Anand Teltumbde: The Myth of Good People
The fact is that ‘opened-up’ India is a node in the gigantic network of global capital that does not have any moral qualms about corruption. Can Arvind Kejriwal’s rhetoric arrest this monster?
One cannot help but admire Arvind Kejriwal. The zest with which he has made the issue of corruption to eclipse all other; the strategy under which he brought in Anna Hazare’s moral authority to bear upon it for mobilising people; the discretion with which he managed the rift with Hazare and his team; the élan with which he plunged into politics; the alacrity with which he covers up his glaring contradictions, and the untiring zeal with which he has been conducting himself may not find easy parallels. It is not easy these days to bring up any issue of collective interest to appeal to discrete individuals pulverized by neoliberal ideological crushers and has sustained it for over a year now is not a mean achievement. Whether one agrees with him or not, he has already made a mark on the political horizon of this country, exposing a crucial aspect of the democracy deficit of the system.
How did he do it? Will he be able to scale up politics now that he has plunged into it? These are some of the questions that pertinently arise in this context.
India is afflicted by many serious problems such as poverty, galloping inequality, malnutrition, undernourishment, infant mortality, disease, sanitation, drinking water, food, education, farmers’ suicides, increasing criminality, and so on, that are directly hitting four-fifths of its population. None of these, however, could have possibly clicked with Kejriwal’s people. It is indeed a strategic masterstroke to choose corruption as the problem and jan lokpal as its solution.
It is not because corruption is a pervasive problem that hits most the low income groups. It is because corruption is associated with the political class and the State structure, which are tendentiously abhorred by the market-loving middle class in the neoliberal era. If it had been left at that it would not have been as attractive. The balancing magic is done by the simplistic solution proposed in the form of the jan lokpal.
Neoliberalism, characteristically, has quick fixes to any problem. It conceives everything in discrete terms, isolating it from its systemic relations. Naturally, discrete entities will be sans their complexity. When Margaret Thatcher said that there was nothing like a society, that there were only individuals and their problems, she was basically explicating the neoliberal ideology. The problem of an isolated individual is simply reduced to his lack of competitiveness; the solution is that he could strive harder.
The solution of the jan lokpal to the problem of corruption is a similar quick fix solution within the prevailing frame. Thus, Kejriwal had both, the problem as well as solution, both directly appealing to the burgeoning neo-liberal middle classes. Another aspect of the appeal of the issue of corruption is that it is seen as a distortion of the market logic, a blot on ‘Brand India’ in the global market and a serious impediment in making India a ‘superpower’.
Read more: http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2012/11/5701
Sanjay Kapoor: The Silence Over Corporate Corruption:
The reason the media does not pay attention to corporate corruption and fraud is simple. Big business owns the media. As government shrinks and the influence of the private sector increases, the influence of the ‘big bad government’ recedes further. “We just do not know how to manage the media,” a senior government functionary said helplessly when tasked with dousing the fire of allegations against the government. Their misery will continue until the government develops the courage to rein in unaccountable corporate houses that believe in bribing everyone to bend the resolve of lawmakers and enforcers to hike their profits. And when that does not work, they get bolder: bankrolling anti-government agitations.
