Not just like Gandhi
Sep. 13th, 2011 07:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nairiporterThere was a text message circulating around India these days, explaining what could happen if the country somehow manages to defeat corruption and get back the billions of cash that is now in foreign banks. It said: "India's borders will become more solid than the Chinese wall. We will build 28 thousand first-class highways like in France. We can build houses for 100 million people, 1500 universities like Oxford and 2000 free hospitals." It sounds like utopia but it really reflects the moods in India. It also explains how come a 74 year old activist called Anna Hazare and his hunger crusade against wide-spread bribery and abuse of power was able to call comparisons to Mahatma Gandhi and bring the Indian government to its knees.
The third biggest Asian economy really has a very serious problem with corruption. For the last year alone a number of scandals broke out, all of them related to bribes and fraud, involving the parliament, the media, the bulding sector, the telecoms, the mining industry, the hospitals, the media and even sports. Such stories like the one about the delivery of toilet paper rolls worth 80 thousand dollars a piece on the Commonwealth Games in Delhi and giving licenses to mobile operators without any audition and at ridiculous prices that harmed the country with 40 billion dollars... this is only the visible face of corruption. But it goes much deeper. Corruption is everywhere in the life of the ordinary Indian citizen, from the cradle to the grave. They pay a bribe to obtain a birth certificate and to get a death certificate. They pay all their life. And for what? For people that are granted for free in most other countries.
The website IpaidBribe.com is very telling for the extent where small-scale every-day corruption has reached. A retired top ranking state official launched it last year. It shares thousands of anonymously submitted personal stories of payment under the table in hospitals, traffic police, passport services, estate register, visas, or even for getting tickets for the express train. Last year Transparency International places India 87th in their corruption index ranking, 9 positions behind China. The scale of the problem is seen from the recent KPMG research which concluded that endemic corruption repulses foreign investors and is one of the main threats for economic growth in India.
All of this explains why Anna Hazare and his anti-corruption campaign has touched a nerve in Indian society, especially some parts of it, mainly the middle class. They have come to a point where they are utterly disgusted from what's going on. And Hazare has captured that sentiment.
Indeed, in India hunger strike is a regular form of protest and has become something like a national tradition (Hazare himself has done 16 hunger strikes since 1980). But now for the first time he has attracted so much attention and followers, and he has become a national icon. Last August, after long negotiations with the government (and after losing 6 kilos) he gained enormous influence. Back then he ended his 13 day hunger protest, but he threatened that he would do it again if the authorities in Delhi didn't keep the promises they had given him.
The unprecedented compromise between government and activist became possible after both sides made a step back from their initial positions. The government agreed to create a position called anti-corruption ombudsman, as Hazare insisted. But they refused to do it until the end of August, which was the deadline that the self-proclaimed guru had given them. They also refused to give the new institution some rights to investigate the prime minister and other top federal officials.
So Hazare did not achieve a full triumph but still, his victory is significant. It's thanks to three reasons: the popularity of his cause, his personal story and the inadequate and clumsy response from the government. First it attempted (without success) to make Hazare look like a corrupted hypocrite, then they suspected a US interference in his campaign, and on top of that they arrested them on the day he announced he would be starting his hunger strike. All of this only helped him gain the status of a martyr and it increased the publicity of his campaign. From there, there were very few options left to the government but to negotiate.
His followers have called him a modern Mahatma Gandhi, who isn't standing against the colonial rule but against the tyranny of corruption. But his critics are warning that people should be cautious about these comparisons, because despite his asceticism and his white garments, Hazare is far from being a saint. For instance when three men from his village broke the ban on alcohol that he had imposed, he tied them to the pillars of a temple and flogged them with his own belt. Meanwhile, Hazare's tactic may resemble Gandhi's but the spirit is different. While the legendary national hero of India was fighting the British empire, today's activist is trying to blackmail the authorities and to dicate laws to a democratically elected parliament and government, his critics say. The personality cult he has created about himself is also kind of disturbing, as well as his absurd slogan "Anna is India and India is Anna".
