I am pained to read and hear about government's reaction to my fast. I consider it my duty to clarify the points raised on behalf of Congress party and the government by their spokespersons, as they appear in media:
1. It is being alleged that I am being instigated by some people to sit on this fast. Dear Manmohan Singh ji, this is an insult to my sense of wisdom and intelligence. I am not a kid that I could be "instigated" into going on an indefinite fast. I am a fiercely independent person. I take advice from many friends and critics, but do what my conscience directs me to do. It is my experience that when cornered, governments resort to such malicious slandering. I am pained that the government, rather than addressing the issue of corruption, is trying to allege conspiracies, when there are none.
2. It is being said that I have shown impatience. Dear Prime Minister, so far, every government has shown complete insensitivity and lack of political commitment to tackling corruption. 62 years after independence, we still do not have independent and effective anti‐corruption systems. Very weak versions of Lokpal Bill were presented in Parliament eight times in last 42 years. Even these weak versions were not passed by Parliament. This means, left to themselves, the politicians and bureaucrats will never pass any law which subjects them to any kind of objective scrutiny. At a time, when the country has witnessed scams of unprecedented scale, the impatience of the entire country is justified. And we call upon you, not to look for precedents, but show courage to take unprecedented steps.
3. It is being said that I have shown impatience when the government has "initiated" the process. I would urge you to tell me - exactly what processes are underway?
a. You say that your Group of Ministers are drafting the anti‐corruption law. Many of the members of this Group of Ministers have such a shady past that if effective anticorruption systems had been in place, some of them would have been behind bars. Do you want us to have faith in a process in which some of the most corrupt people of this country should draft the anti‐corruption law?
b. NAC sub‐committee has discussed Jan Lokpal Bill. But what does that actually mean? Will the government accept the recommendations of NAC sub‐committee? So far, UPA II has shown complete contempt for even the most innocuous issues raised by NAC.
c. I and many other friends from India Against Corruption movement wrote several letters to you after 1st December. I also sent you a copy of Jan Lokpal Bill on 1st December. We did not get any response. It is only when I wrote to you that I will sit on an indefinite fast, we were promptly invited for discussions on 7th March. I wonder whether the government responds only to threats of indefinite fast. Before that, representatives of India Against Corruption had been meeting various Ministers seeking their support for the Jan Lokpal Bill. They met Mr Moily also and personally handed over copy of Jan Lokpal to him. A few hours before our meeting with you, we received a phone call from Mr Moily's office that the copy of Jan Lokpal Bill had been misplaced by his office and they wanted another copy. This is the seriousness with which the government has dealt with Jan Lokpal Bill.
d. Dear Dr Manmohan Singh ji, if you were in my place, would you have any faith in the aforesaid processes? Kindly let me know if there are any other processes underway. If you still feel that I am impatient, I am happy that I am because the whole nation is feeling impatient at the lack of credible efforts from your government against corruption.
4. What are we asking for? We are not saying that you should accept the Bill drafted by us. But kindly create a credible platform for discussions - a joint committee with at least half members from civil society suggested by us. Your spokespersons are misleading the nation when they say that there is no precedent for setting up a joint committee. At least seven laws in Maharashtra were drafted by similar joint committees and presented in Maharashtra Assembly. Maharashtra RTI Act, one of the best laws of those times, was drafted by a joint committee. Even at the centre, when 25,000 tribals came to Delhi two years ago, your government set up a joint committee on land issues within 48 hours. You yourself are the Chairperson of that committee.
This means that the government is willing to set up joint committees on all other issues, but not on corruption. Why?
5. It is being said that the government wants to talk to us and we are not talking to them. This is utterly false. Tell me a single meeting when you called us and we did not come. We strongly believe in dialogue and engagement. Kindly do not mislead the country by saying that we are shunning dialogue.
We request you to take some credible steps at stemming corruption. Kindly stop finding faults and suspecting conspiracies in our movement. There are none. Even if there were, it does not absolve you of your responsibilities to stop corruption.
