An epic needs a grand gesture

The Anna phenomenon has the government flummoxed, the world dubbing it India’s Arab Spring and Anna Hazare’s supporters heralding Gandhi’s re-birth. The ruling party, handicapped by Sonia Gandhi’s absence, erred in assuming that Mr Hazare could not revive his agitation after the government had dissipated his Jantar Mantar foray by engaging, pretending to negotiate and then discarding the Jan Lokpal Bill on the logic of a boss in the cartoon telling his disappointed employee that when he said his door was open, it did not extend to his mind.

The government’s defence rests on two arguments. One, that Parliament is supreme and must control law-making; two, self-appointed representatives of civil society are hijacking democracy by protests and fasts.
The lawyer-advisers of the Prime Minister, to borrow Opposition leader Arun Jaitley’s coinage, need to read Francis Fukuyama’s latest book, The Origins of Political Order, which explains that the electoral exercise alone does not make a liberal democracy. Russia and Venezuela are electoral authoritarian systems. Globally the relevance of political structures to contemporary dilemmas is being questioned. While Europe is trapped in a welfare state model, which is unaffordable, the US is stymied in dealing with fiscal irresponsibility and issues like health, security and energy. Contrariwise, China prospers despite political opaqueness. At the heart of any democracy has to be a healthy relationship between the state and society. The state should be unified and able to enforce its laws; society must also be strong enough to enforce accountability on the state. This balance no longer exists in India, though it is playing out as mock combat over the Lokpal Bill.
This pantomime’s provenance is old. In the US historians have talked of 36-year cycles in history that usher defining moments. Illustratively, significant US presidential elections were of Abraham Lincoln in 1860; McKinley in 1896 (whose assassination led to the accession of reforming Teddy Roosevelt); Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932; and Richard Nixon in 1968 (whose resignation underscored accountability).
In India such a defining moment, 36 years ago, was the imposition of Emergency. The Jayaprakash Narayan-led agitation was basically against corruption and nepotism. The people of India handed over power to the Janata Dal in 1977, hoping for fundamental reform of political governance. Bickering, selfishness and, finally, betrayal, led to the demise of that experiment. A re-elected Indira Gandhi, unrepentant and impervious to change, followed by son Rajiv, unable to reform the inherited system, had the Congress again cornered on corruption by the Bofors scandal in 1987. The people of India again crowned the new messiah of probity, V.P. Singh, in 1990. He, too, could not translate personal example into good governance and finally fell to the passions of opportunistic social engineering. Mr Hazare’s gambit is the third awakening of Indian people in this churning of history.
Today’s India is different from the India of 1975 or 1987. It is more urban, younger and better informed due to electronic connectivity. The intelligence ministries of the Arab dictators also erred in applying old formulas to handling dissidence, and failed. The following is germane to both sides better understanding the nature of the challenge:
w In the Westminster form of government, popular sentiments flow to policymakers through members of Parliament. Prime Ministers keep their ears tuned to the buzz in their own party, particularly on sensitive legislation. The anti-defection law passed by the Rajiv Gandhi government removes the fear of dissonance in the ruling party and also increases the tendency to ignore your own colleagues’ thinking. Manish Tewari, much maligned since August 15, had moved an amendment that whips should be limited to money bills and no-confidence motions. For the rest, MPs should be free to vote. The government should announce that whenever their version of the Lokpal Bill or any other is tabled in the House they would not subject their members to a whip. That could be the first step to restore a link between Parliament and society.
w Parliament itself is not infallible. Legislation passed by it has been held in breach of the Constitution by the Supreme Court in the past. The much-reviled Postal Bill of 1987, sanctioning intrusive mail interception, was passed by the Rajiv Gandhi government but held up by President Zail Singh, till he retired, in response to popular sentiment.
w Eradication of corruption must encompass electoral and political party reform. Inner party democracy and state funding of elections are its conditions precedent. All parties, other than the Communist ones, have progressively become family ventures, the family of the BJP being the RSS. Mercifully three popular chief ministers are spinsters and one a bachelor. Fukuyama calls it “paternalisation” of democracy where kinship is preferred over talent. Even Rahul Gandhi’s talent search for the Youth Congress largely rests on scions of party loyalists.
w The role of civil society cannot be denigrated either by procedural arguments or pleading the co-option of some into the National Advisory Council, where they have done good work on poverty alleviation or empowerment. Mr Hazare’s corruption crusade is complimentary to that, though simplistically limits it to the Lokpal.
This is a unique moment when there is merit in what either side says. Belatedly the government, which the Anna camp distrusts due to past betrayal, is closing ranks with the Opposition and then seeking a mutual face-saver with Mr Hazare. The Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV, having contested Pope Gregory VII’s right to nominate to clerical posts, relented by going to the Castle of Canossa, where the Pope was staying, waiting in humiliation for four days and then receiving absolution barefoot in the snow. Thus began the separation of the Church and the State. Defining moments need epic gestures. Let both sides step back and seek absolution for the nation.

K.C. Singh is a former secretary in the external affairs ministry