> > > > Message: 2 > Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:16:16 +0530 > From: Mahesh Murthy <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Subject: [silk] I don't. And not with Nitin Pai / Amba Salakar > either.Re: Red-letter day: I agree with Arundhati Roy > Message-ID: > <cao0vb76ba0sp2xnatrr7m79bvxgp2okzejxvoqtuyf_gnjz...@mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Mahesh Murthy (Are you a policy wonk? Just curious). I agree with you almost entirely. And Nitin is a friend. So let me offer a half-assed defense.
The thing with op-eds, as you perhaps know, is to offer a point of view that is fresh. So what ends up happening is you figure out a viewpoint that hasn't been articulated and then try to defend it. Which is fine. But that results in a not-entirely-coherant argument-- including, if I may, yours. > 1. "*We (the civil society experts / bloggers / hand-wringers) know how to > fight corruption, but this is not the way*". > > My comment: yeah, who died and made you Gods Of Knowing How To Fight > Corruption? Come on, they are defending the workings of a democracy, and not offering a Moses-like path. > > Social change does not a pattern follow. If this is the form of protest it > takes to change one aspect of Indian life - endemic corruption, and this > form of protest has found itself large national acceptance and support, with > an impact many times that of what has ever happened before, then this might > probably be a likely way to make change happen. > > I'm sorry that it's not how you think it should be - because, let's face it, > that way (whether it is re-writing the constitution, or some vaguely defined > "Reforms 2.0" or Salakar's defence of current legislation) hasn't worked > yet, and shows no signs of working yet. Agreed, but to be fair, Team Anna has NOT tried that incremental approach of beefing up enforcement. Then again, the beauty of "revolutions" is that 'anti-corruption' is a simple idea. The evolutionary approach-- let us look into the detail of enforcement-- is not. Which is why ipaidabribe.com is not as famous as it should be. > > > 2. "*Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal are unfit to lead this movement (for > various reasons*)" without a mention of who else might be. Or even if the > movement should have no leader. But here we (and I am aligning myself with the people you are dissing, even though I agree with you) are following the Korean approach of dissing everybody: Hazare and Kejriwal, but also Rahul, Manmohan, Sonia. We are nothing if not fair-minded. > > Arundhati Roy does the classic knife-the-rival-to-the-socialist-throne by > suggesting somewhat loosely that Hazare, Kejriwal et al are American stooges > - a point of view that puts her in bed, incongruously, with the ruling > party. > > She whines that "Kejriwal received a Ford Foundation grant" when she herself > received some half a million pounds as publication advance for her book from > Evil Western Capitalists. But she doesn't go as far as suggesting who else > the movement might be led by. > Ouch! "Whines?" That is sexist. I thought Ms. Roy's op-ed displayed what-- for her-- is a very sober, tempered approach. But I am biased. > Nitin Pai defends the right to be an armchair intellectual and not really do > anything on ground with the reasoning that "pilots don't design airplanes". > > Yes, Mr. Pai. but armchair intellectuals don't either. People who know the > principles of flight do - and then they usually go test-fly the damn thing > themselves, risking life and limb before they prescribe their designs to the > hoi polloi. Come on. Again, I have never worked for a company so don't claim to know anything. But even I know that R&D people don't "test-fly." Poets don't have to be realists and armchair intellectuals, however much you dislike them, have as much a place in society, as the do-ers. > > 3. *"The Indian constitution is sufficient. Why add a layer of complexity?"* > > Well, the supposedly sufficient Indian constitution has resulted in us > having an enormous amount of corruption in our lives. However sufficient it > might be in theory, it's not sufficient in practice. Perhaps another body - > like Hong Kong's ICAC - can help. Here I agree with you. Watchdog agencies are not a bad thing. I just hope Team Anna take the path of moderation and don't screw it up for us-- now that they may have the upper hand. > > Adding a layer of complexity is not in itself a bad thing. It is probably > the way to cut through the Gordian knot of legislation and systems we > currently have. > > Suddenly our keyboard revolutionaries want to defend our constitution and > the status quo. > > And to Nitin Pai, I lived in Hong Kong, and yes there was a lot of > corruption that the ICAC unearthed - and it was a truly feared force among > businesspeople and government folks. Here, even the once-feared threat of > "CBI investigation" holds no menace to most folks. They know, ultimately, > that some flaw, somewhere in the system will let them off. Nitin Pai is a huge Indophile. Just because he is dissing Team Anna in public doesn't mean (I am guessing and I have not spoken to him for months) that he isn't rooting for it in private. I think he'd agree with you on many points. But why am I defending him here? > > The Hazare version is not perfect - we all know that, > but what the government proposes takes the cake in de-testiculation of > legislation. > Great line. Wish I had thought of it. > > Instead, each seems more eager to derail the populist protest movement, as > though the issue that is more important is not the Government's crappy bill > that is going through parliament, but to reclaim the crown of "Civil Society > Thought Leader" from these damn upstarts Hazare and Kejriwal back for > themselves. Entirely agree. What do they call it-- frogs pulling each other down or something. Look, I agree with you. The thing I am pondering is: what now? So you throw your hat in the ring. You call it. I have qualms about the bill, but I am nowa banner-carrying anti-corruption protestor who was at Bangalore's Freedom Park last weekend. So what? Then what?
