The Brave Pedestrian

[I wrote this in June 2011, when Arvind Kejriwal, Anna Hazare, Kiran Bedi, Prashant Bhushan and Baba Ramdev were together in India-Against-Corruption or the Lokpal Movement. I think it still holds today.]  Dear All, I have asked this question before, a couple of years ago, to the activist  junta . And I am asking this question afresh in the context of Anna Hazare’s campaign Jan Lokpal Bill, as well as Baba Ramdev’s campaign for bringing back money stashed abroad, because I smell the stench of self-righteous pride in our midst. Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare may be well meaning citizens, but their speech and actions — and the actions of their followers — are increasingly marred by an arrogance that is self-defeating and ridiculous. They are deluding themselves and the people of India into taking an untenable stand. In recent years, I have visited several municipal offices, government offices, police stations, State Information Commissions etc. to collect replies to RTI...

Dear friends, The passing of Right to Information Act 2005 was like the unfurling of a flag, heralding the coming-of-age of ‘We the People’. It was not just another mundane event in the life of our nation; it showed a shift in the national psyche. By winning Independence Struggle I, we sent the British ruler home, but we inherited the baggage they left behind:   A bureaucratic structure that was, as Wajahat Habibullah noted, suited more for colonial slave India than free democratic India A legal structure biased towards maintaining the inequality between the rulers and the ruled. Upon the foundation of Official Secrets Act 1923 and other archaic and dysfunctional laws (such as Bombay Municipal Corporation Act 1888), we unthinkingly based our more recent laws. Our Constitution – painstakingly debated and written between 1947 and 1950 — is forward-looking and seeks to empower citizens Our judiciary, with its archaic privileges and untrammeled powers. And now it is like a sch...