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 !
VISION OF LOKEPAL; NARROW OR COMPREHENSIVE?
Indeed Lokepal
Bill is a step ahead yet it has only presented tip of ice berg. If corruption
could only be defined as grafting then Anti- corruption Act of 1988 was sufficient.
And if corruption is now only (deliberately) described in few dimensions such
as ‘black money’ and bribery then such mass movements which the Team Anna has
been able to muster is enough. Whereas if we define or observe the concept of
corruption as mentioned above, then definitely we have to go beyond the narrow
vision of Team Anna and attack on the root cause of corruption. Though the
reality of LOKEPAL BILL is that it is only at the level of enforcement of law
and punishment for the guilty of doing ill
defined corruption. It is not at the level of its genesis which is of
extreme importance. For corruption to stop we have to understand the root cause
of it and its multidimensional existence in the country especially after
INTRODUCTION OF LPG in 1991. Corruption did exist before opening of the
Indian markets of course. Bofors Scam, 1986 German submarine scam, 1976 oil
scam etc. What we want to emphasis here is that intensity, frequency and
harm which the Scams have done after introduction of LPG such as that of Reddy
brothers is much more than ever seen before. Also it must be noted that
when Narsima Rao government presented the logic to dilute or privatise Public
Sector Unions they claimed that corruption is not Individual phenomena but it
is structural phenomenon and hence need is to change the structure. But now
when the so-called open market structure has brought havoc to the country,
towards each and every section of the society be it middle class or peasantry
or workers or students and it also escalated corruption to manifolds. Now the
same government is saying that this corruption is NOT structural phenomenon but
individual phenomenon and lack of moral responsibility, as is expressed
directly or indirectly by team ANNA. ! How wise?
The reason of increase in discontent of
masses and the narrow attitude towards its causes-
It can be very clearly noted that this
‘anti-corruption’ movement represents wide spread discontent amongst the people.
Their resentment because of widespread unemployment, inflation, high costs of
education, indebtedness, retrenchment etc is reflected in this movement. The
reason that masses have participated in this movement is not only ‘corruption’
but also Liberalisation, Privatisation, Globalisation and reactionary feudal
forces.
As the main propelling force of this movement is
one section of middle and upper middle classes which also got temporary
benefits from LPG. Hence they are reluctant to raise the question of Corporate
loot, and LPG policy as structural root cause of increase in the corruption. It
may be noted that in the year of 2009 when UPA government managed to pass the
INDO-US nuclear deal in parliament, the above mentioned section from middle class
jumped up and down in delight only to find later on that all the votes in the
favour of DEAL were bought and money forwarded was 25 crores per MP as was
exposed by TEHLKA with the help of so obvious proofs and a sting operation. But
not a single member of the so called Civil Society mentioned it in any
statement, it is here where the difference lies, such tilt in the policy in
favour of IMF’s and WTO’s demands, the dilution of PSUs like that of HMT and
selling off of indigenous factories like RANBAXY, the Privatization of
Education and Universities so much so that it goes out of the reach of common
man etc. Is this not CORRUPTION? We must
not dance around the bushes but hit the target.
Question of “Black Money in Foreign Banks”
-
One of the
idea forwarded before was that government should bring back the “Black Money” from
foreign banks and this was one of the demands of Ramdev agitation and is also
supported by team Anna. But 1st of all we question that how does
this money goes in the accounts of foreign banks? There have been absolutely no
mention on this mechanism of ‘wealth drainage’ from India. The great illegal mining
and selling off of Indian natural resources such as coal and bauxite on very
cheap rates to foreign companies, we find no mention of this Corporate loot of
Indian resources. Is this systematic drainage of Indian resources to foreign
companies by the unholy nexus of Politicians-bureaucrats- Corporates not
CORRUPTION ? Also the big business houses of India such as Jindals, Mittals,
DLF etc in India have been misusing the beurocratic and political loopholes in
purchasing wide natural resources, grabing lands etc, is this not CORRUPTION ?
Land Grab as one of the most Vibrant form
of structural Corruption -
It is also
questioned that right after introduction of LPG the governments has started
encroaching over the lands of peasants in every nook and corner of the country other
than Nandigram and Singur - Srikakulam , Jaitapur, Naioda and now recently in
our vicinity- Mansa and Bathinda. True that now after two decades of bloody
land wars between poor peasants and governments when lots of blood have been
shed by peasants for their lands, government has finally agreed to make some
changes in the old Colonial Land Acquisition Act. So does not innumerable cases
of corporate land grab and police repression and virtually no infrastructure to
re-hablitate those peasant families whose land has been acquired a big example
of STRUCTURAL CORRUPTION? From 2005 government have been delaying the passing
of this bill but still in 2011 we only listen the rumors that government is
‘introducing’ such a bill! And now recently Prime Minister Manmohan Singh very
shrewdly has declared that now govt will have to take some ‘tough stands’ if we
have to make 9% growth and one of his tough stand regarding the land
acquisition bill. And the tough stand is that the definition of ‘public
purpose’ in order to grab the land from poor peasants must be re-defined in the
favour of corporates! Now the question is- Is
this not one great corrupt or anti-people, anti-poor plan government wants to
implement?
ROLE OF MEDIA:-
Indian media,
especially electronics media too have played a good positive role in this whole
scenario of movement against the corruption. We welcome this and it is
commendable. But one another question which comes in mind is that why does not
the other mass movements which are much wider and involve rather much bigger
sections of the society are not highlighted with same enthusiasm like the Anna
movement? That the issue of Punjab peasants and their struggle now going on
against the Govt’s illegal land grab, the issue of the strike of Hero-Honda
workers in Gurgaon 2005, the (deliberate) black out of VOTE for CASH Scam where
Indian govt virtually sold Indian Sovereignty in foreign hands etc. Why are not
these so obviously important issues does not get same attention like that of
Anna’s movement? In our viewpoint the role and tilt of media is also
questionable! We must not blindly follow every word that media says and must
apply prudence in order to stand for the TRUTH and DEMOCRACY.
NECESSITY TO BUILD A WIDER MOVEMENT AGAINST
CORRUPTION:-
It is highly
important to reach at the root cause of corruption. And to build a movement not
only against corruption but also against anti-people policies like LPG and
reactionary feudal forces. Only then we can achieve success in ‘second struggle of independence’. If we
failed to build the movement against such policies and limit this fight then
this struggle will go in the bag of corrupt leaders like BADAL and CHAUTALA and
MODI or the fascist forces will utilize this movement which are trying to be in
frontlines of the movement for their own communal and cheap political gains.
Also we must not let this movement to bear the character of only anti-congress
movement. WE SUPPORT THIS MASS MOVEMENT
AGAINST CORRUPTION YET WE APPEAL TO MASSES TO SHARPEN AND PROPEL THIS MASS
UPSURGE TOWARDS ENDING THE ROOT CAUSES OF THIS PROBLEM.
Contact us at:- sfs@studentsforsociety.co.in
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PRESIDENT SFS, Chandigarh – AMANDEEP SINGH
PRESIDENTS SFS, PEC Unit – PRADEEP SINGH
PRESIDSENT SFS, PU Unit – RAMINDER SINGH