Chennai: The Madras High Court, Tuesday, put an interim stay on the hanging of the three death row convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
The High Court gave Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan an interim relief of eight weeks and asked the Centre to file an affidavit by that time. The case came to the High Court after their mercy petitions were rejected by the President and September 9 was fixed as the date for their hanging.
Interestingly, the Tamil Nadu Assembly today adopted a unanimous resolution asking the Centre to intervene and move towards granting clemency to the three.
The convicts in their petition had contended that their death sentences should be commuted to life on the ground of 'undue delay' in disposing off of their mercy petitions. Their mercy petitions were pending before the President for 11 long years since April 26, 2000 before being rejected.
Noted criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani appeared for the convicts. Speaking to reporters after the judgement, Jethmalani said, “I am here because of my friend Vaiko; Vaiko has brought me here, you should be grateful to Vaiko not me, and ultimately you should be grateful to the High Court, the court is doing justice.”
In their plea, the convicts had claimed 'an unwarranted, illegal and unconstitutional delay is caused by the President and the Union of India in the disposal of the mercy petition.'
"No explanation has been offered either for the delay in forwarding of the mercy petitions by the state government to the President or the delay in disposal by both the authorities," they contended.
Subramanian Swamy, who is on the other side of the legal battle, reacted to the judgement by saying that the Attorney General must move to vacate the stay on the execution of Rajiv’s killers.
A lawyer tries to open gate of the Madras High Court Bench in Madurai that was locked by a group of advocates on Monday to express their protest against the proposed execution of three death convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assasination case. Photo:S. James
Rajiv assassination: TN Assembly calls for clemency for convicts
The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution for commuting the death sentence of the three convicts - A.G.Perarivalan alias Arivu, V.Sriharan alias Murugan and T.Suthendraraja alias Santhan - in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case to life sentence. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa moved the resolution in this regard and the House unanimously adopted it. She said the resolution took into consideration the overwhelming sentiment of the people of Tamil Nadu who wanted her government to commute the death sentence. The resolution also requested the President of India to reconsider the mercy petitions filed by the three convicts and to commute the death sentence to life.
A whole-time board member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the stock market regulator, has complained to the government that he and his family are at “grave” risk after his letter to the Prime Minister complaining against Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the minister’s advisor Omita Paul, and his chairman U K Sinha, was sent to the finance ministry — and his identity leaked.
In that first letter sent on June 1, K M Abraham, a 1982 IAS Kerala-cadre officer — his term in SEBI ended on July 20 — alleged that Mukherjee and Paul put pressure on Sinha to “manage” some high-profile corporate cases and, in the process, undermined the regulator’s integrity.
Abraham’s letter referred to several enforcement cases against groups including Sahara, Reliance Industries Ltd and ADAG companies, Bank of Rajasthan and MCX-SX, a new stock exchange that currently offers trading facilities in currency derivatives.
The draft bill seeks to create an institution that will be independent of those it seeks to police, and will have powers to investigate and prosecute all public servants, and others found guilty of corrupting them.
A number of commentators have raised issues about the provisions in the draft of the Jan Lokpal Bill. They have asked whether it would be an effective instrument to check corruption. They have pointed to the manner in which Anna Hazare's fast put pressure on the government. It is therefore important to understand the provisions of the bill and how it seeks to set up an effective institution to deal with corruption.
Corruption in India has grown to alarming proportions because of policies that have created enormous incentives for its proliferation, coupled with the lack of an effective institution that can investigate and prosecute the corrupt. Under the garb of liberalisation and privatisation, India has adopted policies by which natural resources and public assets (mineral resources, oil and gas, land, spectrum, and so on) have been allowed to be privatised without transparency or a process of public auctioning. Almost overnight, hundreds of memorandums of understanding (MoUs) have been signed by governments with private corporations, leasing out large tracts of land rich in mineral resources, forests and water. These allow the corporations to take away and sell the resources by paying the government a royalty, which is usually less than 1 per cent of the value of the resources.
