Nobody is paying heed Irom Sharmila's fast protest attempts to suicide

Nobody is paying heed Irom Sharmila's fast protest attempts to suicide

JUST IN PRINT


This is the point where things went wrong. Hardly did we remember Sharmila, also called as ‘Iron Lady of Manipur’, ‘Mengoubi’, a civil rights activist who is pushing for the withdrawal of the act (it confers special powers to armed forces that include unwarranted detention, arrest, shoot at sight) through her decade-long-ongoing hunger strike.

It is agreed that corruption and stashing of unaccounted wealth in foreign banks by politicians or influential people is a rot for economic development of India. Raising voice against it is undoubtedly a deed of responsible Indian. And, efforts of Team Anna, yoga guru Baba Ramdev for pinpointing these cases is worth to gain our support. But, that does not mean all our support should be solely extended for these crusaders, who easily got public attention through fast and easy network of electronic media. Consider the big difference between Sharmila’s painful and less known struggle with that of famous fighters of recent protests in India, who enjoy strong people’s support and big fan following. Sharmila’s heroic decision to wipe out AFPSA meted bad luck, as it was not aggressively carried as lead story by various media outlets like was done with popular crusader. ‘Mengoubi’ had handful of people by her side or few NGO workers, social activists who came forward to encourage her hard strive.


Whereas Annaji’s protest was ‘popular’ among everybody, as the issue managed to make front page headlines in almost all newspapers. Media, which is called as the watchdog of government, rather proved as ‘Anna protest’ watchdog. Support rallies were organised in various cities, large number of people were seen shouting ‘Hum Anna ke sath hai’ slogan, white caps, which read as ‘Main Anna hu’ also became an instant hit. Audience was so awakened with the old man’s fast protest that they too sat on fast with him. But government also crippled this movement through crony politics and tacit management, proving it to be just an ‘artificial widespread popularity’ programme, sponsored by ‘news starved’ 24X7 running channels.
Undemocratic conditions prevalent in north eastern part of India are too a serious problem that need to be addressed soon. Grievances of people residing (due to the existing callous Act) in these ‘disturbed areas’ need to be addressed soon by announcing packages for development of the area.


Another point, Mengoubi’s hunger strike was suppressed in the best ways by the government. Furthermore the naïve and brave pledge of Iron Lady of Manipur has been turned into a punishable crime. According to our Indian law books and law codes- hunger strike for infinite period of time falls under ‘an attempt to suicide’. As a punishment Sharmila is being force-fed through nasal tubes with medical aid at hospitals or at her home. Such a response from government is more than enough to bring shame to entire country.


It is time that we stand in support of peaceful and genuine struggle movements and make sure that we are not influenced by televised movements, which lack sincerity and authenticity. But it won’t be an exaggeration to say that present-day movements sustain only through their popularity on media and those whom media chooses to skip, fail to even attract attention of our countrymen.


Over the past 10 days, many people have asked me what I thought of the Anna Hazare movement and the kind of national fervour it generated. I was also asked whether I supported it. My blatant ‘no’ to the second question has raised many a brow. As the great Indian fast-to-death episode settles down, at least for the time being, and people celebrating their first win over the ever-denying government turn back to their normal routine, I would like to take this opportunity to defend my stand.

But before that, let me reiterate that the views expressed here are my personal.


It struck me on Tuesday, I was in Delhi in fact the 5th of April, while I was still recovering from a sudden ringing of the phone, which cut short my uneventful night’s sleep, that Anna Hazare had begun his fast until death, or till his demands are met. The venue was anybody’s guess.


Still scratching my head, and yawning, I reluctantly put on the television, which showed a septuagenarian in a white khadi dhoti-kurta, lying down with folded hands, in front of a picture of the Bharat Mata—her figure a little distorted and slightly tilted towards her right. Accompanying her on the poster were Rani Laxmibai, Swami Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi. This old man, for my memory could not help beyond this, is a Padma award-winning social activist, best known for his contribution towards the upliftment of his native Ralegan Siddhi village in Maharashtra and establishing it as a model village.


So what’s the fuss all about this time around, I asked myself. This time he was campaigning against corruption. He demanded that the government pass the Lokpal, or the public ombudsman, Bill—a draft that has been in limbo for around four decades now—in order to eradicate corruption.


