Hazare's angels ready for the long haul

The agitation for the enactment of the Jan Lokpal Bill has brought people from different walks of life under one roof.

Arvind Kejriwal began his journey as an activist about 11 years ago. Parivartan, the non-government organisation he set up to fight corruption, was a known name by the time he stepped down as joint commissioner of income tax in the year 2000 after a long leave. However, if you met him then, you would have probably known him as Kailash, or by some other name. For about a year or so, Kejriwal worked under pseudonyms.

The 42-year-old has had no reason in the recent years to hide behind another name. And now, it will be very difficult. Already synonymous with right-to-information activism, Anna Hazare’s campaign for the Jan Lokpal Bill and its coverage on television has made Kejriwal one of the recognised faces of civil society.

Not that Kejriwal, or anyone in his place, would have a reason to use a pseudonym now. This is a good time to be an activist. The government, weighed down by a series of corruption scandals, is facing a trust deficit, especially among the urban middle class. Concurrently, civil society representatives have risen in stature and popularity, with Lokpal as their latest rallying cry.

Otherwise, protests at the Jantar Mantar are nothing new. “People in this country are frustrated with corruption. Everyone is either a bribe giver or taker. It (Hazare’s fast) struck a chord,” says Kiran Bedi.

You would have recognised battle-weary activists like Swami Agnivesh on Hazare’s stage and accepted them as given, but certain others would have evoked less déjà vu: Former law minister Shanti Bhushan and his son Prashant, and actor Anupam Kher, in addition to Bedi and Kejriwal. How did they all come together, literally, under one roof?

“There was no trigger as such (to leave bureaucracy and turn into an activist). I started doing anti-corruption work and enjoyed it. I found it more useful,” Kejriwal told Business Standard.

Bhushan senior, well into his 80s, came into national prominence when he won Raj Narain’s election case against Indira Gandhi leading to the imposition of the dreaded emergency in 1975. Later, he became the law minister in the Morarji Desai Cabinet. Leaving political posts, he became a campaigner against corruption in judiciary.

On the expectations from the Hazare campaign, he says India should enact a tough law in line with the UN Convention Against Corruption, 2003, to which the country is a signatory. “What we need is an independent authority to investigate corruption and prosecute the guilty in a short time.”

But we do have anti-corruption laws even now. “You should not be cynical,” says Bhushan. “The new law will take care of the deficiencies in the existing laws. The problem is that there is no independent authority now. All allegations are against the government and, therefore, it is not interested in carrying forward the process. In the past 45 years, such Lokpal Bills were allowed to lapse at least 10 times. That is why now the Supreme Court has to take the initiative.”

His son Prashant, 54, a mechanical engineering graduate, took up the legal profession to make changes in society. He put to full use the public interest litigation, a tool for social transformation without blood, devised in the early 1980s by Supreme Court judges like Justice V R Krishna Iyer and Justice P N Bhagwati. One can expect to find Prashant in the Supreme Court in almost every significant case involving social issues, be it the Bhopal gas tragedy, genetically-modified food or rehabilitation of the voiceless people ousted by big projects. The past six months put Prashant in the limelight as never before because of the Supreme Court orders in the 2G scam.

Both father and son felt a natural pull towards the Hazare movement. Soon they found themselves in controversy over both being on the panel to draft the Lokpal Bill.

Prashant calls the talk silly. “We are spending considerable time in doing something which does not give us any power or benefit. The persons selected to the panel are useful and competent in helping frame the law.”

This is not the only contentious matter; several others have already arisen in the nascent campaign, not the least of which is that Hazare is said to have timed his campaign with an eye on the television channels.

Surprisingly, Bedi, the country’s first woman IPS officer, candidly admits to it. “Of course, we had positioned the movement to begin once the World Cup was over. In addition, our worry was that the government would pass an ordinance to enact the Lokpal Bill in its present form — which is toothless and would create another expense for the exchequer.”

A more serious charge is that Hazare may have undermined Parliamentary democracy. Bedi is quick in defence: “For the whole of last year we wrote repeated letters to the Prime Minister and Cabinet ministers but no one replied. In February, Anna, Arvind Kejriwal and I met the Prime Minister and the law minister, where Anna informed the PM that if a joint committee was not formed to re-draft the Bill in a time-bound manner he would go on his fast. Unsatisfied with the response of the PM, Anna decided to go ahead."

Anupam Kher puts up a more emotional defence. “When somebody is fighting corruption I don't judge his ways, I applaud his intentions and actions. I am with Anna Hazare. Are you?” he said on Twitter. Kher, who was shooting in Pune for a Marathi film, left for Delhi to join Hazare at the Jantar Mantar. “I felt it was my responsibility to my conscience to go out and support Anna, who was fighting single-handedly with the government.”

What do these people, who are being treated as the mascots of civil society’s fight against corruption, expect from the Lokpal campaign?

Prashant Bhushan says the immediate objective is to get the Lokpal Bill enacted. “But the larger objective is to increase public awareness against corruption. It is also meant to increase public participation in democratic decision-making. Democracy does not mean that you elect the representatives and then leave everything to them and have no role to play thereafter. We have to reclaim real democracy.”

Kejriwal sounds a bit guarded. Why is the Lokpal Bill so critical? Does he believe it would end corruption? “We never said it would end corruption, but the scope for reduction of corruption would increase,” he says. “Right now, corruption is about high profit and zero risk.”

But his hackles go up as you ask him about the controversies surrounding the Hazare campaign. “You must point out that we have no relation whatsoever with any political party, least of all the BJP. These are just stories being floated around,” he says.

Kher, too, foresees a protracted battle ahead. “This was not a passing phase where people will light candles and move on with their lives. I am at Anna's disposal whenever he may need me. I am not a political party worker neither have I vested interests in politics, but I realise that I am part of this civil society as much as anyone else.”

With contributions from Akshat Kaushal & Priyanka Joshi