{"id":260,"date":"2011-08-22T22:33:21","date_gmt":"2011-08-23T05:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rajeshgupta.in\/?page_id=260"},"modified":"2011-08-22T23:06:16","modified_gmt":"2011-08-23T06:06:16","slug":"anna%e2%80%99s-fast-a-stern-warning-to-political-parties","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/rajeshgupta.in\/?page_id=260","title":{"rendered":"Anna\u2019s fast: A stern warning to political parties"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Within few minutes after the septuagenarian, Gandhian and social activist Anna Hazare was arrested over his proposed fast at Delhi\u2019s JP Park from Aug 16, people from all walks of life rallied behind him for his Jan Lokpal Bill. Whether old, young or children, men or women, people across India and Indians abroad came out in his support for transparent, honest and just governance. The non-violence mass agitation sends a strong signal not only to the present dispensation but also to the political parties. Though the ruling UPA government and most of the political parties have sounded a danger in implementing Anna\u2019s Jan Lokpal Bill as they think it is being forced upon them bypassing the constitutional norms, however, if they don\u2019t lend their support to Anna\u2019s version of the bill then it would be a sort of disaster for the Indian democracy. Their stubbornness over the bill would wipe off even a figment of belief that Indians have in their parliamentary system of democracy.<\/p>\n

Govt should clearly understand that people today are fed up of corruption issues that have enveloped the present system \u2013 down from the bottom to the top. Just imagine the number of scams that we\u2019ve seen during the present years-CWG scam, 2G-scam, Aadarsh scam, Palmolein scam, mining scam, land allotment scam, JPSC scam, road scam, etc. \u00a0In fact the list seems endless. With billions of money involved in these scams, people naturally, have lost faith in the system which is being nourished and flourished by various political parties. Today people can go any miles ahead to see their country getting back to its glorious past of honesty and transparency. Definitely this is a good sign for a mature democracy especially when it is being spearheaded by a staunch Gandhian and down to earth honest and selfless person-Anna Hazare.<\/p>\n

As we have seen, the agitation till now has remained free of any violence. Not even a single pebble was thrown or for that matter attempt was made to destroy public property as Anna had exhorted people to keep the agitation violence-free. It\u2019s his call that people have maintained an utmost restraint till now. I personally had never seen patriotic fervor of such magnitude before with people chanting slogans like \u2018Vande Matram\u2019 and \u2018Bharat Maata Ki Jai\u2019. The movement has crossed the barrier of religion, caste, class and society with everybody lending their support to Anna\u2019s call.<\/p>\n

It would be a folly on the part of the government to realize that the movement in the coming days will lose momentum and that it will ultimately die a slow death. For people who are below 40 years of age and didn\u2019t witness the movement led by late Shri Jai Prakash Narayan in 1974, Anna\u2019s Movement is nothing but a big wonder. Going back to the past one would find that the same kind of force borne out from the inner self was seen during the Ram Janma Bhoomi agitation in 1991. However, as it was religion driven, it didn\u2019t get support from every class or society. Obviously, the movement too slowed down and saw its demise within a few days. In essence, JP\u2019s movement also couldn\u2019t be termed as mass movement as it was supported by the opposition and other political parties who stood against congress. In that movement support came largely from the college and university students. However, the excesses committed during emergency made the movement a successful one and led to the dethroning of congress govt.<\/p>\n

In sharp contrast, Anna\u2019s movement has got mass support from all sections of the society. The movement has revived nationalism in true sense. People who are behind this movement such as Kiran Bedi, Swami Agnivesh, Arvind Kejriwal and others have never thought of deriving benefits or political power through this Jan Lokpal Bill. People in millions on the roads have expressed their solidarity for the movement.\u00a0 This shows that patriotism and nationalism are still alive in the hearts of the people. The Lokpal Bill as has been presented by the government defies the very basic of punishing the corrupt at higher levels. It is seldom repeated that the law will taken its own course. But will the people have to wait for long years to get justice in the form of court awarding punishment to the corrupt. Cases of corruption at various courts are still taking its own course and people are still waiting for their outcome. But their hopes get bellied when corrupt get out scot free with a broad and cruel smile on their faces as if they want to say, look nothing could be done against us!<\/p>\n

The question begging answer is, when the political parties have realized that it\u2019s high time something substantial needs to be done to check corruption then what is keeping them away from adopting a stronger and sterner Jan Lokpal Bill? Time has come, either they adopt the Jan Lokpal Bill or perish as the patience of the people is fast waning out.<\/p>\n

Your comments are welcome at:<\/p>\n

rgupta@nnsonline.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Within few minutes after the septuagenarian, Gandhian and social activist Anna Hazare was arrested over his proposed fast at Delhi\u2019s JP Park from Aug 16, people from all walks of life rallied behind him for his Jan Lokpal Bill. Whether old, young or children, men or women, people across India and Indians abroad came out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":181,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-260","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rajeshgupta.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rajeshgupta.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rajeshgupta.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rajeshgupta.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rajeshgupta.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/rajeshgupta.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263,"href":"http:\/\/rajeshgupta.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/260\/revisions\/263"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rajeshgupta.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rajeshgupta.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}