I am Anna

An arrogant government, a biased media and an ignorant populace are an abomination in a democracy. Today, these are the three pillars India’s much-acclaimed “vibrant” democracy is resting on.

Of course, the majority of middle class self-employed entrepreneurs and businessman like me - who drive the country – are majorly to blame for this mess. We were too busy to go out and vote; instead it was the poor rickshaw-puller who lived near the slums who went and voted for the party who gave him the free bottle of arrack – he did not mind the long, congested queue either. We got what we deserved. But as part of the 30 million (barely 2.5 % of the country’s population) who pay taxes for the Government’s proverbial coffers, we have a right to be heard when our hard earned money is maladministered.

Observe the UPA’s balance sheet – poor leadership (no less than the Infosys Chairman NR Narayana has gone on record to highlight the UPA’s painfully lethargic decision-making process and the consequent unaccountability), countless diplomatic faux pas (the PM’s Sharm – el –Sheikh fiasco , Jairam Ramesh’s statement on Arunachal Pradesh, Shashi Tharoor’s Cattle Class quote, incompetent handling of the Indo-Pak talks of July this year), security blunders ( India lost more people to terrorist actions in its cities in the past six years than what Israel has lost since 1947, and the Naxal problem need not even be mentioned here), gross maladministration (nine major rail accidents resulting in 345 deaths in the past two years, colossal food grain wastage in the warehouses - 61,000 tonnes of food grains perished in rains inspite of the record 608.79 lakhs tons of grain output in 2010 which could have fed 120 lakhs for a month and reduced Rs 5,000 Crores from the food subsidy bill and all this due to rejection of the FCI’s proposal by the Empowered Group of Ministers under the Finance Minister , the imported rice scandal later, and the persistent inflation rate of above 9% with prohibitively expensive food grain costs), infrastructural malfeasance (of the approximately 600 projects in progress, 306 were delayed by as much as 225 months beyond their completion dates; Rs 1,16724 Crores worth of cost-overruns in 203 infrastructure projects resulting in financial load of 68% above the originally approved cost; the countless lives lost in accidents on stagnant road projects is not even factored) , blatant manipulation and deterioration in the government machinery ( appointment of the Palmolein Import Scam accused PJ Thomas as the Chief Vigilance Commissioner, the alleged compromising of the CBI- leaving out three main accused judges –Tarun Chatterjee, Subhash Aggarwal, Subhash Chand Nigam - out of the Provident fund scam in Ghaziabad and its repeated leakages of unsubstantiated opposition-related investigations), and of course, the honorable tag of the most corrupt government since independence ( 2G, 3G, CWG etc) which continues to shave off 1.5 % from the country’s economic growth.

The second pillar – the media – supposedly the voice of the people, have been too engrossed in their unauthorized role of opinion changers, speaking the language of a few disconnected elite. In their almost fanatical support for left-leaning policies wrongly presumed to be pro-proletariat, the balancing voice of the right-leaning bourgeoisie has been unfairly ignored. Make no mistake; UPA-2 is the Media’s Frankenstein. And the middle class has taken recourse of the only option it had to express its opinion.

The third pillar, the populace that voted it into power, has been lulled into a false sense of security in the name of affirmative and inclusive growth. The UPA’s flagship MGNREGA, for instance, benefits only 0.2 % of the people (as admitted by Mani Shankar Aiyar himself). The 40,100 Crores project, with no proper operational framework, has become a colossal source of waste because of corruption that such government run socialist ventures are prone to – due to fake labour payment claims, the government, in November 2009, was forced to issue a notification shifting its focus from labour-intensive to material -intensive projects – this has resulted in only a few strong contractors taking the cake. A significant portion of the funds have been diverted for construction of facilitation centres in villages ( expectedly named after Rajiv Gandhi, for vote bank politics). Earlier, in 2008, the government allowed the village panchayats to do their own audit! The Minimum Wages Act of 1948 stands violated due to the fact that payments as low as Rs 100/- were made - lower than the minimum wage rate. Similarly, the increasingly divisive caste and religion based reservation policies in jobs and education - after sixty fours years of independence - have only resulted in increased caste-consciousness – the 18 suicides of SC students over the past two years in the IITs / IIMs are a testimony to this trend.

The common man stagnates and suffers because of lack of roads, electricity, efficient health care, quality primary education, effective policing, quick dispensation of justice and good governance. These remain compromised because the entire state administration machinery remains understaffed including the Judiciary (33%) and the Police – a tactic employed by the government to save on its pay bill so that it can finance its socialist schemes directed towards the vote bank.

As has been correctly noted, Anna’s Andolan has indeed reached critical mass due to support from the middle class which sees UPA’s policies as patently anti-development and anti-free enterprise.

Desperate times call for desperate measures - when the caretaker turns oppressor and the voice of the people –the media- ignores the writing on the wall, Anna’s Andolan is justified. This is not blackmail, this is not anti-democratic, this is a compulsion.