Braving the criminal craving

A few weeks ago, me and a friend were driving down Mount Road - a populous shopping artery in Chennai - when our bike was picked out from behind two rows of vehicles by a policeman at a signal. Drawn into a corner, his demeanour suddenly slipped to a sheepish quiescence that even we found ourselves awkward in the presence of. He wanted money. Sure, we had our helmets on - that's plural - a defect in one of which he picked out after we produced the RC book, the license, and an insurance on the bike.

We were in no hurry to leave and refused to pay him immediately, perhaps initially only to see if he would frisk us if it came to that. I had Rs. 13 in my wallet, and my friend had Rs. 5: that was a newspaper and some tea at a nearby tea-stall. 47 minutes passed and none of us had budged. My friend fished out his Nintendo Wii and plonked his ass on the sidewalk and I decided, against all odds, to strike up a conversation with the policeman. That's when it struck me that all the hoopla transpiring in the national capital - about black money and laws and capital punishment (amongst other things) - was taking away from the kind of corruption the common man laboured under, a kind of corruption that was not just an abuse of power but a corruption like the Phantom in the opera.

It so happened, providentially, that if it weren't for the "tip" he expected to receive from us, he'd be the common man I was speaking of. He, too, had problems with the government he had voted into power; he, too, was unhappy with the way the UPA-II coalition had handled everything; in fact, for added measure, he was unhappy with the hoarding of money which he felt could be eviscerated only with the imposition of a death threat backed by law. You see, even if we gave him the Rs. 8, he was not likely to fly to Switzerland and stash it in a government-proof safe. Part of it would be spent on the tea (spoken of earlier) and the rest might be spent to buy his wife some flowers when he went home at the end of his shift.

After he said those things, he was awkwardly silent for a moment, very well anticipating the next question coming his way. He smiled - beautifully - and began to delineate those differences between him and the ministers that mandated delineation. First off, he was not abusing his power. If it weren't for his uniform, he said it would've been some other method afforded by the public office he'd occupy. Secondly, what he did was not interfering with anyone's lifestyle - except, perhaps, the really hurried - and was deliberately kept innocuous. Interestingly, he also went on to regret the ubiquity.

Just then, at that damned moment, the chief minister decided to pass by, and he paid us one last request for any money, but my friend - with an agenda of his own - was stubborn with his refusal. The policeman gave up and bid us leave immediately. I hope he found that Rs. 10 I hid away under his helmet just before we left.

What had commenced as a concerned and informed discussion with the aim of establishing a judicial framework within which the rewards of being corrupt in India could be overridden by a swift imposition of sanctions has now dissolved, as is due any matter that polarizes the polity, into an instrument for political positioning.

While Anna Hazare had finally found a way to work with the government and not be called a governmental tool, Baba Ramdev crept in with his slew of naive demands. In retrospection, those demands find any justification only in the context of being a bargain: a statement of expectations that would form the basis of any probable negotiations in the future. It can also be safely stated that, with the lathi-charging of the protesters at the Ramlila Grounds, the previously-fractured factions were cemented together almost immediately in opposing the methods of the UPA-II coalition. Consequently, while some prominent advantages do persist, a disadvantage in the form of any demands becoming politically mired has been occasioned.

[caption id="attachment_7261" align="aligncenter" width="509" caption="Pro: aiming high / Con: striking high"][/caption]

It must be noted that one of the principal impetuses driving the drafting of the Jan Lokpal Bill is the abuse of their power by ministers, and therefore, political insulation during the drafting processes is an impossibility unless an honest party exists within the coalition to constitute that bubble. However, we all know how laughable the very thought of that is.

In light of all these concerns - and especially when melded with Baba Ramdev's inclement stupidity - it may be sensible to trust that the eradication of the corrupt intent at the grassroots level will not begin with the formation of a Lokpal committee, and that soon, tactics will be found to bypass its sanctions. While the direction of Anna Hazare's campaign is appreciable, the scope has wavered and faltered into a sustained-and-sustainable democratic fuel.