Dear Gnanisankaran
Thank you very much for bringing some substance to the ridiculous psuedo frenzy against corruption that has been going. Maybe the intentions are right but the naivete is nauseatic.
The ease with which very well educated people have been swayed into thinking that fasts, mass congregations, candle light marches and car rallies will bring change is amusing. The other essential characteristic of Indians of course is cowardice and pussy footing where the gloves should come off.
Rishi
Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone
From: jnani sankaran <gnanisankaran@hotmail.com>
Sender: humjanenge@googlegroups.com
Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 09:33:24 +0530
To: <humjanenge@googlegroups.com>
ReplyTo: humjanenge@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [HumJanenge] At the risk of heresy ....
Would the pseudo warriors behind Anna Hazare care to know about someone called Irom Sharmila?
Gnani Sankaran
It was fashionable to be patriotic during Kargil war and now it is fashionable to be fighters against corruption thanks to Anna Hazare.
Within two days of the fast of veteran gandhian's understandable ire against delay in creating a lok pal act, the English media channels and their partners - in- arms English print media have created a pseudo war against corruption in India, with middle and upper middle classes suddenly waking up their consciences through candle light walks.
Dear pseudo comrades, have you heared of Irom Sharmila , fasting not for one or two days, but a full decade, with absolutely no media hype to create a single candle light walk by the rich and the affluent of India.
Lend your ears not to me, friends, Indians and countrymen, but to Irom Sharmila, a fellow Indian like Anna hazare. Unfortunately she is from Manipur, which many of us in south and western India confuse with Manipal where money gets education and again unfortunately in Manipur , even money cannot guarantee you your life.
Here is a quick recap on Irom Sharmila, for the sake of latecomers to public causes. Assam Rifles one of the Indian para military forces under whose control Manipur is, gunned down ten people waiting for bus at a bus stop in Malom in Imphal valley on November 1,2000. While the army claimed that it fired against insurgents , other eye witness accounts challenged that. The killed included an old woman.
On November 4, Irom Sharmila a 28 year old girl started a fast unto death demanding repeal of the armed forces special powers act of 1958 which empowered the army to kill without being questioned. She was arrested for attempting to commit suicide and force fed by tubes. For the last ten years, the government repeats the farce of arresting her on the same charge every year, after a formal release for a day or two. This is because the very charge of attempt to suicide does not entail imprisonment of more than one year even if convicted. Irom Sharmila continues to be under arrest till date and is being forcefed.
In 2004, Thangjam Manorama, another Manipuri girl was found dead, brutally killed by the Indian army and this led to hundreds of women protesting ourside army headquarters in Imphal. Forty women, young and old went naked with placards demanding "Indian army, rape us."
And Irom Sharmila continued to fast under arrest, while rest of India has been merrily carrying on with regular elections and cricket. (If Anna Hazare had been on fast during semi finals and finals of world cup , the media would have blissfully ignored him. Timing, my dear friends, Indians and countrymen, is very very important in politics and media. Remember that if Government of India has taken 42 years to draft a Lokpal bill, Anna Hazare also has taken so long to launch a fast unto death on that demand.)
Except for customary casual and superficial mention about Irom Sharmila in their news bulletins whenever an Arundhathi Roy or Mahaswetha devi mentioned her, the entire Indian media has ignored her. Why ? Simple, my dear watsons, it is unpatriotic to question the army or criticize it, even though it may be as corrupt as our politicians and even more brutal than them.
A government bullying its own citizens of an entire state with its army is worse than corruption. This has been going on in North east irrespective of which party holds power in Delhi. The candle vigilantes of the educated middle, upper middle and rich dare not take up issues of human rights violations, or adivasis' traditional right violations. It is the easiest option to shout from the rooftops about corruption while being part of the very same corrupt system in day to day life. And the politician is the favourite whipping boy for these classes.
And is corruption in India waiting only for one single Lok pal bill at the centre to throw it out in entirety ? No. Anna hazare's fast is only for drafting of a water tight bill which would take atleast three to four months, even if the committee of his choice works on it. And once the bill becomes the act, it does not dent corruption a bit unless it is enforced. Enforecement is the responsibility of the same corrupt machinery and system we havc.
And remember we already have enough laws to book the corrupt politicians and public servants. Whatever cases that remain in court against a Lalu Prasad yadav or Jayalalitha or Madhu Koda or Ramalinga Raju or Ketan Desai have been booked under the existing well framed laws.
