A Greater Freedom

Editorial:
This was not a news that India wanted to hear as its people returned to work after an Independence Day holiday. Unfortunately, the Centre had no plans of allowing the celebration of freedom to continue beyond 15 August, and early this morning, took into ‘preventive detention’, voices which have been drowning out the pomposity of the moral high-ground that the Congress coterie claims too often. Deluded by the ease with which it was allowed to squirm out of the monstrosity of having lathi-charged the Baba Ramdev show recently, the Centre went ahead and picked up Anna Hazare and his support team on Tuesday when they refused to allow the parameters of their movement [which they have proven the capacity to keep peaceful] to be set by the authorities.
They were trying to stare down the movement, but soon realised that it was not dealing with escape artists any more. The backlash was resounding, and by afternoon, 2,500 supporters of India Against Corruption had courted arrest across the country. Before this, in an embarrassing attempt at character assassination [something they had pulled off against Baba Ramdev], the Congress dirty-tricks department had tried to dredge up dirt on Anna and Kiran Bedi but only succeeded in exposing itself. Now, they must be hoping that middle-class India will tire of the protest and as their stamina fades, so will the embarrassment.
What such projections overlook is that the issue has now become much bigger than a debate over which Lokpal Bill to take up for consideration, it is now about the right of the people to demand better and a free people’s right to demonstrate. Pitted against each other are a people tiring of glaring corruption and the politician-bureaucrat nexus which has the most to lose if something effective is actually done to curb corruption. The people, unfortunately, do not have a track-record of sustaining their involvement on issues and find themselves pitted against the masters of status quo. At the same time, what cannot be ignored is the fact that people’s involvement has seldom had such clear and uncompromised leadership. It is very likely that soon, even those sections which have reservations about the practicality of what Team Anna proposes, will bolster its numbers to ensure that an overbearing government is shown its place. When that happens, the Opposition parties will also be cornered and that will take away the possibility of an all-party consensus to notify a Lokpal office which is not as powerful as the people want it to be. The entire nation might not have poured out into the streets, but it can be safely vouched that all Indians have been offended by the government action in Delhi and the thousands who did join the protests have the moral support of all the people. This coming together of the people for an issue not regimented by party affiliation or caste and communal politics is a development worth celebrating. In a way, our freedom has been put in perspective. Sixty-four years of self rule later, the nation is capitalising democracy to mean more than political freedom and rights and also including into it the desire for improved probity in governance.
In a sense then, a day which started poor in as much as our credentials as a country run by people’s representatives is concerned, ended with a strong display of the fact that we are still a country of free people.