In the past 12-odd months, the country has witnessed rampant corruption—the Adarsh Society scam, the cash-for-vote scam, the CWG scam, and the mother of all, the 2G scam—the combined magnitude of which, even by Indian standards, was unprecedented.


I followed the non-violent protest by the so-called Gandhi version 2.0 on my TV and through newspapers. I could see the entire nation participating, TV channels going berserk in a race to go one-up, before the fast came to an end on Saturday, 9th of April, around 11am. I saw a group of so-called agents of change, which comprised of Kiran Bedi, Swami Agnivesh and Arvind Kejriwal to name a few, sharing the dais to address the nation; and Bollywood figures such as Anupam Kher, Kabir Bedi and Rahul Bose voicing their concerns from other parts of the country.

I also saw young kids from schools across Delhi participating live and talking about bringing change, change in the governance. I saw an old man, past 100, sitting in the front row, fasting, joining the cause. I also witnessed people conducting a candlelight vigil in my society on Saturday evening shouting Anna Hazare zindabad and Vande Mataram, reflecting the emotions of scores who were doing the same at the India Gate. (I have to admit, I didn’t see the same jubilation in my society when Team India brought home the cricket World Cup.) A scene from the 2006 movie Rang De Basanti flashed by.

But never in those five days, I felt like I should also go to Jantar Mantar and register my grievances.


I think the recent happenings across the world and my constant following of those were one very prominent reason. For India is not Japan. Ever since the recent earthquake—followed by a tsunami and a nuclear crisis, the worst disaster since the World War II—rocked that nation, the Japanese are trying hard to rebuild. No hoarding of food, no looting has been reported yet. In the community shelters they share, no Japanese encroaches more than two-and-a-half-odd feet she is entitled to. Even while searching the debris to find something they can recognize, if they find valuables that don’t belong to them, they are handing it out to the cops. It’s impossible to think of such feeling of society over individual in our country where, worshipers bribe the pandas at temples to beat the queue and have darshan through a secret passage. Or where people jump the line at various ticket counters, pushing their way through and making an entirely new queue.


So far as corruption goes, let’s face it, it can’t be eradicated. For a society to be corruption-free, it has to be a Utopian world which, in practicality, is impossible. For there will be a certain someone, who will be greasing the palms of some babu or the other, to get her work done swiftly, or in the way she wants to. And let’s face the fact that we cannot change that.

These basic problems apart, the so-called movement itself was not completely flawless. Commentators have discussed in length the implications of this fast-until-death strategy, its pros and cons, and certain experts have called it emotional blackmailing where democracy and freedom are held hostage by its practitioners.

What if tomorrow my sweeper goes on the non-violent fast-until-death or till I meet her demand for a sari and a couple of thousand of rupees as a Diwali bakshish?



Jokes apart, there are bigger problems at hand. The way I can it, this menace called corruption is more rampant in the public sector than the private sector. The reason: the sarkari babu thinks that the job has come to them with their dowry. It doesn't matter whether they work or not, no one’s baap can question them, let alone suspending them. Honestly I have known such babus who can’t write a single word correctly without dictation. The office for them is their garden or, at times, their spittoon, and the office hours, long periods of leisure.


It’s this attitude that relegates work to the last in their list of priorities. And it’s then that the common man has to run over and over again to these offices and persuade these babus to do what was supposed to be heir duty. This persuasion translates into some currency notes, denominations of which depend upon the nature of work.



Why then can’t the government simply put into place a system, which can check the productivity of a sector and the individuals who make it, and then take proper action against people found guilty of ignoring their work. But of course, for that the government needs to wake up from its deep slumber.


I am glad that this idea has at least found a place in the wish-list of the agents of change. That brings me to the role these agents will have to play in order to bring about the change, and their authenticity and commitment.

Many of the people I saw sharing the dais with Anna Hazare were oblivious of even the name of the protest. They went there, it appeared to me, to get some political mileage or to blow their own trumpet. Baba Ramdev for example—who has done a commendable job to introduce yoga to this pizza generation of ours—had to look at the banner for the name of the movement before elaborating further on the topic. And when he found himself all at sea despite all his efforts, he took the easiest way out—started singing a self-created unity song. One advice for him: he needs to look after his own institutions, because I can see the rot spreading there. For the record, when I asked for a certain medicine at one of his shops in Delhi a couple of weeks ago, the attendants there had no idea when it will be available and were ready to give me a substitute for some chai-paani in return.



