Where Anna Hazare Gets It Wrong

By Amit Varma | Opinions – Thu, Apr 14, 2011 11:16 AM IST

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Today's column begins with a fashion update: A ribbed, silk green gown from Vivienne
Westwood's spring/summer 2010 collection has been selected as Fashion Museum's Dress of the
Year. Androgyny has become the latest trend on the catwalks. In India, The Times of India, who
should know, informs us that "yellows are in." And oh, have you heard about Anna Hazare? He's
quite the flavour of the month.

Yes, that's right, I'm an Anna Hazare cynic. I understand that like Yuvraj Singh, he's in the zone
right now. I get it that he stands for the battle against corruption, one of India's gravest problems.
But I'm amused that most people supporting him haven't read and understood the draft of the
Jan Lokpal Bill, which Hazare has been fighting for. I'm appalled that they don't understand that
this bill does nothing to fight the root causes of corruption, and may instead add to the problem.
And yes, I'd be astounded if they care about this bill or the man two weeks from now, when the
fashion would have changed, yellows would be out, and purples would be, like, so in.

That corruption is one of the biggest problems India faces is a banal truism. But where we go
wrong in thinking about it is that we treat it like a disease, when it is really a symptom.
Corruption arises from power. When people have power over our lives, they will misuse it: that is
inherent in human nature.When you need 165 licenses to open a hotel in India, including "a
special licence for the vegetable weighing scale in the kitchen and one for each of the bathroom
scales put in guest rooms", there is a recipe for corruption right there. When every government
servant you encounter while doing some routine work, from a driver to a peon, can delay you or
derail you, corruption is inevitable.

Corruption is inevitable in India because the government has too much power. If a hotelier did
not need 165 licenses -- and there is no reason why he should need any -- that would be 165
bribes less to pay. (I'm assuming one bribe per license, which is honestly quite optimistic.) If
our mai-baap sarkarsdid not have control over so many elements of our lives, there would be less
scope for chai-paani. In practically every area of our lives, there is government interference or
oversight, either overt or covert. And, to repeat that old cliche one more time because it is both
pithy and true, power corrupts. That's just human nature.
So what is the solution to corruption then? Since the problem lies with power, you need to tackle
that first. You need to, first of all, question the many ways in which the government controls our
lives. Completely dismantling the license-and-inspector raj is one way to do. Scrapping every
ministry that has no reason to exist, at both the central and state level, would be another. (We'd
be left with just three or four of them.) Governments should exist to implement law and order, to
protect our rights, and to provide basic services -- nothing else. The more we move towards this
ideal, the closer we come to rooting out corruption.

Obviously these specific goals are high-hanging fruit. Those in power will never willingly give up
any piece of it. But an equal part of the problem is our default attitude that our government exists
to rule us and not serve us. This must change. Equally, we seem to believe that the solution to bad
government is more government. This is exactly the opposite of the truth, and broadly the
mistake that Anna Hazare is making.

The Lokpal Bill does not tackle any of the root causes of corruption. Instead, as Pratap Bhanu
Mehta puts it in his wonderful critique, the bill amounts to "an unparalleled concentration of
power in one institution that will literally be able to summon any institution and command any
kind of police, judicial and investigative power." In other words, in a situation where the problem
is power, we create an entity that has even more power and, what is more, has appointed officials
instead of elected ones.As Shuddhabrata Sengupta writes, this is not "the deepening, but ... the
profound erosion of democracy."

I'm not as skeptical of Hazare as my friend Manu Joseph is -- I think Gaurav Sabnis's view is
more balanced. I'm sure the man is well-intentioned, and has achieved much in the past. But he
is fighting for the wrong thing here. You do not cure a diabetic man by feeding him sweets;
equally, you cannot root our corruption by creating more centres of power.

I must admit, though, that Vivienne Westwood makes some funky dresses.

****

I'm always amused to see how a worthy cause acts like Red Bull to our chatteratti. From the
meaningless, feel-good candlelight vigils after 26/11, to countless self-righteous online
petitionsabout this and that, to support for Anna Hazare, the new middle-class icon. (Who
woulda thunk?) Why, I even heard about a movement on Twitter that was trying to get everyone
to fast for one day in solidarity with Hazare. One day! How far we have come: from "fast unto
death" to "fast until midnight." This is progress, India.

****
Speaking of androgyny being in fashion, it strikes me that most foreigners, when they hear his
name, must think Anna Hazare is a woman. I would so love to see a desi Lady Gaga clone on MTV
soon, calling herself Anna Hazare. She'd have to be really thin, of course, because not only is that
fashionable, she's been fasting. I have the title of her first single already "Would you like to be my
lokpal, baybeh?" I can see her in my mind's eye, and lemme tell you, it's corrupting me.

Amit Varma, the winner of the 2007 Bastiat Prize for Journalism, is the author of the
bestselling novel My Friend Sancho. He writes the popular blog, India Uncut. You can follow
him on Twitterhere.