The Roy Rebuttal
Is Team Anna fooling people? Arundhati Roy’s lies and errors in reason and judgement exposed.
Arundhati Roy, in her recent article in The Hindu, displayed her usual eloquence. While her story serves as a testament to her prowess as a strong story-teller, one needs to be open to reality. A reality that presents proverbial a fork in the road as to how India’s democracy and its institutions might be run in the future…
In her article, Ms Roy calls Anna a freshly-minted saint. Now, Anna may not be a saint; he may even be a considered a parvenu on the national scene, but his reputation is certainly not freshly-minted. Anna has successfully applied his tools of non-violent protests and fasts and won not one, but several wars for the people of Maharashtra. No wonder then, that he is lovingly and respectfully called Anna, Marathi for elder brother, in Mahrashtra. Ms Roy’s freshly-minted saint had won the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan for positively affecting people’s lives in Ralegan Sidhdhi by 1992. Ms Roy, on the other hand, became a recognized debutante with her Booker only in 1997, and one must note that the evidence of her interest in public and social causes before 1997 is lacking.
Ms Roy’s conclusions about the Jan Lokpal Bill overthrowing the state are not unique. Like most of the supposed intelligentsia, her concerns and conclusions are overdrawn. If overthrowing the state was the agenda, the bill shouldn’t have been circulated and debated in the open at all. What kind of a nincompoop would risk drawing millions of eyes to a document that wants to overthrow the state? Anna and his team may be simple, but they aren’t stupid.
While Ms Roy rightly states that Anna was picked up by the Delhi Police against his will, it is amusing to read Ms Roy describe Anna in Tihar jail as an “honoured guest”. She even uses “fast” in the same sentence. Unlike Ms Roy would like readers to believe, members of Team Anna started to “whizz” in and out of the high security prison only after Anna was released. Tihar jail is not a military detention facility, they do allow visitors. Still, one wonders whether Ms Roy’s learnt of police brutality from her naxal friends, but regardless, the video messages that Team Anna carried from inside the jail were important. The video messages were instrumental in reassuring not only Anna’s supporters gathered outside Tihar jail, but also police inside while Twitter and Facebook buzzed with messages of an Indian Bastille Day.
Ms Roy is right in pointing out that Anna’s means are Gandhian; but errs in saying that his demands are not. What would have the Mahatma done with corruption and the corrupt? Is it just our luck that he asked the British to leave the country? In a country with so many unprivileged, corruption creates a lot of injustice. Any legislation that hopes to correct this has to address corruption from the lowest government officials to the highest office-bearers. Because that is the way money flows - through a hierarchical pyramid-like structure - towards more power. Very much like her naxal friends, perhaps, Ms Roy believes in battling the tentacles eternally while leaving the head of the beast intact?
The Police, the CBI and other investigative agencies already have powers of investigation, surveillance, and prosecution. Only, they can’t file charges suo-motu. The result couldn’t be more visible: It took the Supreme Court to put A Raja behind bars while the Prime Minister, who is the permitting authority for the CBI to file charges, sat-around, complained and grumbled about the compulsions of coalitions. Should enabling justice be left to the whims of a coalition or independent investigation agencies that require no permissions to investigate?
In her article, Ms Roy rightly declares the Government’s Lokpal Bill flawed; but if only she’d have taken the effort to pass verdict on the slated Judicial Accountability Act. What kind of a Parliament allows the culpability of judges to be decided by their friends and colleagues? And, why stop the Lokpal from filing charges on corrupt judges when affidavits have been filed alleging corruption in the highest echelons of the judiciary? At the end of the day, isn’t corruption a crime, just like murder and rape? Like most of her observations about Jan Lokpal, Ms Roy’s argument about two oligarchies is specious. Being able to investigate MPs and the judiciary for cases of corruption doesn’t make the Lokpal all powerful, unless of course they indulge in the vice everyday.
Ms Roy’s illustration of the street-hawker, the municipality and the Lokpal representative is illusory at best. A detailed reading of the Jan Lokpal Bill will confirm that the Lokpal is not a policing body. Even if one assumes it to be the case, it is in the best interest of the street-hawker to not bribe the Lokpal and let him register a complaint. Remember, the Lokpal can only investigate cases of corruption by government officials, not illegal street hawking. And of all things, having the Lokpal in place doesn’t create another power structure. All it does is put a definite and a strong brake on illicit transactions.
If Ms Roy had paid more attention to the news channels, she’d have known by now that Anna’s fast is not about being a ‘true Indian’, it transcended the cause on its first day. And yes, Irom Sharmila’s fast is as important as the ten thousand villagers’ of Koodankulam as is Anna’s. But strangely, Ms Roy finds the opportunity to speak of Irom and the villagers of Koodankulam only now. If she’d have paid more attention, she’d have known about Anna’s agenda of giving more autonomy to gram panchayats. Simply put, no more Jagatsingpurs, Kalinganagars, Niyamgiris, Bastars, Jaitapurs, Bhatta Parsauls and Talegaons or diktats from Delhi if the villagers don’t see the benefit.
