1

Article published in Mainstream dated September 17, 2011(Updated)

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government -Edward Abbey

Corruption: the Great Political Divide

V P Jain* We are corrupt. Corruption is deeply entrenched and it has become institutionalised. Corruption has become endemic to the system and it has to be fought has become a constant refrain. Then what is the current turmoil about and where is the catch? The problem is very simple: It does not affect everybody the same way. It is creating an asymmetrical society. On the one hand we have the beneficiaries of the corrupt system, the big business houses, the politicians, the bureaucrats and their cronies led by the government. On the other, we have the general mass of people (euphemistically called the cattle class), who are victims of the corrupt system, led by Anna Hazare. And one takes sides depending on which side of the fence you are. Corruption is much more than bribe culture and has a much wider connotation in the present context to mean the grotesque system of unholy nexus, which has acquired the dubious distinction of being termed as crony capitalism. The core issue centres round sharing of the resources of the nation: the land, the mines, the forests and now the virtual world, i.e. the 2G- Spectrum. Over the years, the beneficiaries of the system have consolidated their position and continue to corner resources to which they think they are entitled to because of their proximity to the powers that be, and they are getting wealthier at the expense of the rest of the society. It is a zero-sum game. With all the scams which have surfaced recently, which are mind boggling, both in its quantitative and qualitative dimensions, it is now a no holds barred situation and it is wholesale loot. In fact big business has become a metaphor for organised crime. The situation has, obviously, gone beyond the tolerance threshold of the people. The current resolve, therefore, is enough is enough and we have to fight it out. It is class war, pure and simple. The government is trying every trick to browbeat the civil society into submission. Brute force, smear campaign, propaganda are some of the weapons which they have unleashed. The most lethal weapon in the armoury of the government, of course, is the Janus-faced activists, who have emerged as a new tribe of crisis management experts. They champion the cause of the people in all the spheres of the civil society. They are very suave and articulate and become cult figures, use revolutionary rhetoric and assume leadership roles to keep the reigns of the movements under their control. System modeling experts have shown that for any movement to succeed it has to cross the critical value of some crucial parameter like the extent and the intensity of peoples participation in the movement to be metamorphosed into a mass upsurge as a qualitative change. They subvert the movement at the most opportune time when it is on the verge of attaining the critical mass and threatens the established order. The strategy finds expression in the verbosity to denounce the movement in all possible ways, deflect the issue by engaging in political theorising, raising the

bogey of constitutional imperatives, questioning the ideological character of the movement and, of course, invoke the wolf of foreign hand at the door to destabilise the nation. They also infiltrate the ranks, create dissensions and broker a deal, get some crumbs as a concession, shelving the substantive issues, hail it as a great victory and scuttle the movement altogether. Some of the great players were conspicuously absent during the build-up phase of the movement. But now that the movement has gathered steam, they have surfaced and gone into action. Let us scrutinise. One of the propaganda aired by the government is that that the Jan-Lokpal bill is the brainchild of a few individuals who have arrogated to themselves the right to enact laws of the land. Let us not forget that these so called individuals were members of the committee as representatives of the people, constituted by the government to draft the bill, and they have every right to be heard by the parliament for the consideration of which the draft has been prepared. It was incumbent on the committee to forward both the drafts since there was no consensus. It is tantamount to presenting the Parliament with a fate accompli by filtering out serious reservations the crusaders had on the efficacy of draft forwarded. Let us take the analogy from the judicial bench constituted by the Allahabad High Court to hear the Ajodhya case. The verdict was given by a majority of two to one. But the dissenting judgement was also put on record. Later on, the Supreme Court reversed the verdict and did not uphold the majority judgement. Likewise, the government could not block the alternative draft from the consideration of the Parliament on the presumption that the government, with its razor thin majority, was the sole repository of all the wisdom and alone represented the will of the people. System theory analysts know so well that the final outcome is very sensitive to initial conditions and it was crucial for the government to manipulate the game to prejudice the parliament by circumscribing the debate around the singularity, the bill forwarded by the government to the parliament, foreclosing all other options, in order to succeed in their design. The government packed the committee with members of choice and in requisite number only to reach preordained conclusions and took everybody for a ride. The objective was, obviously, to stifle democracy and accountable governance in order to protect the powerful interests wedded to the system of preferences. Another bogey raised by the government and the opposition alike is the sanctity of the parliament to enact laws. Parliamentary procedures have to be adhered to and legislative process cannot be abandoned. There are no two opinions on the supremacy of the august body and nobody has questioned the constitutional imperatives. So far as the sanctity of parliament is concerned there is need to introspect. The scandals like vote for money, business lobbies deciding ministerial posts and their portfolios, question marks raised at the integrity and honesty of the legislators and, of course, all the scams which have triggered the current uprising, have not exactly covered the parliament with glory. On the contrary, they have embarrassed the whole nation. But, then what we have witnessed is only the tip of the iceberg. The on-line posting of the reports by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), and National Election Watch (NEW), exposing the unprecedented amassing of wealth by the legislators, revealing the ugly face of politics, is a pointer to it being the most lucrative business proposition today. What undermines the sanctity of the parliament most is the revelation that a large number of legislators are alleged to be facing criminal charges, and the graph being on the rise with each successive election, is a sure celebration of the criminalisation of politics. Our

