May 19, 2011

Open letter to Anna Hazare



To,
Mr. Anna Hazare
Village and post: Ralegan Siddhi
Taluka Parner, District Ahmednagar
Maharashtra
Dear Anna Hazare,
We respect your concern for society and problems common of people. Whole nation is well aware of your anti-corruption movement. Government has accepted your demand of Jan Lokpal Bill which you claim will put a check on corruption of political leaders, bureaucrats and judges. A good fraction of literate people has called it a beginning of new revolution. But there are some questions in our mind. The fundamental of these questions relates to problems of life of working class.
First, corruption is just not bribing. In a country where 40% children and 70% mothers suffer from malnutrition, ‘body mass index’ of 40% people is lower than normal, 18 crore people live in slums and 18 crore don’t have roof to cover their head, then after 60 years of republic if the government does not take responsibility of basic requirement of life (irony is that it actually sells it to blind forces of market), then what else can be a much bigger legal corruption than it? The biggest corruption is that the rights that crores of workers have in form their labour laws are sham; they are limited to files only and are getting meaningless day by day.
Second, the decision of corruption cannot be taken on basis of being legal or illegal, but by counter or pro political behavior with people’s interest. In the current system a capitalist with power of his capital buys labour power at cheap price and earns profit of by selling the processed commodity containing the labour at higher price in the market. This is the root of every kind of exploitation. This is the biggest corruption. Anna Ji, you never point at this corruption, at this polarization of rich and poor.
In every capitalist democracy governments basically play role of managing committee of capitalist plunderers. The opera of election and democracy is there to create illusion among people. Armed forces are ready to crush every movement of people calling it anti-nation. Some people from group of managers and servitors of capitalists earn benefit from inter capitalist house competence. They pocket heavy amount of money by broking for them or by pocketing bribes of capitalist houses. But when this competition goes uncontrolled and severe the truth of system precipitates out (like 2G spectrum, Adarsh Society scam, common wealth scam… etc) and suddenly capitalist lawmakers, social activists become active and start to think over “damage control’. Suddenly there appears a Messiah who can sometimes be a political leader, some officer, and sometime some social activist as ‘whistle blowers’ with his/their anti-corruption campaign. He starts to blame corruption rather than this system for all evils. These people are ‘safety valve’ of the system, shock absorber of the people’s anger. We certainly do not doubt your personal hatred towards corruption. Let us also give a look at drafting committee of Jan Lokpal Bill. Let’s have example of Shantibhushan-Prashantbhushan. We are not talking about uncertain truth or false behind the CD scandal. But it is true that Shantibhushan was lawyer of Mulayam Singh in a case against him on trying to polarize candidates of BSP. It is also true that Shantibhushan charges Rs. 25 lakh for each court appearance. Even Prashantbhsuhan charges in lakhs. Same is the case of Ramjethmalani who came to support you on your forum. The question here is that how can largest portion of our population, the poor people buy justice from these expensive lawyers? In a country where 77.5% of population lives under Rs 20 per day and is scrapped of all basic needs of living then isn’t the wealth of 1 arab 36 crore(wealth of Shantibhushan) and 8 immovable properties corruption? These lawyers lobby for those capitalists who earn profit by squeezing the working class population. Does the institution controlled by Baba Ramdev provide all facilities to workers according to labour laws? The two NGOs of Arvind Kejriwal are funded by ‘one of the boss’, Ratan Tata, of the ‘crony capitalism’. The drafting committee is full of such civilians. All these middle class activists, so called civilians of ‘civil society’, and their NGOs are funded by trusts of national capitalists and multinational companies who loot raw material globally and earn profit by squeezing even the last drop of blood of working class and by selling war machines and medicines. In their society and concerns the 70 crore working class people doesn’t occupy any place. These activists actually help in building hegemony of this system over common masses. We don’t have any distrust over your commitment to make this society ‘corruption-free’. But let us have a look at concept of Lokpal as well. Even if prime minister, supreme court and others are brought under regime Lokpal and even if he be given a sufficiently big staff how can he stop corruption from highest to lowest level, from parliament to block house? It is impossible. The corruption check by Lokpal is an illusion. The thought of checking corruption by such mechanism is like that of bringing society on path of progress by a “enlightened despotic” ruler. But Anna Ji you are a Gandhian. Gandhi himself was supporter of decentralization. Another important point, in your anti-corruption movement media played a very big role in building your miraculous image. But this capital controlled media sells crime, robbery, pulp and cheap stories to earn money. This media also sells sham ideals, pseudo heroism and anti-people utopias. It plays a great role in establishing hegemony of state in people. It is not without reason that it is called as the forth column of ‘republic’. Your movement has played role of safety valve for this system instead of hitting at the roots of the system.
At Jantar-Mantar, in your movement the participation of nearly 1 crore working class population of Delhi was nil. But how could it have been there? You were not at Jantar-Mantar for that population. Dear Anna ji we have strong belief that instead of plucking leaves we should cut the roots of this tree of injustice, exploitation and corruption. Which however was absent in your whole movement. We have some more doubts. Please do reply to the letter or if you want to ask us to come in any open forum we will be very eager to come. We are also publishing this open on notices, if any one has any doubt or disagreement then we will be happy to involve in a discussion.
With Due Respect
Students of Delhi,
Labour activists, (Mazdoor Bigul)
Delhi

The letter is a part of letter posted to Anna Hazare and published in Mazdoor Bigul.

