UNFORTUNATE STANDOFF

UNFORTUNATE STANDOFF
The Government’s efforts at trying to bottle the genie of Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev's "movements" are proving to be futile. The war of words between civil society activists and the UPA government is threatening to derail the drafting of the Lokpal bill. Both parties are equally responsible for the unfortunate standoff. Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari's reference to the tyranny of the “unelected and unelectable” and Mr. Hazare's strident criticism of the UPA II were easily avoidable. The Government is on a roller coaster drive regarding the role of the civil society. It started from cajoling- collaborating - criticizing them. Such a civil society movement, Pranab Mukherjee said, amounts to a "sinister move of destroying the fine balance between the three organs of government enshrined in our constitution". "If someone dictates terms from outside to the government, does it not weaken or subvert democracy? It is a big question... We are all civil society, no one is uncivil."Clearly, Mukherjee's definition of civil society in the haste of a press conference is literal. The World Bank defines civil society to "refer to a wide array of non-governmental and not-for-profit organizations that have a presence in public life, expressing the interests and values of their members or others, based on ethical, cultural, political, scientific, religious or philanthropic considerations". Theory aside, civil society in India seems defined by exclusion. It is crowded with human rights lawyers and activists, NGO leaders, academics and intellectuals, high-profile journalists, celebrities and think tank-hirelings. Mass media debates never see landless labourers, displaced people, nurses, trade union workers, bus conductors being asked to speak for ‘civil society.' Though, indeed they should.
There is no denying that Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev have the right to galvanize their supporters to take on the plague of corruption, despite their blotchy ideologies and vague prescriptions for social reforms. But the hyperbole utilized for describing the movement of the civil society as a second war of independence needs to be looked into. There have been many unknown - and unsung - activists who are working quietly and ushering in changes without whining loudly that India has failed itself. One example was that of Swamy Nigamanand, who died during his ‘anshan’ in the same hospital on the same day Ramdev broke his fast, fighting for the river Ganga. But he was completely ignored by all- the government, media and the so called civil society. There is a chance that overuse of civil society can become a double-edged source. Baba Ramdev's anti-graft protest, for example, was being openly backed by right-wing Hindu nationalist organizations and many believed that it was taking a disturbingly strident political hue.
An enlarged and more representative civil society - ideally a larger, wider group of people from all over the country, not just a bunch of well meaning lawyers and activists from Delhi - should be putting pressure on a stubborn government to act against corruption. Civil society is not intrinsically virtuous. And good graft-free governance does not come from reforming the state alone - it demands the reformation of society and its people