The Politics Of The Ultimate Stakeholder

The Politics Of The Ultimate Stakeholder


Everyone is talking about “Anna” Hazare and his crusade against corruption. He has, by his own description, combined Gandhian ahimsa with Chatrapati Shivaji’s militancy, and this, projected via blanket media coverage, has produced spectacular results.

For his followers, he is the latest incarnation in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan. India, or is it Bharatmata, seems to throw up such saviours spontaneously whenever the body politic is in dire need of cleansing.

But Mr. Hazare’s clarion call won’t amount to much in the long run, unless, like the Mahatma fighting the imperial yoke, and Mr. Narayan challenging Mrs. Gandhi the 1st, he manages to also galvanise the rural masses who actually do almost all the voting. But to them, weaned on the inequities of corruption and inequality for generations, the present movement may seem a trifle exotic. So, Anna Hazare may have to broaden his message to interest them too.

While conducting his fast unto death in textbook Gandhian fashion, Mr. Hazare spiced his comments with calculated insults flung at politicians in general, and the ruling Government in particular, inspired, he informs us, by Chattrapati Shivaji.

And now, having won round one, Anna intends to install an incorruptible Lokpal soon. While the contours of this Lokpal to be are not as yet clear, he or she might possibly be moulded in the Oliver Cromwell or Maxmillien Robespierre tradition of revolutionary probity.

The charter, after all, is massive, because the Lokpal will be tasked to keep watch on all the three branches of Government as well as its bureaucracy etc. Ms. Kiran Bedi, the erstwhile supercop and Magsaysay Award winner, is thought to be a good fit.

But what will the Lokpal do to make its writ stick? How will it dictate terms to an elected Government? Or will it just be the representative of the Union of “Ultimate Stakeholders” as the CAG put it, entitled to a seat at the high table for selective deliberations?

And it must be remembered, however reluctantly, that both Cromwell and Robespierre, who turned their respective monarchies on their heads, were in fact elected and executive authorities. And Robespierre too was guillotined in the end, while Cromwell died very disillusioned with the Puritanism he spearheaded.

Part of the problem, we see now, was the introduction of impossibly high moral standards. The other was that the advent of Cromwell and Robespierre did not succesfully create the new political order they envisaged, but instead put an end to the excesses of absolute monarchy. Still, both were men of historic destiny, and represent rousing notions of purity and reform. And more than a little of their idealism and egalitarianism rubbed off on the process of political evolution, and not just in Britain and France.

In India too, Hazare’s snowballing folksy movement has taken the holders of power by surprise, their tired alibis blown skywards by this sudden gust of populist wind. Windiness of the vaporous variety was also on display. Congenitally unresponsive political, bureaucratic, judicial and associated quasi-ruling classes found themselves sputtering about “blackmail” and wagging a frightened finger at Civil Society.

Likewise, dark prognostications about this movable feast against corruption being hijacked by vested interests has not cut much mustard. And why should it, when this possibility is weighed against the Government sitting paralysed atop an absolute termite’s nest of rot of its own creation?

And so, the Mumbai motormen, the CAG Mr. Vinod Rai, top industrialists, the more politically inclined Bollywood stars, writers, poets, artists, professors, sportsmen including the all conquering MS Dhoni, NGOs who do not fear being upstaged at their long-standing and lucrative game, as well as obscure ones with nothing to lose, men and women in saffron, Delhi Metro hero Mr. Sreedharan, a pervasive and responsive media presence; and politicians from every party, except the ruling combine - can’t all be labelled conspirators and extra-constitutional subversives!

This then is an attempt at cleansing the system from without, because very few within it seem the least bit interested. That Hazare calls the present Government “Kale Angrez” does, of course, suggest some interesting parallels but also illustrates just how far the UPA Government of 2011 has drifted away from its “ultimate stakeholders”.

A Government that thinks nothing of routinely robbing, cheating and hoodwinking its ultimate stakeholders, has only itself to blame for provoking this backlash. Nobody believes in its attempts at punishing the guilty from its own ranks, particularly because it has not happened even once so far.

A Satyam like situation that has ruined its erstwhile fraudster-owner Mr. Raju, or the fate that befell the “Big Bull” Harshad Mehta, could probably never happen to a Mr. A. Raja, no matter how heinous his corruption may prove to be.

Besides, the Government has experience on its side, and the concession made by it to Hazare’s opening salvo, may be only to gain time in order to subvert his movement, take the pressure off ongoing and forthcoming Assembly elections, and to let the ardour of Civil Society, well known for its dilettantism, dissipate in time.

If the elite from South Mumbai failed to vote even after 26/11, will they change their mind after the jamboree at Jantar Mantar? And as long as the urban middle classes do not vote to at least 75% of its eligible strength, they will not affect the temper, timbre and behaviour of the political establishment. Mr. Hazare realises this and has even advocated penal measures against those who fail to cast their vote.

But in counterpoint to this perception of widespread apathy, is the profoundly more disturbing idea that Civil Society may no longer be satisfied with co-option at all. The very people who don’t vote citing lack of viable choice, may wish however to truly upset the applecart. They may be questioning the relevance of the Indian Constitution which has been so thoroughly subverted by our elected representatives.

These people, and who knows how many there truly are, in places rural and urban, may want to nominate their rulers henceforth after all, and set the cat amongst the pigeons with regard to the notion of elected legitimacy. They may think it the best way to improve the quality of our governance. Mr. Hazare then may indeed have quite a few things in mind when he calls this the beginning of a long struggle.

(1,056 words)

11th April 2011
Gautam Mukherjee