My column in today’s DNA

The events unfolding in Delhi are fascinating. Battered by scam after scam, with some of its ministers in jail, a punch drunk UPA 2 looks like a shadow of a government. Its other ministers and spokespersons have an uphill task: explaining to a hungry media and an increasingly irate TV viewership the reasons for this criminal mismanagement. Day after day, hour after hour, members of the UPA are asked about 2G, CWG, Adarsh, and other issues.

Needless to say, not many believe these ministers or spokespeople. Their credibility has been shot to bits. The UPA’s biggest asset vis-a-vis the middle class, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has also been tarnished by this fallout. To add to this, the Congress has reverted to fratricidal infighting. Digvijay Singh is openly taking pot-shots at Cabinet ministers. And, as if that was not enough, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, the force that binds the party and the government, has been ailing and is currently abroad for treatment. With the allies angry and the Congress flaying about like a fish out of water, it has been like a watching a train wreck in slow motion.

We then have the opposition Bharatiya Janta Party, whose members are happier in TV studios than in Parliament. It too has been struck by its own scam in Karnataka — nothing in the same magnitude as that in Delhi, but dirt sticks. It too seems to be embroiled in its own bout of fratricidal warfare.

Watching all this is middle class India, which makes up between 25% and 33% of the population. This is the group that does not vote on the old caste/community lines that exemplified Indian politics. In a Parliamentary style democracy, with its first past the post system, they feel that their voice is not heard. They are also horrified at the loot fest and the lack of an alternative that stands for them. This is the class that voted for the Vajpayee-led NDA, and voted him out in favour of the UPA in 2004, and then pledged its allegiance to Manmohan Singh in 2009. Today it feels abandoned and orphaned.

Into this mire, steps Anna Hazare, a social activist who has been campaigning for clean administration for over three decades. He adopted the most visible form of Gandhism — the protest fast. And, he called not for transformation of the self (after all there is nothing wrong with the middle-class. They don’t need to change), but punishment of the wicked, the corrupt and the looters. Backed by one of the slickest media management in recent years, he found resonance with the middle-class that wants to punish bad politicians. His solution is the Jan Lok Pal Bill, an independent ombudsman that will investigate, prosecute and judge any instance of corruption. The presumption of innocence is not a part of this equation, presumption of guilt is. Furthermore, Hazare has threatened to fast unto death if the bill is not made into an act by the August 30.
While Hazare’s intentions are noble — who doesn’t want a corruption-free society — the means of achieving these ends are poorly thought through. The Jan Lok Pal Bill is a highly flawed one that is pointed at Parliament with a ‘pass it or I kill myself’ threat. This bill bodes ill for the future of India and its citizens.
At the end of the day, we have a government that is unable to govern, an opposition that has ceded its responsibility and a civil society that is unwilling to listen. The only thing all these various parties are agreed on is that the people of India are supreme.
In such a case there is only thing to do. Dissolve Parliament and call for elections. Let the next Parliament decide on this and other legislation. For now — enough is enough.