Remember Nineteen Eighty-Four? Not the anti-Sikh riots but the book written by George Orwell?

In that book the government controls and monitors your every action, your every thought, and every aspect of your life. Everywhere there are human and technological spies monitoring whatever you do.

The same thing seems to be happening with the latest effort of the government to monitor content on the Internet on the basis of what is “objectionable”, “defamatory”, or whatever label the so-called government is uncomfortable with.

To be frank, the Internet scares the shit out of them, especially after WikiLeaks, the unshackled conversations over Twitter and Facebook and social networking-supported civic unrests. And it’s not just the government; all the agencies, may it be bureaucracy, the conventional mainstream media and the old school businesses that thrive on people’s inability to communicate with each other, would like to throttle the free flow of information on the Internet. Precisely this is the reason why there is no hue and cry on TV channels on the government’s new censorship drive.

Wondering what’s the big deal?

According to the new Information Technology Guidelines notified by the government

• Your Internet service provider must store your every online activity-related data that the government agencies can access any time without notification or without you ever knowing it
• All your private conversations via e-mail and Skype (and communications via other platforms) will be accessible to the government agencies
• All your private photographs and messages will be available to the babus
• If your content on your blog or Facebook or anywhere else is found “objectionable” it has to be taken down within 36 hours
• Anyone can say that your content is “defamatory” and get it removed from the World Wide Web
• Your every tweet, every Facebook post, every video, every search on Google (and other search engines), everything is going to be monitored

The government has invested Rs. 450 crores (yes, your money) to track the undersea cables for encrypted data and more than 53 modules have already been established. It means, while I’m typing this blog post, this might already be monitored and I may have to take it down in case some nut case finds it objectionable.

This is not just an India specific problem. In the name of SOPA there are efforts also in the USA to censor the Internet and many of the Arabian countries have already convinced the rest of the world why the Internet is to be censored.

The Internet censorship is more nefarious compared to  the usual censorship because no media has impacted the world as the Internet. It is now cliched, but had Facebook been a country, it would have been the third most populated country in the world, so you can very well imagine why even the biggest governments feel sort of powerless in front of its reach. Another problem (from the control freak government’s point of view) is that you no longer have to depend on computers and laptops in order to access the Internet and social networking applications. You can interact on Twitter and Facebook even from cheapest mobile phones these days. You can even post blog posts from your smart phones. It hardly takes a few seconds for the news to spread across the country, whether you are in a train, in a bus, having lunch, having a poop, or whatever you are doing. Hence, the zeal to control it, to censor it, to severe its most important vein — freedom of expression.

Can you stop it?

You can only stop it with collective effort. Make it more damaging for the government to censor the Internet. In India it might be difficult because there is just a small portion of the population that is active on the Internet and it might not be a vote bank but were it so insignificant, why would the government try to choke it? It certainly feels threatened. It certainly has an impact.

To begin with, you can sign this online petition against the government’s new diktat. You can also approach your local MPs and MLAs and your representatives and convey to them what you think of this censorship drive (realistically, I’m not too optimistic of this approach).

Write against it on your blog. In fact, I’m going to link from this blog post to all the blog posts and articles written on this subject.

Create online forums to discuss the matter.

I mean, do whatever you want to do, but do something. Once the damage is done, it will be nearly impossible to undo it.

Related reading

• How India made it easy for everyone to play internet censor
• इंटरनेट की अभूतपूर्व निगरानी शुरू
• What’s behind India’s Internet censorship?

China has been a regional thorn for India ever since the 1962 war. India took a severe beating (due to Jawahar Lal Nehru’s shortsightedness and the foreign policy ridden with a personal agenda) in that war. India’s military power has improved tremendously since then, but obviously it cannot match China’s might due to its sheer size. China knows this.

Aside from repeatedly crossing the Indo-China border and carrying out various mischieves it has also started to meddle with India’s foreign policy vis-a-vis other regional countries like Taiwan, Vietnam, Korea, etc. The recent example is the indirect warning against India’s forays into oil exploration in the South China Sea in collaboration with Vietnam. According to India, ONGC-Videsh (ONGC’s overseas arm) is carrying out its operations fully in compliance with the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Seas.

This particular problem is not directly related to India because China considers the region being explored as a disputed territory and it is already embroiled in heated exchanges with countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei. So India going ahead with collaborative oil exploration means Vietnam taking unilateral decision and asserting its right on the region.

Anyway, this is just one of the issues. China is a tough neighbour to handle. Beyond doubt it is a regional bully and to make the matters worse, it is not even a democracy. It is headed by a communist regime and most of its people (not everybody, understandably) support such a government. It has no interest in establishing and maintaining friendly ties with the country it looks down upon: India. India is an economic competition but more than that it is a nuisance for them simply due to some perverted habit. Pakistan’s hatred towards India can be defined on the canvas of religion and historical references, but China dislikes India just for the heck of it, it seems sometimes. Both the countries have enjoyed historical ties but something happened in 1962 and they were permanently broken.

So how should India handle a neighbour who is not interested in peace and who doesn’t respect you? China is almost double the size of India and nothing can be done about that and this is a reality we have to live with. It is economically stronger, militarily stronger and even its influence on the international politics is much greater than India. China is one of the biggest holders of US debt (the US public debt is 98% of its GDP). There is practically no country in the world that can directly challenge China or come to India’s support due to whatever reason.

