Hazare’s brilliant maneuvering against the govt. has earned him plenty of criticism. One of the most persistent is that he weakened Indian democracy by bypassing existing channels and “blackmailing” or “forcing” the views of a small section of society on to the country. I believe this to be an utterly false reading of what Hazare did. If anything, he strengthened Indian democracy.
People going on hunger strikes is nothing new. The Indian govt. is used to being threatened with it. In the vast majority of cases, the hunger strikers are simply ignored. Their causes don’t have widespread appeal and when they see that no one cares, they simply end their fast voluntarily. Clearly, the govt. doesn’t care too much if a particular hunger striker dies per se.
In Hazare’s case however, the government listened and caved into pressure. This wasn’t because Hazare “forced” the govt. into anything. When you force someone, the entity being forced cannot possibly do anything else. The government could have ignored Hazare. If they had ignored him, the earth wouldn’t have shattered, Kapil Sibal would have still lived, and parliament would have still met. The truth however is that the UPA would have almost certainly lost the elections – both state wide and nationally.
Let me repeat that. The govt. caved to Hazare so that it wouldn’t lose the next elections. If that isn’t a democratic way of functioning, what is?
Hazare didn’t force his protest on the people or the government. He didn’t order a bandh or force people to close their shops. He didn’t sit on the railroad tracks and make a nuisance of himself. He didn’t threaten to stop the flow of food into Delhi and make everyone suffer (like the Jat leaders did). Instead, he chose to inconvenience only himself – and that is the democratic way of protesting.
Hazare was successful because he was able to rally the country around himself. Not because of the hunger strike as such. Without the support of the country, Hazare would have been ignored like so many others. With the entire nation backing him, he was able to pressurize the government into accepting his demands. He didn’t stage a coup to do it – that would have been undemocratic. The end result is that Hazare has acted in the most democratic way possible – by essentially telling the govt. it would lose the next elections if he died.
Hazare didn’t bypass democracy. He strengthened it by reminding the govt. that they are the servants of the people. And it would be the people who would have thrown the UPA out of power if it has not caved into pressure. Long live democracy!
I would just like to ask one question. Whose responsibilities would have the riots been had anything happened to Hazare? Something to think about,huh?
In reply to Dhruva Mathur
It would be the fault of the rioters. Riots aren’t a force of nature to which we can’t assign blame and responsibility.
“Hazare’s brilliant maneuvering against the govt. has earned him plenty of criticism. One of the most persistent is that he weakened Indian democracy by bypassing existing channels and “blackmailing” or “forcing” the views of a small section of society on to the country. I believe this to be an utterly false reading of what Hazare did. If anything, he strengthened Indian democracy.
People going on hunger strikes is nothing new. The Indian govt. is used to being threatened with it. In the vast majority of cases, the hunger strikers are simply ignored. Their causes don’t have widespread appeal and when they see that no one cares, they simply end their fast voluntarily. Clearly, the govt. doesn’t care too much if a particular hunger striker dies per se.
In Hazare’s case however, the government listened and caved into pressure. This wasn’t because Hazare “forced” the govt. into anything. When you force someone, the entity being forced cannot possibly do anything else. The government could have ignored Hazare. If they had ignored him, the earth wouldn’t have shattered, Kapil Sibal would have still lived, and parliament would have still met. The truth however is that the UPA would have almost certainly lost the elections – both state wide and nationally.
Let me repeat that. The govt. caved to Hazare so that it wouldn’t lose the next elections. If that isn’t a democratic way of functioning, what is?”
If this is the case, then no one can ever force anyone to do anything. There always is a choice; if there was not, if there always was only one available option, then there would be no need to force anyone to do anything in the first place! Under your perverse logic, if I pour gasoline on your family members and threaten to burn them alive unless you pay me money, I’m not forcing you to do anything, since you could always let your family burn alive; you have that choice. Their blood would be on your hands, but you’d still have had a choice. Hazare was giving the government the choice between his death and its utter annihilation, or agreeing to HIS demands, as if he and he alone knew what was good for India. That is hardly democratic.
