Razia Sahab for BeyondHeadlines
Anna’s agitation against political corruption and the bill proposed by him got together the whole country specially youths. But since the beginning, many people raised questions on the appropriateness and applicability of the proposed bill. Various Hindi dailies regarded such statements as worthless.
On April 13, the editor of the widely circulated Hindi daily Dainik Jagran wrote: “It will be better if government politicians and opposition try to find out the reasons for which the common people supported Anna. It is not right that they are trying to suppress people’s demand for the bill by their hollow statements.”
He further added, “People raising questions against bill are trying to make it a subject of controversy.”
The biggest question regarding the Lokpal Bill is why only political corruption is the main point of this agitation while there is corruption in the corporate sector, big companies and other professions. Giving the answer of this question, Kumar Narendra writes in his article published in another leading Dainik Bhasker on April 15: “Now politics decides everything in our life. Our housing, food, clothing and even minor things like toothpaste, soap etc. everything is decided by it. So if the political corruption is the main focus of the movement, there is nothing wrong.”
He adds, “If an atmosphere against corruption has been created in our country, it should not to be suspected.”
The government has accepted Anna’s demand to draft the bill, and different thoughts and reactions of the people from different sectors are obvious. In this regard, the statement of Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumarswami is really absorbing. He said, “Had Mahatma Gandhi been alive, he too would have not be able to find out a way to escape from corruption and he would started to collect the money in banks.”
He later retracted and clarified that the media construe his views inappropriately.
The editor of Amar Ujala thinks that such statements have no plea. According to him, Anna’s fight against corruption was so tenable that the whole country supported him. On April 15, he wrote, “Anna’s hunger march presented a model of that politics where neither he needed to hire the airplanes and helicopters nor he had to make the efforts to collect the supporters and the media.”
We later did come to know that a whopping Rs 30 lakh was spent on the campaign, he said.
Legal experts have expressed reservations on ground that the role of the civil society is limited as it is the job of Parliament to legislate. So will the Lokpal Bill pass the test on the floor? A senior journalist wrote on April 13: “Neither the Congress party nor the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been able to form the government on its own with all available tools of democracy. Consequently, even Anna is not very sure about the “new” formula.”
(Razia can be reached at razia@beyondheadlines.in)
