I have great difficulty in understanding civil society. The compound noun in italics refers to the fast mutating, so-called Team Anna. We have already had Team Anna the original, Team Anna II and now the by-laws for Team Anna III are being developed. What would they demand, who would TAIII target and how would they do it? The last question is too simple a question. Go on yatras or undertake fasts.
Who would they target? This too is a simple question. Politicians. You see, there are no bad boys (girls, good or bad are spared) in India beyond politicians. What would they demand? Rumors are floating about a demand for a law to reject elected representatives on the criterion of non-performance of MPs, MLAs, Sarpanch – indeed, any position filled up through elections. Even university student body office bearers will come under this Jan Reject Bill (JRB). No, the bill will not be rejected but its single-point agenda is REJECT!
TAIII (not yet fully formed but the silhouette shows it to be similar to TAII) will follow up on Anna Hazare’s letter to the prime minster. Yesterday, the breaking news was Manmohan Singh has written to the Union Public Service Commission to sanction an additional scribe, involved full time in replying to Anna Hazare’s letters.
The point to be noted is this: if the prime minister has to approach a government functionary for a small thing like an additional typist/stenographer, would he be able to do anything on TAIII’s demand? No. Then, Manmohan Singh will sit on it. And, that is the strategy. Anna Hazare will go on a fast.
Don’t think this will be the end. Anna Hazare’s stomach will soon start demanding that periodically it must be given rest, just like the brain which seems to have been lying dormant for some time now. Then, after TAIII is successful (not a single TA episode can end in anything other than victory), we will have TAIV, TAV … I thought Rocky is the serial movie master (besides being a monster). No it is Team Anna (and this too is a monster)!
OK, let us agree that the TA serial does come to an end, sometime in the future, not necessarily the near future. If at that time we look at all the changes in governance that have been brought in through TAs’ antics, we will find that willy-nilly the Constitution of India has been serially undermined and it is no more than a skeleton, if that. Then we would wonder why if the unstated purpose of the civil society was to negate the Indian Constitution, they took so long to achieve that. They could have easily called for a second Constituent Assembly, consisting of TAII members and no one else.
That would have saved so much heartburn for all concerned, because of Anna Hazare’s recalcitrant stomach.
Constitution of India, drafted by civil society, 2020.
Then perhaps Indians will have 20/20 (in feet, 6/6 in metres) eyesight, even if it be hindsight.
Raghuram Ekambaram
Who would they target? This too is a simple question. Politicians. You see, there are no bad boys (girls, good or bad are spared) in India beyond politicians. What would they demand? Rumors are floating about a demand for a law to reject elected representatives on the criterion of non-performance of MPs, MLAs, Sarpanch – indeed, any position filled up through elections. Even university student body office bearers will come under this Jan Reject Bill (JRB). No, the bill will not be rejected but its single-point agenda is REJECT!
TAIII (not yet fully formed but the silhouette shows it to be similar to TAII) will follow up on Anna Hazare’s letter to the prime minster. Yesterday, the breaking news was Manmohan Singh has written to the Union Public Service Commission to sanction an additional scribe, involved full time in replying to Anna Hazare’s letters.
The point to be noted is this: if the prime minister has to approach a government functionary for a small thing like an additional typist/stenographer, would he be able to do anything on TAIII’s demand? No. Then, Manmohan Singh will sit on it. And, that is the strategy. Anna Hazare will go on a fast.
Don’t think this will be the end. Anna Hazare’s stomach will soon start demanding that periodically it must be given rest, just like the brain which seems to have been lying dormant for some time now. Then, after TAIII is successful (not a single TA episode can end in anything other than victory), we will have TAIV, TAV … I thought Rocky is the serial movie master (besides being a monster). No it is Team Anna (and this too is a monster)!
OK, let us agree that the TA serial does come to an end, sometime in the future, not necessarily the near future. If at that time we look at all the changes in governance that have been brought in through TAs’ antics, we will find that willy-nilly the Constitution of India has been serially undermined and it is no more than a skeleton, if that. Then we would wonder why if the unstated purpose of the civil society was to negate the Indian Constitution, they took so long to achieve that. They could have easily called for a second Constituent Assembly, consisting of TAII members and no one else.
That would have saved so much heartburn for all concerned, because of Anna Hazare’s recalcitrant stomach.
Constitution of India, drafted by civil society, 2020.
Then perhaps Indians will have 20/20 (in feet, 6/6 in metres) eyesight, even if it be hindsight.