Fasting is most definitely political blackmail. The government did not introduce Lokpal legislation because it came under parliamentary discussion via the normal channels; THAT would have been democratic. It introduced it because Hazare threatened to kill himself if they did not. Hazare is not an MP or even an MLA. What right did he have to speak for the people? It would have been different if there had not been democratic institutions in India today, as was the case during the Raj, or in the countries affected by the Arab Spring. In that case, blackmails is acceptable, because those who are doing it are trying to create democratic institutions. India however, is certainly not Egypt or Tunisia. It has fair elections; getting the government to act without using democratic procedure is by definition a subversion of democracy.
“Hazare didn’t force his protest on the people or the government. He didn’t order a bandh or force people to close their shops. He didn’t sit on the railroad tracks and make a nuisance of himself. He didn’t threaten to stop the flow of food into Delhi and make everyone suffer (like the Jat leaders did). Instead, he chose to inconvenience only himself – and that is the democratic way of protesting.
Hazare was successful because he was able to rally the country around himself. Not because of the hunger strike as such. Without the support of the country, Hazare would have been ignored like so many others. With the entire nation backing him, he was able to pressurize the government into accepting his demands. He didn’t stage a coup to do it – that would have been undemocratic. The end result is that Hazare has acted in the most democratic way possible – by essentially telling the govt. it would lose the next elections if he died.
Hazare didn’t bypass democracy. He strengthened it by reminding the govt. that they are the servants of the people. And it would be the people who would have thrown the UPA out of power if it has not caved into pressure. Long live democracy!”
“Rally the country around himself” makes it sound far cuter than it actually was. Hazare got the masses to force the government into bending to his will. This is MOB RULE, Bhagwad, not democracy. Who voted? Who was elected? How can you call it democratic if the government listens to someone OTHER than elected representatives? If random people have the same stature in the eyes of the government as elected officials, then whither democracy? Hazare did not show the government that they were servants of the people; he did not have the support of the majority of India’s populace. He showed them that he could make them the servants of a frenzied mob (a tiny fraction of India’s populace) whose leader threatened to kill himself if the government did not do as he said.
What Hazare did was set a dangerous precedent; he showed that the government will bend to the will of the mob if the crowd is big and angry enough. Now people realize that silly things like “debating” and “discussing issues” are unnecessary, and clumsy things like Parliament are a waste of time. All they have to do is whip up a following (based on visceral emotion, and not on a cold, rational analysis of the facts at hand) and threaten the government until it caves. No need for voting, no need for a legislature, or any kind of discussion whatsoever. How is this anything different than what happened in Tahrir Square? Essentially, this legitimizes the rule of the most charismatic public speaker in the capital; hardly democratic. Things like that need to be used to overthrow dictatorships, NOT cleanse a democracy.
You say that it is legitimate for people to say “Do as we want or face our wrath at the ballot box.” That is indeed democratic; it is what picketers do all the time. If Hazare had simply gotten some picketers together to protest against corruption, that would be fine. But Hazare said “Do as I say or I WILL KILL MYSELF and you will face the people’s wrath at the ballot box.” That Hazare threatened to kill himself was the deciding factor. If Hazare had staged a normal protest, without threatening that his blood would be on the government’s hands, they would have ignored him. You say that the Indian government has faced hunger strikes before, and that they listened to Hazare proves that he had the people behind him. But he didn’t! The difference between him and other hunger strikers is that he had a big mob, and they did not. Not because he had the support of the people. At no time did Hazare ever have the support of the majority of India’s population, or even a significant fraction of it. You’re equating mob rule with democracy, and that is a huge mistake.
What Hazare should have done is form a political party based on a clean governance platform, or create an watch dog organization to sniff out corruption and educate the common man about the problems of corruption in the Indian government. I see that his website does a little bit of this, and I fully support it. You might say that people like JP have tried similar movements before and “it didn’t work.” Well, then that reveals that the problem is deep set within the Indian people’s political consciousness. They just don’t care enough about clean governance, and the government takes advantage of that. Hazare’s protest doesn’t address this. It doesn’t change the apathy and ignorance of the masses, and because of this, it will most definitely fail.
In reply to Sasank
You’re right. People always have a choice. Your gasoline case is invalid because you’re threatening harm to someone else whereas Hazare is only threatening to harm himself and his own body. Hazare is not breaking any laws.
The distinction is important. “Democratic pressure” is any pressure apart from using guns and threatening to kill the politicians. Apart from violence, everything else is democratic.