What we really need is not just a new law but only a honest enforcemenet machinery to implement the best constitution in the world. And such a machinery also unfortunately has to come only from the educated middle, upper middle and rich classes because it is these classes that have produced, protected and perpetuated the existing dishonest enforcement system.
What we need is therefore not a candle light rally around the half dead Anna Hazare but a protest rally outside the houses of auditors, lawyers, doctors and teachers whop have corrupted oru system blaming everything on an imaginary uneducated politician. But lo, they are an indistinguishable but inseperable part of the cacophony of the pseudo war against corruption.
I wish before his martyrdom, someone would first educate Anna Hazare about a place called Manipur and an unsung heroine called Irom Sharmila.
---------------------------------
Gnanisankaran is a tamil writer, columnist, theatreperson and video film maker
Contact at gnanisankaran@gmail.com
.
an eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind - mahatma gandhi
> Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 20:54:27 -0700
> Subject: [HumJanenge] At the risk of heresy ....
> From: sroy.mb@gmail.com
> To: HumJanenge@googlegroups.com
>
> http://www.ummid.com/news/2011/April/09.04.2011/risk_in_lokpal_bll.htm#
>
> Saturday April 09, 2011 10:10:31 PM, Shuddhabrata Sengupta
>
> At the risk of heresy, let me express my profound unease at the
> crescendo of euphoria surrounding the 'Anna Hazare + Jan Lokpal Bill'
> phenomenon as it has unfolded on Jantar Mantar in New Delhi and across
> several hysterical TV stations over the last few days.
>
> This time around, I have to say that the print media has acted (upto
> now) with a degree of restraint that I think is commendable. Partly,
> this has to do with the different natures of the two media. If you
> have to write even five hundred words about the Jan Lokpal bill, you
> run out of platitudes against corruption in the first sentence (and
> who can speak 'for' corruption anyway?) and after that you have to
> begin thinking about what the bill actually says, and the moment you
> do that, you cannot but help consider the actual provisions and their
> implications. On television on the other hand, you never have to speak
> for more than a sound-byte, (and the anchor can just keep repeating
> himself or herself, because that is the anchor's job) and the
> accumulation of pious vox-pop sound bytes 'against corruption' leads
> to a tsunami of 'sentiment' that brooks no dissent.
>
> Between the last NDA government and the current UPA government, we
> have probably experienced a continuity of the most intense degree of
> corruption that this country has ever witnessed. The outcome of the
> 'Anna Hazare' phenomenon allows the ruling Congress to appear gracious
> (by bending to Anna Hazar's will) and the BJP to appear pious (by
> cozying up to the Anna Hazare initiative) and a full spectrum of NGO
> and 'civil society' worthies to appear, as always, even holier than
> they already are.
>
> Most importantly, it enables the current ruling elite to have just
> stage managed its own triumph, by crafting a 'sensitive' response
> (ably deployed by Kapil Sibal) to a television media conjured popular
> upsurge. Meanwhile, the electronic media, by and large, have played
> their part by offering us the masquerade of a 'revolution' – that ends
> up making the state even more powerful than it was before this so
> called 'revolution' began. Some people in the corridors of power must
> be delighted at the smoothness and economy with which all this has
> been achieved. Hosni Mubarak should have taken a few lessons from the
> Indian ruling class about how to have your cake and eat it too on
> Tahrir Square,
>
> We have been here before. Indira Gandhi's early years were full of
> radical and populist posturing, and the mould that Anna Hazare fills
> is not necessarily the one that JP occupied (despite the commentary
> that repeatedly invokes JP). Perhaps we should be reminded of the man
> who was fondly spoken of as 'Sarkari Sant' – Vinoba Bhave. Bhave lent
> his considerable moral stature to the defence of the Internal
> Emergency (which, of course, dressed itself up in the colour of anti-
> corruption, anti-black marketeering rhetoric, to neutralize the anti-
> corruption thrust of the disaffection against Indira Gandhi's regime).
> And while we are thinking about parallels in other times, let us not
> forget a parallel in another time and another place. Let us not forget
> the example of how Mao's helmsmanship of the 'cultural revolution'
> skilfully orchestrated popular discontent against the ruling
> dispensation to strengthen the same ruling dispensation in China.