I think we should learn a lesson from Pakistan. Despite being comparatively smaller and despite its economy being in total shambles, Pakistan has created a significant deterrence against India. Should India have more nuclear warheads with their nozzles pointing at China? I’m not a military strategist so I don’t know how much of it is going to be effective.

By nature India is not suicidal. India can obliterate Pakistan completely and in retaliation even Pakistan can cause lots of harm to India. In desperation Pakistanis will be okay with the fact that they will be completely destroyed as long as they can inflict a significant wound to India. India on the other hand cannot have similar approach towards China. The Chinese can completely finish off India and India can cause a significant damage to China. Being a country optimistic about its future India will never tread upon such a path.

Similarly, China will be ready to bear significant damage, just like Pakistan, if such a case scenario manifests, as long as it can incinerate the whole of India. As a layperson, I see this as a lose-lose situation. Both Pakistan and China can be reckless and this makes them more dangerous. The only saving grace in the case of Pakistan is perhaps India can contain it before it can launch its nuclear warheads.

Jingoism and filibustering is not going to help. This issue needs a long-term policy. Every problem has a solution and so must this one. I think if India can sort out its massive corruption it can invest a good chunk of that money in defence-related research and development. It desperately needs to upgrade its warheads – on the seas, in the skies and on the ground. It’s high time India stopped purchasing out-of-use or second-hand warheads and started developing its own, targeted versions.

The current political establishment is quite directionless as well as pussilanimous (but then how can you expect the corrupt to have a vision for the country?). People of this country must work towards completely changing the establishment and encouraging people who have a vision and direction. We must have a strong and well-defined foreign policy. We should clearly know how the government is going to respond to unfavourable overtures, physical as well as verbal. We are always reacting and even those reactions are not actually reactions but fumblings. Just like corruption, terrorism, price rise and religious/class conflicts we should choose political parties that have a clear foreign policy agendas. The next time your local politician comes to seek votes, ask him or her, how his or her party plans to handle China?

The solution to China-problem lies more with people of India than building a strong military deterrence (although that too is necessary, but it will happen gradually). China is a real problem gawking at us and challenging us, although we cannot see it directly or experience it immediately. It is like the bull in the china shop and you never know when it will turn violent.

I’m not an economist so I’m writing this just as a layperson.

I think there are 2 things our policymakers can do to sort out the economy, in fact 3 things:

• Make economic corruption one of the most heinous crimes
• Retrieve all the money that is earned by corrupt (by corrupt means)
• Make the rich pay more money in the form of taxes

A lot of India’s problems can be solved if corruption is taken care of because it eats into whatever development takes place. It is a big financial burden and the great disincentive for common people to engage in entrepreneurship and contribute towards the overall growth of the country. Simply starting a small business can be a nightmare, still, in many parts of the country.

Billions of rupees have been stashed away by the corrupt and this money can be productively used for the benefit of the country. I’m not aware of the exact figures, but many claim if India can retrieve the money that has been stolen from the country’s coffers India will not only repay its entire debt a lot of extra cash will be left for other work. So this must be done on a war footing because this cash is basically lying there and all it needs is a strong political will to get it back.

And now taxing the rich more — something to the tune of what Obama is trying to achieve. No, I am not against the rich but I think it is not going to put a personal strain on their affluence it for some years they have to pay more taxes. Let us say I have 50 crores stashed away in my bank – it is all white money. What harm does it do to me if I have to give say, 5 crores to the country? Of course it is my hard earned money but I’m not actually creating a better world for my children if the rest of my country remains poor and backward. I’m sure not every rich person in the country wants to eventually settle in Europe or America. So if they envisage themselves living in the country in their old age and their children prospering here, they should invest in the overall growth of the country.

Of the three suggestions I have made, the 3rd one rests upon the success of the first 2. As a rich person why should I part with my hard earned money when I’m sure that 95% of that money is going to go in the pockets of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats? So the third phenomena can only take place if the first two are implemented properly.

What do you think?

The dust is gradually settling down after almost a fortnight of public anger and high-drama negotiations and this is the time some thinking work starts. Just read this objective piece on Wall Street Journal titled Getting a Grip on Indian Corruption that suggests a balanced approach of reforms and monitoring. Although the article takes a pessimistic view of the Anna Hazare movement it rightly says that

Restricting business freedom through extensive government regulation is probably the greatest source of graft. Licenses, permits and quotas create artificial rents and self-interested bureaucrats and politicians attempt to extract these rents while entrepreneurs lobby for them. Compliance requirements and inspections worsen the problem.

Another source of corruption is the state’s welfare schemes, which are notorious for corrupt middlemen. The late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi complained that only 15 cents of every dollar spent by the government on welfare reached the poor. Too many bribes change hands for the poor to get access to their entitlements.

But people over-analyze the situation and tend to miss the whole point of the agitation. To be frank, the common person on the street (lower-middle-class, hawkers, rickshaw pullers and such) are not bothered with high-level scams where crores of rupees go waste. They are concerned with the day-to-day corruption they have to face while trying to earn their living and this was the bone of contention when the team Anna was negotiating with the government, that the lower level bureaucracy must be brought under the ambit of the Jan Lok Pal bill.

Is this problem going to go away? I’m not sure. As I have  repeatedly mentioned on this blog as well as in my Twitter postings, the thing that attracts me towards such movements is the public consciousness that is stirred by them. Whatever may the cynics say, even if 50 people are motivated and try to embrace the ideas being spread by the movement I think the objective is achieved. No political party or politician has been able to achieve this feat.

