The beginning of UPA's end?

Let’s start with the list of demands by Baba Ramdev as listed on The Hindu website:

1) Tough Lokpal Bill, with a provision for death sentence for the corrupt, especially corrupt officials

2) Immediate return of all black money stashed away in tax havens abroad to the country

3) Declaring all wealth in foreign countries being held illegally by Indians as national property and charging those with such accounts under the sedition laws

4) Abolishing Rs.1,000 and Rs.500 currency notes

5)  Disabling the operations of any bank which belongs to a country that is a tax haven

6)  Replacing the British-inherited system of governance, administration, taxation, education, law and order with a swadeshi alternative

7) Reforming the electoral system to ensure that the Prime Minister is directly elected by people

8) Ensuring that all citizens declare annually their incomes

9) Bringing income-tax details under the Right to Information Act

10) Increasing substantially the Minimum Support Price of grains

11) Making wages of different categories of labourers uniform across the country

12) Revoking the Land Acquisition Act, as farmers should not be deprived of their land for industry

13) Promoting Hindi at the expense of English.

Well, they range from simplistic to bizarre to the ridiculous. While the sentiment over corruption is commendable, the draconian corrective measures proposed along with the retrograde ‘swadeshi’ economic principles, coupled with the promotion of regional languages promise a return to exactly the mentality which had been holding us back from becoming a dynamic economy.  These are just more examples of the mental makeup of a man who proposed the total inversion of the rupee dollar exchange rate, whose implications would be so apocalyptic for the economy  that one must not dignify it with a comment.

The ‘loony’ mental state of Baba settled, lets come to the matter at hand. One may not agree with what the man stands for, but in the spirit of Voltaire, his right to stand for what he believes is unalienable, especially since his means is non violent. While, using blackmail tactics of fast until death in a constitutional democracy is dangerous, it’s common as dirt in our country. The rejection of the Westminster political system and the adoption of mobocracy is certainly a recipe for anarchy.  That said, reaction of the Congress party (not the UPA, since hardly any of the smaller parties bother about national issues that do not involve chest beating and handing out doles) has been reprehensible, positively disgusting and is an eerie reminder of the days when another set of Gandhi mother son duo used to run the country as their personal fiefdom. The alacrity with which security personnel were mobilised (compare that with the reaction of the same government on the night of 26/11) points towards the premeditation of these actions, rendering the arguments forwarded by the congress about Baba not sticking to some agreements facile. Moreover, the staging of this whole drama under the blanket of the midnight hours points towards something more sinister. There is just one explanation for last night’s actions, “Vinash kale viprit budhi”. These are the actions of a government out of touch with reality, too smug in its self perceived invulnerability and self-proclaimed mandate (200 odd seats in a 550 seat parliament hardly constituting one). When one hears the likes of Kapil Sibbal or Digvijay Singh speak on the TV, one oscillates from feeling of disgust over the language to anger over their arrogance to even humour over their willing suspension of reality. Infact Digvijay Singh’s frequent utterances for the past few years reminds one not of the general secretary of a democratic party, but more of the communist party apparatchiks in the Soviet Union, where public denunciation of those against the regime was the norm. Meanwhile the deaf and dumb Prime Minister and his Gandhi mother-son duo masters keep the pretence of being oblivious to the happenings. About time they got down from their ivory towers and interact with us mortals, an interaction not sterilized by selective participation and questions.

This may turn out to be a turning point for this government. Given the way UPA 2 has been functioning, it’s the opposition’s election to lose. If BJP is not able to bring down this government it would be a sad commentary more on the senior leadership of the BJP than the ignorance of the great unwashed. This also points towards the conspicuous undemocratic functioning of our political parties where people tend to align themselves to their leaders rather than the party, let alone the people of this country. The mute reaction of the congressmen and the absence of criticism of the central leadership would be unimaginable in Great Britain, whose system we thankfully endeavour to follow, but don’t, neither in letter nor in spirit. Actions of the kind taken last night would have been greeted by a revolt from the backbenches if not from half of the cabinet. An immediate loss of confidence over the ability of the current leadership would have been expressed and either a leadership re-election or the dissolution of the parliament would have come about. Unfortunately, congressisation of Indian politics has led to the abandonment of democratic principles in favour of sycophancy. This has resulted in the permanence of party leadership, with leaders relinquishing their posts only in a casket. Compare this inability of the BJP to find a replacement for Vajpayee or congress’s inability to look beyond the Gandhi family for leadership with the change of party leadership in the UK or the US every 5-10 years.

What is needed today is not dharnas, fasts, candle lights vigils or other forms of satyagraha.  What’s needed is the participation of masses in the democratic process, which goes beyond just turning up to vote (though it would help if the candle vigil walaahs would turn up). What we need is level of public debate which goes beyond the triviality of the debate but into the nuances of policy making and parliamentary functioning. That is the only way to uphold the democratic functioning of our polity and arrest our steady decline into anarchy and mobocracy.