Hazare, My Hero
In this age of globalization, when India thrives on foreign business, and celebrity culture dominates its news media, Anna Hazare evokes a bygone era of austerity, nationalism, and self-reliance. With his penchant for fasting and his traditional garb, Hazare evokes comparisons with Gandhi. But the irony is that Gandhi was fighting against a foreign power; Hazare is forcing his own government to be less corrupt and more honest.
Anna has clearly hit a nerve among the masses of India, who are fed up with bureaucracy, bribes, and red tape. But there is more to Hazare than meets the eye. While the world has focused only on his latest anti-corruption campaign, his lifelong achievements include the development of a model eco-village with its own grain bank built as a protection against droughts, a watershed of small dams, canals, and percolation tanks created with shramdan or volunteer labor, and improvements in techniques for milk production. In Ralegan Siddhi, Hazare’s village, untouchability has been eliminated and education levels, particularly among girls, have risen with the help of a charitable trust. The gram sabha, or village government, makes all the policy decisions. But Anna Hazare has not stopped there. He has recognized that social reform has to be accompanied by cultural change as well. So, with the help of a youth group, he has organized communal marriages, aimed at preventing peasants from going into debt over wedding expenses.
Of course Western media has almost entirely ignored all of these achievements, focusing only on one aspect of the story, namely, corruption in the Indian government. And why not? After all, the more Americans can point to corruption in other countries, the more smug they can feel about their own government.
The truth of course is quite different. Corruption in America surpasses corruption anywhere else in the world. It was in these pages that, nearly 20 years ago, I wrote an essay titled, “Corruption is not a Third World Disease.” I think the statement holds truer today than ever. The only difference is that corruption in India is often on a small scale and illegal; corruption in America is of astronomic proportions, but conducted entirely with the blessings of the law.
In India, policemen often take bribes. I still remember the night when a policeman stopped me for riding my cycle without a light. The city was under complete blackout then, whether for load shedding or for one of our numerous wars with Pakistan, I can’t remember. So the man gave me a ticket. When I came home, my baby brother asked, “Don’t you know you are supposed to give him a few rupees?” I did not. I guess I was like Anna Hazare. Not only did I not approve of bribes, but I did not even know how to give one. Looking back now, I can sympathize with that policeman. The poor man had such a small salary that he was forced to supplement it with the largesse of the population. The same goes for clerks issuing passports in India or peons handing out ration cards. Here, in America, on the other hand, policemen, who get much better salaries and benefits, who often drive around in their squad cars doing precious little for the citizenry (I am speaking from experience of the police force in my own city, which has repeatedly failed to protect me—a topic for another column), have little incentives to take bribes.
Corruption in American government occurs on a different scale and in a different arena all together. When an oil company buys the loyalty of a political hack like Rick Perry, is it not corruption? When the U.S. Supreme Court steals an election away from a guy who got more votes than the guy who eventually occupied the office, is that not corruption at the highest levels of government? When a company like Standard and Poor's looks the other way while investment bankers plunder the country with their fancy derivatives, but gives the Obama administration a poor rating in order to oust it from office, is that not corruption on a monumental scale?
My father used to say that the British never did anything illegal; they always passed a law before perpetrating any act of violence. They passed the Rowlett Act, for example, before they committed the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
I wonder; where is our American Anna Hazare? Where is the outrage against our system of government? Why is no one conducting a satyagraha in front of the New York Stock Exchange to protest the control of our government by Wall Street hacks like Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, and Hank Paulson? Why is no one sitting down to fast until the Pentagon stops taking bread out of our children’s and seniors’ mouths?
The trouble is that American leaders like Noam Chomsky have only used words but have not set examples by their acts. Chomsky has a lot to say in critique of our government, but what has he actually done? The man cannot even suggest an alternative to the status quo, let alone lead us to where we can follow him.
I am grateful to Anna Hazare for reminding us of a different era, when idealism reigned, when the peasants of one of poorest countries of the planet were able to oust an imperialist power from its borders, when moral righteousness ruled.
It is heartening that the tradition of andolan—nonviolent resistance—lives on in India more than six decades after Independence. If the likes of Anna Hazare are speaking up against abusive governmental practices in India, leaders like Vandana Shiva are pointing out exploitation of tribal lands by industrialists like the Ambani brothers and protesting the destruction of our farms and farmers by foreign corporations like Archer Daniels Midland.