Eventually we need social, political and economic reforms and unless these reforms happen nothing much is going to change. A single agency or a lokpal (ombudsman) no matter how many thousand people are employed in the chain of control (we have a pretty big country), won’t be able to achieve what reforms can achieve. Controls, interference and misplaced incentives that are the root causes of corruption must be refined or eliminated, whether it is the reservation system, the license-permit formalities or a horde of other things that create a breeding ground for corruption.

I have been an ardent supporter of the Anna Hazare movement and I really believe that this movement has made an impact on the country, but if I say I believe in the efficacy of the “Jan Lok Pal” bill, I  will not be totally sincere. This is not because I doubt the intentions of the Anna Hazare team, it’s just that I have always believed that the people involved in the movement are not dealing with just politicians, they are also dealing with seasoned criminals, and this is where my doubt manifests. Just think of it, the corrupt class, whether it belongs to politics, business or bureaucracy caught the country in its tentacles just as the country got independence and the condition has never improved. Yes, in some sectors it has improved but it isn’t due to some effort or socio-political movement, it simply happened because the conditions at the ground level changed.

Literally millions of corrupt individuals have been the beneficiaries of this bounty for more than 60 years and they are not going to easily give up this lifestyle, whether it is the constables on the street or the elite comfortably ensconced in their couches. There is a complete network of politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, journalists, intellectuals, office goers and the general public that has been benefiting from this corrupt system for multiple decades. They are not going to give up so easily.

Today when I saw Vilasrao Deshmukh and Sandeep Dixit standing on the dais with Anna Hazare it symbolized the state of affairs in our country and also says a lot about how much needs to be done if we really want to rid the country of the scourge of corruption. Eventually you have to closely work with the guys who themselves are accused of indulging in corruption. Today in the Parliament Lallu Yadav was lecturing us on corruption – despite being involved in multiple scams and despite being a political goon he is a member of the standing committee that is supposed to review the anticorruption bill (what an irony). Kapil Sibal recently reduced the value of the scam of A Raja to a zero and he is closely associated with the standing committee. The other luminaries of the standing committee are Amar Singh, Manu Singhvi, Manish Tiwari  and Ramvilas Paswan. Just Google their names and you will find their illustrious details. This shows our government’s “sincere” intentions.

Pranabh Mukherjee signed a deal with the Swiss that the Indian government will never ask for the names of the account holders up to July 4, 2011. Vilasrao Deshmukh has had his own share of corruption charges levied against him and Sandeep Dixit’s mother, Delhi’s Chief Minister, Shiela Dixit was almost sacked (the country, she must be thankful for that, got distracted) due to her involvement in the Commonwealth Games scam. So if after fasting for 12 days Anna Hazare has to eventually stand with Vilasrao Deshmukh and Sandeep Dixit and Pranab Mukherjee emerges out as the elderly politician who eventually declares a settlement, you can very well imagine what a mess we are in. And I’m sure, Anna Hazare and his team know that.

So my support for the Anna Hazare movement has primarily been due to the level of consciousness it has been able to trigger among the masses. Whatever big or small change that comes, it will come from the masses and not from bills and the Parliament because they can only work to a certain extent.

Instead of victory, it should be seen as a good beginning. The movement could have just fizzled out and within a week people could have gone back and Anna Hazare’s team would have found one on another reason to call off the anti-corruption movement. The people of the country have proven that they can take a stand when it really matters and it doesn’t just hit the streets when terrorists strike or when we win the Cricket World Cup. The people of the country have not just proven the cynics wrong they have delivered a slap upon their faces. All this credit goes to team Anna.

Now the real battle begins. The real battle will be keeping the momentum going and not getting back into the same old, historical stupor we are so used to. Some people have rightly been asserting that the fight against corruption begins from within us. We have to stop giving bribes and taking bribes. This is the right time when the country’s mood is quite aggressive and people who ask for bribes will be a bit scared. Make it into a zero tolerance policy. The team Anna Hazare has some unavoidable compulsions and that is why they have to negotiate with politicians that are themselves steeped in corruption, but you don’t have such compulsions.

You can also continue your fight against corruption by putting the right people to power. I’m dead against the Congress party but here I won’t say don’t vote for the party. Just vote for the people you think are right for the country and those who won’t encourage corruption and the corrupt. Most of the middle class (I mean the people who might be reading this) doesn’t vote, but if you vote, rise above the communal and cast politics and vote according to credentials. Remember that if your local MLA has to spend crores of rupees (a lame excuse to hobnob with the criminals and the corrupt) to run his or her campaign it means he or she hasn’t been doing his or her job. If they do their job, they don’t have to spend so much money to make you vote for them. There work does all the campaigning for them.

Huffington Post, an American online newspaper, has published quite revealing details about the political holy cow of India, Sonia Gandhi. What makes this article a good reading is that the writer is totally objective, doesn’t sound partisan, and has merely expressed whatever she knows. In fact, it is a bit older article, as it was published back in April, but I just came across it.

The disturbing part is that an Indian journalist was forced to abandon his journalism career when he tried to unravel the mystery surrounding Sonia Gandhi and the copious corruption accusations growing around her like wild creepers. Whenever such things are discussed in India, they are either discussed in a hush-hush manner, or totally suppressed. This article says:

The allegations came out in the open in 1995 when M. D. Nalapat, then Resident Editor (Delhi) of the world’s largest English language newspaper, the Times of India, began a groundbreaking series of articles about Sonia.