The Karnataka Lokayukta, Justice Santosh Hegde, has pointed out in a report on mining in Karnataka that the profit margins in such ventures are often more than 90 per cent. This leaves huge scope for bribe-giving and creates incentives for corruption. The same thing happened when A. Raja gave away spectrum without a public auction to companies at less than 10 per cent of its market price. Private monopolies in water and electricity distribution, airport development and so on have been allowed to be created, where huge and unconscionable levels of profit can be made by corrupting the regulator and allowing private monopolies to charge predatory prices. Tens of thousands of hectares have been given away to corporations for commercialisation in the guise of airport development, construction of highways, creation of Special Economic Zones and so on, at prices that are less than 10 per cent of the value of those tracts of land.
Apart from creating huge incentives for corruption, such policies have resulted in the involuntary displacement of lakhs of the poorest people, leaving them on the brink of starvation and forcing many of them to join the Maoists. The beneficiaries have stripped the land of natural resources (a good deal of which is exported) and destroyed the environment. Most ominously, such deals have resulted in the creation of monster corporations that are so powerful and influential that they have come to influence and virtually control all institutions of power — as we see from the Radia tapes.
While adopting policies that thus create huge incentives for corruption, we have not set up effective institutions to check corruption, investigate and prosecute the corrupt and bring them to justice. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) continues to be under the administrative control of the government, which is seen as the fountainhead of corruption. Thus, no action is usually taken by the CBI to effectively investigate high-level corruption — except once in a while when the court forces its hand. Often we see the CBI itself behaving in a corrupt manner, with no other institution to investigate that. The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), which is supposed to supervise the CBI, has failed to act, since its own appointment process is riddled with conflicts of interest. The Prime Minister, the Home Minister and the Leader of the Opposition (who has been a Minister and hopes to become Prime Minister one day) want to avoid their own accountability and are thus interested in having weak and pliable persons to man the institution that is expected to supervise the CBI. Moreover, the CVC and the CBI have to seek the government's sanction to investigate and prosecute wrongdoers; such sanction is usually not given when it comes to high-level corruption. The CVC depends on vigilance officers in various government departments. They are often middle-level officers from the same departments and cannot be expected to exercise vigilance over their bosses who write their confidential reports. The judiciary, which must try and convict the offenders, has become dysfunctional and is afflicted with corruption due to lack of accountability of the higher judiciary.
The draft Jan Lokpal bill seeks to create an institution that will be largely independent of those it seeks to police, and which will have effective powers to investigate and prosecute all public servants (including Ministers, MPs, bureaucrats, judges and so on) and others found guilty of corrupting them. Since corruption involves misconduct and gives rise to grievances, the draft proposes that the Lokpal will supervise the machinery to pursue disciplinary proceedings against government servants (the Vigilance Department) as well as the machinery to redress grievances. Thus, misconduct by government servants, and grievances, will come under the ambit of an independent authority rather than the government — where the machinery has become ineffective due to conflicts of interest. It is proposed that if the Lokpal finds that a contract is being given for corrupt considerations, it can stop the contract. It cannot otherwise interfere with government decisions or policy.
It has been said that this would create a super-cop with enormous powers and no accountability. There is a misconception that the proposed Lokpal will have judicial powers; there is no such provision in the bill. The need of the hour is to have an effective cop who can investigate and prosecute the high and mighty without interdiction from the very people who need to be prosecuted.
The bill seeks to make the Lokpal accountable. First, it is mandated to function transparently so that everything related to its functioning is known to the people (without compromising the investigation itself). Exemptions from disclosure provided in the Right to Information Act could be included. Secondly, the Lokpal's orders will be subject to review in the High Courts and the Supreme Court. Lastly, the members of the Lokpal could be removed for misconduct, by a five-member bench of the Supreme Court.
There has been some criticism of the Lokpal selection committee and the selection process. Given the erosion in the integrity of most of our state institutions, it was thought that the best bet would be to have a broad-based selection committee and build transparency and public participation into the selection process, while trying to keep out those who are most likely to be within the ambit of the Lokpal's investigations. That is why in the draft bill Ministers were sought to be kept out.
