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We request you to take some credible steps at stemming corruption. Kindly stop finding faults and suspecting conspiracies in our movement. There are none. Even if there were, it does not absolve you of your responsibilities to stop corruption.

With warm regards,

K B Hazare

A direct fall out of the fast undertaken by Ann Hazare was Sharad Pawar, Agriculture Minister and President ICC, who had to quit the panel formed by the Government to draft Lok-Pal bill. Arvind Kejriwal, known for his work on the Right to Information Act and a key supporter of Hazare's movement is one of spokesman for agitators. In a discussion on TV, he argued,"How can ministers of the likes of Sharad Pawar and Kapil Sibbal be part of anti-corruption measures?" Mr Kapil Sibbal has been one of the main architects of coalition Government strategy to play down the corruption scams like 2G. In a press conference soon after taking responsibility of Telecom Ministry, Kapil Sibbal had defended A.Raja, Ex – Telecom minster responsible for the scam. In doing so he had actually tried to influence investigation in a clear breach to his obligation as Cabinet Minister to bring the wrong doers to justice. His apathy to his duties and zeal to cover up corruption has now been playing against him to be a creditable member of a panel constituted to fight against corruption.

The government has been clearly under pressure and has adopted the policy not to confront Hazare’s demand. As such, they looked for dialog with the activists while at the same time trying to malign the maverick Anna Hazare in whatever way possible. Congress spokesman pointed out that Hazare was using strong arm tactics in forcing Government and that his demands were unconstitutional.

Congress spokesman has all along been saying that it is unfair to put pressure in this manner on leaders who have been elected by the constituents. If people want the change, then they should fight election and form government. But this was the main contention. Politicians had rendered the divided electorates cornered by corrupt, unethical and unfair means. In fact, they had deliberately pushed the country through inherent weaknesses of electoral politics whereby electorates were forced to recycle exclusive bunch of people time and again. No wonder that few political stalwarts have managed to become the permanent face of almost all cabinets in the past few decades.

One of the inherent weaknesses in Government response has been the fact that they did not realize that it was a political battle not a legal battle. The party had deployed legal luminaries in the likes of Kapil Siball, Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Manish Tiwari who were sharp tongued and deft in their replies but often repetitive in either directing the criticism towards opposition or undermining the issue in the first place. Since corruption issues kept surfacing for past few months, they looked like lost lawyers disconnected to political reality. On the other hand, People have been looking for an outlet. In this light, their efforts appeared to be like gagging popular criticism and so the whole exercise appeared to be last ditch effort to cover misdeeds – even though many of the scams resulted from the very dynamics of coalition politics and not directly attributable to Congress.

Another important aspect of these corruption related issues since Commonwealth Games scam first surfaced few months back was the fact that real power center of the political authority was conspicuously missing from the scene. This mechanization was elaborate and very well executed. When Suresh Kalmadi, Chairman of Organizing Committee of Commonwealth Games, was targeted for various corruption charges, the power establishment deliberately kept Kalmadi away from Sonia and Rahul Gandhi who are the real political authority behind the Government. Sheila Dixit, Chief Minister of Delhi and close confident of Sonia Gandhi openly pointed figure on Suresh Kalmadi and tried her best to get the attention away from herself though she was also alleged to be part of the mess created during Commonwealth games. Sonia and Rahul Gandhi appeared to be unscathed but it was probably their miscalculation. People had reposed their faith in them and not their representatives. No amount of shrieking responsibility was going to help them if the anger of people against corruption was not handled properly.

It also appeared that the interior of political mechanization was getting exposed. Even politicians not part of the coalition Government, like Uma Bharati and Om Prakash Chautala were turned back by the agitators from the scene of fast. Ann Hazare and his supporters knew the danger of political hijacking. One of graffiti said “No to politicians - No to bureaucrats”. The anger of people against politician was understandable. But, the anger against bureaucrat in the same vain and breath was something new. The exposure to various forms of powerful media had bared the bones of wretched degradation of administration in India.

Amir Khan, actor and director of Indian Cinema, was prompt to extend his support like many other personalities of repute all over the country. He wrote letters to both Hazare and Manmohan Singh on the issue of corruption. The letter written to Hazare speaks for itself about the kind of support Hazare was getting throughout the country on the issue of corruption : “Like the country has supported the Indian Cricket Team in their struggle to win the world cup, I hope and pray that your struggle which is infinitely more important and affects each and every one of us will get even greater support.”

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Source:  OpenStax, Sheila ki jawani (youth of sheila). OpenStax CNX. May 25, 2011 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11295/1.36
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