The articles made the controversial (at the time) claim that the public docility was just a ploy, and that Sonia actually had serious political ambitions (later confirmed by her role in Congress). Also, crucially, the series said that her desire for power wasn’t simply altruistic and that the wealth not only of her, but of her Italian relatives, rose stratospherically after Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister in 1984.

Nalapat’s articles could not be ignored as he was one of India’s most respected journalists and had, throughout his career, taken on corrupt politicians, social inequity and institutionalized discrimination.

This however was a ‘topic too far’. While the facts in the article were never refuted, Nalapat was forced out of journalism in 1998 and moved into academics.

This is another disturbing part of the article:

In 1998, India was being led by BJP Prime Minister Vajpayee. When Nalapat spoke with him about Sonia, he was bluntly told to lay off, as, "so long as a white Christian lady is head of the Congress Party, I [Vajpayee] and my party will always be in power"

It shows when push comes to shove, whatever is the political party, the only thing that matters is power and the country can go to the dogs. Just imagine how much trouble could have been avoided had the then Prime Minister acted proactively, assuming the incident is correct.

Coming back to why can’t the Indian media cover such issues objectively? I think this is because everybody cannot be Arun Shourie and Goenka. Arun Shourie single-handedly brought the Rajiv Gandhi government down just by his journalistic power when he was the editor of Indian Express, owned by Ramnath Goenka.

Most of the journalists these days are not journalists, at least in India, in reality they are political stooges and write whatever their political masters ask them to write. They are court bards. This fact is manifest in the way no journalist worth his salt has taken up Nalapat’s issue and launched a new campaign. At least I don’t know of any and correct me if I’m wrong. Go read that Huffington Post article, it will be worth your time. And also spread it because such news is not covered in the mainstream media. I don’t know if it is true or false, but reality must come out.

My good friend Abhishek asked in Twitter (@Abhishek_Rai), “Who is patriot?” I really don’t know what elicited this question in him. I’m assuming that he must had been reading various exchanges taking place on Twitter and elsewhere regarding the anti-graft movement being currently spearheaded by Anna Hazare and his team. Ever since he launched his movement people have been coming up with such existential queries.

Personally, I don’t have an answer, at least not a definite answer, but I thought, it would be a good writing exercise to explore this question: really who is a patriot?

I don’t know what prompted him but Samuel Johnson’s statement, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” is quite a known one. Of course he meant people who pretend to be patriotic. But some people take this statement to heart and actually feel apologetic about showing some regard for the country or the community, especially in India.

Coming back to who is a patriot? Does dying for your country make you a patriot? Does loving your country and declaring that love on a routine basis make you a patriot? Does dedicating your life to the betterment of your country make you a patriot? Does protecting your country against internal and external enemies making you a patriot? Does speaking up for your country’s underprivileged citizens make you a patriot? Are freedom fighters patriotic?

I think it is understandable that by definition all the traits mentioned above make you a patriot. But there is another trait that makes you (this is simply my opinion and I might be mistaken) a patriot but its feasibility depends on collective patriotism and not selective. Living a righteous life and achieving your full potential without harming people. When we all achieve our full potential it is always beneficial to the country.

Why I call it a collective patriotism is because simply living a righteous life isn’t going to get you anywhere if everybody around you is resorting to unfair means. You can become a saint and live an eccentric life, but you cannot live like a citizen in such an environment. For instance, Gandhiji wouldn’t have been able to practice nonviolence had there been a firing squad facing him. Yes, he could have chosen to not to react but people would say he simply died without putting up a fight. Similarly, living a righteous life while living in a corrupt society isn’t practical, and isn’t practically possible (I am not saying it’s impossible).

This brings us to the current state of affairs: Anna Hazare’s anti-graft movement. I have observed these types of reactions ever since the movement started:

• People outrightly reject the entire thing as a farce
• People, although find it in the right spirit, term it impractical
• People have started their own smear campaigns because they strongly feel against the fundamental philosophy driving the moment
• People are staunchly supporting the movement having full belief in the effectiveness of the bill being promoted
• People are supporting the movement despite having some doubts about the bill
• People are in different and taking it just as an ineluctable transcendental inconvenience

Since Anna Hazare’s anti-graft movement has metamorphosed into a people’s movement, are people not supporting it unpatriotic?

Again, this is just my personal opinion and you are welcome to correct me, people who oppose the anti-graft movement fall under the following categories

• Highly opinionated people who believe that only parliamentary practices can redeem the country and rid it of corruption
• People who don’t generally like mass movements
• People who somehow cannot relate to the pathos of the common man
• People who want to project themselves as elitists and hence siding with people who they think are elitists
• People who think saying funny and smart-ass things against the movement makes them look cool

The last category seems a bit frivolous but spend some time on Twitter and you will get my point.

In the above list I haven’t included people (journalists, intellectuals and public figures) that publicly oppose the moment because they are affiliated to particular political parties and interest groups and hence are paid to run their own respective agendas or who are seeking one or another favor from the contemporary corrupt government officials and politicians.

Many among the people categorized in the above-mentioned list might be patriotic and they might also love their country to an extent of dying for their country, so simply opposing the movement doesn’t make them unpatriotic. For all you know, they might find people supporting the movement unpatriotic because they think that it’s the mob mentality that is driving the anti-graft movement.

