Will Hazare Fast for Us!
Ms Sharmila Tagore bluntly said that Hazare simply blackmailed the nation - she was upset the way Media focused the issue 24Hrs a day all through the episode and more so because respected Gandhian Hazare sat in fast without a proper prior debate on the issue. Hazare retorted - "If it is blackmail, I'll do it again", as the TOI heading informed [TNN | Apr 17, 2011].
Manoj's hope was rekindled, he anxiously thought - will Hazare fast again for us! What they, the Media people, are saying? 2G scam? That involved `2 lakh 76 thousand crores, or `1 lakh 76 thousand crores, or ...? Whatever was the amount that was beyond Manoj's guessing power! He could of course understand what `1 lakh 36 thousand means - that was the amount his father received as 'gratuity' payment after his retirement from a mill a year ago; but that multiplied by crore is unfathomable - well, then there is not much problem in the house, he thinks; his elder brother got a permanent job after his father retired; however, the party-union leaders must be thanked for that. Though his father gave them a handsome 'lump sum' for their benevolent assistance, much more than the 'gratuity' sum he had received - don't call that a 'bribe', it is a fair service charge - these days even a casual or 'badli' labour job in a good factory costs at least `2 lakh 50 thousand in that 'channel'! Besides, he is also employed; he works at a private security agency for a thankful amount 4000 a month to work and also oversee other guards deployed at a luxury apartment complex they watch over. Well, these are nothing, no issue at all. But he was angry when he had to pay `250 instead of the normal `100 for getting an official Birth Certificate - why, because he needed that within two days! That was unfair! Then, when his mother was in the hospital, a govt one - he had to shell out `3500 to a Group D staff with enough clout to have the tests completed within 3 days instead of a 'normal' wait of 3 months in the queue! Surely sarkari attendants get much more salary than him, and theirs were govt jobs, Group D, a secured job, with DA, pension system and etc ... but how hungry they are for quick-money! And for files to move in a govt office, he has seen in his father's case of accident compensation in the labour department, for each step the file moves you must shed some 100 bucks. And all sorts of corruptions are there, not just 2G, ooji, CWG things. Something must be done.
Gandhian Hazare did his fast for 3 days and said "if my fast had continued for three more days, the government would have fallen". Kishen Singh's wife did not know about the Hazare fasting episode at all - she is just a village day labourer, they cannot afford watching TV or anything like that. 4, 5, even 6 days of fasting at a stretch is a routine in their life, they had to do it many times. But who is that Kishen Singh fellow? Well, Kishen Singh was a day labourer who died on the Christmas day of 2009 in Rajasthan after starving with all of his family for at least 6 days. Kishen was a job card holder of Mahatma Gandhi NREGS! Gandhian Hazare perhaps had not heard of him. Why should he? Kishen and the likes are nobody. No government fell after Kishen was starved to death having nothing to eat for his last 6-7 days. No beautiful dame lighted any candle. The Rajasthan govt simply said it was not a starvation death, Kishen died of TB; though they could not deny that the family had been starving for days. But starvation is an appalling term, nobody dies starving in India, only many of them are 'malnourished' and a few of them may die of malnourishment, isn't it?
At least 400,000,000 Indians go to 'bed' hungry every night and that happened also on the nights Hazare was at his fast, as the date of a PressTV report indicates. Lakhai Tudu happened to be only 1 out of that 400,000,000. But he was daydreaming that night as the next day he was going to get a soft loan of Rs 20,000/- courtesy some govt scheme. Though he knew that the panchayat member and the party-man would 'cut' a good part of that sum before Lakhai gets the money at his hand - that is not 'corruption' - and anyway he didn't know that difficult word, is there any equivalent word in Santhali he wonders! - he knew it is the system, the rule. That always happens and everybody complies. As for example, for ration card the rate is `100 and for small jobs it is just `20-40 for cha-paani. A substantial part of the BPL ration always goes to black market. The 'civil society' is well aware of this system. But then hunger, malnutrition, starvation death, proliferating black market of foodstuff, rotting foodgrains in govt warehouse etc all are good 'items' for journalists; any worthy Indian media house would spare megabytes for these and their authors can bag mega prizes too - but these cannot be a sensational reason for fasting, isn't it! Blue Kerosene, meant for ration shops, go to black market - and if you add up the kerosene fraud done in last 20 years of 'liberalisation' only, it will be a much more sum than the 2G scam - because, for each year the estimate is `10000 crore! One 'fool' govt officer in the same Maharashtra from where Hazare hails, one Yeshwant Sonawane, tried to poke his nose in the affair and got himself killed shockingly by the oil-mafia this year in January. It was indeed a juicy 'subject'; such an issue may stay hot for, say, a couple of days. Poor Yeshwant - had he sat for a fast instead of poking nose he could be alive at least! Then, accident-deaths of dozens of contract workers working for the CWG cannot be an exciting 'story' to cover even for some minutes - but a CWG 'scam' of few dozen crores certainly worth days of telecasting and tons of printing!