>
> These are early days, but Anna Hazare may finally go down in history
> as the man who - perhaps against his own instincts and interests – (I
> am not disputing his moral uprightness here) - sanctified the entire
> spectrum of Indian politics by offering it the cosmetic cloak of the
> provisions of the draft Jan Lokpal Bill. The current UPA regime, like
> the NDA regime before it, has perfected the art of being the designer
> of its own opposition. The method is brilliant and imaginative. First,
> preside over profound corruption, then, utilise the public discontent
> against corruption to create a situation where the ruling dispensation
> can be seen as the source of the most sympathetic and sensitive
> response, while doing nothing, simultaneously, to challenge the abuse
> of power at a structural level.
>
> I have studied the draft Jan Lokpal Bill carefully and I find some of
> its features are deeply disturbing. I want to take some time to think
> through why this appears disturbing to me.
>
> The draft Jan Lokpal bill (as present on the website of
> Indiaagainstcorruption.org) foresees a Lokpal who will become one of
> the most powerful institutions of state that India has ever known. It
> will combine in itself the powers of making law, implementing the law,
> and punishing those who break the law. A lokpal will be 'deemed a
> police officer' and can 'While investigating any offence under
> Prevention of Corruption Act 1988, they shall be competent to
> investigate any offence under any other law in the same case.'
>
> The appointment of the Lokpal will be done by a collegium consisting
> of several different kinds of people – Bharat Ratna awardees, Nobel
> prize winners of Indian origin, Magasaysay award winners, Senior
> Judges of Supreme and High Courts, The Chairperson of the National
> Human Rights Commission, The Comptroller and Auditor General of India,
> The Chief Election Commissioner, and members of the outgoing Lokpal
> board and the Chairpersons of both houses of Parliament. It may be
> noticed that in this entire body, only one person, the chairperson of
> the Lok Sabha, is a democratically elected person. No other person on
> this panel is accountable to the public in any way. As for 'Nobel
> Prize Winners of Indian Origin' they need not even be Indian citizens.
> The removal of the Lokpal from office is also not something amenable
> to a democratic process. Complaints will be investigated by a panel of
> supreme court judges.
>
> This is middle class India's dream of subverting the 'messiness' of
> democracy come delightfully true. So, now you have to imagine that
> Lata Mangeshkar (who is a Bharat Ratna), APJ Abul Kalam (Bharat Ratna,
> ex-President and Nuclear Weapons Hawk) V.S. Naipaul (Who is a Nobel
> Prize Winner of Indian Origin) and spectrum of the kinds of people who
> take their morning walks in Lodhi Garden – Supreme Court Judges,
> Election Commissioners, Comptroller & Auditor Generals, NHRC chiefs
> and Rajya Sabha chairmen will basically elect the person who will run
> what may well become the most powerful institution in India.
>
> This is a classic case of a priviledged elite selecting how it will
> run its show without any restraint. It sets the precedent for the
> making of an un accountable 'council of guardians' something like the
> institution of the 'Velayat e Faqih' – a self-selected body of clerics
> – in Iran who act as a super-state body, unrestrained by any
> democratic norms or procedures. I do not understand what qualifies
> Lata Mangeshkar and V.S. Naipaul (whose deeply reactionary views are
> well known) to take decisions about the future of all those who live
> in india.
>
> The setting up of the institution of the Lokpal (as it is envisioned
> in what is held out as the draft Jan Lokpal Bill) needs to be seen,
> not as the deepening, but as the profound erosion of democracy.
>
> I respect the sentiment that brings a large number of people out in
> support of the Jan Lokpal Bill movement. but I do not think there has
> been enough thought given to the implications of the provisions that
> it seeks to make into law. In these circumstances, one would have
> ordinarily expected the media to have played a responsible role by
> acting as a platform for debate and discussion about the issues, so
> that we can move, as a society, towards a better and more nuanced law.
> Instead, the electronic media have killed the possibility of any
> substantive discussion by creating a spectacle. It is absolutely
> imperative that this space be reclaimed by those who are genuinely
> interested in a serious discussion about what corruption represents in
> our society and in our political culture.
>
> Clearly, there is a popular rage, (and not confined to earnest middle
> class people alone) about the helplessness that corruption engenders
> around us. But we have to ask very carefully whether this bill
> actually addresses the structural issues that cause corruption. In
> setting up a super-state body, that is almost self selecting and
> virtually unaccountable, it may in fact laying the foundations of an
> even more intense concentration of power. And as should be clear to
> all of us by now, nothing fosters corruption as much as the
> concentration of unaccountable and unrestrained power.