The biggest agents of change, however, were the young people participating in the protest. But what gets me worried is the participation of young school kids. It’s hard to imagine how much the children, still in their early teens, would understand about governance. After a day of protest-cum-picnic, over a couple of choco bars, they will be content with their pocket money of a couple of hundred rupees and pizza parties at friends’ place over the tunes of Akon or Lady Gaga.


Honestly, though I would be sounding pessimistic, what is the guarantee that this Bill, even if gets Parliament’s approval in the upcoming monsoon session, will be able to tackle corruption? What are the chances that, while taking a decision on some case, the members of this committee—who are advocating the Bill’s passage—wouldn’t be bribed? For humans are susceptible to corruption as bees to nectar.


And again, in case we really want to change things, the first change has to brought within ourselves. Because, it's the corruption of thoughts that lead to other forms of it. And unless we learn to practice that sort of discipline in our daily lives, it's a waste of time to talk about any other change.


The modern Indian history can be divided into two periods: the Pre-Anna Period (1617-2010) and the Post-Anna Period (2011 till now).

In 1617, the East India Company was given the permission to trade in India by Mughal emperor Jehangir.


The East India Company gradually kept spreading their claws, and, in the decades to follow, started influencing the political decisions. By the turn of the 19th century, they started making laws, and before a blink of the eye, India was held a hostage.


The second half of the 19th century history is full of stories of sacrifice by the natives and their endurance, as they worked up a movement to drive the British out of India, the task in which they succeeded in 1947, when, on 15th August, at the stroke of midnight, India was declared free.


Between 1947 and 2010, much had changed in India. The population almost quadrupled to 1.2 billion people from 350 million. India managed to write a Constitution, but had to make 94 amendments in it. India moved on from silent black and white movies to 3D multi-colored movies, producing Mega Heroes at the drop of a hat. The country named a sport as the National Sport, dominated it for some decades and then let it go into oblivion, only to embrace another money-churning sport as a religion. This sport, which was played by 10 major countries, became such a craze that every child in the street wanted to become someone or the other playing it. It made the players billionaires, and the followers, lazy. People sold off their entire fortune to be able to fly overseas, buy a ticket and get a glimpse of their favourite sportsmen. And they wouldn’t work because they had the moral responsibility to cheer the team on the grounds, which was, more often than not, in a losing cause.


The fast-developing country, during this period, achieved close to double-digit economic growth, which was only second to China, and, was in contrast with the low single-digit growth the developed countries cold muster.


The golden bird that once symbolized India was molted into souvenirs and securely kept in 1.5 million vaults in Swiss banks, belonging to the 150 thousand dollar millionaires.

The turn of 2009 brought a global disgrace to India when, in January, the country faced its biggest corporate fraud. The unprecedented event blew the lid off and the whole country succumbed to scams one after another. The cash-for-vote scandal, the telecom scandal, the Commonwealth Games scandal to name a few.


By the end of 2010, the common man woke up from the slumber and started realizing that something was wrong. That the country was in the middle of chaos. That the day-to-day life was leading him to nowhere. That the people he had chosen to rule him and his brethren were holding them to ransom. The alarming situation summoned a change.


In the spring of the year, when the outside world was fighting the so-called Jasmine Revolution, and Uncle Sam and his cousins were busy doing calculations in order to keep their countries afloat, India was going through its own share of changes—its second struggle of independence. The agent of change was a product of the first independence struggle of the early 20th century, a follower of the Father of the Nation, the Anna of the Nation.


Anna, born in a village of western India, made his mettle with the Father during the first freedom fight. He turned his village into a model village, and the villagers, self-dependent. He was reaping the benefits of his endurance as a youth during his retirement when this call of duty came beckoning. Supported by a brigade of able subordinates, Anna started his movement.


Some revolutionaries, during the first freedom struggle in the early 20th century threw a bomb at an ongoing British parliamentary proceeding in India, for they believed the British were deaf and an explosion was needed to make them hear what the natives wanted. Anna, in his freedom struggle, decided that it was necessary to teach the nation’s overeating (people ate everything—from fodder for cattle, to cotton, to human beings, to cement and concrete) population, where half the countrymen went without supper, the need and importance of fasting.


Anna, a septuagenarian, started fasting. Millions followed across the country. He had struck a chord with the common man. The issues he was fighting for was the common man’s. With wavering flags and chanting slogans, the common man showed solidarity. He became Anna, Anna, in turn, became the nation.