Gandhian Hazare did a fast of 3 days and said 'if my fast had continued for three more days, the government would have fallen'. "Menghaobi" Irom Sharmila Chanu has been in her 'indefinite fast' since November 4, 2000; more than 3699 days till now, with the demand of withdrawal of the intolerable draconian act AFSPA - the armed forces special power act - from the north eastern states. This is an act by which Indian military and paramilitary personnel, even a habildar, can kill anybody in an 'encounter', be that a fake one and that is normal, and can remain unpunished. How many thousand innocent Manipuris, Nagas, Kashmiris etc did die so far for this cruel act nobody keeps any tab of that! And for her act of fasting she was imprisoned many a time allegedly for a crime 'attempt to suicide', she is regularly forcefully nose-fed thrice a day so as to impede her physical decay and death. This has been going on for more than ten years, still her organ systems has been degenerating. But Irom Sharmila is not Hazare, and govt can easily ignore her protest, the media too - except perhaps a single news-item or article a year. Irom Sarmila's fast can depicted as 'attempt to suicide'; dare any police officer or court brand Hazare's fast like that! The very thought is ignominious.
Hazare's protest fast was against ignominious scams of billions of rupees and for transparency, for accountability of govt officials and elected representatives alike .... It was a fast, not attempt to suicide. Though, of course, petty individuals do commit suicide for paltry amount. Take the case of K. Subramania Pillai. "K. Subramania Pillai was at the end of his tether. "Around 32 years have rolled by since I came to Tirupur. But I can't see any progress in my life.... The unpaid debt has accumulated to Rs.21660 as on July 5, 2010.... I have been under severe stress for the past four months as I find no way to clear the debt. I do not want to live any more either, as I am unable to bear the humiliation. All my efforts to find a way out have failed...." wrote the 75-year-old man in a note he posted to his son, S. Kaliappan, who lived at S. Periyapalayam on the outskirts of Tirupur. His body was found two kilometres away ... a couple of days later." - This was reported in The Fronline (Sep. 25-Oct. 08, 2010). What a meagre sum - Rs `21,160 only - and that led to humiliation, suicide. And for sums involving money more or less that amount, tremendous job pressure and resulting mental breakdown hundreds of textile workers and their family members commits suicide! Only in Tirupur, 495 garment workers and family members killed themselves in 2009. 565 more ended their lives in 2010. Hazare said he would fast again if needed. Will Hazare fast for such an issue?
Will Hazare fast for us again - thought Suresh plagued by worry! He and his colleagues had to make a day's journey all the way to Kanpur to have their new Trade Union registered. It is a norm in the labour HQ in Kanpur that you must pay some thousands to get your union registered. Nothing done under the table, nothing done hush-hush - everything is done above or across the table and openly. But the company didn't recognise that union. Anyway, a fight erupted due to stubborn attitude of the management regarding some justified demands of the workers. The company management lodged a police case. Nearly a dozen workers were picked up and booked under un-bail-able sections. How much money they needed every time they went to meet them just for minutes! And how much money the court people always demanded. It seemed the whole system of police-court-administration is there to suck up money. Have money? You'll be saluted there. Will Hazare fast for these!
'So many things are rotten in this kingdom of Bharat', Vijay's father, a contract worker of a GSM-2G-3G telecom giant, could have told it had he read Hamlet. But he hadn't, so instead he said 'this is a ******* country, lots of thing must be done, not just this fasting show' and Vijay didn't reply - because Vijay suddenly became a fervent activist during Hazare's fast, commuting daily to that place; it seemed it was the first time he was really doing something and he was happy that Hazare was able to influence the government. But his father was disrespectful and sceptic and said - will the hands of any Lokpal bill whatsoever reach the real culprits - not only just those who accepts bribe but also those big corporate owners who play from behind the scene and through agents hand out the multi-million dollar bribes, who always need a bribe-based system to bend the rules to their own advantage? Hazare can fast against corrupt ministers and bureaucrats, but can he fast against the big buck owners who make ministers and bureaucrats corrupt giving billions in cash? Vijay felt sorry for his father's sacrilege. However, Vijay being a student of economics could have read the first text book of political economy - the ArthaShastra written some 2500 years ago by Chanakya in this great India. There he could find reference to some usefulness of enticement. Taking a bribe may be a mean thing but giving sweetener it is not so.