One criticism has been that this shows contempt for democracy. We have seen how the “democratically elected” Prime Minister, Home Minister and leaders of the opposition have normally selected weak and pliable CVCs. So the draft bill proposes a selection committee comprising the Lok Sabha Speaker, the Rajya Sabha Chairman, the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Chief Election Commissioner, the two seniormost judges of the Supreme Court, two seniormost Chief Justices of High Courts, the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission and the outgoing members of the Lokpal. This proposed composition of the committee will certainly be discussed, and perhaps improved upon, during public consultations and discussions within the drafting committee that will now take place.
It has been said that putting the function of redress of grievances on the plate of the Lokpal would make its work unmanageable. Though the Lokpal will only reorganise and supervise the grievance redress machinery (rather than dealing with each grievance itself), this is an issue that will be discussed openly by the committee. By next week, a website that will formally take in all the opinions and suggestions on the Jan Lokpal bill will be launched and announced. People are welcome to read, understand and send their comments on it, to be taken note of.
One must not, however, be under any illusion that the Lokpal law by itself would solve the problem of corruption. Unless we tackle and change the policies that create enormous incentives for corruption and monster corporations that become too powerful for any institution to control, the fight will be incomplete. The judiciary too is in need of comprehensive reforms.
But an independent, credible and empowered Lokpal is a necessary, though not a sufficient, condition to effectively control corruption. Let us work at least to put that in place.
(Prashant Bhushan is a senior Supreme Court lawyer and member of the joint committee to draft the Lokpal bill.)
While his means maybe Gandhian, his demands are certainly not.
If what we're watching on TV is indeed a revolution, then it has to be one of the more embarrassing and unintelligible ones of recent times. For now, whatever questions you may have about the Jan Lokpal Bill, here are the answers you're likely to get: tick the box — (a) Vande Mataram (b) Bharat Mata ki Jai (c) India is Anna, Anna is India (d) Jai Hind.
For completely different reasons, and in completely different ways, you could say that the Maoists and the Jan Lokpal Bill have one thing in common — they both seek the overthrow of the IndianState. One working from the bottom up, by means of an armed struggle, waged by a largely adivasi army, made up of the poorest of the poor. The other, from the top down, by means of a bloodless Gandhian coup, led by a freshly minted saint, and an army of largely urban, and certainly better off people. (In this one, the Government collaborates by doing everything it possibly can to overthrow itself.)
In April 2011, a few days into Anna Hazare's first “fast unto death,” searching for some way of distracting attention from the massive corruption scams which had battered its credibility, the Government invited Team Anna, the brand name chosen by this “civil society” group, to be part of a joint drafting committee for a new anti-corruption law. A few months down the line it abandoned that effort and tabled its own bill in Parliament, a bill so flawed that it was impossible to take seriously.
Then, on August 16th, the morning of his second “fast unto death,” before he had begun his fast or committed any legal offence, Anna Hazare was arrested and jailed. The struggle for the implementation of the Jan Lokpal Bill now coalesced into a struggle for the right to protest, the struggle for democracy itself. Within hours of this ‘Second Freedom Struggle,' Anna was released. Cannily, he refused to leave prison, but remained in Tihar jail as an honoured guest, where he began a fast, demanding the right to fast in a public place. For three days, while crowds and television vans gathered outside, members of Team Anna whizzed in and out of the high security prison, carrying out his video messages, to be broadcast on national TV on all channels. (Which other person would be granted this luxury?) Meanwhile 250 employees of the Municipal Commission of Delhi, 15 trucks, and six earth movers worked around the clock to ready the slushy Ramlila grounds for the grand weekend spectacle. Now, waited upon hand and foot, watched over by chanting crowds and crane-mounted cameras, attended to by India's most expensive doctors, the third phase of Anna's fast to the death has begun. “From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, India is One,” the TV anchors tell us.
