the bare facts |
While the genesis of this
enemy within, can be debated at length, the fact remains that it does
exist. The citizen meets him at every turn, in government offices, at
PSUs, at banks and post offices, on trains, at the telephone exchange,
at tax collection points -- in short wherever there is a monopoly on goods
and services. These monopolies, conceived in the national interest, have
now become a national extortion. Assiduously protected by politicians
and bureaucrats -- it would be naïve to blame any one group -- these
monopolies are truly self serving. Two glaring examples are telephone
and civil aviation. Following closely behind are railways, insurance and
banking -- though the rampages of the latter has been mitigated by the
last two finance ministers.
But the monopolies in infrastructure
are but the tip of the iceberg, the visible face of the enemy within.
What is even more insidious is the enemy in the core government ministries
-- health, education, irrigation, public works. This enemy is the one
who is really looting the nation in a manner that would put, let alone
Robert Clive, but even Nadir Shah to shame ! The fodder scam in Bihar
plus hundreds of others from Kashmir to Kanyakumari will bear out the
veracity of this statement. In each case, the perpetrators, being insiders
to the institutions being looted, have the authority to subvert every
check and balance built into the system -- be it audit, police and even
the CBI. This enemy is so pervasive and the infiltration of the protective
mechanism so thorough, that the perpetrator is very often confused with
the protector -- once again the fodder scam being a spectacular example
of this inversion of roles.
This corrupt politician-bureaucrat
nexus (CPBN) is the enemy that the second generation freedom fighter must
fight, to save the fruits of the labour put in by the first generation.
How do we go about this Herculean task ? Let us read history and see if
we get any answers there !
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lessons from the past |
Not being a serious student
of history, let me draw upon my meagre knowledge of the freedom movement
and see if any analogies can be drawn. The first stirrings came from the
urban, educated, middle class … people like W. C. Bonnerjea, then perhaps
Dadabhai Naoroji and others who debated independence and discussed it
at length. Not much progress was evident. Then the movement split into
two distinct categories. On one hand, the charismatic Gandhi, went to
the people. His stirring message and direct contact with the masses led
to a spate of protests, strikes and other modes of civil disobedience
culminating in the Quit India movement. The second option was taken up
by the 'terrorists' from Bhagat Singh to Aurobindo and finally Subhas
Bose. These 'terrorists' were willing to wage war with the enemy with
all available means at their disposal.
The scenario today can be
mapped roughly into three analogous categories. To begin with, we have
the armchair generals, the author included, who lament the deterioration
in public life, talk, read and write about it but that is where they stop.
Next we have the satyagrahis who model themselves on Gandhi … people like
J. P. Narayan, Medha Patkar and Anna Hazare. Finally we have the 'terrorists'.
Those who strike real terror into the enemy today are not the gun-toting
thugs of the MCC and PWG but people like T. N. Seshan, Rajinder Puri and
U. N. Biswas. These people have turned every law in the statute books
into a weapon with which poke, prod and harass the enemy. An activist
judiciary has also helped these 'terrorists' to use their weapons effectively.
But back to the past and
the lessons that lie in its womb. What was it that finally drove the British
away. School textbooks have a ready answer -- it was Gandhi's satyagraha
and the Quit India movement. A second school of thought believes that
it was Bose and the terrorists, who finally convinced the British that
it was no more feasible to hold on to this country. This author is convinced
that while Gandhi, Bose and their respective camp followers might have
caused immense trouble for the enemy, they were far too small to challenge
the might of the British Empire. The empire collapsed and India became
independent because of a totally extraneous factor -- the Second World
War.
This cataclysmic event,
comparable in its impact to the war fought at Kurukshetra many eons ago,
set in motion a series of events that clearly showed the British in a
new light. As national boundaries dissolved before armed might, powers
considered invincible were crushed with technology -- from the radar to
the atom bomb, and populations migrated all across the world -- as refugees
and troops, conventional laws of economics, sociology and political science
were turned on their heads. From the depths of this great upheaval, India
was reborn because the British realised that they were no more in any
position to guide their own destiny, let alone have any control over their
colonies. Once this realisation dawned, the enemy lost his will to fight
…. and our nationalists romped home to thunderous acclaim.
If we cut to the present,
this means all the fulminations of our crusaders, Hazare through Seshan
to Biswas, would be but mere flea bites that might take down one or two
of the enemy within. Real freedom would warrant something far more puissant,
pervasive and potent. So what is that strikes at the foundations of the
enemy's confidence ?
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the internet to the rescue |
The corrupt politician-bureaucrat
nexus (CPBN) is very powerful today because it is economically invincible.
The naiveté of our infantile socialism resulted in the commanding
heights of the economy being served on a platter to this nexus and the
grip has never been relaxed since. The population has been kept in penury
by completely throttling the entrepreneurial spirit. Hence two things
are necessary. First, the economic potential of the population must be
tapped -- people must become rich enough to challenge the CPBN. Second,
this economic growth must bypass the CPBN completely. The bypass is essential
because any attempt to eliminate the nexus will be stymied by the nexus
itself. This is where we need the equivalent of WW II.
The revolution in the world
of communications, especially the Internet, offers a possible solution.
Consider the following :
The post-industrial
society will be dominated by the service sector. The service sector
thrives on the trade in intellectual property and this trade is very
easy over the Internet.
India has already
created a niche for itself in one area of intellectual services, namely
software. Areas that lie untapped are banking, finance, marketing, entertainment,
design &etc.
Success in the
service sector depends on accesss to quality training, tools and market
information. Once again, the Internet itself is the best repository
of all these resources.
Hence the Internet revolution,
once initiated, is a self sufficient mechanism to tap the enormous economic
potential of India's population. It is also indifferent to location. You
could be in Dubai, Delhi or Dibrugarh …. the Internet is the same. Location
is no more a disadvantage. Moreover, it is the only mechanism that is
immune to the CPBN and can even help eliminate it. This is because :
The Internet
is beyond the reach of any regulatory mechanism. While intellectual
and physical resources can be easily protected with firewall technology,
it is impossible to monitor, control or in anyway interfere with activity
on the Internet. The CPBN becomes immediately irrelevant.
The Internet is
also an excellent tool to publicise the crimes of the CPBN. Exposure
and public humiliation is still the best weapon to confront the arrogant.
Even if 30% of the population can read information off the Internet,
this will have a significant impact on public opinion and voting patterns.
Information is power.
The Internet is the best
option we have, not only to boost economic activity to unprecedented levels
but also to free India's economic and political life from the stranglehold
of the CPBN. What holds us back ?
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the road to freedom |
We had earlier identified
the infrastructure monopolies as the visible face of the CPBN. Nothing
epitomises this more than the despicable stalemate in the telecom sector.
Governed by the Indian Telegraph Act 1885 and sundry other equally anachronistic
pieces of legislation, access to Internet is tightly regulated to the
point of being virtually denied to large classes of the population. With
the communication revolution rolling forward at breakneck speed, access
to the Internet is no more restricted only to the domain of the telephone
system. Cable TV and Direct To Home satellite broadcasts are all eminently
viable mechanisms to get the Internet into every home and office. But
the law and the CPBN seek to choke off all these options.
This is where our 'terrorists'
must get into the act. We must attack the CPBN and one of its visible
faces, the communications monopoly, with every legal weapon available..
at all forums, through all media, in every courtroom and on the floor
of parliament. A tidal wave of public opinion must be used as a battering
ram to breach the ramparts of the communications monopoly - DoT, VSNL,
I&B. Once this breach is achieved, the sheer force of technology will
wash away all further resistance and the CPBN will be history, just as
the British are today. India will then celebrate a second independence.
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