5 comments:

ss99 said...

You're right about corruption being only one of the many problems facing India, and about the proposed Jan Lokpal Bill alone being insufficient to solve them. You must admit however, that corruption is a contributing factor for multiple problems. Do you have any concrete suggestions or ideas to strike at the roots of the problem(s)?

ss99 said...

also, you mentioned the role of the media. true, the media (most of the time) tends to pick up whatever it feels will boost its viewership, often ignoring other important issues because they don't consider them newsworthy. but how else would this issue get so much publicity if not through the media?

you mentioned money intended for development being funnelled into the bottomless pockets of greedy individuals. suppose one person, in an office where the head of dept. is stealing public funds, is honest and wants to report it- the Jan Lokpal bill gives him/her a way to do it without fearing the consequences of exposing a superior. of course, the Bill won't change people overnight, but will make it harder for them to steal money.

mango people said...

yes may be,lokpal alone is not enough to uproot the 60 year infested corruption in our society and politics.But what is this society or the politics?it is our thought.It is what we choose to decide.And when we see our decision were wrong,well we can not just sit behind and say "nothing is going to happen to this country"!!
Yes,alone lokpal perhaps can not erase the corruption.Only a "polio tika" cannot erase poilo.For that we have to come up and have that.See right here we come in.Do you know how corruption begins?just the moment we say to our children "Beta do your homework,I'll buy you a XboX 360".now see lokpal can not imprison a parent for buying Xbox.That job is ours.We have to know corruption is a curse for our life.lokpal can prevent it but I have to uproot it,you have to uproot it.we all have to uproot it.
"60 years of republic if the government does not take responsibility of basic requirement of life"
yes it is a big dispute,and therefore we are fighting it.you see lokpal is not only a legal or constitutional weapon.it is a psychological weapon against corruption,against the dark of our mind.we are not fighting for Anna or Ramdev.At least i don't.I fight for his cause.And i believe,if today one Anna can do this,tomorrow 10 like him will come.may be that even you.
"the decision of corruption cannot be taken on basis of being legal or illegal, but by counter or pro political behavior with people’s interest."
Therefore we have to be active against corruption.So that if tomorrow we see nepotism or corruption in our system,we should be ready to protest it.therefore we are protesting it.now you see i can not go to Satyam CEO and say "hey where is the aam admike khoon pasine ki paise"!!for that we leave to lokpal.for now let's do what we can.after all lokpal can not spoon feed us to fight corruption.We have to do the rest.
"In every capitalist democracy governments basically play role of managing committee of capitalist plunderers."
I agree with your vision.But therefore we are fighting it,no!!the fight is not against a singular government.we dont want to change government.we want to change the government officials who are responsible for ransacking government money.
"These people are ‘safety valve’ of the system, shock absorber of the people’s anger."
Are you sure you'll say this after what have went in last 72 hours?
"The question here is that how can largest portion of our population, the poor people buy justice from these expensive lawyers?"
I don't know that Shantibhushan has charged 25 lakh to govt. of India for introduction to lokpal bill.if so,please let me know.
"Even if prime minister, supreme court and others are brought under regime Lokpal and even if he be given a sufficiently big staff how can he stop corruption from highest to lowest level?"
Well,prime minister can not stop corruption on his own.but if we see corruption in the new government,then we can report it."Complaints against any officer of Lokpal will be investigated and completed within a month and, if found to be substantive, will result in the officer being dismissed within two months."-(jan lokpal bill,feature 9,wikipedia)
about what you said about media.
So you see its upto us to decide whether we will sit on our crouch and enjoy this chatpata news or to fight for his CAUSE.
"Dear Anna ji we have strong belief that instead of plucking leaves we should cut the roots of this tree of injustice, exploitation and corruption."
So let's do it.there are various mediums and social networks to connect people.let' come up with our ideas to fight for this movement,instead of criticizing it.
And if you do have to say something,then i promise,tomorrow there will be thousand people supporting your CAUSE.
All we have to do is to believe in our own fight.let's leave the criticism for the old politicians.
IT'S TIME TO ACT...

Iridescence said...

Mr. mango people after your example its clear what your class is!! First refine your political dictionary, do not search meanings on google if you dont know them! all your comments have failed to understand the meaning of capitalist system overthrowing. Again when you term arrest of Anna Hazare as something very bad then you dont know what happens every day with 80% working class population of the country everyday, what people of kashmir are undergoing, what people in north-east and several other oarts of country are facing. Like spinoza said "Ignorance is no argument". Please first read something about Indian History, atleast not from wikipedia!! All your agitational calls seem empty without sound logic in them. I sugeest you the readings of Bhagat Singh, whose vision is still clearly showing us the way. its revolution! what anna is doing seems to me more like talent show!!

Iridescence said...

Mr. http://www.blogger.com/profile/10352723605094970969 please contact on the numbers given on blog to have a sound conversation!!

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