tendency, these days, is to take corruption and ignorance as the natural privileges of elected persons; and we smile at any proposal to alter this patriotic tradition (Will Durant). If you get elected to public office, to some extent your first moral obligation is to steal on behalf of your family (Fukuyama). Moreover, the pertinent question to address is the class character of the parliament and whose aspirations these legislators are going to fulfil. And what is this talk about parliamentary procedures as something holy. The entire decision making in parliament can be simulated and laws enacted without wasting precious time, energy and public money. Legislators are not free and are bound by the whips of their respective parties. Consequently, it has become more of a debating club and the outcome emerges on the scripted lines as per the arithmetic of the demographic profile of various parties. The prime minister presides over a political system that is creaking under the weight of corruption scandals which reach right to the very heart of the government. The Prime Minister attributed the culture of scams to the compulsions of coalition politics. The observation of the PM is not a satire for ridicule as made out in some quarters, but symptomatic of a much deeper malady. A little exercise in introspection will show that nothing is further from the truth. UPA1 was also a coalition government like UPA2. But then why all the scandals in the second innings and not in the first if they were generic to coalition politics? The decisive change in the second phase (post rift with the left) was that the coalition partners changed, and with that the ideological equations too. The PM was always uncomfortable with the left, and at the earliest opportunity, got rid of them and found new friends who gave him a free hand to carry forward his policy of neo-liberalism with a vengeance. Everybody in the government wanted to recover the lost ground, with the consequences for everybody to see. The PM took great pains to underline his honesty and integrity as a person. But the tipping point is the definition of honesty. Narrowly defined it may mean not making money personally. But the honesty of a politician lies in his honesty of purpose, to work for creating an equitable and just society, a task in which he has utterly failed. He willfully pursued neo-liberal economic policies as a matter of ideological commitment, and he has resolutely stood his ground, knowing very well that these policies served the interest of the corporates, national and international, and not address the concerns of the Aam Admi which mandated the congress to govern. What a pity, the Aam Admi, feeling betrayed by the party they had voted to power, is now pitied against them: the legitimate question they are asking is what about us, the people who had elected you. It is an irony, that in the absence of any framework for accountability, the county is run by lobbies and we have as many of them as the number of promising operators. But there are a lot of imponderables to be considered. Of course, there is the obvious danger, one would concede, of building the so called peoples movements, out of sheer expediency, by whipping up sentiments to achieve parochial and communal objectives like building the Ram temple which had catapulted the BJP to power in the centre. But, then the government was more than a willing partner and complicit in the game which led to the demolition of Babri Masjid. Both the BJP and the Congress have a history of engineering mob frenzy, ostensibly on the plea that they were spontaneous outburst, to push divisive issues center stage. One only shudders to recall the mass murder of the Sikhs in 1984 and communal riots in Bombay and Gujarat, to name only a few, by way of illustration, to focus on the underpinnings of the stage managed peoples movements, so called.