Not only does America lack the likes of Anna Hazare, the tragedy of American politics today is that its only grass roots movement, the Tea Party, was started by the billionaire Koch brothers whose only agenda is to reduce taxes for corporations and wealthy people. Only a poorly educated populace could be so foolish and ignorant as to organize against its self-interest.
This begs the question: should we invite Anna Hazare to America and ask him for tips on how we can wake up the American public and make it demand its rights?
Sarita Sarvate writes commentaries for Pacific News Service and KQED. Visit www.saritasarvate.com
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Comments
I enjoy reading Ms. Sarvate's column. However, sometimes I worry that she makes extremely uncritical observations and is quiet pathologically prone to sweeping generalizations.
Why worry about that? Because India Currents is a dominant forum for engaging the South Asian "voice" in America, and its our civic duty to ensure that the voice isn't sneaking in false assumptions and drawing of unexamined "similarities" between otherwise different things, as the "truth".
In "Hazare, My Hero", Ms. Sarvate does wonderfully well when she's appreciating Anna Hazare's satyagraha against corruption in India. In the specific Indian context, Hazare's movement blossoms into concrete and meaningful political action.
It is only when she tries to lift the Hazare-type action lock, stock and barrel, and tries to dump it into a totally different context--American politics--that's when she begins to lose credibility in my eyes.
Claims like "there is more corruption in America than there is in India" sounds plain silly. Of course, corruption is a part and parcel of governance the world over, as is structural violence built into political systems. But such a sweeping comparison reflects fuzzy thinking.
Ms. Sarvate, it's impossible to imagine an "American Hazare" because historically and culturally, America is not attuned to voices like that of Hazare's. There have been voices like those of MLK, who adapted and adjusted Gandhi's voice to suit American purposes. And if you will, Ms. Sarvate, MLK's great contribution was "words". Your primary claim that "words" ought to be subservient to "actions" smacks a bit of anti-intellectual smugness.
Noam Chomsky's "words" help us understand mass-media hegemony (which is an universal problem) and corporate power (again something that is an Indian problem as well) with a great deal of clarity. "Words" lead to action, if not physical, then ideological and mental.
Elizabeth Warren is someone I admire, and she to me represents an American Hazare with a difference, just as Anna Hazare could be an Indian Warren with a difference.
And why would somebody do a satyagraha in front of the New York Stock Exchange? I don't understand.
Lastly, I'm sorry that you've been mistreated by your hometown police force in CA (?) But that's no reason to condemn an entire police force as "corrupt". I'm shocked that you justify corruption among members of the Indian police force by saying, they're too poor! They are known to be raping women in custody as well. What is the justification? They're not getting enuf from their wives at home?
Dear Sharmila (the responder to Sarvathe's article),
Have you stepped outside California lately? It is truly amazing how the proud immigrant or minority Brown Americans, who never see beyond their jobs, family, few cultural activities and narrow social networks, can be excessively "romantic about the US".
I saw how people over built in the Midwest and the South (including on farm lands, green environments and fragile land), how people over-bought expecting to flip it and make millions, charging $ 500,000 for homes that you would not pay $ 200,000, in Liberty, Iowa! Home builders, real estate agents, mortgage mafia and people who wanted more and more, screwed the honest ones...including those who never bought a house (like us). Now we'll be bailing out these guys for years go come!
It is like California being screwed by Enron and now having to pay for others' callousness, greed and outright evil. Which planet are you living in madam?
I admire Warren for speaking out...but a protest with sacrifice is nothing compared to "speaking up or speaking out"! Is this now the greatest achievement in the US? That some white dude or dudette in power actually spoke up against obvious injustice? Your standards madam are really low!
We have a man, Troy Davis of Georgia, who has been sent to the death row for a crime that he has been convicted for with too many reasonable doubts (way below "beyond reasonable doubt"), struggling to avoid execution. He is just a few among many who have been sent to crimes they did not commit, or have been sent to the death row on flimsy or weak evidence. Step outside your cluelessness.
May I suggest you go out and talk to the poor of America ; Blacks, Latinos and Indians (who are not all doctors and computer specialists) ; people in prisons ; the young (some educated but unemployed or under employed), people who have been screwed by a racist or classist or sexist legal system ; and the unbelievable injustice that is going on all over the country that is shocking - including Governors who openly side with pharmaceutical companies to mandatorily vaccinate 12 year olds (that their parents did not make decisions on).
If this is not the system gone out of control...what is? Get out off your cluelessness, cubicle, couch, condo, conveniences, comfort zone and well constructed illusions...and see the world around you - really really see it! It is truly scary, and the corruption is disgustingly blantant nowadays. There is not even shame in some of these corrupt guys and their gals who are blatantly screwing the system and lying about it.
