It seems to me that one of the factors that can contribute to corruption is the vulnerability of workers. If they are economically vulnerable (poorly paid) or politically vulnerable (subject to dismissal with changing political administrations), then they are perhaps more apt to to compensate by engaging in corruption.
very educative article - which I will share with as many as possible. I think you have addressed the area where I had the biggest discomfort with - which is that the bill was not inclusive enough to have acceptability of people its supposed to help. The concept of corruption is not just monetary - its use of social capital by entrenched classes to tilt the system in their favour. This stubborn opposition of reservations in Lokpal might have won the hearts of same anti-mandal middle classes, but Kejriwal & co will find it tough getting approval of the political classes and majority of Indians unless they change their concept of merit and expand definition of corruption.
Akim, it is the more powerful and the invulnerable in India that are the most rapacious. Political power for one man or woman = riches and open doors for his/her clan and dynasty.
Anna Hazare is indeed a very troubling figure to spearhead the movement against corruption. But I don't know whether Indians are psychologically prepared to be led into a mass movement by any figure who is not at some level "Gandhian" or does not evoke a yogi-like ascetic personality. The emotional appeal has to be as powerful as the political message. With a quasi-religious leader at the helm of social or political movements, personal failings, ideological rigity and huge egos don't seem to diminish the admiration of the adoring followers.
The Indian media is a major culprit, in my opinion, because of the way they portray or ignore political protests. They have paid scant attention to this woman, India's equivalent of Aung San Suu Kyi for more than a decade but jumped on the Hazare story with all guns blazing. Sharmila too took her stand against corruption and oppression and has been on a protest fast for eleven years in a remote corner of the country. But hardly anyone in India had heard of her until Anna very publicly decided to forego nutrition in the heart of New Delhi.
First there was (Hyper) Bal's one-degree-of-association between Hazare and the Taliban, and now it appears that there is a coordinated effort to saffronize the man from the left's echo chamber. It is enough to make me pause in my discomfort over the mimic Gandhian's non-democratic methods to run-around the parliamentary process. Even the princeling Rahul Gandhi, whose life story (and that of his family) has been a massive run-around democracy in order to perpetuate dynastic rule, whines about Hazare setting an anti-democratic precedent; and the media remains as tone-deaf as ever to the irony.
Mayawati, who is worshiped by her Dalit followers, is unsurpassed in her Imelda Marcos-styled megalomania and corruption, as recently exposed by Wikileaks. And that doyen of virtue, Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari, represents the Indian Muslim leadership who, not surprisingly, have strong reservations about an anti-corruption movement. As for the OBC supposed antipathy to Hazare, I am sure that it is deeply galling for left-libs that Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar and many of the "Hindu nationalist" ablest administrators happen to be OBC, and whose popularity cuts across the divisions that the progressives love to keep into perpetuity; how else could they, who are generally neither Dalit or OBC or Muslim, continue to lead the proletariat into the Brave New World?
Comments
It seems to me that one of the factors that can contribute to corruption is the vulnerability of workers. If they are economically vulnerable (poorly paid) or politically vulnerable (subject to dismissal with changing political administrations), then they are perhaps more apt to to compensate by engaging in corruption.
Posted by: Akim Reinhardt | Sep 12, 2011 10:40:36 AM
______________________________________________very educative article - which I will share with as many as possible. I think you have addressed the area where I had the biggest discomfort with - which is that the bill was not inclusive enough to have acceptability of people its supposed to help. The concept of corruption is not just monetary - its use of social capital by entrenched classes to tilt the system in their favour. This stubborn opposition of reservations in Lokpal might have won the hearts of same anti-mandal middle classes, but Kejriwal & co will find it tough getting approval of the political classes and majority of Indians unless they change their concept of merit and expand definition of corruption.
Posted by: Anurag | Sep 12, 2011 2:25:11 PM
______________________________________________Akim, it is the more powerful and the invulnerable in India that are the most rapacious. Political power for one man or woman = riches and open doors for his/her clan and dynasty.
Anna Hazare is indeed a very troubling figure to spearhead the movement against corruption. But I don't know whether Indians are psychologically prepared to be led into a mass movement by any figure who is not at some level "Gandhian" or does not evoke a yogi-like ascetic personality. The emotional appeal has to be as powerful as the political message. With a quasi-religious leader at the helm of social or political movements, personal failings, ideological rigity and huge egos don't seem to diminish the admiration of the adoring followers.
The Indian media is a major culprit, in my opinion, because of the way they portray or ignore political protests. They have paid scant attention to this woman, India's equivalent of Aung San Suu Kyi for more than a decade but jumped on the Hazare story with all guns blazing. Sharmila too took her stand against corruption and oppression and has been on a protest fast for eleven years in a remote corner of the country. But hardly anyone in India had heard of her until Anna very publicly decided to forego nutrition in the heart of New Delhi.
Posted by: Ruchira | Sep 12, 2011 2:39:25 PM
______________________________________________First there was (Hyper) Bal's one-degree-of-association between Hazare and the Taliban, and now it appears that there is a coordinated effort to saffronize the man from the left's echo chamber. It is enough to make me pause in my discomfort over the mimic Gandhian's non-democratic methods to run-around the parliamentary process. Even the princeling Rahul Gandhi, whose life story (and that of his family) has been a massive run-around democracy in order to perpetuate dynastic rule, whines about Hazare setting an anti-democratic precedent; and the media remains as tone-deaf as ever to the irony.
Mayawati, who is worshiped by her Dalit followers, is unsurpassed in her Imelda Marcos-styled megalomania and corruption, as recently exposed by Wikileaks. And that doyen of virtue, Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari, represents the Indian Muslim leadership who, not surprisingly, have strong reservations about an anti-corruption movement. As for the OBC supposed antipathy to Hazare, I am sure that it is deeply galling for left-libs that Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar and many of the "Hindu nationalist" ablest administrators happen to be OBC, and whose popularity cuts across the divisions that the progressives love to keep into perpetuity; how else could they, who are generally neither Dalit or OBC or Muslim, continue to lead the proletariat into the Brave New World?
Posted by: Sam | Sep 12, 2011 7:15:23 PM