Good and Success,Must Become Mutually Inclusive

WHAT CAN THE ARMED FORCES LEARN FROM THE ANNA HAZARE MOVEMENT

In a representative democracy as we have in our country, the supremacy of the parliament is unquestionable and non negotiable. That this institution was jolted and forced to take notice of the people’s demand for an effective Lok Pal Bill to be introduced, discussed and most likely become law, is a defining moment in our political history. The collective outcry of the people against  the menace of corruption in public life, literally compelled  the government to take notice of this demand and thus initiate a process for probity and rectitude in our polity.

While comparisons are always odious, the situation in the Armed Forces though not exactly analogous to that in civil society, does have the potential to grow into what is undesirable and unacceptable, commensurate with its traditions and culture. With the proliferation of the electronic media, trend of investigative journalism and the Right to Information Act, perverse acts of misappropriation, misuse of authority and financial impropriety have come out in the public domain in the past decade, rather regularly. There have been a series of dishonest acts involving senior and middle rung service officers which has embarrassed the Armed Forces. Rations, Sukhna and Adarsh scams have epitomized this venality amongst our officers.

Given the process of selection, training, grooming and on job learning which officers of the Forces undergo; selflessness, probity and rectitude in their conduct and dealings is the keystone of this arch for character building and development. Moreover, the draconian statutory Army/Navy/Air Force Act which oversees and dispenses justice in the Services, makes it very difficult to believe that the greed for lucre can cheat such a class of people and make them succumb to temptations, despite its inbuilt punitive deterrence. Well, the possibility is always there, even if one was to argue one’s case by maintaining that these are aberrations only and not the rule.

To begin with, the situation was quite similar to what obtained in public life, when a ‘Jeep or Mundra scandal’ was few and far between and political leaders were largely above board. But with the period of time, owing to various reasons when politics became a refuge for scoundrels and no longer a selfless public service - the rot set in. Corruption got institutionalized and politics criminalized. Political leadership was colored by muscle and money power, having scant respect for ethics and morality in public life. The national environment was insidiously becoming vitiated and ‘short term gains’ mentality amongst the people was emerging to the fore. People were continuously inveigled into believing that the System had undergone a transformation for the worse and redemption was way too beyond any individual or collective effort. The future generations of the country were being nurtured and indoctrinated with these beliefs. A wrong was redefined as such, if only one was caught in the act. Situational ethics became the buzz word for survival in an emerging and competitive environment, which had slowly but surely gripped the minds of the people.

 The personnel of our Forces not being an island in this ocean of  humanity, were similarly impacted and Good was substituted by Success. A culture of mutual exclusion than inclusion was slowly overtaking the principles and values of positional and personal leadership, which were embedded in the military traditions of our Forces. Character, which is the most potent driver in a leadership calculus was becoming endangered and sycophancy was redefining loyalty. The spine of leadership was constantly under threat from the pseudo officer ship, which  was fast climbing the rung of ill gotten success. Service privileges were transgressed with blatant impunity and authority misused for personal gains. The environment had become perverted.

Generally, a feeling of fear to stand up against the wrong of superiors and show moral courage in adverse circumstances, became the sine qua non of the Forces’ officer ship. This, even when the Defence Services Regulations and the respective Service Acts encapsulate provisions to uphold righteous conduct and loyalty to principles. Showing spine, as understood in the Services became passé and wrong became predominant. Just as it is in the case of the much maligned politicians in civil society, the senior echelons of the Services were becoming similarly venal. Their condition was sustained by authority and fear of the subordinate officer ship to rock the boat. This class of officers exulted in the situation created by the prevailing circumstances and eventually the System was subverted. The voice of truth was buried.

The Forces demand of its junior and middle rung officer ship, to take a leaf from the recent movement of civil society against corruption in public life, and fearlessly expose those who indulge in unethical and immoral conduct in their official conduct. The Statute and the Organization will always uphold the truth, provided it is  spoken and revealed with an abiding sense of commitment and absence of any motive.

After all it was for a retired Army person to give this message,through his personal leadership, for the young and future officer ship of the Forces to emulate and practice.

Brigadier (retd) S D Dangwal

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A Watershed Moment

DEMOCRACY VINDICATED

The happenings of the past fortnight as witnessed in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkatta and many other towns/cities/villages of the country, wherein people joined together in one voice to fight corruption, was an unprecedented event in the history of pre and post independent India. Never has an apolitical movement of such magnitude and purposeful nature galvanized the masses in this manner. The simmering disgust and anger of the people against government inability to rein in corruption in public life, over the years, was given a window for expression under the altruistic leadership of Gandhian Anna Hazare. The symbolic temple of our democracy ‘the parliament’ was literally pushed and shoved by the moral force unleashed by a long suffering mass of humans, demanding the resolution for an effective Lok Pal Bill to become law and deter/mitigate the disease of corruption in public life. What was witnessed thereafter in this temple of democracy were some astute, mediocre and political grandstanding debates which culminated in the thumping of  tables to indicate the ‘sense of the house’ and adopt the resolution as desired by civil society.

