SFS 2nd Conference

SFS 2nd Conference

Friday, September 2, 2011

CORRUPTION and LOKPAL BILL : A RATIONALE



 The uproar of Indian Middle class in the form of protests and rallies to the side of Anna Hazare has 1st of all rattled the arrogance of UPA govt. The Lokpal Bill which has been introduced many a time in Indian Parliament again met with deadlock as the provisions of bill introduced by govt were quiet suspicious and Team Anna named it “Jokepal bill”. UPA expressed its true colours when it denied the constitutional and democratic right to protest and Anna Hazare was arrested even before sitting for fast in Delhi only to allow the same later on while collapsing under the public pressure. Almost all of the middle class echoed its voice against   ‘corruption’, yet the question is WHAT IS CORRUPTION ?

CORRUPTION: A MULTIDIMENSIONAL PHENOMENON:-
Is corruption only ‘bribery’ or some sort of ‘dishonesty’ or a very narrow concept we call ‘graft’ as purported by Team Anna? No, this question is not limited to individual’s morality, rather it is multidimensional structural problem of Neo-Liberal Policies adopted by Govt after 1991 we call LPG. The vicious corporate greed has given birth to this multiplication of corruption. In the 2G Spectrum Scam, Commonwealth Scam, Satyam Scam, Reddy brothers Scam etc the main plotters and beneficiaries of all these have been Corporates. In this whole movement till now the roots of corruption has not been exposed and targeted which is the unholy nexus of Corporates, Politicians and Bureaucrats. The political groups and personalities leading this ‘ant-corruption’ movement have deliberately not touched the issue for it may open the Pandora’s box. Fearing that such mass movements always do have the capacity to rise the socio-political consciousness of people which may lead society towards social change. The same is not intended by the direct and indirect political actors such as Badals, Chautalas, BJP etc involved, but only a mass movement in order to tilt the scale of vote bank.
Corruption in our view point is much bigger a entity merely than that of grafting, bribery or dishonesty. Corruption is any such idea, act, regulation, plan or policy by individual or any agency or government which are sure to harm, befool, exploit or repress people in any form. Such regulations, plans, policies which hamper the overall Democratic environment and denies people their rights is corruption.
And when we comprehensively define and describe the phenomena called CORRUPTION we may realize how small and narrow the vision of the ANNA movement is. Not incorrect yet too narrow !