While his means may be Gandhian, Anna Hazare's demands are certainly not. Contrary to Gandhiji's ideas about the decentralisation of power, the Jan Lokpal Bill is a draconian, anti-corruption law, in which a panel of carefully chosen people will administer a giant bureaucracy, with thousands of employees, with the power to police everybody from the Prime Minister, the judiciary, members of Parliament, and all of the bureaucracy, down to the lowest government official. The Lokpal will have the powers of investigation, surveillance, and prosecution. Except for the fact that it won't have its own prisons, it will function as an independent administration, meant to counter the bloated, unaccountable, corrupt one that we already have. Two oligarchies, instead of just one.
Whether it works or not depends on how we view corruption. Is corruption just a matter of legality, of financial irregularity and bribery, or is it the currency of a social transaction in an egregiously unequal society, in which power continues to be concentrated in the hands of a smaller and smaller minority? Imagine, for example, a city of shopping malls, on whose streets hawking has been banned. A hawker pays the local beat cop and the man from the municipality a small bribe to break the law and sell her wares to those who cannot afford the prices in the malls. Is that such a terrible thing? In future will she have to pay the Lokpal representative too?Does the solution to the problems faced by ordinary people lie in addressing the structural inequality, or in creating yet another power structure that people will have to defer to?
Meanwhile the props and the choreography, the aggressive nationalism and flag waving of Anna's Revolution are all borrowed, from the anti-reservation protests, the world-cup victory parade, and the celebration of the nuclear tests. They signal to us that if we do not support The Fast, we are not ‘true Indians.'The 24-hour channels have decided that there is no other news in the country worth reporting.
‘The Fast' of course doesn't mean Irom Sharmila's fast that has lasted for more than ten years (she's being force fed now) against the AFSPA, which allows soldiers in Manipur to kill merely on suspicion. It does not mean the relay hunger fast that is going on right now by ten thousand villagers in Koodankulam protesting against the nuclear power plant. ‘The People' does not mean the Manipuris who support Irom Sharmila's fast. Nor does it mean the thousands who are facing down armed policemen and mining mafias in Jagatsinghpur, or Kalinganagar, or Niyamgiri, or Bastar, or Jaitapur. Nor do we mean the victims of the Bhopal gas leak, or the people displaced by dams in the NarmadaValley. Nor do we mean the farmers in NOIDA, or Pune or Haryana or elsewhere in the country, resisting the takeover of the land.
‘The People' only means the audience that has gathered to watch the spectacle of a 74-year-old man threatening to starve himself to death if his Jan Lokpal Bill is not tabled and passed by Parliament. ‘The People' are the tens of thousands who have been miraculously multiplied into millions by our TV channels, like Christ multiplied the fishes and loaves to feed the hungry. “A billion voices have spoken,” we're told. “India is Anna.”
Who is he really, this new saint, this Voice of the People? Oddly enough we've heard him say nothing about things of urgent concern. Nothing about the farmer's suicides in his neighbourhood, or about Operation Green Hunt further away. Nothing about Singur, Nandigram, Lalgarh, nothing about Posco, about farmer's agitations or the blight of SEZs. He doesn't seem to have a view about the Government's plans to deploy the Indian Army in the forests of Central India.
He does however support Raj Thackeray's Marathi Manoos xenophobia and has praised the ‘development model' of Gujarat's Chief Minister who oversaw the 2002 pogrom against Muslims. (Anna withdrew that statement after a public outcry, but presumably not his admiration.)
Despite the din, sober journalists have gone about doing what journalists do. We now have the back-story about Anna's old relationship with the RSS. We have heard from Mukul Sharma who has studied Anna's village community in Ralegan Siddhi, where there have been no Gram Panchayat or Co-operative society elections in the last 25 years. We know about Anna's attitude to ‘harijans': “It was Mahatma Gandhi's vision that every village should have one chamar, one sunar, one kumhar and so on. They should all do their work according to their role and occupation, and in this way, a village will be self-dependant. This is what we are practicing in Ralegan Siddhi.” Is it surprising that members of Team Anna have also been associated with Youth for Equality, the anti-reservation (pro-“merit”) movement? The campaign is being handled by people who run a clutch of generously funded NGOs whose donors include Coca-Cola and the Lehman Brothers. Kabir, run by Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, key figures in Team Anna, has received $400,000 from the Ford Foundation in the last three years. Among contributors to the India Against Corruption campaign there are Indian companies and foundations that own aluminum plants, build ports and SEZs, and run Real Estate businesses and are closely connected to politicians who run financial empires that run into thousands of crores of rupees. Some of them are currently being investigated for corruption and other crimes. Why are they all so enthusiastic?