While it is nobodies case to sabotage the parliament and usurp its supremacy and rights as articulated in the Constitution, but it is also not acceptable to the people that the parliamentarians who constitute and animate it, take their authority for granted and transgress the privilege of office. The veteran and dyed in the wool politicians who cling to the shibboleth of eternal supremacy of the parliament and indulge in shenanigans to protect their turf, did not cut much ice with the aware, responsive and informed people. Who have seen through this shrewd political maneuver of assigning Constitutional propriety, only to their rights but not duty. The fuel which stokes the fire within the  people against the political class, is the genuine apathy for the sufferings of the masses by the latter. In the years which elapsed between our becoming a republic and now, it is the class of the politicians who have brought this day upon themselves by taking their position for granted and indulging in political expediency. It is they who cumulatively eroded the supremacy of the parliament and belittled the Constitution, by violating both its content and spirit in equal measure.

Democracy like freedom does not come for free, but instead entails sacrifice, responsibility and restraint. Thus, as a form of government ‘by the people, of the people and for the people’ it demands of each one the ability to analyze, evaluate and decide upon the merit of those who represent us in the Constitutional forums. In a plural, multi religious, multi cultural and multi caste polity where education and literacy continue to remain marginalized, there exists a great opportunity for politicking to take centre stage and thus belie the essence of democracy. The hurt utterances of the members of parliament, who singled out civil society and the media for lampooning them and thus belittling their status, is a consequence of their own doings and pathetic conduct. The People who found the politicians lacking in the political will to purge the SYSTEM of corruption and lack of probity in public life, seized their chance under the stewardship of a selfless and committed septuagenarian from Ralegaon Siddhi and literally arm twisted the Parliament to accept the proposal of civil society  to introduce and enact an effective Lok Pal Bill and make it Law, respectively.  

The perpetual whining of the politicians and their hollow claims to declare an unprovoked assault by civil society on the principles of the Constitution, undermining the supremacy of the Parliament, has been flayed and trashed by the might of the People. This is predicated on the acceptance of the demand made by civil society, who continue to remain a sounding board for the Government. This is indeed a defining moment in the country’s political history, wherein corruption in public life which has become a bete noire for most will be tackled with a firm hand, despite the Government. The much denounced and flogged SYSTEM will get a breather to redeem itself and purge the country of corruption and lack of rectitude in public dealings by public servants of all categories. Democracy will then have been vindicated.

Brigadier (retd) S D Dangwal

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The Government's Sincerity to Fight Corruption in Public Life is Suspect

ONE MAN WITH COURAGE  MAKES A MAJORITY

The country has been consumed by a popular opinion against corruption and the masses have united in solidarity, like never before, under the morally inspiring leadership of a believing Gandhian. He has given an effective and purposeful direction against this National scourge. Following which, the helplessness and consequent frustration of the people against this pervasive malaise in our society and public life, has emboldened Civil Society to stand up as one against the might of the Government and coerced it to substantially and meaningfully act against it. In a representative democracy such as ours, the Parliament is the highest forum of public opinion within the Country. It is indeed a travesty of our democracy that over the years this institution has been subverted by the politicians who constitute it. This is evident from the fact that even with the Constitutional authority reposed with it, the sufferings of the people in this regard has not been mitigated and corruption reached its zenith in the recent past. The vicious cycle of financial and positional corruption always has its epi centre in the office of a Minister, Politician and its supportive bureaucracy. That, this insidiously affected the lower executives, functionaries and officials in our federal system of governance is an unfortunate reality, which is brought about by the disgusting and shameful greed for money--- by the people’s representatives, the much denigrated Politician. The Country’s public working environment, which is mandated to provide service to the citizen and the tax payer has become vitiated, and its morality is unscrupulously assailed and eroded.  National Character has become an unfortunate casualty in this immoral matrix of perverse thinking and living.

