Girish Patel: Fast-unto-death is a very dangerous weapon to use

Anna Hazare's 'fast unto death' agitation for the so-called 'civil society's Jan Lokpal Bill' is totally misconceived, unjustified and dangerous. It is ridiculous to call it a 'movement for second freedom' because we do not know 'which freedom' and 'whose freedom' and whose movement it is, except a demand by a small arrogant and self appointed civil representatives for their own version of 'Lokpal Bill', mainly organized and supported by the communal and rightist forces, nebulous urban middle class and much hyped by the media.

The sufferings of the poor, disadvantaged and marginalized, hardships faced by the lower middle class and unorganised sector, the looting of the country and its resources by the corporate world in collusion with political parties committed to LPG and all pervasive corruption from the bottom to the top in all spheres of the society are the objective forces on the foundation of which a broad based people's movement for liberating the country from the marauding forces of private capital, both national and multinational, could have been created, but that was not to be because Anna Hazare's vision is regressive, authoritarian, myopic and devoid of faith in the common people of India.

Anna's agitation for a Jan Lokpal Bill is no answer to the problem of corruption because it is limited to corruption of public officials, including politicians and judges, but does not cover the large scale corruption prevailing in the private corporate world, which is the primary root cause and source of corruption.

Two, he aims at corruption of the top, but what about the corruption, both political and economic, at the bottom, which really hits the poor and the weak in  their struggle for survival. Three, neither Anna Hazare nor his colleagues except Prashant Bhushan talk of the new economic policy of LPG, which has let loose the reign of ruthless market forces, which have reduced everything including human being to a marketable commodity to be bought over by any means, legal or otherwise.

Nothing is immoral in 'free market'. Four, Anna's unelected Lokpal - omnipresent and omnipotent, acting as a 'Big Brother' with wild jurisdiction over Prime Minister, MPs and Judges, to control, contain and eliminate corruption will not only work, but will also undermine the very foundation of our democratic and republican Constitutional system.

It is nothing but imposing one kind of one man's rule, and who will judge the Lokpal himself and make him accountable to the Constitution and the people? Five, rooting out corruption is not merely a question of making law and creating one legal institution, it really calls for a wide spread institutional reforms, establishing responsible and specifically accountable hierarchical system, eliminating unnecessary discretionary power and subjecting the exercise of all discretionary powers to closer scrutiny and review and increasing transparency and strengthening the Right to Information Act.

to be continued...

— The author is a city-based lawyer and human rights activist.