History is replete with instances when those who were not part of the locally dominant culture were intimidated and reduced to a second class citizenship and they became outsiders in their own country. I, like many others, am myself a victim of a subtle religious persecution against the minorities. The dominant community in the locality has constructed a temple on the road (a case of blatant encroachment of public land) in front of my house, a non-Hindu and a rationalist, in defiance of all the laws enacted by the revered parliament to safeguard my freedom to live a peaceful retired life and carry on with my academic pursuits undisturbed in a tranquil ambience. They keep pounding me with their chants and hymns accompanied by striking of bells and chimes to which I cannot relate and which make no sense to me. The Delhi Pollution control board has testified that the noise generated in the vicinity of the temple exceeds the permissible limit. Nor do they respect the Supreme Court orders not to create any noise between 10 PM to 6 AM. In a significant judgment the Supreme Court has ruled: undisputedly, no religion prescribes that prayers should be performed by disturbing the peace of others, nor does it preach that that they should be through sound producing instruments in the name of religion in a civilized society. Protests are met with jeers and threats, only falling short of not forcing me to wear a yellow badge. Besides being a cause for personal grievance, it has also become a public nuisance. Like the Frankenstein monster the structure continues to grow in time and has now become a trouble spot and a security risk for the residents. The structure which was situated on the pavement has now extended on to the road, denying the right of way to the poor pedestrians of the locality who are forced to walk on the road along with the traffic with all the risk it entails. As a road block, it disrupts normal flow of vehicles, often causing traffic jams and accidents. Already a market complex of sort has sprung up around the shrine, and enjoy all that SEZ stands for: free land acquisition and infrastructural support including water and electricity. The RWA has drawn the attention of the authorities at all levels, the MCD, The Home Department, the Police and the local politicians to this monstrosity. In spite of the strong recommendation by the Grievances Commission, NCT of Delhi to the home department to deal with the lawlessness firmly and also probe the connivance of the police and the civic agency, the government remains a mute spectator. Our democracy has degenerated into a play for money, ignoring the voice of the majority. The name of the game is clear: money is to be made everywhere in the name of politics by rendering the poor homeless on the one hand and milking the cow of illegal construction on the other (Amit Bhaduri and Arvind Kejriwal, TOI). Time and again, the power that be, have demolished jhuggies built on the pavements and in the parks, but when it comes to removing shrines on public land (even on roads) as encroachments, which are invariably used as dwelling units also by the priestly class, patronised by the rich and the powerful, the government develops cold feet. This is not an isolated phenomenon and is a microcosm of the larger malaise afflicting the nation which is the focus of the current movement to tackle corruption. Tainted by the shadow of political considerations, the government, in spite of all the protests, maintains a studied silence in such cases of the violations of fundamental rights of the citizens, expediency being the hall mark of governance. Closeted in their ivory towers, they have no idea about the kind of indignities people have to live with. The government has become totally impervious to the plight of the peaceful and law abiding citizens and refuses to act, as a matter of policy, unless blood runs in the streets. The moral of the story is plain and simple: the government has all the instruments to control lawlessness and mob vandalism if they want to, which they have rarely used. But they have never hesitated to use force to curb peoples movements dubbing them as part of some sinister design. And all political parties have their share of the blame: BJP in Gujarat and Chhattisgarh, Congress at the centre, NCP in Maharashtra, BSP in UP and CPM in Bengal. One comes to the