Thousands of Anna’s supporters gathered at Ground Zero to pledge solidarity. Millions across the country did the same. The roads were choked, the traffic standstill. Those at the ground were treated to hot meals of rice, lentils and curries; and the ones on the roads were stocked with plenty of liquor to keep the energy going. Anna, lying on the bed, lost more than 10 lbs in the 13 days he fasted.


The movement, however, kept gathering momentum. It was like another civil disobedience movement.


People started breaking rules. Traffic rules were the first to be violated. Riding bikes without helmets, only in caps saying, “I am Anna”, with often more than two pillion riders. Driving after couple of swigs at the No.1 whisky bang in the middle of the road with the boot of the cars open. Hanging dangerously out of the car windows.


Like the Jasmine Revolution outside the country, this one too was aptly fuelled by the social and mass media. Nothing coverage-worthy happened during period in the summer, when Anna was on fast for the first time. The coverage was even stronger during the rains. Even the parliamentary proceedings played second fiddle to the ongoing fast and resulting controversy and expert commentaries.


The whole country was witnessing a movement that was unparalleled in its history.

Finally, the government blinked. Anna won. The common man was victorious. They rewrote history. The Constitution was rewritten. The representative democracy was customized, where the people with will to hold fasts until death were protected by law and were given certain privileges, not to mention the immense respect they got in the society.


The federal government, under the new Constitution, was composed of two branches—the executive and the legislative—both of which came under the ambit of an ombudsman. The judiciary, which was the third constituent of the federal government before 2011, became defunct.


The Union Ombudsman now has the final decision over both the executive and the legislative. Ombudsman is the two-tier decision making system, which consists of the Union Ombudsman, and state ombudsmen heading the trial courts in the states. The Union Ombudsman is also the ultimate interpreter of the new Constitution.
Gandhian Anna says if nothing works, slap, whereas Gandhi proposed to offer his other cheek when confronted with violence. The statement came after he watched a Bollywood movie, and has justified people accusing the overt-Gandhian of being an extremist.


People who had always maintained that Bollywood Masala movies have been radicalising the minds, here is something that will justify them. After watching the screening of a Bollywood movie on corruption, ‘Gali gali choir hai’, pseudo-Gandhian and anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare expressed his heart out. According to newspaper reports, Hazare told the reporters that slapping a person when your power of tolerance of corruption runs out is justified. "When a man's power of tolerance runs out, then whoever is in front of you, if a slap is given, then the brain is put back in place. That is the only road open now,” reported The Times of India.



This is for the second time that Hazare has revealed his faith in physical rather than Gandhian ways of dealing with issues. Earlier he had approved of the slapping of Union Minister Sharad Pawar by a Delhi man though he had later condemned the attack but not before asking ‘only one-slap’. The former army driver psyche has always been doubted and it is generally believed that inside him is an extremist who dons the Gandhian cap to pull crowds. A special screening of the move was held in Hazare’s hometown Ralegan Siddhi in the presence of the whole film crew.


The anti-corruption movement that started with an 11-day fast by little known activist Anna Hazare in August last year, drew thousands of people with Hazare becoming a household name across the country. But five months down the line, people have started to get annoyed at even the mention of the Hazare movement and his team. Middle-class people had recognised with the movement the most, as they are worst hit by graft issues but have now lost hope that corruption would be tackled in the country.


Posing as a Gandhian but doing or proposing contrary to the actions of Gandhi seems to have been a major cause why people have started to distance themselves from his agenda, well-intioned as it may be. While Gandhi had proposed to offer another cheek, if somebody slapped you once on the cheek, Hazare goes miles ahead and proposes to slap if your tolerance runs out. In a perfect case of getting fed up with his utterances, black-mailing and the programmes, only a few thousand people turned up at his protest demonstration in Mumbai last year in the last week of December. He was even forced to call off the protest before schedule. The Jan Lokpal Bill that he along with his team has demanded all through is still to be passed by the Parliament.

All the brouhaha created for months in the public platforms, TV channels and newspapers about the bill and the anti-corruption movement seems to have washed down the drain. This has only been reduced to a part of the memory now.

SIDDHARTHA SHANKAR MISHRA,
NEAR PROFESSORS’ COLONY,
AT/PO- BUDHARAJA,
DIST- SAMBALPUR,
SATATE – ODISHA,