I am NOT Anna Hazare

Punk activism

I don’t know about all those commitment wallas but I did what I have never done before. I switched on the TV still in my satin nightgown. Yes, I am so common, no? I did it because I wanted to feel the heat and humidity seep from my pores into other areas of my being.

Last night I surfed channels and left a man swallowing swords to watch the ‘Anna dekh tera munda bigda jaaye’ show and we the people were informed that “Brashtachar ki haar aur Bharat jeet gaya.” (Corruption has been defeated and India has won). It was like a match with Brashtacahar’s 11 against India’s 100 or rather hazaar Hazares all looking like they had greased palms with oily pakoras, or was it lavender-scented sanitisers?

Now I can breathe, I thought. I don’t have to bribe the traffic cop with a sweet smile. Trust me, I have not ever given a paisa to a single one. I can walk with my head held high and quote saint Aamir Khan who is more like god because he is omnipresent. “Like the country has supported the Indian cricket team in their struggle to win the World Cup, I hope and pray that your struggle, which is infinitely more important and affects each and every one of us, will get an even greater support,” he wrote in a letter to Hazare. Of course, that letter, like the scriptures, made it to the media and the public.

Struggles of cricketers and of the ordinary Indian are similar?

Before the start of the fast

Anyway, he must have broken his fast by now and I am laying a bet with my fellow common citizens whether it will be orange juice, mosambi or neembu-paani or plain contaminated tap water from India’s various cities.

I have been called a cynic, a killjoy for not enjoying this hearty meal of activism. This stuff really tires me out. I have already posted about it and reiterate that we must not wear blindfolds for anything. When Sonia Gandhi said, “The issues he has raised are of grave public concern. There could be no two views on combating graft in public life. I believe that the laws in these matters must be effective and deliver the desired results”, did anyone in that crowd of concerned citizens utter the magic word 'Quattrocchi'? Anyone willing to stand up and be counted?

How can the report therefore talk of a “peace deal between Anna Hazare and the government”? Is there a war? Is Hazare the sole spokesperson? Look at his “middle path”: “Ministers will give the panel more weight, it will make the government more receptive to agreeing to the draft the committee draws up.”

Sure. A panel that wanted to call the bluff of ministers needs those ministers to add more weight.

Of such fluff are dreams made. Am glad that at 10.30 AM I am still in my satin nightgown and know the true metaphorical value of such dreams. Raat gayi, baat gayi: Here today, gone at dawn.

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The Russians do it differently.

Pro-Kremlin activists have posed in lingerie for an erotic calendar with an antigraft message and the slogan “sex against corruption”, youth movement Nashi (Ours) said.

Women students decided to participate by dropping clothes and coming up with slogans like, “I won't marry a corrupt official”, “Brown envelopes are only for letters, “I will teach you to live without bribes”.

Given the nature of their positions (hmm) many will be willing to learn. Besides, if the women are ready to do what they have done for the calendar and make a decent income, the corrupt officials might just decide to lie back and enjoy.

Honestly, no one can completely end corruption. But we can just normally try not to bribe. Though, aren’t all these – fasting, sloganeering and titillating – forms of bribery?

Courting Quattrocchi

Well-covered?

The Indian courts are getting too smart for their own good. Or plain cocky. The chief metropolitan magistrate Vinod Yadav of the Delhi court has agreed to the CBI’s plea to withdraw the prosecution against Ottavio Quattrocchi, the controversial Italian under the scanner in the Bofors kickbacks deal.
Is it shocking? No. There was no way the proceedings in this case would indict the man; he has strong political links. However, the manner in which the judgement was pronounced leaves one wondering about how the judiciary perceives such gross acts.

Instead of making the authorities answerable for the dilly-dallying that has been going on for 24 years and has cost Rs 250 crore, the judge said:

“Can we allow this hardearned money of the aam aadmi (common man) to be spent on these types of proceedings which are not going to do any good to them after almost 25 years of the so-called arms deal? The answer will be a big no.”

Your honour, with due respect, I submit:

• How can you answer of behalf of the aam aadmi?

• Where are the courts when such hard-earned money is wasted on other cases – will this set a precedent to close them too because the common man’s money is being used up?

• If the question is about what good it will do to the common man, then we may ask the same about murders, rapes, corrupt deals, scams, property disputes, everything possible where except for the people involved – the criminals and the victims – the judgement may not have any tangible impact on the rest of us.

• On what grounds can you use a term like “so-called arms deal” when Bofors is an arms deal, irrespective of the kickbacks? And weapons are used to defend the country and its citizens, isn’t it? Or do you believe it is for political purposes?

• The case has dragged on for all these years and the CBI says it has not succeeded in extraditing Quattrocchi from Malaysia and Argentina. He was not born there or lived there in the early stages of the probe; in fact, he visited India. Where were the people in charge then? Why did the CBI spend Rs. 40 lakh on just one attempt?

It is easy to close cases, but please do not cite the aam aadmi. The person in the street probably does not fall within the tax bracket, anyway. Those who do are also paying for the upkeep of public services, and that includes the judiciary. We expect it to act. The Bofors deal was worth Rs. 64 crores but you cannot argue the quadrupled amount that the case has incurred is not worth it. Today it would be worth much more.

Besides, justice is not about the price trying a crime entails. It is about making the people involved answerable. Give us value for money, if you will.

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End Note:

There are no surprises that Col. Muammar Gaddafi would be flamboyant in the face of rebellion. It is amazing, though, that while seeking India’s support for his aggressive response to the civil war in Libya, he has told prime minister Manmohan Singh that what he is doing in his country is akin to what India is doing in Kashmir. After this, he expects support? Had there not been such a bloody trail in Libya one would find his brashness truly hilarious.