irresistible conclusion that the society is ruled, it seems, not on the basis of principles but by the nature of man. The all party meet to discuss the issue of Jan-Lokpal Bill was a dam squib, it had to be. Politicians across the spectrum were one in rejecting team Annas demand. Understandably, all political parties closed ranks, for the only bond which holds them together is their complicity in the common crime of suppressing peoples movements. Is it any wonder that the parliament, with its professed promise to address the grievances of the common man, has failed the enact the Lokpal Bill since independence, in spite of the fact that it was piloted several times. It was incumbent on the part of the government to legislate anti-corruption laws as a follow up of the United Nations Convention against Corruption which was adopted by the General Assembly in 2003 and which entered into force in December, 2005. Ever since, however, it has been a sordid tale of constituting expert committees and commissions and, of course, prevarication. It has been ratified only in 2011, full six years later, that to under the pressure of the Annas movement. The formulation of an effective Lok-Pal bill and its enactment as law by the parliament, which falls within the ambit of the UN convention as an obligation, is precisely the agenda of the current movement. And the problem, since then has been compounded many times over, eroding the authenticity of the institution of parliamentary democracy to create a just and equal society. Political pundits are, already, debating alternative models like the presidential system and many more. Such is the level of frustration and the attendant trust deficit, that the system now has all the ingredients for revolt in the form of mass upsurge, all that one needs is a trigger off, and it is invariably provided by the government, as amply demonstrated by the mishandling of the Annas movement by the spin doctors of the government. There is a strong theoretical supposition in the political science literature that civil unrest is a consequence of the relative deprivation of the people in a country. But, we cannot be oblivious to the potential of building peoples movements for just causes. We have a lot to learn from movements directed to frame environmental, feminist and human rights issues for the governments to address and parliament to legislate, with considerable success. One might as well add to the list the Jessica Lal and Matoo murder cases and how peoples movement secured justice. One cannot simply stand and stare and not contribute ones bit. One should bear in mind that the only safeguard is to participate in the movement and give direction and not let the field free for unsavory elements as a license to vandalize. The apprehensions of peoples movements becoming disoriented are well placed, but one has to take guard. The responsibility to steer such movements for social engineering lies with the progressive forces in the country and they must not look for alibis either because they cannot assume leadership roles or because of some other reservations, either on ideological grounds or forebodings. They must play a decisive role by giving the right orientation and the right perspective to such movements and it can be done only by active participation. It would, of course, be presumptuous to think that peoples movement is the sole patent of some individuals, groups and political outfits. The left may still be sulking from the trauma of peoples movement in Singur. But they have learn the lesson and come out of the phobia and join the mainstream of protest movements which challenge the exploitative established order. The minorities and the Dalits also have everything to gain from such an uprising, for they bear the real brunt of the corrupt governance. NCPRI, which appeared to be initially hostile to the Jan-Lok-Pal bill is now finding a lot of common space to share. Currently we have four Lokpal formulations in circulation. The Jan Lokpal, the NCPRI version, the Bahujan Lokpal and Loksatta's part Lokpal. And, there will be many more. There is a general feeling that the Jan Lok-Pal bill has left out corporate groups,

political parties, NGOs, professional groups, religious corruption and the like. Poverty has become big business for many NGOs, and the scandals like 2G spectrum, pale into insignificance in the face of the current revelations of the riches of many religious outfits and the mushrooming of cults and obscurantist organizations. The left parties have rightly demanded that all constituents of the Nexus, including the corporate graft, be also brought under the ambit of the Jan-Lok-Pal bill. Besides suggesting a series of amendments to the draft Lokpal bill, the NCPRI have envisaged strengthening of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) into an independent body to tackle bureaucratic graft at the middle and lower level; creation of a decentralised grievance redress commission to respond to the common man's daily needs; amendments to the existing Judicial Accountability and Standard Bill to ensure functional independence and independent scrutiny of the judiciary and modification of the Public Interest Disclosure and Protection to Persons making the Disclosure Bill to provide suitable protection to whistleblowers. They have also agreed to include the PM, but with a rider that it should be endorsed by the full bench of the Supreme court. The reservation in some quarters about the Jan Lokpal formulation is that it will create an anti-corruption regime with excessive powers' that would override the democratic checks and balances. The AntiCorruption Lokpal bill presented in Parliament , on the other hand, is dangerous' in that it allows government control over the agency by granting government power to appoint and remove the Lokpals. These are all matters of detail and judgment and can be easily worked out to everybodys satisfaction, if the intention is to enact a strong and effective Jan-Lok-Pal bill. If these versions represent different segments of the society and address their specific concerns and anxieties, and incorporating them fortifies the Jan-Lokpal bill, it is welcome. But, if this multiplicity is the emergent property of the dictum the rich exploit the poor and the poor fight among themselves and acquires narcissistic overtones, it will be a self- inflicting tragedy. The social temperature, to borrow the phrase from the lexicon of social physics, is rising and the linkages of the unholy nexus crumbling. This calls for a total revolution and all political parties, especially the left has the foremost duty of focusing the discourse of the movement to systemic overhaul, and they must seize the opportunity and rise to the occasion. The evolutionary paradigm has a stern warning for all political parties as an analogy: only those who can adapt and change will survive (Allen). To brand Annas movement as Messianic is only to miss the wood for the trees. The role of Anna in this uprising was only incidental: anybody, with his conviction and tenacity of purpose would have galvanized the victims of the corrupt system to launch the movement because the fertile ground for such an uprising existed and the objective conditions so demanded it. The major trigger to the recent discontent was the newly found awareness that nepotism and cronyism are tickets to success: special privileges in the lucrative business world that friends seem so easily able to obtain, resonates strongly throughout the country. Of course this is not to devalue Annas contribution, even the PM saluted him for his mission and sacrifice. Individuals have a role, but only to the extent as the proverbial flapping of the wings of a butterfly in Brazil leading to a storm in Texas, a scientific phenomenon, would testify. Anna laid the basic foundation for the movement to evolve and gave the crucial initial push as the starting point, without which no movement would have taken off in the first place. Subsequently, the movement evolved, as system modeling experts have shown, quite spontaneously, steered or governed by all sorts of highly complex self-reinforcing mechanisms, the outcomes of long drawn-out evolutionary processes: the whole movement emerged without any organistional backing or well-trained cadre to mobilise support. The process was set in motion because the movement was perceived as a savior by the alienated masses, who had been