Remember the campaign for the Jan Lokpal Bill gathered steam around the same time as embarrassing revelations by Wikileaks and a series of scams, including the 2G spectrum scam, broke, in which major corporations, senior journalists, and government ministers and politicians from the Congress as well as the BJP seem to have colluded in various ways as hundreds of thousands of crores of rupees were being siphoned off from the public exchequer. For the first time in years, journalist-lobbyists were disgraced and it seemed as if some major Captains of Corporate India could actually end up in prison. Perfect timing for a people's anti-corruption agitation. Or was it?
At a time when the State is withdrawing from its traditional duties and Corporations and NGOs are taking over government functions (water supply, electricity, transport, telecommunication, mining, health, education); at a time when the terrifying power and reach of the corporate owned media is trying to control the public imagination, one would think that these institutions — the corporations, the media, and NGOs — would be included in the jurisdiction of a Lokpal bill. Instead, the proposed bill leaves them out completely.
Now, by shouting louder than everyone else, by pushing a campaign that is hammering away at the theme of evil politicians and government corruption, they have very cleverly let themselves off the hook. Worse, by demonising only the Government they have built themselves a pulpit from which to call for the further withdrawal of the State from the public sphere and for a second round of reforms — more privatisation, more access to public infrastructure and India's natural resources. It may not be long before Corporate Corruption is made legal and renamed a Lobbying Fee.
Will the 830 million people living on Rs.20 a day really benefit from the strengthening of a set of policies that is impoverishing them and driving this country to civil war?
This awful crisis has been forged out of the utter failure of India's representative democracy, in which the legislatures are made up of criminals and millionaire politicians who have ceased to represent its people. In which not a single democratic institution is accessible to ordinary people. Do not be fooled by the flag waving. We're watching India being carved up in war for suzerainty that is as deadly as any battle being waged by the warlords of Afghanistan, only with much, much more at stake.
देशकेबननेऔरबढ़नेमेंकितनीजद्दोजहदहै, तीनोंजनक्रांतियोंकेनेतृत्वकामैदानीसंघर्षकैसाथा? भास्करकीकोशिशहैकिनईपीढ़ीयहसबजानसके, इसलिएकल्पेश याग्निक का यह अध्ययन-