Simply supporting popular movements doesn’t make you a patriot. What makes you a patriot is taking the right decisions when it comes the time to decide. And it doesn’t always have to be the right decisions because being “right” is quite circumstantial. So it is the feeling that lies in the crux of being patriotic.

A patriot also works towards the common good. He or she takes steps that are for the common good of the country. Referring to the anti-graft bill whether you support it for the common good of the country or oppose it for the common good of the country, you are a patriot.

And what about those who live a righteous life without showing active interest in the events taking place around them? Seeking your opinion.

The main gripe of people opposing Anna Hazare’s anticorruption movement (see for example, India’s Selective Rage Over Corruption) is that the middle class is extremely hypocritical when it goes for corrupt politicians without exploring its own conscience. The second gripe is that most of the conditions mentioned in his proposal lurk in the realms of draconian, but that is insignificant rhetoric so I’m not going to address it.

Regarding the middle class being hypocritical, to an extent this is true. Remember when people used to say, “Sarkari naukri aur salary to theek hai, par ooper ki kamayi kitni hoti hai?”: It is well and good that you have a government job and you have a particular salary, but how much extra do you make?

This “extra” was of course the bribe you can get as a government employee. You can also have this extra money by evading taxes (but then we all have our different views on the merits of tax laws in our country). It is also true that the Indians have a prodigious talent to flaunt law — not stopping at red lights, jumping the queue, jostling while getting into and getting out of public transport, cheating in exams, taking unfair advantage of the reservation policy, dirtying public places and stealing things when there is no danger of getting caught, etc.

If we really want to solve the problems of the country (as far as corruption goes) we need some sincere introspection and merely going for a particular class (politicians, for instance) is not going to solve anything. Having said that, it is a good beginning. This is why.

Powerful politicians, bureaucrats and businesspersons enjoy an immunity that a common person can only dream of. They cannot only indulge in scams worth thousands of crores of rupees they can also stash away their ill-earned money very easily. The entire machinery works for them. The common person deals at the level of chai-paani sort of bribe whereas the people mentioned above swindle away whopping amounts of money. Although you cannot say that my theft is justified and yours is not, but in practical terms there is a big difference.

For the common person, corruption and bribing is a necessary evil and it is not a choice. He or she doesn’t make a living out of being corrupt; it is a matter of survival. Even if he or she doesn’t want to indulge in corruption there is no easy redressal. Try refusing a bribe to an official that has to move your file or sign a document and see what happens. You can totally forget about your work being done. If you complain no action will be taken because even if someone wants to take an action it is very difficult to terminate a government employee’s job. Even filing a case doesn’t help. Here I’m not talking about people who can afford to take on corrupt officials by neglecting their job and family. There are certainly people who stand up to corrupt government employees and bureaucrats and to an extent even politicians, but you normally end up paying a heavy price. It is very easy for politicians, social activists, journalists and intellectuals to preach but they preach because it is their job and livelihood to lecture people. So blaming the common man for corruption is like blaming a woman for being raped.

The large-scale corruption is more harmful to the country compared to small-scale corruption and once you begin to deal with large-scale corruption the small-scale corruption will automatically scale down. Thousands of crores of rupees that are lying waste in foreign banks can be used for the development of the country. Rajiv Gandhi said that for every rupee spent on development work only 10 paise reaches to the actual people. Just imagine the scale of achievements if the complete rupee is spent and even if not the complete rupee, just 50-60 paise.

Corruption is everywhere, it is also there in the most advanced countries, but there, politicians and bureaucrats are accountable. For instance, if a certain area needs water, the water will reach that area. If a road needs to be built, the road will be built. If a school needs to be run, it will be run. There might be a few corrupt officials here and there but it is not a norm. In India it is the opposite – corrupt officials are a norm and honest hard working people are an exception. This is what needs to be changed.

Since the politicians and bureaucrats enjoy the greatest power, they must also be held the most accountable for the sorry state of the country. If our society in general is a thief, then they are the bigger thieves and hence the bigger danger to the country and hence, must be targeted first. Being always in the limelight they set an example for the rest of the country. I’m pretty sure that even if there are 10 politicians (not in the opposition but in the government) who have an impeccable record it will inspire many citizens to shun corrupt practices. Why hasn’t our Prime Minister ever come on television especially to exhort people not to indulge in bribe giving and bribe taking? Why hasn’t any minister worth her or his salt ever tried to reach out to the masses and make them aware of the perils of encouraging corruption in public life? Because our ministers never want our country to be free of corruption because then they won’t be able to loot the country openly the way they do it now.

So yes, a countrywide introspection is needed and we need to deal with corruption at the grassroots level (and various other levels) but there is nothing wrong to start with the political class because one, they always carry this halo around them claiming what great service they are doing to the nation and how honest they are, two, they enjoy power and immunity not available to common persons and three, their corrupt activities are literally destroying the country. So this is a big hole that needs to be plugged first, and later on we can take care of the smaller holes.

Once our politicians and bureaucrats know that it is not worth it to indulge in corruption and might have to pay a heavy price for it, they will start discouraging it at various levels, because if they don’t, at least under their own departments, it will mean that they are abetting corruption even while not directly benefiting from them. So automatically they will be forced to cut corruption under their constituencies.