forced to the edge of hopelessness, obviating the necessity to resign themselves to their wretched condition and not let the exclusion persist any longer. In sharp contrast to Annas movement, we witnessed the fiasco of Baba Ramdevs agitation who was much more of a cult figure with a massive following. Then what went wrong? His credibility was eroded by the exposure that he had brokered a deal with the government, and his resolve to carry on with the time bound fast was perceived merely as a stage managed show to salvage his position. His strength was his captive audience who was in a total disarray, disillusioned and directionless when the Baba disappeared from the scene, avoiding police arrest: it never evolved as a mass movement, had no momentum of its own, and therefore, with the anchor gone, could not sustain itself and fizzled out. Of course, the brutal and totally reprehensible mid-night police swoop to disperse the gathering was, once again, a testimony to a colonial mindset of the government to treat every protest as a rebellion. The government had arrested Anna also, the home minister taking full responsibility and justifying it, which marked the turning point of an ominous political emergency, inflaming the people with outrage. Thousands of Annas supporters gathered outside the prison, expressing solidarity with the movement, and resolved to meet the challenge head on, to the chagrin of the government. There was country wide condemnation of the arrest of Anna, accusing the government to stifle dissent and deny the right to peaceful protest. What followed was a mass upsurge for everybody to see. Hordes of people beyond the ordinary and the dispossessed turned out to support him: the countrys swelling nouveau riche middle class, students, the mobile phone tribe and even the super-rich, who discerned their vital stakes in a more accountable political system the movement had the promise to establish, throwing the government machinery into a tailspin. But the government, it seemed clear, had no intension of rushing to a political suicide and offered an olive branch, the young brigade of the government taking charge as a conciliatory gesture. At the peak of the movement also, there was considerable moral pressure built on Anna by the government and the leader of the opposition party in parliament to give up his fast. For a moment, he appeared to be taken in by the design, but soon exhibited his resilience, mustering his inner strength, which he kept reiterating, he drew from the people. By then, he had become synonymous with the movement and was accountable to the masses who had built it and could not possibly betray them, and more so, himself. The Jan-Lokpal Bill movement by the civil society was not an emotive issue, nor a reality show engineered by the media, which could be high jacked by the unscrupulous elements or opportunistic alliances, no matter how much they tried. Media does not create anything it only markets what has been created by others in a market economy, be it a serial or a cricket match or for that matter a movement, their sole purpose, like a vulture, is to pounce on a story to capitalise on the opportunity and make quick money. Justice Katju has recently chided the media of being totally oblivious to social issues. In fact, as observed by a commentator, the media has been playing a very dubious role of engaging the minds of the masses into sensational and highly sentimental shows as opium of the people to distract their attention from real agenda. The anti Anna Hazare lobby hogged as much limelight in the media as the protagonists of the Jan- Lokpal Bill, different media channels taking sides depending on their proclivity and affiliations to different political camps . However, media, at least a section of it, has shown exemplary courage in taking on the established order, because they believe in the simple and the basic moral precept-honesty. Over the years, the number of these whistle blowers, as they called, has increased dramatically, using all the armory in their repertory, e g. RTI, sting operations, PIL, to great advantage. In Latin America, for instance, journalism itself