Sarvate got a few things wrong...but she got a few things "really accurate".
MS
Dear Dr. "M.S."
May I just pop in to comment on something unrelated to Sarvate's column?
In response to your pointed query to Sharmila Mukherjee, "Which planet are you living in madam?," I believe it would be "which planet are you living ON?" I feel living "in" our planet would be a bit difficult. The mantle is still too hot, I understand.
Dear Dr. M.S.
I'm afraid you didn't read my earlier comment to Ms. Sarvate's "Last Word" column ("Hazare My Hero") thoroughly.
I don't expect anybody to, but if you presume to resort to judgmental cat calls based on what I've written, at least you ought to read closely before you make those judgmental cat calls.
Who I am and what standard of living I happen to enjoy, whether I belong to the "cubicle"/"glass house"/bubble"-oriented "privileged" class that have chosen to remain "clueless" over getting a lesson of what's "real", is besides the point, and may I say, none of your business.
The point is I didn't claim that there is no corruption in the U.S. and no inequality or injustice (if you really knew what line of business I'm in, you'd have humongous eggs laid by all manner of fowl on your face, I'm afraid, but we'll leave that out of this picture). Of course there is and always has been. What I was responding to was in context of Ms. Sarvate's surprise that despite the corruption why isn't there an Anna Hazare in the U.S. yet.
I had said that there can't be an Anna Hazare because the conditions of production for a leader like Anna Hazare are particular to the Indian context. In the American context there can only be an American leader, somebody precisely like Ralph Nader, MLK (who wasn't like Gandhi, but Gandhi borrowed a lot from Leo Tolstoy and other Europeans), or Abe Lincoln of yore.
I had said that Indian corruption begets an Indian leadership of sacrifice like Hazare's. Likewise American corruption would beget an American leadership.
Of course I had argued against Ms. Sarvate's prioritizing "action" over "words" in bringing about change. Chomsky's are not mere "words", they are active words that open eyes. There are many ways to be an activist. Sarvate seems to recognize only one.
Kindly don't generalize or patronize when you write next. Writing or exchange of ideas can be conducted only in an atmosphere of interpersonal civility.
Thanks,
Pray tell Sharmila what you do? This constant insinuations, without revealations (that goes on in so many desi conversations), makes it appear as if people are defensive...rather than thoughtful. Civil discourse does not mean "being excessively diplomatic, indirectly rude or crude or pedantic".
Abe Lincoln operated in 1860 America. MLK was in 1960 America and got assasinated before his "dream" could be fulfilled. Sarvathe is talking about "today"!
Many Black activists will tell you that MLK would be horrified at today's America - where disparity has grown while wealth has accumulated in the hands of the top 1%.
The corporatists have also coopted so many governments and businesses around the world - in the name of "development and prosperity" - that the muddled ignorant narrow middle class here and everywhere has also bought into thoroughly. Ask immigrants why they come here, and you'll see!
So many around the world have been conditioned by feudalism, colonialism and now capitalism. Some would say "nothing wrong with capitalism"...if so, then it still has to have limits and regulations and standards. You think Union Carbide is going to set the standards?
Remember this, for every American who took Abe's orders to pick up a gun and point it at his own father, brother and son to abolish slavery, there was another American who picked up a gun and was willing to shoot his father, brother and son to defend slavery. This "raath aur din" schizophrenic psychology of American history and culture is apparent today...and intensifies.
That is what Sarvathe was trying to say - though she did so clumsily. Abe Lincoln would not emerge today. They want Obama's birth certificate while in office, and he has to go invade a Black and Muslim country like Libya to convince a whole bunch of guys in Congress and among the public that he can "kill people who look like him or have his name" to show "he is a patriotic American". So sad!
Many immigrants and minorities in America, except for a few, suffer from a mass Stockholm Syndrom - where they please and placate those in power, even emulate and follow them. Many people in third world countries do that too. Including their own governments and businesses.These are the damaged people...damaged by centuries of patriarchy, feudalism, authoritarianism and colonialism. Some people are the exception and sometimes we struggle with the majority that has been damaged and brainwashed.
Before it was only damage - which could be healed and improved, now there is "damage and brainwashing" which requires de-education and then re-education. So, in stead of going forward we are regressing. Scary indeed!
There are wonderful people in the US...and they have risked many things, and do it everyday. But they have been the exception, and they are not in politics. But they can be!
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