As a writer, Ms Roy should know that concerns become urgent only when they’ve been neglected for a long time. Isn’t Operation Green Hunt a manifestation of corrupt relations between corporates and license issuers? Perhaps Ms Roy should spend some time researching how and when the other concerns she points to suddenly become urgent?
Also, if Ms Roy gets time from writing tirades based on imagined facts and stories, she should visit Gujarat. Regardless of what Mr Modi might have done, or not done in the past, the state has progressed - the people have benefited. Why is that so hard to accept? If Mr Modi has indeed wronged, why is he still in power if not for corruption? Anna withdrew his statement after hints from the public. Unlike the Naxalites, perhaps, deep down somewhere in Ms Roy’s books, Anna was wrong for being considerate and correcting his stance.
Ms Roy’s allegations of the entire movement being communal are vapid. Anna Hazare has publicly stated more than once that he is against any oppressive actions of Narendra Modi or Raj Thackeray, and that he supports a system that gives equal rights and opportunities to all citizens irrespective of their religion. So much that Dar-ul-Uloom, the largest body of Muslims in India has said that it is the duty of every Muslim to support Anna Hazare. All she had to do was to go to the nearest place where the protests were taking place and assuage the crowd. It is much safer than walking around in naxal-infested jungles.
Again, Ms Roy misstates pertinent facts about financial contributions for the movement. The NGO Kabir is managed by Manish Sisodia. Lehman Brothers went bankrupt in 2008, how could they have funded an anti-corruption campaign that didn’t exist? Ford Foundation’s website does talk of a grant towards Kabir, but the amount contributed is $200,000, not $400,000 like Ms Roy alleges. As for Arvind Kejriwal, he started Public Cause Research Foundation (PCRF) with 14 lakh rupees, the money from his Magsaysay Award. The accounts of both these NGOs, as well as India Against Corruption are in the open for public scrutiny. Maybe Ms Roy expects an easy forgiveness from her readers, after all her expertise is only in writing fiction.
Ms Roy’s conceit about collusion of actors involved in Wikileaks, 2G spectrum scam, Congress, BJP, and journalist-lobbyists with those of Team Anna is so grandiose, that it is difficult to even accept it as a conspiracy theory. If only Ms Roy had jogged her memory, she’d have found government involvement in the National Highways, 2G, CWG scams. No doubt private companies are complicit, but they are only because the corrupt actors of the Government didn’t leave them with other options. Had it not been so, the CAG reports concerning more scams in Air India and the KG basin would have been tabled in the Parliament already.
As far as delivering public goods goes, there is hard logic in saying what the Government can’t do well, the Government should privatize. The Government’s job should not be that of an inefficient and leaky provider, but that of an impartial regulator. Can the corrupt ever become impartial regulators? It is this that the Jan Lokpal Bill squarely aims at - corruption in the Government. And the results are visible. Of all, Ms Roy should know best that on the onset change, the faction that loses the most squeals the most. On the other hand, the people, whom the bill benefits, the 830 million that live under Rs 20 a day, are out on the streets protesting for the bill to get passed. It is them who are being denied of housing, rations, water supply, electricity, health care and education because of corruption in the Government.
It is sad to see a distinguished writer like Ms Roy vacillate from supporting a Naxal movement that will not hesitate to spill innocent blood on the slightest of provocation, to chiding a non-violent people’s movement that is protesting a hand-me-down democracy that no longer satisfies their interests. These people are on the streets not because they’ve been choreographed, or because the media has inflated their story, they are there because corruption affects them the most and they are tired of saying chalta-hai.
Ms Roy shouldn’t expect the people on the ground to be fooled by her hopelessly conjured, ill-informed and baseless missive because the people know that the faction she belongs to has nothing to gain from the Jan Lokpal Bill. The nay-saying faction that Ms Roy represents is justified in holding their position either because their aura and position guarantees them a corruption-free existence, or, the money involved in buying favours is petty compared to their income.
Like the naxal and Kashmir issues, Ms Roy might have once again planted her flag on the wrong side of history. Instead of ruminating, or rejoicing on the possibility of an impasse of 42 years getting resolved because of proactive public involvement in shaping democratic processes, Ms Roy chooses to bend facts to paint a bleak picture that drives nothing but fear, uncertainty and disaster.
It will help Ms Roy if she weighs and uses facts more carefully, rather than twist and sprinkle them in grand stories that can’t possibly support themselves. She should know: The God is still in small things.