With warm regards,
- kumar.S. said...
- This is a "Kamaraj Plan" conspired by SOnia Gandhi and her inner circle, to weed out "Corrupt Ministers" like invincible Sharad Pawar. Have you seen who are the main spokespersons? Swami Agnivesh, the Charitian Maoist supporter, who takes foreign Missionaries into the Maoist/Naxal infested forests with supplies of arms and logistics. He has been anti-Hindu in all his actions so far. Medha Patkar, the anti-Narmada dam activist, anti-Mody and funded by foreign NGO-s to stop developmental programmes and Dr.Saxena has filed a case against her detailing her source of funding from abroad in millions in benami names of her colleagues. Mallika Sarabhai, the anti-Modi activist in Gujarat who has been involved in human traffiking, taking troupes of "tribal" dancers to U.S. and they disappear there. A girl dancer filed a cse of not sending her with the troupe eventhough she paid over Rs.3 lakhs and the case was hushed up. Hazare is unwittingly brought to this fasting and ultimately Sonia, already appealing to end the fast is coming to the forefront as a problem solver in this episode!! Beware of false crusaders. Kiran Bedi, N.Vittal, TSR Subramaniam, A.Sundaram and such retired upright bureacrats should be involved in the final stages.
- Apart from what you say about Agnivesh, Medha Patkar, and Mallika sarabhai, which I neither accept or dispute, you should be ashamed of comparing Sonia Gandhi with Kamaraj, and your faith that Sonia Gandhi wants to get rid of corrupt ministers. God save this country !
- BHASKARAN19 said...
- Absolutely right sir, Comparing Sonia with Kamaraj is an insult, the very thought itself is absurd.
- Anonymous said...
- Dear Sir Sri Vaithinathan Hariharan It is said "Charity Begins at Home" Now "Corruption Begins at Home" . All the political affiliations in India are to be corrupt, there is variance in the degree of corruption. Consequently one need not single out any political party. Political parties are run as Industires and the political afffiliated persons are on a pay role.Millions are employers of the various political parties and the biggest employer is the political parties. The media, visual or print have their heads who are strongly affiliated to some political outfit and make huge profits. They are responsible for the mental corruption of the public as they ever sensationalise an issue to their own affiliations. A daily in Tamil Nadu started for the propagating of a political reader cum actor in early seventies has now turned into a very big business organisation running many self finance engineering colleges, it is said. The Press Freedom is for the Owner but not to the Newsmaker. So the saying becomes true, "You have the govenrance you deserve" The solution is people are to FORGET what they are taught about God, religion, politics, values, morals and they should search for the ORIGINALS. Gautana Buddha fully understood that people will not digress the ORIGINALS and introduced the logic LOVE IS GOD. Love all. Be simple.Be humble. Do not be peevish. Be helpful.Do not Hate. Maintain Peace around you. Do not be money hungry. Resist he temtation to have more than what you need. Poiticians are not born and they come up only from the population and if the polpulation fail to have good qualities, the leaders will be like that. No necessary for comparisons. When the polulation rot the politicians rot as they are from within the polulation. Correct yourselves then come to correct others. It can be declared openly that present situation is due to the failure of the the Hindu or Muslim or Christian religilus heads as they have miserably failed to educate the mass on ORIGINALS. You deviate more from the Natue, you bound to be more ugly. My friend used tell me that every country has a Natinoal Character and Our national Character is Hypocracy. Having something as a Hidden agenda, people speak or write and to be honest they are not worried about the original problem. OK Sir, this has been here from the days Ramayana, Mahabharatha and we have survived and we will survive and we are surviving and lament whenever we have a free time. Thabnk You Sir With warm regards ravi.
- s.kumar said...
- It was Nehru who initiated the Kamaraj Plan to remove the Cabinet Ministers he did not want sending them back for organisational work.The comparison was not with Sonia Gandhi with Kamaraj but similarity of Nehru using Kamaraj, Sonia has used Anna.