Hazare did indeed have the support of the majority of people in India. Why else did the govt. listen to him. The only reason was that he had the support of the people. Otherwise the govt. would have ignored him. No matter how angry the crowd is, why should the govt. listen? As long as no violence is threatened, the govt. can safely ignore the whole country no matter how angry the crowd is.
Once again, I disagree with you that Hazare didn’t have the support of at least 98% of the Indian people. People very much care about clean governance and they’re willing to fight for it.
It doesn’t matter that he wasn’t breaking any laws. I never said that he was. He doesn’t have to break laws to subvert democracy. Whether you harm someone else, or yourself to get someone to do what you want, it’s still blackmail. Hazare legitimized mob rule through his movement; he forced the government to listen to the mob and ignore democratic procedure. Hazare most definitely did not have the support of the majority of the Indian people. The government listened to him because otherwise he would have killed himself; the Indian people would have voted them out of office because they would blame the government for Hazare’s death, and because they hate corruption, but NOT necessarily because they support Lokpal. Support for Anna’s life does not mean support for Lokpal.
In reply to Sasank
Which democractic procedure were broken? Nowhere in the Constitution is it mentioned that the govt. cannot listen to anyone whatsoever to bring a draft bill into existence. After all, the bill is still going through parliament no? It’s still going to be voted upon no? None of that can be changed.
For me, anything which doesn’t break democratic laws is democratic. The Indian people would have voted the govt. out of power both for Hazare and for corruption. You think that if Hazare threatened to fast unto death for banning jeans anyone would have cared?
And I disagree that blackmail includes threats to harm yourself. When you blackmail someone, you threaten to harm them. That’s the very definition of blackmail!
According to the Oxford English Dictionary:
Blackmail: the use of threats or the manipulation of someone’s feelings to force them to do something:
“out of fear, she submitted to Jim’s emotional blackmail”
“they are trying to blackmail us with hunger”
Blackmailing someone involves manipulating someone’s feelings. Thus, you can threaten to harm someone else, or yourself so long as you are manipulating their feelings, which Hazare definitely was. The Indian people would have voted the UPA out of power because he threatened to kill himself. If he had staged a normal picketing protest of some kind that did not involve a hunger strike, he would not have received the support he did, and the government would not have received the backlash it would have received had they allowed Hazare to die. Had he done this, his message would have been “Do as I say or my supporters and I will vote against you in the next election.” As it was, he was saying “Do as I say, or I will die, and my supporters will vote you out because they’ll hold you responsible.” People who threaten to kill themselves are no better those who riot and kill others; they still attempt to stain the government’s hands with blood for failing to agree to their demands. Both Hazare and murderous rioters are supporting mob rule, not democracy. There is no reason for people to resort to such violent measures in a democratic country where there are free elections and rule of law. You keep ignoring the fact that Hazare’s supporters were just a mob of people like any other; bending to the will of a mob is not democratic. It would be useful here to cite the “Grammar of Anarchy” speech that Dr. Ambedkar, who helped write the Constitution you say Hazare is not violating:
“As much defence as could be offered to the Constitution has been offered by my friends Sir Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar and Mr T T Krishnamachari, I shall not therefore enter into the merits of the Constitution. Because I feel, however good a Constitution may be, it is sure to turn out bad because those who are called to work it, happen to be a bad lot. However bad a Constitution may be, it may turn out to be good if those who are called to work it, happen to be a good lot. The working of a Constitution does not depend wholly upon the nature of the Constitution. The Constitution can provide only the organs of State such as the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. The factors on which the working of those organs of the State depend are the people and the political parties they will set up as their instruments to carry out their wishes and their politics. Who can say how the people of India and their parties will behave? Will they uphold constitutional methods of achieving their purposes or will they prefer revolutionary methods of achieving them? If they adopt the revolutionary methods, however good the Constitution may be, it requires no prophet to say that it will fail. It is, therefore, futile to pass any judgement upon the Constitution without reference to the part which the people and their parties are likely to play.”
Here Ambedkar wants people to adhere to “constitutional methods” and not “revolutionary methods.” Hunger strikes are just as violent as riots carried out by revolutionaries: they blackmail the government through blood.
As such, Ambedkar specifically condemns hunger striking in an independent India:
“If we wish to maintain democracy not merely in form, but also in fact, what must we do? The first thing in my judgement we must do is to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.”