The cure he is proposing to heal the country of corruption is also controversial. Many analysts are warning that the powerful anti-corruption agency that he wants to see created, is not only risking to become a sort of Gestapo, but it would in turn create the next huge bureaucratic machine, which defeats the very purpose of his cause. In India it is very difficult for a politician to lead a campaign against corruption, because the general sentiment is that all parties are involved in corruption, without exception. But since the campaign has already begun, in a parliamentary democracy the politicians are the people who should lead it to some result, even if they have to endure spectacular and dramatic gestures, Gandhi-style.
The third biggest Asian economy really has a very serious problem with corruption. For the last year alone a number of scandals broke out, all of them related to bribes and fraud, involving the parliament, the media, the bulding sector, the telecoms, the mining industry, the hospitals, the media and even sports. Such stories like the one about the delivery of toilet paper rolls worth 80 thousand dollars a piece on the Commonwealth Games in Delhi and giving licenses to mobile operators without any audition and at ridiculous prices that harmed the country with 40 billion dollars... this is only the visible face of corruption. But it goes much deeper. Corruption is everywhere in the life of the ordinary Indian citizen, from the cradle to the grave. They pay a bribe to obtain a birth certificate and to get a death certificate. They pay all their life. And for what? For people that are granted for free in most other countries.
The website IpaidBribe.com is very telling for the extent where small-scale every-day corruption has reached. A retired top ranking state official launched it last year. It shares thousands of anonymously submitted personal stories of payment under the table in hospitals, traffic police, passport services, estate register, visas, or even for getting tickets for the express train. Last year Transparency International places India 87th in their corruption index ranking, 9 positions behind China. The scale of the problem is seen from the recent KPMG research which concluded that endemic corruption repulses foreign investors and is one of the main threats for economic growth in India.
All of this explains why Anna Hazare and his anti-corruption campaign has touched a nerve in Indian society, especially some parts of it, mainly the middle class. They have come to a point where they are utterly disgusted from what's going on. And Hazare has captured that sentiment.
Indeed, in India hunger strike is a regular form of protest and has become something like a national tradition (Hazare himself has done 16 hunger strikes since 1980). But now for the first time he has attracted so much attention and followers, and he has become a national icon. Last August, after long negotiations with the government (and after losing 6 kilos) he gained enormous influence. Back then he ended his 13 day hunger protest, but he threatened that he would do it again if the authorities in Delhi didn't keep the promises they had given him.
The unprecedented compromise between government and activist became possible after both sides made a step back from their initial positions. The government agreed to create a position called anti-corruption ombudsman, as Hazare insisted. But they refused to do it until the end of August, which was the deadline that the self-proclaimed guru had given them. They also refused to give the new institution some rights to investigate the prime minister and other top federal officials.
So Hazare did not achieve a full triumph but still, his victory is significant. It's thanks to three reasons: the popularity of his cause, his personal story and the inadequate and clumsy response from the government. First it attempted (without success) to make Hazare look like a corrupted hypocrite, then they suspected a US interference in his campaign, and on top of that they arrested them on the day he announced he would be starting his hunger strike. All of this only helped him gain the status of a martyr and it increased the publicity of his campaign. From there, there were very few options left to the government but to negotiate.
His followers have called him a modern Mahatma Gandhi, who isn't standing against the colonial rule but against the tyranny of corruption. But his critics are warning that people should be cautious about these comparisons, because despite his asceticism and his white garments, Hazare is far from being a saint. For instance when three men from his village broke the ban on alcohol that he had imposed, he tied them to the pillars of a temple and flogged them with his own belt. Meanwhile, Hazare's tactic may resemble Gandhi's but the spirit is different. While the legendary national hero of India was fighting the British empire, today's activist is trying to blackmail the authorities and to dicate laws to a democratically elected parliament and government, his critics say. The personality cult he has created about himself is also kind of disturbing, as well as his absurd slogan "Anna is India and India is Anna".
The cure he is proposing to heal the country of corruption is also controversial. Many analysts are warning that the powerful anti-corruption agency that he wants to see created, is not only risking to become a sort of Gestapo, but it would in turn create the next huge bureaucratic machine, which defeats the very purpose of his cause. In India it is very difficult for a politician to lead a campaign against corruption, because the general sentiment is that all parties are involved in corruption, without exception. But since the campaign has already begun, in a parliamentary democracy the politicians are the people who should lead it to some result, even if they have to endure spectacular and dramatic gestures, Gandhi-style.
