Anna fiasco: How not to run the world's largest democracy

So my computer crashed last week. When the first shut-down happened, I just restarted the computer. It was hanging, so I forced a shut down and again tried to restart it. It wouldn’t start. So I sat there twiddling my thumbs and reflected on my how my cluelessness with regard to technology leaves me helpless and frustrated.

Then it struck me that helplessness seems to be our government’s general approach to democracy. In fact, all governments over the last 15 years seemed to be clueless when it came to dealing with masses of people.

People, you see, have problems. And even if the problems are not of the state’s making, the people still expect the state to intervene.

And when it comes to corruption, they are truly furious and justified in their fury because they confront corruption mostly via state-controlled agencies. So they naturally are mistrustful of the government when it claims that it will tackle corruption on its own.

The mishandling of the Ramdev situation in Delhi is still fresh in their minds, and threats that Anna Hazare would be treated the same way have just caused a massive, public upchucking.

That’s how these protests appear to me — an outpouring of disgust. Friends have been calling from other cities to say that their staid, smug middle class neighbours are marching in support of Anna Hazare. They are probably upset about food inflation. Or insane real estate prices. They are not really supporting Hazare’s version of the Lokpal Bill. They can’t, because they haven’t read what the draft, nor thought about its repercussions.

I have, and I disagree with it. Police and judicial reforms are far, far more pressing. Yet, people support Hazare because they need a rallying point. They need to express their disgust. But how does the government deal with public disgust? By flexing its judicial and administrative muscles! By throwing a colonial-era law book at their faces!

I know precious little about politics, but even I could have told the government that coming down hard on protesters was a stupid, stupid, stupid move. Which makes me think that the real trouble with our elected leaders is their incompetence. They don’t know how to manage people, although their job description is precisely this — managing India for Indians.

The state has some stock responses when it confronts protests — first, denial that there is a problem; if protests reach the streets, an aggressive browbeating begins, using the law; then the police or armed forces are used. Which is like trying to restart a computer that has already crashed by jabbing at the same ‘Start’ button again and again. And then going at it with a hammer.

So often, laws, procedures, police, or the army are the problem. And the government has control over laws, procedures, and armed forces. So it should be able to negotiate from a vantage point. It doesn’t because the people who are in charge are arrogant and not in the habit of dealing with the masses.

If the government had any sense at all, it would have already taken a dozen measures to show the nation that it is serious about democracy and transparency. It would have strengthened the RTI law instead of trying to dilute it by removing official notifications on files. It would have set up more courts, filled all vacancies, and given more independence to the anti-corruption bureau. Last time around, it seemed like a civilised government, one with potential. This time around, it comes across as a government trained in the Lathmaar School of Management.

— Annie Zaidi writes poetry, stories, essays, scripts (and in a dark, distant past, recipes she never actually tried)