While public disgust and contempt for the existence of corruption in our social fabric was always there, the Indian psyche was gripped and molded by its inability to fight and stand up against it. Only because, this hydra headed monster had so definitively and substantially permeated into all the pillars of our democracy that, it did not inspire any confidence in the people, of their having even an outside chance to win in the fight against corruption in public life. It had become a fait accompli. The SYSTEM was under attack from decadent thinking, which unabashedly justified the presence of corruption as a necessary offshoot of development and thus institutionalized it. Among other things, politics got criminalized and the presence of money power in elections became a blatant reality. Muscle and money power was shamefully used by politicians to win elections in the Centre as also the States, and thus arrogate constitutional power to themselves. A phenomenal transformation by any yardstick to measure upward social mobility. From a criminal to becoming an honorable people’s representative, in no time. Political leadership of the country had  become a mix of some good and others bad and indifferent. The game of Numbers in the Parliament and the Assemblies respectively, to be able to form a government had undermined political morality and given space for corruption to collectively make its presence in these forums of our representative democracy. Horse trading of members became the norm than an exception. With the emergence of regional political parties in the National scenario, which exploited religion, caste and class of the electorate to meet its aspirations and the progressive dilution in the share of National parties in these areas; brought about the political dispensation of Alliances, both in the Lok Sabha and the Legislative Assembly. This gave a free run to politicking and made corruption a willing handmaiden to the compulsions of politics. The political situation became worse and reached its nadir, when the torrent of scams involving Ministers, Politicians, Bureaucrats, Corporate and Tax Evaders often working in silent collusion, during the current regime of United Progressive Alliance II (UPA II) Government spilled out in the public domain and became a huge embarrassment for it.

It was in this ground swell of public cynicism that, a flicker of hope entered into the People’s heart, when the institutions of the Supreme Court, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) exercised their authority and duty to investigate the guilty and bring them to book. The people’s anger against the elected representatives was growing and given a plausible shape, to enact a law which will investigate and prosecute all public servants found guilty of either corruption or else dereliction of duty. The introduction of the Jan Lok Pall Bill in the Parliament and its enactment as law has thus become the instrument for dispensing punishment to the guilty and non performers in public service. Even at this, the Government in an insulting subterfuge upon the people prepared a toothless and meaningless draft of the bill for debate, discussion and approval by the Parliament to become law. This much for the sincerity and commitment of the Government to arrest corruption in public life.

Anna Hazare, the man who is spearheading the movement for bringing probity and rectitude into public life continues to display tremendous intuitive sagacity to pre-empt the Government’s ploy to neutralize the Bill and deflect the public upsurge against corruption. However, the ONE MAN who stands between the Government and their desire to cheat the PEOPLE by ducking behind CONSTITUTIONAL provisions and enact toothless laws is non other than HIM and is the “One Man With Courage ,Who Makes The Majority”.

Brigadier(retd) S D Dangwal,VSM

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Tarla Nagal

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The Fight has Just Begun

From The Merit Of My Soul

The crux of the exhortations made by Gandhian Anna Hazare at the Ramlila Ground on 21st Aug 2011, was regarding the commitment of the people to take the fight against corruption in public life, by individually and collectively acting in keeping with their conscience, which only knows and understands what is morally and ethically right. This will demand of the people small and big sacrifices in their life and living, and for which they must be forever willing and ready. Wrong survives and blossoms in society when the majority is indifferent, callous or else afraid to act and stand up against it. Those in the government and civil society know it equally well and it is the manipulation of this reality which accrues financial advantage and power. The topical debate and movement for the introduction of the Jan Lok Pal draft bill in the Indian Parliament, will loose much of its meaning and effectiveness, should the people of the country in all and most walks of life not be driven by sincerity, in their desire to exorcise the evil of corruption from public life. Each one of us will be required to individually and collectively stand up and fight this malaise, which has besieged the country. It is only then that the demonstration and movement which has come out on the streets and roads of Delhi and other metropolises/cities/towns/villages in the past four or five days, will have the possibility of cocking a snook at corruption and misuse of  authority by the politician, bureaucrat, judge, civil servant, corporate and business people and whosoever has arrogated whatsoever power he/she has in personal and public life.

Corruption in public life must be in our quadrant of influence than merely concern. Influence will necessarily mean that what we do about it must start from us and affect a change in our personal life. Concern while good up to a point continues to remain an indulgence of the burgeoning middle class or the mocking chattering group and therefore does not veritably contribute to either our betterment or that of society. To think about and expect any society to be free of corruption and graft in absolute terms, is a monumental fallacy, which must be abjured. Yet to sustain and promote such a culture in society is not anybody’s brief and must be understood in its entirety. Corruption does not survive and propagate itself in a vacuum but instead in a venal environment of  unethical and immoral beliefs. To stymie its growth and proliferation in society, we need to impact this pervasive environment as also our ill founded beliefs. A right minded and thinking individual has the ability to carry out course correction to his beliefs and thereby collectively contribute to the cleansing of the environment. This impact brings about the requisite transformation in the culture of a society. History is replete with the examples of societies undergoing unrestrained changes, triggered by the change in individual beliefs and the public environment. The ubiquitous Indian culture of ‘chalta hai’, ‘jugad’ and ‘sab bhrasht hain’ may well undergo the desired change and completely overhaul the psyche of the people, especially the youth, in the liberalized democratic economy of  INDIA.

