Social Hegemony, Economic Hegemony and the Anti-Corruption Movement

Editorial published in Indian Journal of Secularism April-June 2011

Social Hegemony, Economic Hegemony and the Anti-Corruption Movement

India had its first televised non-violent movement led by Anna Hazare and India Against Corruption demanding a Jan Lokpal Bill. Many have already congratulated themselves for the success of the movement. There is absolutely no doubt that this movement has many achievements. The movement galvanized the people of India who were experiencing helplessness witnessing several scams of Himalayan dimensions, and propelled them to express their disapproval of corruption. Hundreds of people belonging to all classes and regions from all over India supported Anna Hazare who was little known outside Maharashtra. The space and importance that media gave to the movement helped it make a platform for popular protest. The movement once again underscores the relevance of Mahatma Gandhi who was all but written off and disowned by practically all the sections of the society but for a few Gandhians running their ashrams. Some say even those managing the ashrams had reduced Gandhi to some rituals like wearing khadi clothes. The dalits disown Gandhi for the Poona Pact, the left disown Gandhi for non-violence as his creed, Muslims disown Gandhi for the Hindu religious symbols that Gandhi employed to mobilize the masses and Gandhi never appealed to the followers of Hindutva whose hatred against Gandhi was so monumental that one of them even assassinated Gandhi and their progeny are still proud of the act of assassination. “Lage Raho Munnabhai” revived Gandhi but only for a short while. Anna Hazare, adopting Gandhian methods has proved that Gandhi, his beliefs, thoughts, approach and strategy cannot be written off. Thanks to the platform created by Anna Hazare, hundreds of thousands of people could express themselves against corruption in scores of cities and citizens became interested in issues other than cricket. Middle class that seemed to bother little about democracy and at times abets corruption by participating in it was once again lighting candles. Though not all those expressing themselves against corruption did not know nor agreed on what the solution to corruption could be, their resolve to do something was strong and supported the demand that Jan Lokpal Bill be drafted with involvement of equal members of civil society nominated by Anna Hazare. The immediate and interim objective of the issue based movement was achieved, the drafting committee constituted and Anna Hazare breaking his fast.

However, in order to sustain the issue movement all those involved and interested in the movement will have to take precautions. As usual, single issue based movements and platforms attract followers of diverse and even opposing ideologies and visions. India Against Corruption is also such a conglomerate. The supporters of Ramdev, Sri Sri Ravi Shanker, Ram Madhav of RSS together with those totally opposed to RSS – all seem to be on Hazare’s platform. The solutions they seek are radically different. There are those who seek strong institutions to deal with corruption, leaving the systems and structures that create opportunities for corruption intact. There are others who propose to deal with corruption by reforming structures in order to allow transparency, accountability, and reduce opportunities for corruption. There are yet others who propound that propagation of their ideologies would automatically deal with corruption and persons who imbibe their ideologies become dedicated to the nation and therefore non-corrupt.

Corruption is symptom of systemic disease. Any system that allows and even makes it a virtue to produce inequality of distribution of resources, will produce corruption, no matter which medicinal legislation is passed and how strong the punishment is prescribed and what powers are invested in institution that is to punish the corrupt. Reward of Rs. 1,76,000 Crore is worth the risk of life imprisonment or even capital punishment. When Jehangir installed a bell for those complaining against corruption to sound out, the bell fell on the first user as there was corruption in approval of the beam on which the bell was installed! Those who support the present structure of free market and globalization will not take the anti-corruption movement very far. The supporters of the free market, globalization and the development mantra that goes along with it is hungry for land and natural resources of the country and unmindful of environmental harm it causes and disregards everything, including laws, rules, regulations, human sufferings that it causes, just everything to maximize its profits. Hunger for economic hegemony goes hand in hand with hunger for social hegemony on grounds of caste, gender, class or community. Creating hegemony and hegemonic, authoritarian structures often gives an impression of enforcing order and ensuring peace even of the graveyard variety. Any peace, and any order is so necessary for hegemonic profit motivated; land and natural resource hungry; environment harming development, particularly when development leads to privatization of public resources! The worry is that Anna Hazare seems to be endorsing the later variety of development in praising Narendra Modi’s developmental model in Gujarat. That is bound to produce umpteen opportunities for corruption. To burden the institution of Lokpal to deal with the reluctant corruption may be expecting too much irrespective of the powers that Lokpal is invested with. Something like installation of bell by Emperor Jehangir. Either Anna was naïve in endorsing Modi’s developmental model or he himself is supporter of such developmental model.

Creation of authoritarian centralized all powerful structures and across the board and disdain for people’s representatives and other institutions in a democracy does not augur well for a democracy. One only hopes that movement against corruption will grapple with all these issues in days to come.