सबसे बड़ी जनक्रांति तो आजादी की लड़ाई दुनिया की सबसे बड़ी जनक्रांति हमारी आजादी की लड़ाई ही थी। महात्मा गांधी के नेतृत्व में लाखों लोग अहिंसक आंदोलन में उतरे। उनकी एक आवाज पर लोग सड़कों पर आ जाते। वे उपवास करते तो आधा देश उपवास करता। उनके बारे में महान वैज्ञानिक अल्बर्ट आइंस्टीन ने कहा था - ‘आने वाली पीढ़ियों को यकीन नहीं होगा कि हाड़ मांस से बना कोई ऐसा व्यक्ति भी कभी इस धरती पर पैदा हुआ था।’
संपूर्ण क्रांति : जेपी: भ्रष्टाचार सबसे बड़ा रोग, तो इलाज में धर्य कैसा?(1974-75) लक्ष्य व्यवस्था परिवर्तन लाखों लोग जुड़े तो उन्होंने सत्ता परिवर्तन का लक्ष्य भी जोड़ दिया माध्यम -दमन और शोषण के विरुद्ध संपूर्ण जनक्रांति उन्हीं के शब्दों में - राजनैतिक नेतृत्व उच्च नैतिकता का पालन करे तो भ्रष्टाचार मिट जाएगा। गरीबी और बेकारी मिटाने के लिए शिक्षा में आमूल बदलाव करने होंगे। अब यदि रोग का पता चल गया है तो देशवासी इसका इलाज करने में धैर्य क्यों रखें? ताकत छात्र: बिहार के छात्रों ने जेपी के पीछे पहाड़ सा समर्थन खड़ा कर दिया। गुजरात में नवनिर्माण आंदोलन चला रहे छात्रों ने जेपी से नेतृत्व करने की मांग की। बस चल पड़ा नौजवानों का कारवां। शख्सियत ‘त्याग’ के लिए ख्यात। उद्भट विद्वान। प्रखर गांधीवादी। स्वतंत्रता सेनानी। जो मिलता, उसमें ऊर्जा भर देते। डॉ. राममनोहर लोहिया के शब्दों में- ‘एकमात्र जेपी हैं जो सारे देश को हिला सकते हैं।’ ..और अंजाम 20 माह के आपातकाल के बाद अत्याचार के किस्सों के साथ हुए आम चुनाव में कांग्रेस हारी, हारी और हारती चली गई। मोरारजी देसाई प्रधानमंत्री बने देश की पहली गैर-कांग्रेसी सरकार के। वैसे..झगड़ों से यह 3 साल ही चली। किंतु : यह स्वतंत्र भारतीय राजनैतिक इतिहास का सबसे बड़ा बदलाव रहा। इसने लोगों की ताकत को साबित किया। व्यक्ति विशेष या एक दल आधारित तानाशाही को चूर-चूर कर दिया। इस तरह यह देश के लिए बहुत ही अच्छा बदलाव रहा। टर्निग प्वाइंट
हजारों पुलिस जवानों ने हैरत से देखा कि कृशकाय, असहाय सा दीख रहा वह बुजुर्ग जीप से उतरा और ‘क्रांति’ रोकने की चुनौती देने लगा। दो ही सहयोगी थे जबकि साथ में। शासकों के आदेश पर अत्याचार को उतारू वर्दीधारियों ने उस महान गांधीवादी पर लाठियां बरसाईं।
अपने नेता की निडरता और दृढ़ता को देख, तब तक सोच में पड़े हजारों समर्थक आंदोलन के लिए टूट पड़े। गर्व से लाठियां खाईं। और दे डाला अगले दिन जेपी को असाधारण नाम लोकनायक। - 4 नवंबर 74 की पटना रैली। सिलसिले: एक के बाद एक धमाकेदार घटनाएं जो ले आईं लक्ष्य को पास।
कहां तो जनआंदोलन बिहार की अब्दुल गफूर सरकार के विरुद्ध शुरू हुआ था, कहां जेपी ने अपने गजब के विजन से इसे राष्ट्रीय ‘संपूर्ण क्रांति’ में बदल दिया।
उधर रेलमंत्री ललित नारायण मिश्र की रहस्यमय हत्या। प्रधानमंत्री इंदिरा गांधी पर गंभीर आरोप। वहीं जॉर्ज फर्नाडीस ने जबर्दस्त रेल हड़ताल करवा दी, जो विश्व की सबसे बड़ी हड़ताल मानी जाती है। इंदिरा ने 20 हजार गिरफ्तारियां कर उसे तुड़वा दिया।
