Anti-Corruption Movement and Limits of Indian Democracy

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Anti-Corruption Movement and Limits of Indian Democracy

Created 2011-08-30 16:59

Corruption A blog on the anti-corruption movement led by the members of India's 'civil society' by pragoti editorial member, Maidul Islam. For the last few months, anti-corruption movement in India has gained momentum to the extent that it has made international headlines. The leader of Indias largest communist party has already called a spade a spade by saying how the UPA-II government is the most corrupt government in the history of independent India and how the urban middleclasses want a messiah to get rid of corruption without challenging the neoliberal policy regime that not only breeds corruption but has actually institutionalised it [2]. Similarly, a distinguished political commentator has argued about how the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare sidesteps the corruption of the economically powerful in industry, trade and business by prioritizing the corruption of the political elites [3]. A noted civil society activist and a prominent member of what the corporate media has problematically called as Team Anna confirms that they have received 2 crore unique missed calls in the last fortnight [4] from those fortunate Indians, who have access to the mobile technology.

Indian Democracy

National

Neoliberalism

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But how do we explain the emergence and existence of such an anti-corruption movement in a neoliberal India? There is no denying the fact that sections of urban middle classes and the corporate mediathe vehicles and beneficiaries of neoliberal capitalism in India has been instrumental in popularising the anti-corruption movement under a nationalist rubric. The mass frenzy that was telecast live by the electronic media might be a grand illusion that a respected novelist has recently articulated by calling upon the entire nation-state to self-introspect that perhaps we are all to blame [5] for such messy affairs of corruption. Philosophically speaking, the problem of economic corruption is perhaps the symptom of greed that has always haunted human civilisations but its magnitude has exponentially increased in the period of neoliberal capitalism with its profound consumerist lifestyle. In this respect, the urban middle classes, who are deeply immersed into consumerism, would hardly launch an anti-consumerist movement by taking lessons from the Gandhian strategy of boycotting foreign commodities. Thus, their apparent inspiration of fasting on Gandhian lines actually betrays the Gandhian project of anti-consumerism. Secondly, finding a new messiah in Anna Hazare while discarding the discredited messiah in the Indian prime minister who was once the darling of the urban middle classes for its staunch support to neoliberalism is perhaps the reflection of an unhappy and discontented being of this very urban middle classes. After all, Bertolt Brechts Galileo would say that Unhappy is the land that needs a hero! Thus, the apparent happy consciousness of Indias urban middle classes with a consumerist lifestyle is a mask for its unhappy mind. Thirdly, the disillusioned urban middle classes, who rarely go to vote, would obviously have less faith in the parliament, whose members are mostly elected by the suffering India. In this respect, a legitimate question can be what the suffering India is thinking about a movement dominated by the members of shining India? Perhaps, the suffering India is taking note of each and every step of the liberal parliamentary democracy in India, in which they participate in large numbers. Perhaps, the suffering India is taking note of the everyday pinch of price rise and localised forms of corruption under an exploitative and oppressive neoliberal regime. But what would they do, when the vocal and the so called virtuososthe elected representatives and the urban middle-classes always fool the suffering India? The former takes their votes and serves corporate capital and their salaried spokespersons, namely the urban middle classes. This is precisely the question of a permanent gap between the representative (MPs) and the represented (people as underdogs/underprivileged) that liberal parliamentary democracies have always encountered. Currently, Indian democracy is going through such a crisis of representation that cannot prioritise to accommodate democratic demands of the people in the midst of its happy bonhomie with corporate capital. The messianic project of civil society and its urban middle class constituency perfectly gels with the guruvadi tradition in our country where ordinary citizens like us are constantly given moral and political preaching by an enlightened few from the top. The basic premise of such a messianic project is that the messiahs know much better than the people. This is an elitist political tradition, which is as old as Platos philosopher king in The Republic. No wonder, the Republic of India under an elitist neoliberal project is mimicking such logic even in the context of an anti-corruption movement. In such a context of elitism prevalent in the air, is it not the responsibility of the political parties and civil society activists to listen to what the anti-elitist political project of a revolutionary black man in Fanon has to say? In an under-developed country the party ought to be organized in such fashion that it is not simply content with having contacts with the masses. The party should be the direct expression of the masses. The party is not an administration responsible for transmitting government orders; it is the energetic spokesman and the incorruptible defender of the masses. In order to arrive at this conception of the party, we must above all rid ourselves of the very Western, very bourgeois and therefore contemptuous attitude that the masses are incapable of governing themselves. In fact, experience proves that the masses understand perfectly the most complicated problemsFrantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth. Taking lessons from what the people has to say, the political struggle against an oppressive and exploitative system of neoliberalism and its offshoot of institutionalised corruption can be effectively fought. Perhaps, when the people would decide the fate of our country instead of the messiahs, then Indian democracy would keep its promise to be substantively representative and the constitution to be truly sovereign.
Source URL: http://www.pragoti.in/bn/node/4520 Links: [1] http://www.pragoti.in/bn/node/4519 [2] http://www.pragoti.in/node/4505 [3] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Parliament-is-for-people/articleshow/9787032.cms [4] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Strong-Lokpal-is-non-negotiable-Arvind-Kejriwal/articleshow/9790098.cms [5] http://www.hindustantimes.com/The-grand-illusion/Article1-738966.aspx

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8/31/2011 11:41:55 PM