End of Reason?

First, there was monarchy, where a ruler ruled mostly by force, owned national property, had right to collect taxes but no accountability, and was mostly hereditary. Citizens rarely had a chance to elect/ select/ nominate the rulers.

Then came the Roman Republic, where the senate was nominated/ elected, but mostly by the patricians, the landed gentry.

Then came parliamentary democracy, where people elected their rulers, both local and national, who framed laws and also formed part of the executive.

Parallelly, judiciary was envisaged and established to judge crimes and disputes and enforce laws. Further it was taken out of the influence of legislature and executive to ensure its independence.

That has been the path to the present system. And it is more or less similar across all developed and even a large number of democratic developing countries.

India is a fragmented country – regionally, linguistically, culturally and religiously. At the time of the birth of modern India, Western skeptics believed that it will not sustain as an integral state. But it has survived and grown stronger. The magic glue that bonds this entity is its democracy, its commitment to uphold the institution. Only once in the history of the modern India, in 1975, was it subverted, and the perpetrator suffered the wrath of the people at the hustings.

As a society, as a polity, our moral fibre has been weak for centuries now. In an earlier article I had written about how citizens ignore their own misdemeanors and breaches of law but pounce on the politicians as if the politicians came in a space ship from a different planet. This is hypocritical, escapist and gravely wrong. But batting for political class has never been easy in any part of the world at any point of time, and especially when you are amidst one of the most corrupt lot in recent times. In the backdrop of large scale political corruption, and raging inflation the emotions on the street are understandable.

But blaming it on the weakness of an actually strong and robust system is the second layer of error. We need to understand that creating one more layer of governance is not a panacea because as a corrupt society, we have the pernicious ability to undermine that institution as well. Thus it is unlikely that it is going to be a long term solution. A society, which has thrown up immoral political leaders and corrupted judges, can corrupt the ombudsman and her team as well.

If that ‘civil society’, comprising of 1.5 million people ‘represent’ 1.1 billion citizens, outside the extant norms of democracy, and the media believe it to be so, and thus the government finally capitulates, so be it. But this is not a “permanent” solution, and will have finite and perhaps limited shelf life if we do not change ourselves.

In terms of legislations, a more permanent one has been legislated in recent years. Citizen’s right to know the actions and the thoughts behind those actions, of the executive is an immutable and inalienable right. It is also immensely empowering, even within the present system as has been borne out in our recent experience. While it has not been easy to get the present day RTI legislations enacted, it was done through sustained advocacy and discussion (hallmarks of a developed state), without subverting the fulcrum of our sovereign existence - the parliamentary democracy. Without any brinksmanship, any hullaballoo, any street melodrama and any concentrated public focus on one individual. In fact Aruna Roy got more news print in airing her differences on Jan Lokpal, than her immense contribution towards bringing out RTI.

What is being set here is a dangerous precedent. I do not need to spell it out here, as it has already been outlined by various people who understand the risks of this (here is a sample). And what is being sought, is flawed, and at best temporary.

I am worried and sad about the celebrity worshipping, escapist and herd mentality of the TV watching and Newspaper reading urban milieu. In place of introspection and self correction, what is happening here is witch hunt in the wrong presumption that the political class is completely born and bred in isolation and then imposed upon the hapless citizens who have pristine morals which then gets completely subverted by these extraterrestrials. This cannot bode well in the long run.

My friends on the other side say that “This is the beginning.” I can’t help but agree (disagreeing is not healthy in these days of “either you are with us or against us”). But I am not sure this is the beginning of what. End of reason?

Jan Lokpal Bill - Us and Them

Like all sane and sensible citizen, I am against corruption. Thus, in principle I really do not have anything against Anna Hazare or Arvind Kejriwal and their associates and patrons. However, I have a slightly different take on these mega anti corruption waves, or more anti-politician wave that we see from time to time.


I think, as a civil society we have a found an easy scapegoat in the political class to carry all our sins. As if our pronouncement is that the politicians are a complete different species, having 24 pairs of chromosomes while normal human beings have 23 (dogs – 78, chimpanzee – 48, tomato – 24). We have conveniently ignored the fact that politicians come from the same milieu that we form and belong to. Thus as individuals and as a group, we have become outwardly critical and carping, rather than being introspective, honest and corrective.

While the big corruption of the political class is not to be absolved by any means, ignoring the small but pernicious and seeping misdemeanors of the common man (irrespective of the socio economic strata) in their day to day lives is a bigger risk. Our whole approach has become to correct the design defect of a skyscraper after it has been fully erected and inhabited. I am afraid, that is not a sensible approach, and beware, the casualties will be high.

It is well known that the various super luxury vehicles belonging to a number of Mumbai-Pune based mega industrialists regularly travel at close to 200 kmph on the good stretches of the Mumbai Pune Expressway, traumatizing, few rare drivers in the middle lane, who are trying to obey the speed limits. Where is the influence of political class in this?

Where is the politician, when people break traffic rules – cars breaking signals, stopping on zebra crossings, pedestrians crossing the road at busy junctions on foot in spite of existence of footbridge and subways, pedestrians walking on the road, in spite of some nice pavements which have come up in parts of south Mumbai? Where is the politician when the residents of a chawl dump their garbage regularly on the road, because the nearest garbage bin is 200 mtrs away? Where is the dirty scumbag politician when the paan chewing multitudes of all economic class defile the country without any remorse or second thought? Where is the politician, when the celebs who are standing next to Anna giving voice to his movement and sharing the glory, go back and pay and accept cash as compensation to avoid tax?

Educated urban middle class is the hallowed group which holds the responsibility of being honest and upholding the value system of the society. And it is this class which has taken to air travel in the last decade in a big way. So, when the air hostess announces to switch off the mobile phone, which politician exhorts the executive, the businessman, the good mother and housewife to keep chattering till the plane takes off and then again just before the wheels have touched down? Where is that scoundrel politician in this scene? Who is to be blamed when my engineer, MBA colleague says that “I prefer corruption as an efficiency tax than no action at all” ? Where is the politician when academics eulogise jugaad as our source of innovativeness?

And we expect that one severely flawed, concentrating, counter-democratic and unsuitable bill for a large country like India will solve our entire corruption problem? While the entire society goes about breaking the small rules and laws that small people can break, we believe that putting another law to stop the misdemeanors of the big and powerful will solve our problem of corruption forever? We believe that “our” corruptions, because they are minor (perhaps because we do not have the opportunity to indulge in bigger corruption or we lack the unpardonable daring and chutzpah to commit acts of big corruption) are not of any import, but the corruption of politicians are completely unconnected to the utterly debased moral fibre of the larger society and polity. If politicians were a homogeneously separate species than us, perhaps there refrain would be, “Wah Chachu, tumhara pyaar pyaar, aur hamara pyar sex?”

A society, which has misinterpreted its fundamental advice from its scripture and ignored the probity of means just to justify the goals, and such mindset, which has been exacerbated by last two decades of unbridled materialism and personal profit seeking, will continue to generate politicians, bureaucrats and corporate executives, who are nefarious, corrupt and criminal. A society which does not follow rules will get rulers who do not follow rules. A polity deserves the leaders it chooses.

Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal should ponder over this and exhort their followers to look inward, and around themselves and bring about the changes at home and neighborhood first. Without that, RTI will just become a tool of self seeking motives, and such mega events of fasting, will just be flashes in the pan and festivities for the flower children.