By Margherita Stancati
Social activist Anna Hazare ended his 13-day hunger strike on Sunday after Parliament adopted a resolution agreeing to his key demands for a bill to set up a Lokpal, an independent anticorruption agency.The Indiangovernment backed Mr. Hazare’s proposal to allow the Lokpal to investigate the lower bureaucracy as well as top officials. It also agreed to set up anticorruption units in every Indian state. The draft bill will need to go through further parliamentary procedures before it can be voted on.During his fast, Mr. Hazare rallied mass support for his anticorruption movement, putting pressure on the government to move forward on the Lokpal, an issue that had been pending for decades.
Here is a roundup of what several Indian papers had to say about the end of Mr. Hazare’s fast.A Monday opinion piece in the Times of India celebrated the Lokpal deal as a triumph for both civil society and Parliament. “It’s been a victory for the social activist, who ended his fast only when his key demands were met. Yet we also witnessed lawmakers go beyond homilies to adopt a just cause backed by ordinary citizens: the creation of a strong anti-graft watchdog. It was a memorable day: Parliament and people’s power partnering each other in the dance of democracy,” it said.The piece called on the government and anticorruption activists to shift from conflict to cooperation: “With its broad framework in place, disagreements on the Lokpal Bill’s details shouldn’t prompt renewed breakdown in negotiations.”
A Monday editorial in The Hindu headlined “Significant victory” said the agreement between Parliament and Team Anna was “a triumph for the anti-corruption mood in the country— and for the Gandhian technique of non-violent mass agitation on issues of vital concern to the people.”
It added that “Anna Hazare and his team deserve full credit for recognising and riding this popular mood…for giving concrete shape to the inchoate aspirations of the movement against corruption … and for working out a strategy and tactics that refused to compromise on the core issues but knew when to raise the stakes and when to settle.” But is also said the government deserves some credit for negotiating an end to the crisis.
The Indian Express, in a Monday editorial headlined “Fast and future,” was critical of Team Anna’s “mission accomplished’ speech,” which celebrated the end of Mr. Hazare’s fast as a victory against corruption. “When it is something as hydra-headed and intangible as corruption, however, it is difficult to imagine how victory could be defined — and more, since the reduction of corruption is something that unites most people, including those in Parliament, it puzzling why a milestone on the way to reducing it should be seen as a matter of victory or defeat at all,” it explained.
Instead, it argued that its importance lies in what it says about the “stability and responsiveness of the Indian constitutional system.” It also said that now “MPs must not waste this moment, but get to the business of governance,” adding that the legislature and the executive have not been doing enough to push through reforms on a range of issues, including strengthening the independence of the Central Bureau of Investigation.
In a Sunday column headlined “The grand illusion” in the Hindustan Times, author Amitav Ghosh looked at the broader picture: the nature of Indian democracy. Although the debate over the Lokpal was often branded as a conflict between civil society and democratically-elected institutions, Mr. Ghosh questioned the very democratic credentials of the Indian political system.
“The truth is that members of the Congress are singularly ill-placed to wax indignant about the dangers of bowing to an extra-parliamentary power. They looked to Sonia Gandhi for leadership even when she was not in Parliament; nor is the legislature the real source of her authority. This is indeed the root of the problem for the Congress today: it is itself structured in such a way as to divorce power from the legislature. The prime minister has never won an election; the country knows that his authority is limited and that he is not the government’s guiding force,” he wrote. He also criticized the “dynastic aspect” of Indian politics. Mr. Ghosh explained that this has left India with a “locus of power” that was unable to address the root causes of the country’s string of corruption scandals. The civil society movement, he argued, has largely emerged in response to fill up this vacuum.