has become a main force of fighting injustice: reporters have uncovered corruption, exposed drug lords and have even helped topple presidents. Recently, we witnessed the same fete in Egypt. And many of them have also been assassinated in the process and paid the price. After all, it were the American prison guards in Abu Ghraib who had photographed the torture of prisoners and leaked them to the press. Understandably, the press is filling the vacuum, that the citizens with gripes are more likely to call the local newspaper than to seek help from police or the courts, corruption being so rampant. For the public, the only hope for confronting this mess is the media. It is only nave to trust media and social networking sites to build movement in a vacuum: they can play a supportive role and expedite the process but first of all there has to be an issue with a substance as was fully demonstrated by the mass participation in Annas struggle. On the contrary, Baba Ramdev did not succeed even though he owns a private TV channel and also enjoyed the full support of the information and communication technology. Anna broke his fast only after the parliament conceded his demand, though only in principal, to incorporate citizens charter, lower bureaucracy and Lok-Ayukta in the states in the overall framework of the Lok-pal bill. Eventually, Sense of the House resolution (and not a proper one) was passed by the parliament only as a saviour, a smokescreen to cloud the acrimony between the different parties. The House discussed various issues relating to setting up of a strong and effective Jan-Lokpal and resolved to transmit the proceedings to the Standing Committee for its perusal while formulating its recommendations for the Lokpal Bill. This, however, should not be misconstrued as be all and end all of the struggle. In fact, this is only the beginning of the peoples movement, and it has to be taken to its logical conclusion of cleansing the very system which gives rise to corruption in the first place. Anna has already moved in this direction, though, obliquely, by enlarging the canvas of the movement. He has urged the PM not only to bring a strong Lokpal bill, but also initiate electoral reforms, amend the land acquisition bill to give primacy to gram sabhas, and modify the judicial standards and accountability bill to include corruption in judiciary. However, maladies like, bribe, nepotism, violation of human rights, land grab, should not be seen as topics but as facets of the larger issue of polity and the system around which it is structured. With the suspension of the movement in its current form, the government is back to its true form and has already started targeting the activists by unleashing a smear campaign. Privilege notices have been issued against Team Anna members Kiran Bedi, Prashant Bhushan, Arvind Kejriwal and actor Om Puri and more are in the pipeline. I-T department has slapped a notice on Annas chief campaigner Arvind Kejriwal, raking up an old issue, forcing him to pay dues of more than Rs. 9 lacs. Anna has already shown remarkable flexibility in accommodating the concerns of minorities and disadvantaged sections by agreeing to reservation for their representatives in the Lok Pal Bill and appealed to the government not to be vindictive and has warned that this attitude would create unrest in society. He is also agreeable to citizens charter being taken care of by a separate bill. Civil rights activist Aruna Roy termed the notion of parliamentary privilege fundamentally flawed' and said it needed a re-look. Not surprisingly, the standing committee failed to evolve a consensus and instead submitted a draft as an amalgam of conflicting interests representing fragmented party positions, incorporating as many as seventeen dissents. The whole debate in the parliament was choreographed, political parties trying every possible trick to enhance their prospects in the forthcoming elections. The passage of the Lokpal bill suffered a setback in the Rajya Sabha in the winter session when the discussion came to an abrupt end after the chairman adjourned the house sine-die, ostensibly for want of time to consider the amendments. The debate on the anti graft bill remained inconclusive in the current budget session also. The passage of the bill is going to be delayed further with the Rajya Sabha referring it to a select committee despite the objections from

