If I were to believe the hysterical news channels one is subjected to these days, there is a revolution afoot. Apparently the not so successful blackmail tactic from your childhood(I will not eat till you change my name to April Rose?) is getting a second life. So what if it didn’t work with the parents, it works with the government. And therefore, I invite you to join me tomorrow in a fast unto being-fed-with-a-tube to protest against the harsh summers and the tanning that it brings. We must not let all that Fair and Lovely go waste.
Ok, ok, enough with the bad jokes. This is a serious matter. It’s a fight against corruption, the perennial bane of Indian society and business across the world. The Indian Jasmine revolution(the media have really outdone themselves - no, not really). The middle class revolution (as against the low class ones we see ever so often) Oh! How they kid themselves. The Indian middle class is not comprised of 50 odd people in every small city and a slightly higher number in the metros. The people who form these noisy groups holding up banners in support of Anna’s jasmine fast are mostly, social butterflies(yes Anupam Kher, I am talking about YOU), social activists (who don’t have much work anyway) and students – again no work and too young and starry eyed to know better (My 73rd b’day was last weekend, thanks!)
I don’t enjoy peeing over everyone’s optimism (or maybe I do, but that’s another story all together) But I don’t get it. So after this, a bill will be passed and we will get a super-duperman who will wipe away corruption from all our systems like--- Did I get that script right? I am sorry I don’t buy it. That only happens in Mithunda movies. (Ok maybe in Rajni movies too.) But real life doesn’t have as many bad dialogues, pretty heroines and nice endings. So here is how the thing will end in real life. Remember all the corrupt people, the ones he is against? They are corrupt for a reason. They have power. So rest assured, these villains will find a way of letting the air out of super-duperman. And that’s the nice part of the story. The pother part is the scenario where super-duperman trounces all. And that’s only because he is a bigger crook than the rest of them.
How naïve are we? What makes us think that an all powerful Lokpal will solve all our problems? The same person as prosecutor and also the judge? That sounds dangerous to me. We have enough number of people who are answerable to no one at all. And look where that has gotten us.
On the night we won the World Cup (Yes congratulations everybody, all your efforts, the not bathing, the sitting in the same clothes, paid off) I was on my way home when we had to stop for a while to let a bunch of hooligans pass. You know the kind, too drunk to drive, holding up their finger (you know which one) at the cop on duty, hooting for no reason etc. That’s when it hit me. We deserve all this. The politicians with criminal records, the corruption, all of it. Yes, Indian democracy is best viewed from a traffic signal in the hindi heartland. As a nation of bribe givers and income tax evaders (and these are some of the nicer things we do) we deserve every bit of corrupt neta that we get. Every MLA, every MP is elected not only by us but also from us. And so naturally, they represent us in every sense of the word.
(On a side note, this happened again. With the Great Indian Jasmine Fast and Random Sloganeering people got the right to randomly stop traffic, accost passersby, walk through busy junctions and even eve tease. When your cause is noble, civic sense doesn’t matter.)
Anyway, back to the problem. We see the problem only at the highest levels. We want to solve it also only at the highest levels. Or at least beginning at the highest levels. The problem of corruption is an endemic one. We like to believe just the powerful few who are corrupt. But the fact is that most of us, given the power that they have, would probably do equally unspeakable stuff. So appointing a super-duperman is about as good as wishing our problems away. Unfortunately, holding a candle light march doesn’t hold a candle to actual work.
We have beaten social evils in the past. There was Sati, the way we treated our widows, the caste system in Kerala to cite a few. There were failures too, I won’t deny that. I don’t know that the status of corruption was under the British, but I am guessing that the majority of us were too poor so it wasn’t what it is to. We beat some customs which had been the part of the fabric of our society for quite a few decades at the very least. Most of the time what helped us is the people who attacked the root of the problems and not the just rules that the British had against these. Men, good strong men ( not to mention sane) role models like Raja Ram Mohan Roy and an Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, talked about the problems and showed people why they were wrong. Talked till someone listened and some of them realized what horrible ways they were treating others and some other realized what beastly treatment was being metted out to them. The Official acts came after the real change and that is why it worked.
So where did we lose the plot? Is it because our social reformers have been replaced by Social activists? Sometimes I wonder how social activists are any better than armchair critics like me. We like our 15 minutes of fame. We like to challenge the big guys. What we don’t realize is that behind him, in his shadows is another one just like him, or worse, waiting to take his place. But hey, lets be David for a day. Besides do you know how much time and effort the actual reform takes?Phhffft!
Aye, I concur!
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