Why the old order must give way to the new

Our country is passing through a transparency revolution,” said AK Antony, the defence minister. “Walls of secrecy are crumbling gradually. But politicians, bureaucracy, judiciary, business people, armed forces and journalists are still not ready for this transition to transparency.”

The present logjam in the drafting of the Lokpal Bill isn’t so much a fight between civil society and the government, but a fight between the Old Order and the New Concept. The Old Order refuses to change, because it knows that this change is like nothing else; it is fraught with dire possibilities — past, present and future.

Read the email doing the rounds. “Indians are poor but INDIA is not a poor country,” says one of the Swiss Bank directors. “280 lakh crore” of Indian money is deposited in Swiss banks that can be used to bring out a “tax-less” budget for 30 years. It can offer jobs to 60 crore Indians; no need of World Bank and IMF loan. “We’ve full right to this corrupt money stashed abroad.”

If this is the past, the present too is uninspiring for the Old Order. The apparitions of Kalmadi, Raja, and Kanimozhi, as these big fish fry in the Delhi summer at Tihar, continue to stalk popular imagination. Nor does the future hold promise. The RTI has already made serious a dent, limiting public servants’ value-free dalliance. Any punitive action professionally imparted, with the time-tested influence-peddling to stall/dissipate charges missing, isn’t appetising. Therein lies the rub.

This is vintage Hegelian dialectic — the process to reconcile contradictions, of historical processes and transitional inevitability. Future historians would note that the defence minister was prescient before the die was cast. “They’ll have to follow the transition and I don’t think anybody can take any step in a different direction… You cannot stop this transparency revolution. It is percolating to all walks of life in India… Change is a must.”

Today endemic corruption has been topped off by mega scams. The new educated middle-class is bristling at the quotidian corruption it confronts. With disposable income and multiple hedonistic avenues available, they are short on patience, brooking no roadblocks on their path they perceive is otherwise laden with good life.

They may not understand the nuances of the Lokpal Bill, but they know the way to future betterment lies in a corruption-free India. Also, this can’t happen unless they too participate and make themselves counted. That’s why the youth rallied behind Anna Hazare at Jantar Mantar. India’s demographic dividend with youth the lynchpin cannot be wished away.

Let’s examine the two important sticking points: Must the Lokpal embrace the prime minister and the higher judiciary? The Old Order tenuously holds on to its antediluvian idea that insulates them from the searching eyes of transparency.

If the prime minister under investigation is rendered hors de combat, a chief minister too would face similar sentiment in his own state when under a cloud. In effect: while all are same in the eyes of the law, one is a tad higher — almost a colonial parody of I am George Nathaniel Curzon/A very superior person! And our parliamentary democracy patterned after the British model has veered off the essence of first among equals, primus inter pares!

Judiciary, higher or lower, is constituted of men off the same stock who populate other services. Their DNA, thereby, is no different from others. In an ideal social contract, all must render corruption-free services. This is as applicable to judiciary as to others. If every job is professional, the retributions too should and must be similar. By similar the allusion is to transparency, fair play and level playing field.

We must remember that as the inexorability of human will surges ahead, history can’t be held back. The New Concept of supremacy of the ordinary citizen has taken root. Yet these are not new ideas. During the special session of parliament to commemorate 50 years of India’s Independence (26th August-1st September, 1997), a national agenda to eradicate corruption, criminalisation, casteism and communalism was adopted. Also, passed unanimously by both Houses, was a resolution of a Second Freedom Struggle to implement the national agenda.

Today’s movement is only a re-averment of our past national resolve. Isn’t it time we gracefully accepted the remorseless march of history rather than obfuscate the issue with ideas that even fifteen years ago were thirty years out of date?