Ambedkar agrees with me; India has rule of law and constitutional procedures for people to have their grievances redressed. He isn’t saying Hunger striking is illegal, but that it violates the spirit of a democratic society. Satyagrahas subvert democracy by bypassing these systems and resorting to blackmail through blood and mob rule. Indeed if India allows hunger strikers to dictate government policy, what will India do when there is a serious disagreement? If two different hunger strikers striking over opposite sides of one issue (each is striking against the movement of the other) what will the government do? Wait until one side gives up? This essentially makes the government grind to a halt, waiting for one side to cave so that the government can implement the policy of the winner. This skips all debate over the basic premise of the winner’s demand (ie, whether it is even necessary or not). Hardly democratic.
Ambedkar continues:
“The second thing we must do is to observe the caution which John Stuart Mill has given to all who are interested in the maintenance of democracy, namely, not “to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or to trust him with power which enable him to subvert their institutions.” There is nothing wrong in being grateful to great men who have rendered life-long services to the country. But there are limits to gratefulness. As has been well said by the Irish Patriot Daniel O’Connel, no man can be grateful at the cost of his honour, no woman can be grateful at the cost of her chastity and no nation can be grateful at the cost of its liberty. This caution is far more necessary in the case of India than in the case of any other country. For in India, Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.”
Hazare is an excellent example of the “great man” at whose feet the people of India were laying their liberties. Hazare was blackmailing the government to introduce the Lokpal bill into Parliament, whether or not such a thing was even beneficial for the country. He was imposing his individual will upon the government, and thus the nation; he assumed that his idea, namely the Lokpal bill, was absolutely necessary for the nation, and would not take no Lokpal for an answer. He was willing to debate the nature of the Lokpal, but insisted on Lokpal of some kind, and was willing to threaten violence to get it. Democracy is based on debate; nothing, not even the necessity of Lokpal, should be immune from discussion. In making the necessity of Lokpal beyond the terms of debate, Hazare subverted democracy.
In reply to Sasank
Ah, I understand. You’re referring to emotional blackmail and not criminal blackmail. That’s not a crime and is certainly not undemocratic.
I strongly disagree that threatening to hurt yourself is as bad as threatening to hurt others. The first is legal. The second is not. Therefore the second is far worse.
Anything legal is democratic.
It doesn’t matter that hurting other is legal and hurting yourself is not; the both are equally manipulative tools for blackmail. Hazare’s hunger strike was perfectly legal but the SPIRIT of the whole thing, as Ambedkar pointed out decades ago, was not at all democratic. Hazare used emotional blackmail to force the government to consider Lokpal, whether or not it was necessary by threatening them with blood and backing it up with a mob. There is nothing democratic about this, though it is perfectly legal. It’s the spirit of the gesture that matters. A legal movement that is undemocratic still undermines democracy, legal though it may be. As Ambedkar noted, India has functioning legal institutions for redressing grievances. In getting the government to act outside of them, Hazare definately undermined democracy by using a method meant for dictatorships.
In reply to Sasank
Here is where we disagree. I think it’s perfectly fine to “blackmail” someone by threatening to hurt myself. I also believe that anything legal cannot be undemocratic.
India is a democratic country. Anything undemocratic would have already been made illegal.
You have a strange understanding of what democracy means. The laws of that make India democratic are in place because there is a spirit of democracy and rule of law that permeates the Indian consciousness. That is what makes India more than just a banana republic with a rubber stamp parliament. Without this, Indian democracy is a sham. You are concerned with the laws that are based upon this collective political consciousness and are fine with the fact that Hazare did not violate them. But you ignore the fact that he undermined the spirit of democracy upon which these laws are based by legitimizing blood threats and mob rule, using entirely legal methods. You blindly and unthinkingly cling to the law and the law alone when democracy is more than just laws. Plenty of “democratic republics” have laws that the dictators and tyrants in power actually never violate, (dictatorships have “elections” and “trials” etc.) but that does not make them democratic at all. India is a democracy not only because the people of the republic agree to govern themselves according to a certain set of rules, but because they are committed to promoting the behaviors and thought process that give these rules meaning and value, and make them worth upholding. Hazare promoted thought processes and behaviors that strike at the ideological fabric which make the laws effective, meaningful, and more than just worthless pieces of paper. This is far more complicated an issue than whether Hazare broke the law or not.