>
> I am not arguing against the provision of an institution of a Lokpal,
> or Ombudsman, (and some of the provisions even in this draft bill –
> such as the provision of protection for whistle-blowers, are indeed
> commendable) but if we want to take this institution seriously, within
> a democratic political culture, we have to ask whether the methods of
> initiating and concluding the term of office of the Lokpal conforms to
> democratic norms or not. There are many models of selecting Ombudsmen
> available across the world, but I have never come across a situation
> where a country decides that Nobel Prize winners and those awarded
> with state conferred honours can be entrusted with the task selecting
> those entrusted with the power to punish people. I have also never
> come across the merging of the roles of investigator, judge and
> prosecutor within one office being hailed as the triumph of democratic
> values.
>
> Nothing serves power better than the spectacle of resistance. The last
> few days have witnessed an unprecedented choregraphy of the spectacle
> of a united action. As I type this, I am watching visuals on Times
> Now, where a crescendo of cheezy 'inspirational' music strings
> together a montage of flag-waving children speaking in hypnotic
> unison. This kind of unison scares me. It reminds me of the happy
> synchronized calisthenics of the kind that totalitarian regimes love
> to use to produce the figure of their subjects. And all fascist
> regimes begin by sounding the tocsin of 'cleansing' society of
> corruption and evil.
>
> When four Bombay page three worthies, Rishi Kapoor, Prithwish Nandy,
> Anupam Kher, Anil Dharker conduct a shrill inquisition (as they did on
> the Newshour on Times Now) against two co-panelists, Meenakshi Lekhi
> and Hartosh Singh Bal simply because they were not sounding 'cheerful
> and celebratory' (Anupam Kher even disapproved of their 'body
> posture') I begin to get really worried. The day we feel self-
> conscious and inhibited about expressing even non-verbally, or
> silently, our disappointment in public about a public issue, is the
> day when we know that authoritarian values have taken a firm hold on
> public discourse.
>
> Of course, there are other reasons to get worried. All we need now is
> for someone, say like Baba Ramdev (one of the worthies behind Anna
> Hazare's current campaign) to go on a fast on Jantar Mantar in support
> of some draconian and reactionary measure dear to him, backed by
> thousands of pious, earnest television supported, pranayamic middle
> class supporters.
>
> Having said this, lets also pause to consider that Its not as if
> others have not been on hunger strikes before – Irom Sharmila has been
> force fed for several years now – but I do not see her intransigence
> being translated into a tele-visually orchestrated campaign against
> the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. The impunity that AFSPA breeds is
> nothing short of a corruption that eats deep into the culture of
> democracy, and yet, here, moral courage, and the refusal to eat, does
> not seem to work.
>
> The current euphoria needs to be seen for what it is – a massive move
> towards legitimizing a strategy of simple emotional blackmail – a
> (conveniently reversible) method of suicide bombing in slow motion.
> There is no use dissenting against a pious worthy on a fast, because
> any effort to dissent will be immediately read as a callous
> indifference to his/her 'sacrifice' by the moral-earnestness brigade.
> Nothing can be more dangerous for democracy.Unrestrained debate and a
> fealty to accountable processes are the only means by which a
> democratic culture can sustain itself. The force of violence, whether
> it is inflicted on others, or on the self, or held out as a
> performance, can only act coercively. And coercion can never nourish
> democracy.
>
> Finally, if, as a society, we were serious about combating the
> political nexus that sustains corruption – we would be thinking
> seriously about extending the provisions of the Right to Information
> Act to the areas where it can not currently operate – national
> security and defence; we would also think seriously about electoral
> reform – about proportional representation, about smaller
> constituencies, about strengthening local representative bodies, about
> the provision of uniform public funding for candidates and about the
> right to recall elected representatives. These are serious questions.
> The tragedy that we are facing today is that the legitimate public
> outrage against corruption is being channeled in a profoundly
> authoritarian direction that actually succeeds in creating a massive
> distraction.
>
> In all the noise there has been a lot of talk about cynicism, and
> anyone who has expressed the faintest doubt has been branded as a
> cynic. I do not see every expression of doubt in this context as
> cynicism, though some may be. Instead, I see the fact that those who
> often cry hoarse about 'democratic values' seem to be turning a blind
> eye to the authoritarian strains within this draft 'Jan Lokpal Bill'
> as a clear indication of how powerful the politics of cynicism
> actually is.
>
> I hope that eventually, once the din subsides, better sense will
> prevail, and we can all begin to think seriously, un-cynically about
> what can actually be done to combat the abuse and concentration of
> power in our society.
>
> Allow me to pick and choose my revolutions. I am not celebrating at
> Jantar Manta tonight. Good night.