Making corruption unprofitable will automatically discourage criminal elements from entering politics and this will create space for people who really want to work for the country. With such people at the helm it will have a cascading effect.

So journalists and the intelligentsia should stop hyperventilating about why we should target politicians when there is corruption all over us and let events take their own course. When the corruption stops at the top, it will also begin to erode at the bottom.

My this post is certainly not in conjunction with PM Manmohan Singh’s pronouncement that we’ll never carry out a USA-type operation, which I without doubt think has political motive. I had written this last week for Huffington Post. When they didn’t get back I decided to post this on my own blog.

With the killing of Osama bin Laden the hardliners in India have started raising the question why India cannot act similarly and smoke out terrorists like Dawood Ibrahim and Maulana Massod Azhar. To add fire to fuel Gen V.K. Singh of India, when asked whether India could carry out such an operation, said the country is capable of successfully undertaking such strikes. This achieved nothing but give Salman Bashir, Pakistan’s foreign secretary, a high moral ground to warn India of “dire consequences” in case India indulges in such adventurism.

When asked whether the US would support India if India carried out similar operations to bring to book its own bunch of terrorists hiding in Pakistan, state department spokesperson Mark Toner said no parallel should be drawn between 9/11 and 26/11 which basically means the US wouldn’t support similar strikes from India.

It’s not that India needs a nod from the US to pursue its foreign policy and internal security matters but we live in a world of reality and the reality is that the US is much better placed compared to India to carry out such aggressive operations, both in terms of military might and geographic location. Even if the US carries out 10 such strikes Pakistan can do nothing more than protest vociferously and threaten the US government of non-cooperation in its fight against terror. An armed conflict between America and Pakistan is simply not possible from Pakistan’s point of view.

Additionally, Pakistan receives lots of financial and military aid from the US and its military and civilian establishment won’t easily give up such a lucrative arrangement. Although it has started making overtures towards another giant, China, since the Cold War days Pakistan has felt closer to America than any other country.

India on the other hand is at a great disadvantage in terms of geographic location and military power. Beyond doubt India is a stronger country but it is also a country surrounded by hostile and semi-hostile neighbours. Due to its vulnerability and a weak political establishment even smaller countries like Nepal occasionally cock a snook at it without inciting a reaction. All major countries around India — Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal — have one or another grudge to grind against the country. So there is going to be no support from its neighbours if there is a full-fledged war between the two neighbours. To make matters worse China may take this opportunity and show some military support to Pakistan by raising tension on the eastern borders. India and China have had a quarrelsome history although it is not as obsessive as between India and Pakistan.

Even if there is no regional opposition to India doing a Geronimo on Pakistan a direct conflict can be disastrous for the region considering that both the countries have nuclear capabilities. This is a threat Pakistan wields whenever India adopts aggressive posturing. And this is not just sabre rattling. Although no country in the world would want a nuclear disaster you can never be sure when it comes to Pakistan. It is a country that supports terrorism and harbors various terrorist training camps within its borders despite the fact that the same terrorists are turning against it and blowing up buildings and buses within the very country that nurtures them and provides protection to them. It’s like infecting yourself with HIV so that you can transfer it to your enemies. So with such a neighbor it is very easy to expect a nuclear stand-off in case there is an active armed conflict.

So instead of giving out martial cries (knowing quite well they are just cries) India should set up a separate ministry/agency whose only purpose is to sensitize the international community and make it aware of what Pakistan is really up to. This way even America will be forced to take notice (of course it knows but there is some hidden agenda that stops it from openly acknowledging it) and encourage Pakistan to move away from such destructive and self-defeating tactics.

I normally avoid writing blog posts in response to other blog posts (by other bloggers) but there is a blogger I really respect (I think there are just a couple of bloggers I keep a conscious effort to follow) and when he wrote on Anna Hazare I was compelled to write this short blog post as a response. For what he has written, please read Anna Hazardous.

As such, the blog post by Sandeep has nothing new to say and easily qualifies as one of those “spinner” anti-Anna Hazare articles being published with great zeal, with so much repetition that it has metamorphosed into chain mail activity.

First a quick observation. All these the so-called experts on Indian democracy and the parliamentary system share the following attitudinal traits:

• They hate candlelight marches
• They think the Indian maudlin middle class is totally hopeless and even if it comes out once or twice a year it is a total sham
• A protest is no protest unless you burn buses, people are lathi-charged and there is a general state of destruction and disharmony
• What-if and why-now are their favourite refrains
• Intriguingly, maybe this is a whimsicality, they also nurture an inveterate disliking for activists, global warming advocates, NGOs and social workers

So maybe the recent reaction to the Anna Hazare movement is simply a manifestation of the above-mentioned peculiarities. Having said that, since in the beginning I wrote that I am specifically writing this blog post in reaction to what Sandeep has written on his blog and since I eagerly await his blog posts, in this case, and for the sake of writing this blog post, I assume that it is more than a whimsicality.

Now, I’m not saying here that I am completely aware of the situation. I will be sincere here: I didn’t know about Anna Hazare much. The first time I read about him was when he received the Magsaysay award. And to be more sincere, I would also like to mention that people associated with him during this current movement, barring Kiran Bedi, have shady backgrounds especially Swami Agnivesh and Mallika Sarabhai. This out of the way, let me come back to what Sandeep has written and I would like to provide my point of view beneath that.

After quoting Shakespeare for no particular context he says:

–Enter Baba Ramdev whose rally in November 2010 is hugely successful. The English media dutifully relegates it to Column 4, Page 5.

