially from cities are rendering their sympathies and support to the Jan Lak Pal bill.. but how many of them have read the 30 pages of Jan Lok Pal bill and understood the detailed implications of it on Administration, Judiciary and Parliamentary institutions ?
How many of these also walked to the polling booths, when elections are conducted. In all Indian metropolitan cities, the average polling percentages never crossed 40% (majorly from Auto waala, lower working class, poor people, rigging etc.) and that's the status of social responsibility of the corporate driven young India and private working class in India.
For governance to improve, good politics must be in command. Populism can only mobilize people; but politics empowers them. Civil society has the right and responsibility to seek a responsive state, not shun politics, nor seek to replace it through prime-time populism.
Changing the status of politics/bureaucracy from bad to good, may be a complex and long process in a democratic polity like ours, but we shouldn't constantly hate politicians/bureaucrats and resort to short-cut methodological solutions. In fact, we must inspire ourselves to change from begging status to demanding status and earn the militant attitude of reacting to the socioeconomic issues at the ground level, with long term goals.
We've a major tendency to blame the politics/politicians and 'always' tried to correct the 'state/raajyam' by bringing new bills/acts, which are indeed needed ("like Lok Pal bill"). However will not produce any desirable results, unless until we parallelly bring reforms in the institutions ('vyavastha').
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