Writing about this problem doesn't make any difference on its state of perpetual apathy. The almost of who are in
the fray are beyond redemption. They all are same under the skin, an illicit
brotherhood to further their common interests.
Ignoring or maintaining a
distance from the epidemic cannot help either. It is heading for a systemic
failure and the best fight back to it can be while being in the System, while
being a part of it.
And so, the fresh thinking and
new entrants with a vow to fight the wrongs in the System are in urgent need.
Sadly, that is not happening. Reform,
there, is about rhetoric and empty words and even the beginning of the process,
that no one can decide, define or conceptualize, sounds like daydreaming.
The grip of rotten values and
insensitive politics has spread so deep and wide that it rapidly co-opts almost
of such entrants. Those who still maintain the stand are made ineffective,
cornered or wiped out.
If we look back to gather some
names in the recent past, when the process of deterioration has frighteningly speeded
up, we don’t find any.
Yes, Arvind Kejriwal did raise
some hopes, and for many, he still gives hopes to anticipate positively, in
spite of his poor handling of the anti-corruption moment of 2011, but his ‘could
not rise to the occasion’ performance on two of the recent anti-reform and
anti-democratic moves by the politicians, disappoints, like in 2011, when, after
a high of April and August 2011, we had seen the sudden fall from grace
resulting in a fizzled out anti-corruption movement by the first few months of
2012.
On scouting for his response on
government’s amendments in the Representation of the People Act (RPA) and the Right
to Information Act (RTI) to negate the pro-reform decisions of the Supreme
Court and the Central Information Commission, aimed at keeping detained and
convicted politicians away from the electoral process and bringing the
political outfits under the public scrutiny on their sources of income and ways
of expenditure, there were very few, certainly not qualifying his claims of
cleansing the politics of its ills of the day.
Kejriwal was a fearless RTI
Activist. He was instrumental in the prolonged fight for the Act. Yet, such a
routine response tells otherwise.
Probably his priorities are
changing. On googling, I could not come across any fiery ‘trademark Kejriwal’ statement
by him than a June 2013 joint statement with Arun Roy opposing the government’s
efforts to amend the RTI Act.
I may be wrong but I could not
find an RTI activist’s response from Kejriwal on this. Yes, there have been
bits and pieces of information on protests by his party workers (Aam Aadmi
Party-AAP) but that makes it even more ridiculous. That looks more like a patch
work.
Similar is his silence on
government’s efforts to negate the Supreme Court’s decision to bar the arrested
and convicted politicians from contesting polls. Though the government had filed
review petition, it went ahead with introducing the amendment bill in Rajya
Sabha and though, today, the Supreme Court rejected the review petition to
review its decision on convicted politicians, it cannot be the said the political
authoritarianism would not act to subvert it further.
Yes, there were some statements
and reactions but that is far from enough. Such a low scale of response makes
it sound ridiculous, like it was done just to maintain the countenance of a
mask.
The kinds of claims Kejriwal made
while taking the political plunge don’t justify his selected response over
these two vital-to-democracy issues.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
