It's a fast. Not blackmail.
Posted on April 28, 2011
T.R. Raghunandan, Ex-IAS officer and Co-ordinator, ipaidabribe.com shares with us his views on Anna Hazare’s fast and why naysayers should not be calling it blackmail.
The recent happenings on the Lokpal Bill inspired emotional reactions all over the country, mostly of a positive nature. The media buzzed with the story of Anna Hazare’s fast and ipaidabribe.com also saw an upward trend of visits. There was also a spurt in the launch of corruption related sites over the past few months. Did all this point toward a new route for political negotiation? Is Egypt knocking at our (democratic) door?
On the fast itself, there has been controversy. While a vocal majority supported the fast and hailed the bucking of the government to have a joint discussion on the bill a victory, others called it blackmail. A former colleague of mine in the IAS bitterly circulated a congratulatory open letter he wrote (or wanted to write) to Annaji. “Congratulations on your "victory", he wrote. “But you are encouraging anarchy. Your "victory" was achieved through blackmail. Your movement was peaceful with an unquestionably noble end. But your means have subverted the democratic and legal process.”
Mahatma Gandhi resorted to fasting as part of Satyagraha, often to force the hand of the Government to do something meaningful. Gandhi fasted 17 times during the freedom struggle, twice fasting for three weeks, in 1924 and 1943. His first fast was in support of striking mill workers in Ahmedabad in 1918, leading to a compromise settlement in which their wages were increased. In 1932 he fasted, protesting against the setting up of separate electorates for separate castes. His most important fast was perhaps the one in the evening of his life, September 1948, when he refused to eat till peace was restored in Calcutta (now Kolkata), which was torn apart by bloody communal riots immediately after partition (Read More: Lokpal Bill: The ruling class has left us with no option). Was that blackmail too?
What separates a justified use of the political weapon of fasting from an un-justified one is the gravity of the cause for which one fasts. Gandhi realised this and laid down certain pre-conditions for Satyagraha, which included the use of fasting as a strategy. He also identified certain circumstances when fasting was appropriate:
• Fasts could only be undertaken against those people one loved. • Fasts ought to have a concrete and specific goal, not abstract aims. • The fast must be morally defensible in the eyes of the target. • The fast must in no way serve the own interests of the Satyagrahi. • The fast must not ask people to do something they were incapable of, or cause great hardship to them.
For one thing, Gandhi used fasting as a last resort after all other means failed. Gandhi also did not hanker for power, or for narrow political gain when he fasted. Quite often, he fasted for reining in followers who had deviated from his path of truth and non-violence – his fast to atone for the Chauri Chaura burning of a police station by enraged satyagrahis is a case in point.
Let us test Annaji’s fast from these yardsticks. Annaji has not at any time fomented revolution or hatred against the government. He has not advocated that we burn buses, or block roads. He spoke of his intention to fast well in advance; the government knew early enough about his impending fast.
Annaji had a clear programme before him; that the government should adopt the Jan Lokpal bill. This was a clear and tangible goal. Nobody can argue that a Lokpal bill is not the need of the hour, given the all-pervasive and uncontrolled spread of corruption. Annaji did not have anything to personally gain from the fast and last, his request to the government to enact a Lokpal bill was well within the government’s powers and capabilities. Examined from a tried and tested Gandhian yardstick of what is a justified cause, and whether sufficient efforts have been exerted before resorting to the last option of a fast, I believe that Annaji’s fast did not amount to blackmail.
With the wisdom of hindsight, one might say that fasting against an imperial power is different from fasting to get your own democratically elected government to move. If cold logic were to be applied, then somebody denying himself food simply because wishes were not met, is indeed blackmail.
The build-up of anger against corruption has been swelling for nearly a year now. Every political party has been seen as tainted. The campaign for a Jan Lokpal bill has been on for more than three months. Successive governments had not moved even on the Lokpal Bill, keeping it pending for more than 40 years. So let us therefore also discuss the design of the Jan Lokpal Bill. The question is whether the people’s version will be the complete solution for tackling India’s big corruption problem?
Watch this space for more information on the Jan Lokpal Bill and why it may not a comprehensive option in its current form and what should be done to make it so.
Read the other posts in this series here:
The Lokpal Bill VII–Safety locks
The Lokpal Bill-VI: Heavy is the head that wears the crown
The Lokpal Bill-V: The light must shine on us all
The Jan Lokpal Bill-IV: Questions we need to be asking
The Jan Lokpal Bill–III: Setting the Stage for Discussion
Annaji and I