Anna's house is not for all
Jan 01, 2012 - kancha ilaiah (Commentator on dalit issues)
The debate about corruption and Team Anna's role in eradicating it has
consumed disproportionate space in the Indian print and electronic
media. Team Anna has even come to believe that it can influence the
electoral politics of the nation. But the fact remains that poor,
lower caste masses have no trust in these middle class movements and
their leaders.
Corruption of the kind that Team Anna is talking about is a problem of
the state and the middle class because the Indian middle class lives
by manipulating the state. This very middle class was opposed to
social justice and welfare mechanisms like reservations both in the
government and also in the private sector.
Whichever agenda the middle class takes up, the poor — particularly
the Dalit-Bahujans — view with suspicion. In the past, we have seen
the tension between the Indian middle class and the Dalit-Bahujan
social forces both in the 1990 anti-Mandal and the 2007
anti-reservation movements.
There is a close socio-economic relationship between the Indian middle
class and the upper caste social forces. The Indian state has created
a substantial middle class from upper castes. By and large the lower
castes remain in the below poverty line zone. There is a small
educated middle class from the lower castes which emerged out of the
reservation package — particularly of the Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes — and joined the ranks of the urban middle class.
Those who support Team Anna hate this lower-caste middle class as the
latter does not fit into their cultural realm. Even that small
SC/ST/OBC middle- class has not been integrated into the upper-caste
middle class.
The so-called movement of Team Anna is of the Hindu upper castes and
has no sympathy for the poor. Even the minority religious middle class
(though small in number) does not trust Team Anna's secular
credentials. There is a view that it is in league with Hindutva
forces, who are opposed to the development of minority communities.
By and large the OBCs are an agrarian community or form the urban
lower middle class who do not have a role in the state and the media.
Anna's movement was propped up by the English media, and the SCs, ST
and OBCs are beyond the pale of that media zone. This social mass does
not know how the kind of corruption that Team Anna talks about affects
their lives.
There are two types of corruption in India. One is at the higher level
— political and bureaucratic — which grabs large amounts of the
nation's money that otherwise would have been used for the welfare of
the people at large. The scams in 2G spectrum allocation and
Commonwealth Games, Jalayagnam in Andhra Pradesh, the looting of
government land like Mr B.S. Yeddyurappa did in Karnataka and Mr Ashok
Chavan did in Maharashtra are some of the outstanding corruption
cases. The Gali Janardhan Reddy kind of looters are a different
category altogether.
Several IAS and IPS officers are also looting the state's money
through various means. The Indian bureaucracy has not overcome its
colonial heritage. It treats the poor masses, irrespective of their
caste, as objects of oppression and exploitation. Team Anna has no
agenda to reform the bureaucracy.
Second, there is the corruption in the lower levels of the bureaucracy
such as section officers, clerks and peons, who collect small amounts
of money from people who go to the offices for their daily needs. This
type of corruption harasses people of all castes, even at the village
panchayat and samiti level. The poor and lower castes understand the
implications of this kind of corruption that snatches away money from
them, which they do not have to give.
People hate such corrupt characters but pay them when they stretch
their hand. This kind of minor corruption cannot be stopped even by
the Lokpal. It can be stopped only by a massive campaign against
corruption among the masses. The taker and the giver of money both
need to change.
Apart from these two, there is corruption in the private corporate
sector and also among NGOs. Team Anna is indifferent to this and also
believes in the privatisation of the Indian economy. Hence it is
indifferent to wage regulation and undignified treatment of the
unorganised labour in the private sector. In fact this is a much
bigger problem than corruption.
Quite unbelievably "India Against Corruption" treats reservation as a
part of systemic corruption. Their website calls the anti-reservation
movement as ARM in an abbreviated form and a massive discussion around
the strategy of ARM is debated online. There is general agreement
among the participants in this debate that the quota system should be
treated as a "demon". The word demon is their code for reservations.
This ideology of the IAC that works as a key anchor in mobilising
forces around Team Anna is more dangerous than the corruption that
they are opposing.
If we examine the historical underdevelopment of the SCs, STs, OBCs,
it is not corruption that has kept them so. It was the anti-social
justice ideology deeply embedded in the Hindu ethic that was
responsible for the social masses getting arrested in the economic
zones of underdevelopment. Anna, who lives in a Hindu temple, cannot
think out of the Varnadharma box. He orders each caste person to do
their caste 'karma'-bound work. He implements a fascist law of
flogging anybody who drinks liquor in his village. This is nothing but
Hindu Talibanism. The Dalit, OBC and minority masses cannot trust him
at all. When they have deep distrust of the Gandhian ideology even
when Gandhi was alive, where is the question of trusting this village
headman who is a social fascist? The more Team Anna goes round the
country campaigning against the Congress, the more the Congress seems
to benefit. That is because the SC, ST, OBC and minority masses will
go to the Congress with a vengeance. Fortune seems to be favouring the
Congress as the BJP and Team Anna keep shouting the same slogan —
Vande Mataram. Ambedkar disliked that slogan. His followers dislike it
even more.
------------------------------------
----
INFORMATION OVERLOAD?
Get all ZESTCaste mails sent out in a span of 24 hours in a single mail. Subscribe to the daily digest version by sending a blank mail to ZESTMedia-digest@yahoogroups.com, OR, if you have a Yahoo! Id, change your settings at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/join/
PARTICIPATE:-
On this list you can share caste news, discuss caste issues and network with like-minded anti-caste people from across India and the world. Just write to zestcaste@yahoogroups.com
TELL FRIENDS TO SIGN UP:-
If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTCaste by sending a blank mail to ZESTCaste-subscribe@yahoogroups.com OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join/
Also have a look at our sister list, ZESTMedia: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
ZESTCaste-digest@yahoogroups.com
ZESTCaste-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
ZESTCaste-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
No comments:
Post a Comment