The four-week expose of President Pratibha Patil “land grabbing” for her post retirement bungalow in Pune made waves on the Internet and social media finally compelled the President to give up the land. Team Anna could use this example and take up one issue at a time to see its logical end
Social activist Anna Hazare has been spearheading the campaign for a strong Lokpal Bill, an end to corruption within the government and the bureaucracy and a host of other issues. However, his struggle has not yielded the desired results. On the other hand, the four-week expose of President Pratibha Patil “land grabbing” for her post retirement bungalow in Pune made waves on the Internet and social media am finally compelled the President to give up the land.
Mr Hazare could use this example and take up one issue at a time to see its logical end. Yes, it could be a long-drawn struggle, but ultimately truth will prevail. Columnist R Vijayaraghavan writes an open letter to the Mr Hazare asking him to look at the path taken by Moneylife and the crusaders to get back the defence land, which was handed for purposes other than the needs of the armed forces.
Dear Shri Anna Hazareji,
I begin with two quotations.
The first is from Swami Vivekananda: “Awake, arise, the Motherland is in danger”.
The second is from Ayn Rand, an American novelist: “When you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods but in favours, when you see that men get rich more easily by graft rather than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them but protect them against you, you know that your society is doomed.”
Two years ago, Team Anna awoke, arose and fought for the Motherland. But only briefly: the dirty tricks departments of all the political parties got together and sent you back to sleep. Now you have to awake, arise and surge forward again.
The way ahead is clear. The victory of Moneylife and the armed forces activists in forcing President Pratibha Patil to return the 2.6 lakh square feet of Pune cantonment land which she had illegally grabbed for her retirement home shows you the broad highway that you have to follow.
The mightiest citizen in the land has been forced accept her mistake and bow to the law. This the victory of courage, accurate information derived from deep research, persistence, honesty and integrity of Col Suresh Patil, Comm Ravindra Pathak and Anoop Awasthi.
The mainstream media ignored them, but Vinita Deshmukh took up their cause with a series of seven articles and Moneylife gave them the platform from which they were seen and heard. And Moneylife’s canny use of Facebook and Twitter sent the story viral till it shook Rashtrapati Bhavan.
We need to convert the goodwill garnered by the Moneylife victory before it simmers down into the issues of day to day life. There may be mud-slinging also, but that is part of the course.
The virtues that brought this victory are honesty, persistence, the gathering of accurate information through deep research, courage and integrity .The same virtues will serve Team Anna reach its original goal of ending corruption in the land over whatever number of years it takes. Team Anna has to expose corruption and hold up mirror to their vileness so all the world can see it.
In this effort, the focus has to be on the following areas:
Start taking concrete action to expose corruption case by case e.g. the Mumbai land grabs by four successive chief ministers, Air India, Coalgate, stock market and financial market scams
At present we do not need the Lokpal and Lokayuktas in all states. There are equally powerful weapons at our disposal: Public interest litigation, section 420, 408 and other sections of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Penal Code, the anti-corruption legislation, the vigilance organisations at the Centre and in the states. The power in the hands of the people is immense. We have to start using that power.
One successful prosecution will electrify the entire movement. This is our test by fire
A caveat: The press and the electronic media should not be privy to your internal discussions which will include debate, sometimes fiery. A whiff of this and the media will go to town: more than half of them are servants of the dirty tricks departments of the political parties.
And like Moneylife did, team Anna should make full use of Facebook, Twitter and any other media device available on the Internet.
Team Anna’s control should be such that the media can report only on the corruption cases, the progress of the prosecutions and the judgements.
(Part II will deal with Team Anna developing a professional support organisation)
(R Vijayaraghavan has been a professional journalist for more than four decades, specialising in finance, business and politics. He conceived and helped to launch Business Line, the financial daily of The Hindu group. He can be contacted at [email protected].)
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30-day online access to the magazine articles published during the subscription period.
Access is given for all articles published during the week (starting Monday) your subscription starts. For example, if you subscribe on Wednesday, you will have access to articles uploaded from Monday of that week.
This means access to other articles (outside the subscription period) are not included.
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Organisations which only aim at getting closer to power by being nominated to the Lokpal or advisory committees of CVC, etc., and are as hierarchical as the government or the corporates and engage sophisticated upper class "executives" to assist fight corruption are simply parasites themselves and disposable as the corrupt themselves. Corruption has to be exposed and fought squarely instead of through public shows in maidans. Moneylife has shown the way.
Are the India chapters of the International bodies listening?
The Jan and Sarkari Lok Pal are a passe now. Their utility needs to be revisited more particularly after the exposure of Team Anna members misdemenours.
With the right use of the RTI, IPC, Cr.PC, PCA and networking with Twitter and Face book better results can accrue.
The India against corruption website does not have any comments section. People should be encouraged to upload videos, audios of corrupt people and website should have discussion forums.
They want to push their views on the population.
It is time the aam janata, more particularly the middle class that came on the streets, to continue on their own the anti-corruption movement at the local plane - forget Lok Pal, Jan or Sarkari variety.
Make effective use of RTI, utilize the info and pursue it to its logical end.
Thank Anna for showing the way.