In reply to Sasank
I feel that any dictatorship or banana republic is at some level breaking the laws which would normally be under a democratic constitution. Dictators can try and change the laws (like Indira Gandhi did) buy luckily our Indian Supreme Court has made changes to the basic structure of the Constitution Illegal.
We also need other changes to other laws such as election reform etc which will prevent more power from percolating in a few hands. Ultimately it’s all about the laws themselves. What is democratic and undemocratic will be determined based on that.
Otherwise there’s no consistency. You and I disagree for example that harming oneself as a threat is fair or unfair. I say it’s fair. You say it isn’t.
Dictatorships merely write laws that seem democratic (like giving the police lots of power, allegedly for security reasons) and actually use them to abuse the populace. Ultimately it is not about the laws but about the attitudes of the populace; it is this that is the basis of any society, democratic or otherwise, and it is this that makes Indian laws mean something, and laws in dictatorships meaningless. Your focus on laws and laws alone, without understanding the means by which they derive their legitimacy and efficacy, is a characteristically myopic view that ignores more subtle subversions of democracy by individuals like Hazare who undermine the ideological fabric that makes Indian democracy possible by making blood threats and mob rule seem good.
In reply to Sasank
But no threats were ever made. Hazare’s movement was characterized by a complete absence of violence.
Also, “mob rule” always means the rule of a mob through intimidation and violence. If a mob threatens not to vote for a particular candidate, that’s democracy and doesn’t count as mob rule.
Threatening to kill yourself is violent. The fact that threats of violence aren’t carried out doesn’t make them any less violent. Your own definition says that mob rule is “typically” through violence or intimidation. Hazare definitely “controlled a political situation by those outside the conventional” realm (Parliamentary discussion over the necessity of any kind of Lokpal at all) if not the legal one.
In reply to Sasank
There again we disagree. I don’t believe that threatening to fast to death is violent. After all, it doesn’t affect anyone except the person fasting – so it’s not really a danger to anyone. A person has the right to do with their body as they choose.
Keep in mind that the conventional realm of parliament is still very much intact. Even the Supreme Court has agreed with this logic that there’s nothing undemocratic about the consultations regarding the draft bill.
The actual bill still has to go through parliament and the regular discussion phase etc. Nothing can change all that, no matter what threats Hazare issues. If that process is compromised, then even I will object.
But so far, it’s only discussions on a draft bill and exercising emotional pressure on the government isn’t breaking though any conventional realm yet.
Just because they have the right to do as they wish with their body does not make it nonviolent. Emos cutting themselves is violent. Mohamed Bouazizi burning himself alive is quite violent. Threatening suicide, as Hazare does, is still violent. I’m aware that Hazare isn’t forcing the government to actually implement the Lokpal without any kind of parliamentary discussion. But he did blackmail the government into considering the Lokpal bill in the first place,(many people argue that Lokpal is unnecessary and unconstitutional) yet Hazare forced them to consider it, thus imposing his individual, unelected will upon the government. He did not, for instance, write a letter to his MP asking to him to introduce the Lokpal legislation, in violation of “conventional realm.” Unelected, charismatic individuals introducing legislation by proxy is not conventional at all.
In reply to Sasank
Writing a letter to your MP is just one way of pressurizing the govt.
When we say “blackmail,” we also have to look at what is being threatened. If the threat is “do this otherwise we’ll kill you,” then that is not acceptable. If the threat is “do this or we’ll storm into parliament and force you to sign,” that is also unacceptable.
But if the threat is “do this otherwise my followers and I will vote you out of power,” then that is perfectly acceptable in a democracy.
Now you may ask “that means whatever a mob demands it will get?” It will – as long as the demand is constitutional. Meaning even if a huge mob threatens to vote the govt. out unless it bring in a bill to say – allow discrimination against women, that bill cannot be passed because the Supreme Court will not allow it to – our Constitution can’t be bypassed like that.
So this kind of blackmail is perfectly acceptable. In fact, it’s necessary. When an individual voter writes a letter to his MP saying “do this or I won’t vote for you,” that is also blackmail.
Finally, people are following Hazare not just because he’s Hazare but because they agree with what he’s saying. For that reason, the govt. was able to dismisss Ramdev. We all saw what happened. But the govt. can’t do the same thing with Hazare because here the people are not blindly following him.
very bad information