Author: Editorial
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: August 22, 2011
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/met-with-silence/835039/
Introduction: Why are Congress and government
evading a conversation? Where are the young leaders?
Anna Hazare, from the Ramlila Maidan in Delhi,
seemed to expand the scope of his movement on Saturday. He was also interested,
he said, in electoral reforms, and in a land acquisition law that did not
expropriate farmers. This is interesting, and indicative of the general nature
of the Hazare-led movement: it purports to be about the specifics of certain
aspects of a Lokpal bill, but it draws whatever strength it has from a disaffection
that is much more wide-ranging than that. It draws strength from a distaste
for corruption - by which is meant the continued intrusion of the licence-quota
raj into people's everyday lives. It draws strength from a common perception
that the government is too remote from the concerns of India's towns. It draws
strength from fears that aspirations will continue to be unfulfilled, with
a paucity of good colleges and good jobs for the many millions of young people
who want them.
Yet the government has been so focussed on
dealing with the leaders of the agitation that it has forgotten that its greater
responsibility must be to address the disaffection itself. This will require
more than just alternative mechanisms for reducing and combating high-level
corruption. It will require better communication with the people on the streets,
many of whom were instrumental in sweeping UPA 2 to power. The government
and the Congress need to demonstrate a renewed commitment to reform, to openness,
and to satisfying their aspirations. But instead they have chosen to display
their most smug and defensive aspects. The Congress's political failure in
addressing the concerns that underlie the Hazare movement is multiplied by
its inability to communicate: party spokesperson Renuka Chowdhury, for example,
has been more than a hindrance than a help if the Congress wished to endear
itself again to those in India's towns it has alienated.
And her inept handling of the Congress and
government's case invites bigger questions. Why are all the younger MPs who
were celebrated as turning a page in the Congress's history in 2009 silent
today? Why are they not being fielded? Why, too, is the government not responding
to whatever urban anger it senses by pushing the second-generation reforms
the prime minister described as "difficult" on Saturday? Dr Singh
said the government was open to "give and take" on the Lokpal bill,
and the comparison with the my-way-or-the-highway Anna team was noticed, and
helped the government instantly. He, above all, must open himself to conversation
more. And his government must do more to address the angst of middle India.
