India’s split psyche is witnessing a mighty clash between two colossal Maharashtrian ‘bhoomi putras,’ Anna Hazare, the son of the soil and Sharad Pawar, who seems to own each and every last crumb of it.
Hazare is a man defined by austerity, was on a fast unto the death, against a blimp, defined by unbridled greed.
This historical smack down began with the Government watering down the ‘Jan Lokpal Bill’ (Citizens’ Ombudsman Bill) draft to an unrecognisable concoction of itself. This molestation of the spirit of the Bill has been in process for the past 42 years since it was first suggested.
The original draft was designed to bring the corrupt to an expedited justice on a complaint of the common man.
This is in the spirit of the ‘Right to Information Act’ that Hazare was instrumental in putting into action. An act that empowers any lunatic who can bang up a letter unprecedented access to Government files which leads to exposure of bureaucratic misdeeds. Previously this was the privilege of nephews of forgettable MLA’s and life members of the Bombay Gymkhana Club.
A memorable reported case was of a disheveled gentleman dressed in a lungi and bathroom slippers given VIP treatment by his local ration shop administrators. Previously they had refused to supply him a ration card with a large dose of contempt. The chap had availed the RTI Act and these bullies, pulled up by their superiors, supplied the card and asked for forgiveness.
Poetic Justice
The promise of this poetic justice cannot be compromised. But a cancerously corrupt Congress Government had redrafted the proposed bill to only allow the Speaker of the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha Chairman to refer cases of alleged graft and formed a Group of Ministers to draft the bill led by none other than the allegedly perfect embodiment of corruption, Sharad Pawar. It is equivalent to installing Tiger Woods as the Principal of Lady Shri Ram College.
I can imagine Hazare laughing heartedly to this comical absurdity, then experiencing an intense contempt for another obscene ravaging by Pawar on his country. Hazare has risen to lead this national movement out of sheer bloody mindedness. With a God like strength of character that feeds the energy needed to treat a cancer that most us see as inoperable.
That characteristic trait was formed by hard life. Hazare hails from Ralegan Siddhi in Maharashtra. The village was parched half dead by drought, alcoholism being the only thirst satiated with copious amounts of local grog, with the inhabitants leading a life sucking feudal quicksand.
Returning to Ralegan Siddhi and fired by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, which he read quietly in his spare time whilst an Indian Army driver, Hazare first tackled the alcoholism that crippled the villagers.
New Hope
He then implemented a water collection and conversation system that made, for the first time, irrigation possible. A resurrecting, baptism of hope.
Then with community labour, he built a school for the newly inspired village youth.
Constructive victories that made Ralegan Siddhi a pilot village for Indian rural development. A guiding light that saw untold thousands achieve a self-reliance, allowing them to enjoy an undreamt of human dignity.
Pawar shares these developmental instincts. However, it is no secret that his ‘village’ population consists entirely of his close relatives, who have enjoyed a long golden age of prosperity.
His criminal intelligence is colossal. If it had been applied to the betterment of India, there is no telling where the country would stand.
Is greed good?
There is no doubt his legacy would have been shining. Now, in the increasingly dim twilight of his life, he is perceived as a pathologically greedy old man who has the gall to declare he is worth 3.6 crore to the Election Commission.
Pawar’s mantra of ‘greed is good’ is as fashionable as Hazare’s Gandhian beliefs are unfashionable. The latter’s gospel of an India of self-reliant villages has long been pigeonholed in the looney file.
But he has made a spiritual connection with a young middle class that aspire to internationalism and whose closest experience to rural India is Hauz Khaas village. Young adults who use mobile phones, the 21st century’s Kalashnikov, indiscriminately.
Blissfully, with this genteel uprising, Pawar has already resigned from the drafting of the Bill. Can the movement keep up this momentum? Can India find a peace between the two warring impulses instilled in Her DNA?
The sulking tactics of utopian non-violence and shamelessly exploitative feudal politics. The rustic pureness of Khadi pressed against a comfortable Raymond suit.
I pray the final equilibrium finds an India that is not a fiefdom of fractured personalities. It needs to be home to the Lokpal Bill and sizeable prisons, well stocked with Pawar’s extended family.
Roy Lange is a New Zealand citizen with a passion for India. He now lives and works across the Tasman. Email: inz1@yahoo.com
Editor’s Note: Since the above article was written, Hazare has ended his fast, following the Government’s promise to introduce the ‘Jan Lokpal Bill’ in the Monsoon Session of Parliament.
Photo : 1. Anna Hazare breaks fast on April 9 after the Indian Government relented to introduce the ‘Jan Lokpal Bill’ to Parliament shortly 2. Thousands gather in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar to support Hazare
Pictures Courtesy: NDTV