My take on the matter will always remain and what has been reiterated by Anna Hazare on 21^st Aug 2011, to live by the “Merit Of One’s Soul” than all else. The fight against corruption in public life has just begun and needs to be sustained by the People of the country.

Brig(retd) S D Dangwal, VSM

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Gandhian Response to Government Apathy

WHEN THE THRESHOLD FOR CORRUPTION IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN IN INDIA WAS CROSSED

Mahatma Gandhi was of the view that, the Indian National Congress Party would become ineffective and unworthy to deliver in the new democratic dispensation of independent India. This, only because its leadership and following was slowly but surely moving towards a culture steeped in corruption and void of the moral values evident during the Freedom Struggle. He was of the opinion that the Congress had become irrelevant and must give place to a new and worthy political organization, which could govern and steer the country towards prosperity and greatness.

His thinking was prophetic and pregnant with meaning. After 64 years of our independence from the British Rule, we are today witnessing a popular civil movement against the present government, under the stewardship of Gandhian Anna Hazare, which has given expression to the anger and frustration of the People of India. They have taken to the streets, in all corners of the country in a demonstration of their solidarity with Anna Hazare, the veritable icon of civil society, in its fight against corruption. Public response to the demand voiced by Anna Hazare to the government, for an effective and potent Jan Lok Pal Bill to be introduced in the Parliament during the Monsoon session, has taken the wind out of the sails of the government, who continue to remain obdurate and defiant in their position on the issue. It is heartening to see the youth fired by the purpose and manner of this public arousal and their participating in large numbers to provide the required impetus and thrust to Anna’s clarion call to fight corruption in the Legislature, Judiciary and the Executive.

There is no gainsaying the fact that Indian democracy is trapped between those who participate in the process of forming the government and those who are concerned about governance. While the former are not concerned about governance, the latter do not participate in the making of the government. A weird situation, by any stretch of our imagination. An elected government takes solace in this bizarre democratic dichotomy and arrogates to itself constitutional authority. Good governance is consigned to the trash can, in this ‘first past the post’ election process obtaining in the country. With the compulsions of coalition politics, which has helped form our governments in the past decade and now, the situation has only become worse. Corruption got institutionalized in the 70s and 80s and for a politician winning an election is all that mattered. The means to the victory could take a walk. Sheshan, as the Chief Election Commissioner of the country did yeoman service in bringing about systemic changes to the entire process of elections, and things improved marginally. However, the rot is so deep rooted in the psyche of the people who wield authority of any kind, be it politician, bureaucrat, judge, police, revenue official et al that we as a country remained mired in moral and financial corruption.

The surge of a liberalized economy and end of the ‘License Permit Raj’ spiraled a Corporate culture, which colluded with the government in appropriating the spin offs accruing from the discretionary authority vested with Ministers and Bureaucrats. Money was the common denominator for both the parties, while one extracted it from the Corporate by doing favors the other made a fortune for themselves from the purses of the People. The costs of contesting and winning an election were ensured and the Ferris wheel of give and take moved on in perpetuity. When the chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance {UPA} yet again anointed Sardar Man Mohan Singh to become the first executive of the country for a second consecutive term, his political skills were put to a severe  test in managing his cabinet and take refuge in the apology of the dictum----“compulsions of coalition politics”. Raja and Dayanidhi Maran are the corrupt faces of that compulsion. While Kalamdi probably brow beat the PMO and the PM, with his skills in expedient politics, to misappropriate public money under the garb of National Pride in the organization and conduct of the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Whatsoever be the reason, corruption became a National scourge and evoked anger and cynicism in equal measure from the People. A proactive and sensitized Supreme Court as also the institutions of the CBI and the CAG, nailed the corrupt and helped put them behind bars in Delhi’s Tihar Jail. The country sincerely hopes that they are convicted and punished as and when they are tried in a court of law.

It is an appropriate moment for the much talked about demographic dividend of the country, to make a commitment to them selves that, they shall stand tall and clean in the decaying morass of political expediency in public life and instill within the same passion and fire which glorified the youth of pre independent India.

Brigadier {retd} S D Dangwal

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Tarla Nagal

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