while going through the morning newspaper read a feature about this controversy about the cartoonist and charges of sedition ( I am not up to speed on this little known cartoonist, I was watching the girl with the dragon tatoo when channels were showing his news) and read a very disturbing statement " the IAC team is effectively stating that we are led by corrupt leaders and we are not ready for democracy yet" STOP! RIGHT THERE!!!
When I got to thinking about the whole rhetoric ( increasingly more vicious and intolerant) from team Anna and tried to think whom do they remind me of. The answer disturbingly enough was 2 pieces of fiction, one a novel another a modern movie.
George Orwell's Animal Farm begins with a cruel farmer ruling his flock of domestic animals , exploiting them for all they are worth. The revolution beings when a bunch of animals (pigs if i remember correctly ) declare that they want to be independent with the beautiful slogan " all animals are equal" the revolution starts , the farmer runs away and the animals celebrate freedom..... but of course there is a hirearchy among the freed animals so the next day the slogan gets so modified " all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others"......
I will not go further than this, for right now we are still being ruled by that tyrannical farmer for his own good. My question is - do we want to at least continue having that notional chance of voting this farmer out through democracy ( and yes we have done it before most notably under JP's leadership in the emergency period) or do we want to have a total revolution, chase this tyrant out and be ruled by animals which are more equal than others?? For Team Anna for all their virtuousness, have shown the intolerance of a true Jehadi when an opposing view points is presented. If medial says their protest was successful, then media is hero, if media(truthfully) shows the support flogging then Sonia Gandhi has bought media with her swiss dollars, if Team Anna demands to see the tax returns of any govt official/minister then they are exercising their fundamental right to information, if govt starts an investigation on one of them then this is vendetta. Anna who has gone on record to say that he and his cronies used to tie drunk people to a pole and whip them for drinking sees no contradiction in enforcing his Gandhian principle thorough use of force. And his team has shown a contempt for due process and law and order which is truly alarming. The reason for their disregard for current process , according to them is the utter failure of the system but I suspect the real reason is very simple- For any member of Team Anna or IAC to fulfill his political ambition (grandiose as they are) a certain number of followers are required and the harsh truth is this- For all the I am Anna cap wearing people you see on road and television currently no member of Team Anna has enough masses behind him to get elected even in a municipal election, the blame is entirely theirs too, so busy they have been in grandstanding and getting their 15 minutes of fame that they have never spent the sort of time mobilizing grass root support by knocking on doors and talking to people in their own back yards, talking about issues which are as pressing to a common man as corruption. So here we have a small group of individuals who are big on ambition but small on systems, they do not have the patience of a typical politician to rise through the ranks, they want to be on top and they want it now, so now they are playing the anarchists.
Which reminds me of the second hand of this uneasy tarot- Late Heath Ledger's character in The Dark Knight- the joker. In one famous scene the joker tells the DA Harvey Dent " You know that thing about chaos Harvey, it's fair" the whole rhetoric about throwing out the whole corrupt system, total revolution and Lokpal is nothing but the concept of chaos articulated by a group of individuals whose ambitions are every bit as grand as their opponents, so their lack of corruption reminds me about an old college saying " Virginity is not about purity, it is about lack of opportunity"
You know the irony of this situation- Kejriwal says democracy is suspended in India (or something like that), the only country which will allow him to grandstand like this in front of national media is the one where democracy still resides. I don't see anyone in Afghnistan talking about suspension of democracy there, and for that if for nothing else Mr. Kejriwal and company you should be grateful for this system. Don't talk about total revolution without proving your credentials ( and please please please spare me their "clean" civil services records, they did not take bribe is not enough qualification for me to hand over my country to them), you are sounding worse than the people you are fighting against.
When I got to thinking about the whole rhetoric ( increasingly more vicious and intolerant) from team Anna and tried to think whom do they remind me of. The answer disturbingly enough was 2 pieces of fiction, one a novel another a modern movie.
George Orwell's Animal Farm begins with a cruel farmer ruling his flock of domestic animals , exploiting them for all they are worth. The revolution beings when a bunch of animals (pigs if i remember correctly ) declare that they want to be independent with the beautiful slogan " all animals are equal" the revolution starts , the farmer runs away and the animals celebrate freedom..... but of course there is a hirearchy among the freed animals so the next day the slogan gets so modified " all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others"......
I will not go further than this, for right now we are still being ruled by that tyrannical farmer for his own good. My question is - do we want to at least continue having that notional chance of voting this farmer out through democracy ( and yes we have done it before most notably under JP's leadership in the emergency period) or do we want to have a total revolution, chase this tyrant out and be ruled by animals which are more equal than others?? For Team Anna for all their virtuousness, have shown the intolerance of a true Jehadi when an opposing view points is presented. If medial says their protest was successful, then media is hero, if media(truthfully) shows the support flogging then Sonia Gandhi has bought media with her swiss dollars, if Team Anna demands to see the tax returns of any govt official/minister then they are exercising their fundamental right to information, if govt starts an investigation on one of them then this is vendetta. Anna who has gone on record to say that he and his cronies used to tie drunk people to a pole and whip them for drinking sees no contradiction in enforcing his Gandhian principle thorough use of force. And his team has shown a contempt for due process and law and order which is truly alarming. The reason for their disregard for current process , according to them is the utter failure of the system but I suspect the real reason is very simple- For any member of Team Anna or IAC to fulfill his political ambition (grandiose as they are) a certain number of followers are required and the harsh truth is this- For all the I am Anna cap wearing people you see on road and television currently no member of Team Anna has enough masses behind him to get elected even in a municipal election, the blame is entirely theirs too, so busy they have been in grandstanding and getting their 15 minutes of fame that they have never spent the sort of time mobilizing grass root support by knocking on doors and talking to people in their own back yards, talking about issues which are as pressing to a common man as corruption. So here we have a small group of individuals who are big on ambition but small on systems, they do not have the patience of a typical politician to rise through the ranks, they want to be on top and they want it now, so now they are playing the anarchists.
Which reminds me of the second hand of this uneasy tarot- Late Heath Ledger's character in The Dark Knight- the joker. In one famous scene the joker tells the DA Harvey Dent " You know that thing about chaos Harvey, it's fair" the whole rhetoric about throwing out the whole corrupt system, total revolution and Lokpal is nothing but the concept of chaos articulated by a group of individuals whose ambitions are every bit as grand as their opponents, so their lack of corruption reminds me about an old college saying " Virginity is not about purity, it is about lack of opportunity"
You know the irony of this situation- Kejriwal says democracy is suspended in India (or something like that), the only country which will allow him to grandstand like this in front of national media is the one where democracy still resides. I don't see anyone in Afghnistan talking about suspension of democracy there, and for that if for nothing else Mr. Kejriwal and company you should be grateful for this system. Don't talk about total revolution without proving your credentials ( and please please please spare me their "clean" civil services records, they did not take bribe is not enough qualification for me to hand over my country to them), you are sounding worse than the people you are fighting against.