–Enter Anna Hazare who on April 5 2011 begins a fast-unto-death-until-something-is-done-about-corruption “movement.” It picks up steam, is graced by various “civil society” eminences, and is generally declared a blockbuster.

Well too bad if Baba Ramdev couldn’t sell himself (or his idea) the way Anna Hazare could. Of course there was a strategy involved and I found him quite shrewd in the way he handled the entire affair. But how does that make him a villain? We obviously need smart people in the country who can manipulate circumstances for the betterment of the country. Kautilya would have appreciated that.

Regarding the role of media if media were so powerful then Rahul Gandhi would have been the “youth icon” (nothing short of a nuclear disaster) and not Anna Hazare. Media, especially Times Now and IBN7, surely played a constructive role, but they couldn’t have gone beyond a particular point.

–On April 6 2011, newspapers gleefully announce that Anna Hazare “tasted his first victory on Wednesday, the second day of his fast unto death, when Maratha strongman and NCP chief Sharad Pawar quit the group of ministers (GoM) on the anti-corruption bill.” What a slap! The nation is delirious with joy.

I don’t know what newspapers he read because every right minded person knows that in no way it was a victory but a small step towards the envisaged victory. It was a perfunctory action performed by a guileful politician who knew that nothing much was to lose. It would have been a small victory on the other hand if he had resigned altogether.

–On April 8 2011, the Queen graciously bows down to the wishes of this gentle Gandhian and on April 9 2011, the Government of India issues a Gazette of India notification to form a joint committee to draft the Lok Pal Bill.

The Queen was simply trying to be “begani shadi me Abdulla diwana” as more than 99% Congresswalas habitually do. They simply wanted to leverage the entire state of affairs and I personally feel, for the moment, it was sort of a dampener.

–For lack of information to the contrary, I do believe Anna Hazare to be a man of integrity whose commitment is genuine and has done good work in the past. But many things don’t quite add up and unless there are some convincing answers the nag of suspicion will persist.

Well, for lack of information you can doubt everybody. If doubting is the game of the day then first of all let us start doubting the credentials of all those experts who are doubting the intentions of Anna Hazare. I would like to doubt the credentials of all those who kept quiet when scams of thousands of crores emerging right left and center and now they are breast beating about extraconstitutional thingies and the hypocritical middle-class that doesn’t vote. I would like to tell these writers that it is this middle-class that mostly consumes their misplaced opinions, and not those villagers in tattered clothes whose only concern is the next meal.

–Cut back to the Spectacular Socialist Seventies when Mrs. Gandhi had all of India in her iron fist. What that alsomeans is that conditions so horrid that corruption was just one of the grave issues: we were pretty much under an authoritarian regime where inconvenient people simply disappeared, Indira was India, and so on. What’s the record of Anna Hazare’s fight against corruption and these grave national issues back then?

It is like saying why did the Indian cricket team win the World Cup this time? What was it doing 4 years ago when it lost? Or maybe something like why didn’t Sandeep share his brilliant ideas back in the days when there was no blogging but there were newspapers and magazines (I don’t know, he could have been writing, but I’m just using the Anna Hazare conjecture that he used — we don’t know much about him so we can easily doubt him)? I think it is a ridiculous argument even if Anna Hazare didn’t do something purposely. Maybe nothing moved him. Maybe he was too bogged down by his own personal problems. Maybe back then he wasn’t motivated enough. Who the hell cares? That time is gone, it is not going to come back, so why worry about that?

–The one thing that I see amiss is not the nature of his fight—it’s noble etc—but the timing. Why now? Why not say, when Madhu Koda looted his state for what it was worth or during the Adarsh scam that happened in Hazare’s own state or against Kalmadi or against Raja as soon these scams erupted? Is there some gold standard of corruption that had to be met before he launched his movement? Now, there was a lull from April 2 to April 8. If you want me to spell that out here goes: April 2 was when India proudly lifted the cricket world cup. April 8 is when the first IPL match for 2011 was held. Now go back to the papers and news channels between April 5 thru April 8. Nonstop drumming about the “movement” on television and relentless front-page assault. Now read #7 again. On which page does Anna Hazare’s news figure in the papers now?

Rhetorical. If we start the “why not this” and “why not that” we can go back to the thousands years of Indian history. No reforms in India can take place simply because these reforms haven’t taken place yet. We can never do anything constructive simply because we have been so destructive.

I think it was an astute move even if it was based on the cricket season. People were already charged up after winning the World Cup and there was a strong sense of nationalism brewing in the country. It was like hitting the iron when it is hot. Good strategy. Even if the movement was abruptly stopped before the IPL matches the organisers knew the fickle-mindedness of the Indian masses, especially the middle class.

And every news, I’m pretty much sure it also happened when we got independence, eventually is relegated to the inner pages

–We wonder what the selfsame media was doing when Baba Ramdev launched his protest. Or is it the fact that Ramdev didn’t go on a huger strike? Or the fact that he didn’t have celebrity societal conscience-keepers like Agnivesh, Kiran Bedi, Arvind Kejriwal, and Jayaprakash Narayan who jumped on board the Anna Hazare ship barely before the anchor was dropped?

Just wondering. Would he have found the movement against corruption legitimate had it’s been Baba Ramdev’s successful campaign?