फिर इलाहाबाद हाईकोर्ट का फैसला। इंदिरा की संसद सदस्यता अवैध घोषित। 25 जून ’75 बना ऐतिहासिक दिन। रामलीला मैदान। एक लाख से भी ज्यादा लोग। जेपी के लिए जुटे। उसी रात आपातकाल घोषित। बोफोर्स अभियान : वीपी- आप चाहे मुझे मार दें मैं लड़ता रहूंगा
लक्ष्य : सत्ता परिवर्तन(1987-89) यह आंदोलन पूरी तरह राजनीतिक, पहले सत्ता बदलेगी फिर व्यवस्था
माध्यम : सर्वोच्च स्तर पर भ्रष्टाचार के विरुद्ध राजनीतिक जनमोर्चा।
नारा था : मैं आपको स्वर्ग का वादा तो नहीं करता। पर नर्क से लड़ाई का दावा जरूर करता हूं। ताकत मिडल क्लास:मध्यम वर्गीय परिवार देश की रीढ़ हैं। चारों ओर बेईमानी से त्रस्त यह तबका वीपी सिंह में अपनी खुद की झलक पाने लगा था। फिर क्या था, दूसरे दर्जे में सफर कर स्टेशन पर उतरने वाले वीपी का स्वागत करने तो दस-पंद्रह लोग ही पहुंचते, किंतु 40 वर्ष से ऊपर के हजारों लोग उनकी सभा में जुटते। फिर आए जोशीले युवा। सिलसिले: बोफोर्स घोटाले के लिए प्रधानमंत्री को कठघरे में खड़े कर चुके वीपी ने लिफाफे पर लिखा- प्रधानमंत्री। और भीतर रखा त्यागपत्र। फिर एक के बाद एक विस्फोटक घटनाएं। तीन माह में राजीव सरकार के पांच मंत्रियों के इस्तीफे। मुजफ्फरनगर रैली में जुटे हजारों लोग। फिर तो गांव-गांव में लोग कहते बोफोर्स यानी घोटाला, गली-गली में शोर है.. शख्सियत ‘ईमानदारी’ की धाक। धीरूभाई अंबानी, अमिताभ बच्चन सहित प्रधानमंत्री के कुछ निजी मित्रों तक पर आयकर छापे डलवाए। कवि। चित्रकार। गहन अध्येता। सख्त प्रशासक की छवि। खुद की कविता, जो बाद में खूब चली, उनका स्वभाव बताती है-
‘तुम मुझे क्या खरीदोगे, मैं तो मुफ्त हूं..’ ..और अंजाम
दो साल के संघर्ष और कई पार्टियों से बने मोर्चे ने कांग्रेस को हरा दिया। मतदान के दिन रविशंकर के चर्चित काटरून से समझा जा सकता है कि क्या रहा होगा- राजीव एक ज्योतिषी से पूछ रहे हैं- क्या कोई सहानुभूति लहर? ज्योतिषी कहता है- निश्चित.. लेकिन चुनाव के बाद!
वीपी प्रधानमंत्री बने देश की पहली अल्पमत सरकार के। इस गैर-कांग्रेसी सरकार का भी पतन जल्द हो गया। बोफोर्स मामले में भी कुछ नहीं हुआ। मंडल आयोग की सिफारिशें मानने पर देश में सवर्ण बनाम पिछड़ों का जहर फैला। भ्रष्टाचार के विरुद्ध अनशन : अन्ना- युवा जागा है दूसरी आजादी के लिए..(2010-11)
लक्ष्य : जन लोकपाल कानून
हजारों लोग जुड़े तो उन्होंने व्यवस्था परिवर्तन का लक्ष्य भी जोड़ दिया। माध्यम- अनशन, भ्रष्टाचार से लड़ाई का एक ऐसा उपाय बताना जिसे इस्तेमाल किया जा सके- जनलोकपाल। उन्हीं के शब्दों में- यह दूसरी आजादी की लड़ाई है। ताकत सिविल सोसायटी: महाराष्ट्र में बेबस किसानों की लंबी लड़ाई लड़ते रहे अन्ना जब जनलोकपाल बिल के लिए टूट पड़े तो शुरुआत में उनके साथ अधिकतर बुद्धिजीवी, मेगसेसे अवार्ड जीते कार्यकर्ता, शीर्ष वकील, डॉक्टर, प्रोफेसर व रिटायर्ड अफसर थे। बाद में युवा भी आए- अब सारा देश। सिलसिले: विश्व इतिहास में ही किसी एक सरकारी फैसले से सबसे बड़ी रकम- 1 लाख 75 हजार करोड़ रु.