Had anybody in the Hazare camp read the Columbus letter written 500 years ago where he said - "Gold is a wonderful thing! Whoever possesses it is lord of all he wants. By means of gold one can even get souls into Paradise" - Columbus wrote in his letter from Jamaica, year 1503. This is the virtue of gold, money and this is the ethics of capitalism. By means of gold one can even get souls into Paradise, you can buy your seat or suite in heaven, that is, you can bribe God. Poor Jesus, who thought all men ought to be equal, once said - "And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God" (Mathew 19:24). Well, Jesus is backdated now. We are in the great Columbian Era, just before some years we crossed 'Year 500 of Columbus'. Whoever posses money, a great deal of that, a capitalist, is 'lord of all he wants', and not only he can 'get souls in Paradise' but also can make his way through the labyrinth of the sacred 'Blocks' of GOI. His hands reach everywhere, he can mend or bend rules, he is "lord of all he wants" and by raining some money in proper places he gets his work done. His presence raises respect, awe in the corridor of power and of course at the gates he is saluted.
And money is a strange thing - it doesn't smell - Non Olet - these words were spoken by the Roman Emperor Vespasian (69-79 AD) in reply to his son, who reproached him for introducing a tax on lavatories. From what source money came is immaterial - it is the same, omnipotent, omnipresent. And this trick of giving and getting quick bucks percolate through the society, from a top bureaucrat to a lowest rung peon it becomes the norm.
Jug Suraiya of TOI once explained [12 August 2010] the virtue of 'tips' and the way it operates even in high places of the mighty empire, the USA, - "Though not unique to US culture, giving a tip for services rendered is the bedrock on which American capitalism is based. According to folklore, the word tip, as in gratuity or baksheesh, is said to be derived from the initial letters of the phrase To Insure Privilege. ... This custom was soon extended to other areas of daily commerce so that everyone, from taxi drivers to tour guides, hotel porters to Wall Street multinational bankers, expects a tip for services rendered ? though in the case of the Wall Street bankers it's not called a tip but an incentive bonus, which is often in excess of a million dollars a year and which might well have helped to nudge the world into the global economic crisis. ... ... I realised that we in India also have a long tradition of giving tips. Except we don't call them tips. We call them guru dakshina, or tatkal, or speed money, or ghoos. Or just plain bribes. Which we perforce pay to service providers like cops, and babus, and politicians, and the guy who replaces our empty LPG cylinders, to make sure that they do indeed provide the service that they are meant to provide to begin with. And because we think of these things as bribes, we beat up on ourselves, and the world beats up on us, for being corrupt. No one beats up on Americans for being corrupt, not even those Americans who happen to be Wall Street bankers. It's a question of vocabulary. Change the word "bribe" into "tip" and "corruption" becomes "capitalism".
But has the fast of Hazare not yielded anything? Of course it did something. A somewhat more stringent Lokpal bill may appear. Some laws or bylaws may be in the offing. And this type of protest is already a trend in the bourgeois ruled society. Otherwise organisations like the Transperancy International and etc would not have been there. This is a way of protesting frauds in bourgeois society, an endeavour to mend it, to make it more 'honest' and this way is sponsored by the bourgeoisie themselves - because it helps to preserve the bourgeois rule, to carry on capitalism with some cosmetic surgery - because it helps to douse the rising anger of the toilers against mounting corruption of the system and increasing disparity, inequality. This way is 'legal', respectable and attracts bourgeoisie - petit-bourgeoisie, the elite, the so called 'civil society'.
But nonetheless by this way corruption can never be uprooted totally with these efforts. For that, another way is there. That way is to eradicate the root of corruption - the hegemony of money, capitalism itself, and naturally the rule of privileged, moneyed classes. That is the revolutionary way. Will Hazare cast himself for this!
Comments:
No Comments for View