I totally agree that some opportunists conveniently latched onto the Anna Hazare bandwagon including Agnivesh, Medha Patkar (I don’t dislike her per se because I have never seen her openly expressing her views) and Mallika Sarabhai.

Regarding Baba Ramdev, again, I don’t know much about him but he does seem a bit queer, but then again it is my personal view (my parents respect him). Again, if his movement against corruption didn’t catch on than perhaps he did it in the wrong way. Let’s face it, it’s the reality of our time, everything has to be marketed through proper channels. Our generation sucks, I know, but we have to accept the reality and make the best of it.

–Had Anna Hazare undertaken a Bosesque “movement” instead of the Gandhian garden variety, what’s your bet how the government would’ve reacted? He and his supporters would’ve been arrested, lathi-charges galore would’ve ensued and the rest. The worst? Not one candle-kisser would’ve turned up because the occasion would’ve evinced not kissing candles but getting middle-class-asses kicked and lathi-charged.

What is this fetish about getting lathi-charged and ass-kicked? Cannot we ever rise above such animal behaviour? I am pretty much sure that had the movement been violent most of the people wouldn’t have gone and there is a psychology involved in this. Politics in our country is basically goondagardi. Go to any political rally and you will either come across villagers who have been paid by the organisers or you will see their musclemen. There are rarely “normal” people in these gatherings. And by normal people I mean people who can bring along their kids (even in their prams), their grandparents, their grandkids, their spouses, and girlfriends and boyfriends and go back home without being jostled, groped, molested, shot at or killed. My wife attended the sit-in at Jantar Mantar twice and she amazingly said that not even a single shoulder pressed against her shoulder and everybody was so respectful. What is wrong in that? Why are we always seeking maar-peet and janglipana in anything that can be called a socio-political movement. As our civilisation progresses, whether you believe it or not, more and more protests will be of such form.

–And so we repeat: why did the Queen agree to all his demands, and so soon?

So what if she did? Do you think people in our government have a backbone? They are the greatest cowards we have ever seen ruling the country so far. They must have seen protesters emerging from every part of the country and they were worried about getting things out of control. People had already started saying that they would attack the Parliament if something happened to Anna Hazare during his fast.

And who knows, maybe it was also something related to IPL. They wanted to wrap things up before the matches started so that there was no revenue loss especially to people like Sharad Pawar. Doesn’t matter what was the reason and who did what. The only thing that matters is things turned out to be the way people wanted it. Maybe it was stage-managed, but it was something really positive for the country.

–Developments after the Hazare Fast Circus ended only point to the fact that the Congress party has more than a sinister hand in the whole affair. This news item reports that Anna has asked Kapil Sibal to quit the newly-formed Panel of Pushers. Here’s a rescued-from-obscurity Gandhian who has suddenly “found” widespread fame, now dictating terms to a government elected by the people of India, all nice and Constitutional.

I think it is the way he talks. He doesn’t mince words. Even before starting the hunger strike he was just like that, if people paid attention back then. It is not about having confidence or finding widespread fame. He is just being himself.

We shouldn’t give too much credit to the intelligence of the Congress party and assume that it was stage-managed by these dumbwits. It was apparent by their body language and facial expressions that they were being screwed from behind and they could do nothing about it.

–Alleging that Uttar Pradesh is the most corrupt of all states, the Congress today asked social activist Anna Hazare to start a movement from the state if he wanted to start a state-based campaign.

Just so that it suits our argument we are now going to quote whatever bullshit is said about Anna Hazare and by whoever. Very convenient.

–Draw your own conclusions. I think that Anna Hazare is a well-meaning and committed individual but that he’s just being used. Is there someone who’s feeling threatened by Baba Ramdev’s growing and massive popularity and the fact that he’s promised to reveal ugly secrets of a certain party?

Frankly, I pretty much believe that Anna Hazare is quite prone to being used by all sorts of shady people and political parties and this is a worry. About Baba Ramdev’s “growing and massive popularity” I would say let the time decide if the Baba is sincere and deft. If he plays his cards well nobody can hold him back, especially the Congress party who is in power only due to the bizarre lack of alternatives (the BJP is a sorry excuse of an opposition party).

–Anyway, the circus has pretty much ended and the tents have been packed. The middle class has again deluded itself, which is how it should be because it deserves the illusion of power that the government is letting it have from time to time because it’s still not time for the middle class to realize the brutal truth that candle-kissing and assembling in parks doesn’t hurt the middle class and that lasting change is not achieved without cuts and bruises and broken bones.

Here again, coming back to the violence fetish. Whereas I totally agree that our middle class is quite fickle I absolutely don’t agree with the fact that you need broken bones and dead people to make significant social changes. Remember when people used to die because there were no medicines? Now we have medicines and the average life expectancy rate has risen. Similarly, we have different forms of protests. Things change, the way people behave and react changes. There was a time when decapitating people was normal and now it is considered barbaric.

Finally, I agree to some points and there are definitely some shades of conspiracy if you are hellbent upon finding them, but by choice I’m not an alarmist. I think candle marches and peaceful sit-ins have great potential provided they are used as mass movements, they will never work as isolated occurrences. Our strength is in our numbers are not in the way we express and protest. Even if you just sit together in multiple cities and do nothing it can be an effective protest. Even if we just wear black bands around our arms and then carry on with our day-to-day activities it can be a potent form of protest. We shouldn’t underplay such phenomena just because we cannot comprehend such things.