- का 2जी स्पैक्ट्रम घोटाला। बाकायदा ऑडिट रिपोर्ट में आने से देश सकते में था कि एक-एक करके कई कांड सामने आने लगे। इसी दौरान सरकारी लोकपाल कानून का मसौदा विवादों में पड़ा। अचानक सारे देश में लहर सी उठी। सोशल नेटवर्किग साइट्स और मोबाइल मैसेजों की बाढ़ में- सरकारी लोकपाल कानून बहा भले न हो, गीला होकर जरूर गलने लगा। ..और अंजाम प्रधानमंत्री डॉ. मनमोहन सिंह ने संपादकों से कहा कि वे ‘स्वयं लोकपाल की हद में प्रधानमंत्री को रखने के पक्ष में हैं’ किंतु मंत्रिमंडल में सोच अलग-अलग हैं। अन्ना के आंदोलन के कारण उन्हें जनभावनाओं का आदर करना पड़ा। विधेयक पेश हो चुका है। सरकार का। भेजा जा चुका है संसद की स्थाई समिति को। इससे किसी तरह की उम्मीद नहीं बनती। कमजोर कागज है यह बिल। जनांदोलन के चलते सरकार राजी हुई जनलोकपाल पर विचार करने पर भी। देखना होगा हर दिन अपना स्टैंड बदलने वाली सरकार कब तक कायम रहती है अपने वादे पर। शख्सियत ‘ नैतिकता’ का प्रतीक। सहज। सरल। बच्चों सी भोली मुस्कान जिससे लोग जुड़ते हैं। भ्रष्टाचार पर कठोर। जुझारू व्यक्तित्व। हमेशा दूसरों के लिए लड़ना। अन्ना यानी गांव-गांव में भरोसे का दूसरा नाम। ‘आप मेरा सिर कलम कर सकते हैं लेकिन झुका नहीं सकते। जब तक भारत भ्रष्टाचार से मुक्त नहीं हो जाता, मेरा संघर्ष जारी रहेगा।’ राज पर भारी लोक अप्रैल से चले इस आंदोलन से दुनिया के सबसे बड़े जनतंत्र के जन को अपनी ताकत का अहसास हुआ। यह स्थापित हुआ कि जनता एकजुट हो तो सरकार उन पर कोई मनमर्जी नहीं थोप सकती। पहली बार जनांदोलन का जोर सत्ता परिवर्तन पर नहीं, व्यवस्था परिवर्तन पर था। यह आंदोलन पूरी तरह अ-राजनीतिक था। रामलीला मैदान के मंच से दूर रखे गए नेता देश भर में उमड़े जन-ज्वार को टीवी पर ही देखते रहे। मैदान पर अन्ना के समर्थन में जनसंगठनों के नुमाइंदों ने तो अपनी मौजूदगी दर्ज कराई ही, बॉलीवुड की हस्तियां भी खुद को यहां आने से नहीं रोक पाईं। अपने भाषणों में भ्रष्टाचार के बहाने इन्होंने समूची व्यवस्था को कठघरे में खड़ा किया। लंबे अरसे बाद किसी मुद्दे पर ऐसा स्वत:स्फूर्त और बेहद अनुशासित जनसमर्थन देश में देखा गया। सोशल नेटवर्किग साइट्स और एसएमएस के जरिए भी आंदोलन को ऊर्जा मिली। तुलना नहीं सिर्फ अध्ययन यह तीनों जनक्रांतियां गांधीवादी तरीके से ही लड़ा गईं। लेकिन इनकी महात्मा गांधी के आंदोलन से तुलना नहीं हो सकती है क्योंकि महात्मा गांधी का आंदोलन विदेशियों की गुलामी के खिलाफ था जबकि ये क्रांतियां अपने ही शासन के खिलाफ की गईं। यूं तो इन तीनों की तुलना आपस में भी नहीं हो सकती क्योंकि भले ही वे भ्रष्टाचार के खिलाफ थीं लेकिन उनके लक्ष्य अलग-अलग थे।
In their plea, the convicts had claimed 'an unwarranted, illegal and unconstitutional delay is caused by the President and the Union of India in the disposal of the mercy petition.'