Raghuram Ekambaram
12 comments:
they should fight elections and win..this holding the nation to ransom every time wont do.they are not the keepers of justice.they are becoming a second force even without winning elections.
This was what I had apprehended even at the movement's incipient stages DS sir ... I now feel that my position against TAs is almost prophetic.
There are holding the political class to ransom and it means the nation. They avoid the established procedures. They do not even want to discuss how the procedures could be changed and reestablished (like convene Constituent Assembly II). They want their way or no way. Not good for the nation, for the people, for themselves too.
Thanks a lot.
Raghuram Ekambaram
The so called civil society is quite uncivil in its demand to undermine the Constitutional provisions.AH has his limitations, though his heart might be in the right place. He is being used by his team who want to yield vicarious power without being elected and owning responsibility which getting elected would imply. They are as unconstitutional entities as they make them. Agree with your apprehensions, Raghu.
Aditi, that is great! But, can you actually make, "unconstitutional entities"? That is the best left hook TA has received so far! Thanks a lot.
Raghuram Ekambaram
Raghu, there are no dearths of unconstitutional entities wanting to rule by proxy, D. I have no great faith in the integrity of Team Anna either.
Kiran Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal have both, in their time, misused Government positions. Kiran Bedi's daughter took up a seat for medicine against the quota for Mizos, a seat which she was forced to give up later in view of large scale local protests.Kiran Bedi never surrendered her Government accommodation in Delhi throughout her career even when she was posted out. If you ask officers who are Bedi's contemporary,Bedi always saw photo-op projecting herself in every posting, exact opposite of what the quintessential civil servants were meant to be, nameless and faceless, supporting the system.
Kejriwal, an Indian Revenue Service officer, took study leave. During study leave, the officers draw full salary. The leave is granted only to officers with sufficient number of years of service left, so that the Government can get the benefit of services of the officer at least for 3 years after he completes the study leave. But Kejriwal lacked integrity towards his employers, he took study leave, returned, floated a NGO and remained absent from office (later regularised the absence as extra-ordinary leave, that is, leave without pay). He sent his resignation after 3 years. Now he has the cheek to apprach the media to say that he did nothing 'technically' wrong, and even has the lawyer team member Prashant Bhushan backing him on this 'technicality'. Charity begins at home, Kejriwal should pay up the amount the Government spent on him during the study leave.
So called civil society members need to hold a mirror on to themselves as well, if you ask me.
Thanks for the wonderful details! They are not wonderful because they take the self-appointed self-righteous down. The details show how some people are better able to project themselves as Simon Pure when they actually are not. My "left hook" idiom comes out of what I have read about Muhammed Ali's boxing fights jab ... jab ... jab ... jab and a big LEFT HOOK, delivered under the chin. It was devastating then, just as both comments are here, now.
Raghuram Ekambaram
Raghuram, some kind of a movement was needed at this time to curtail corruption at high levels in Indian politics. To that extent I support Anna. But I have also been a critic of his in his stubbornness about his Bill... I think Arvind Kejriwal has a brain that is no match with the politicians' crooked brains. He is manipulating the entire movement. He might be the dictator in the end, not Anna.
Matheikal, how would it matter who in the end is the dictator? It is dictatorship that we should we wary of, and in fact the steps leading to it. I saw this slippery slope at the beginning of the so-called movement. I have, in my arsenal so to say the example of Aruna Roy and her MKSS (Mazdoor Kissan ...) and her contributions to the RTI movement, the activists of the Forest Rights bill and other such progressive movemnts. They were built brick by brick and are still standing. That is what I would have liked in the issue of corruption too.
Hazare may at bet be the "mask" of another exploitative movement.
Raghuram Ekambaram
No, I'm not a supporter of Kejriwal at all. I detest dictatorship of any sort. I was only trying to put up my view on the Anna movement.
I understood that Matheikal; my point, not well made, was we should avoid coloring the movement by the name and images (for example, the Gandhi topi; the faster we get rid of it the better it would be for us and more importantly for Gandhi too!) of the projected personality - in this case, the supposedly passivist Anna Hazare.
Raghuram Ekambaram
I fully support AH (not meant to offend any organ in the body) and his team. They should be consulted even on budget, how the UID card should look like, etc. Even they should be consulted on foreign policy. After all they have a huge support, the total support base across the country does not exceed a mid sized lok sabha constituency is another matter. If there is something more uncivil than this civil society please let me know
AMEN to everything you said, Balu. Thanks.
Raghuram Ekambaram
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