various parties. Critics see the Lok-Pal bill introduced by the government in parliament and passed by Lok Sabha as nothing more than as attention-grabbing cosmetic that does not tackle the underlying problem.The contentious nuclear deal, for instance, was cleared with electrifying speed, while the Jan-Lokpal bill continues to get mired in procedural technicalities. The issue, which has caught the imagination of the whole country, is no more than a game of political chess for the political parties. Disappointed, Anna and baba Ramdev observed one day fast at Jantar mantar to rekindle the agitation to demand the passing of an effective Jan Lokpal Bill expeditiously. Baba Ramdev has focused his agenda on getting back black money stashed abroad. But as Swaminathan has opined: Baba Ramdevs financial naivet is only to be expected. But I am astonished that the media endlessly repeats the myth that enormous hoards of black money are lying in Swiss banks. Only financial illiterates will leave their money in Swiss banks offering very low interest rates (sometimes under 1%). To maximize their gains and hide their cash trail, savvy crooks route their money through various tax havens, and then seek the assistance of financial managers to invest in a variety of assets from shares and bonds to real estate, aiming for annual returns of 10-20 %. This is obvious from the details disclosed of Indian-owned accounts in the LGT Bank in Liechtenstein. Of the 26 Indian accounts unearthed, some were owned by NRIs, and only 18 looked taxable. These had received inflows of just Rs 39 crore over two years, some of which may have been legitimate earnings abroad. This suggests that even if the Swiss bank secrecy is broken, relatively modest sums may come to light. The paper on black money presented by the finance minister corroborates to the observations made by Swaminathan. The illicit money transferred outside India may come back to India through various methods such as hawala, mispricing, foreign direct investment (FDI) through beneficial tax jurisdictions, raising of capital by Indian companies through global depository receipts (GDRs), and investment in Indian stock market through participatory notes. It is possible that a large amount of money transferred outside India might actually have returned through these means. Both Anna and Baba Ramdev highlighted the imperative of development strategies that are inclusive in nature. They also focused on the issue of land acquisition for corporates and the builders and the plight of adivasis, farmers and other groups displaced in the process. The SEZ and sky-scrapers in new India have largely come up by displacing millions of people from their land. According to WGHR report (Human Rights in India and the UN) between 60 and 65 million people have been displaced in India after independence, one million every year. Of these displaced, over 40 per cent are tribals and another 40 per cent consist of dalits and other poor. India uproots most people for exclusive growth: since independence the highest number of people have been uprooted for developmental projects in the world. Significantly, the Anna team has finally shed its reservations about the pretensions of the prime ministers honesty and have openly indicted him and fourteen of his cabinet ministers since the scandals took place during their tenure and allegedly within their knowledge. They have demanded the formation of a special investigation team to probe their complicity in the scams. With the government rejecting their demands, Team Anna reiterated their resolve to go on indefinite fast from July 25th as planned due to the failure of the government to enact a strong Lok-pal Bill as well as not setting up a Special Investigation Team to probe corruption charges against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his 14 Cabinet colleagues. As usual, the Delhi Police, in its inimitable style, initially tried to browbeat the Team Anna and refused permission to hold the indefinite

10

fast at Jantar Mantar, ostensibly on the plea that the timing coincided with the monsoon session of Parliament when it was to provide space to other outfits. But the activists were not impressed by their posturing and refused to buy the argument and reiterated that they would hold the protest only at the same spot or go to jail while accusing Home Minister P. Chidambaram of not allowing them to implement their action programme. The Delhi Police finally relented and has now given permission. Feeling betrayed, Team Anna, led by Arvind Kejriwal, began an indefinite fast as scheduled, on Wednesday at Jantar Mantar to press for the adoption of Jan Lok Pal Bill. Accusing the government of betraying the people, Anna joined the fast on Sunday, which had an electrifying effect, bringing the crowds back to the venue, reminiscent of the revolutionary fervour witnessed earlier at Ramlila Maidan. However, realising the futility of observing indefinite fast as a moral pressure to persuade the government, whose strategy for placating the discontented isnt quite progressive, the agitation in its current form was abandoned. All the major political parties perceive Anna movement as a threat to their electoral prospects and have closed ranks to scuttle it. Not surprisingly, the government has simply resolved to clamp down, violently if need be, to keep a lid on protests. Understandably, the IAC Stakeholders are now exploring all the options, including launching a new political party, to decide the future roadmap of the struggle. These are issues of survival for the masses whose lives have been jeopardized in the name of development. The authority of the democratically elected leaders draws on nothing more substantial than a contract with the people: legitimacy hangs from a single skein of public trust. And the irony is that the representatives of the people can no longer be trusted to preserve the core attributes of their own democratic culture, and the grim scenario of a corrupt oligarchy at the heart of Indian public affairs seems utterly credible to the people. What moves us, reasonably enough, is not the realisation that the world falls short of being completely just which few of expect - but that there are clearly remedial injustices around us which we want to eliminate (Amartya Sen). You cannot create a livable society based simply on the selfinterested interactions of individuals ( Alexis De tocqueville). Markets do not work without some kind of moral structure: modern institutions have to coexist with traditional forms of moral behevior, reciprocity and trust (Fukuyama). If democracy is to survive in this country, then the discourse cannot remain merely at the level of general principals of justice, freedom and survival with dignity, but device legislative prcedures through which these general principles can be implemented. V P Jain*Associate Prof.(Retd),School of Open Learning, University of Delhi.Convener, Delhi University Retired Teachers Association Mail ID: vpjain28@redffmail.com Web link: http://www.scribd.com/vpjain http://www.du.ac.in/fileadmin/DU/Academics/course_material/hrge_11.pdf