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| Why Anna Hazare failed to catch our imagination? | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Aug 21 : While the Anna Hazare crusade against corruption is hogging headlines and public attention throughout the country an interesting debate has been generated in Jammu and Kashmir State. Why has not the campaign evoked such public response in the state?
Political analysts and civil society members are baffled alike on this crucial issue that has caught the imagination of the nation outside the State. As political analysts prefer different explanations for the bizarre phenomenon that is unique to the State, the truth is that whatever those analysts might say, corruption ceased to be issue in Jammu and Kashmir long back. It has penetrated every sphere of public activity so deeply that its roots are strong and firm. From the routine issuance of a state subject certificate, ration card, driving licence to obtaining a government job, one must pay for the favour. People long back stopped considering anything as their fundamental or basic right in the State. If you get what you fully deserved even that is considered a big favour in the topsy turvy situation all of us have become so used to where no eyebrows are ever raised when politicians and civil servants like engineers, bureaucrats and police officers ask for gratification and that too as a matter of right. Corruption is one thing that has become the way of life for all of us and nobody complains about the menace. The more corrupt a civil servant, better is his reputation in the society. The honest and upright civil servants and politicians are sometimes called inefficient and sometimes labeled as cracks. Anyone asking for corruption is not seen as a threat to the social fabric of our society. An officer who asks you to pay for a job that he is paid by the exchequer to do is only seen as unworthy of the public trust if he fails to deliver. Those who take your money and do your job are the good civil servants and those who do not do your job even after accepting gratification for the same are seen as unworthy of the public trust. The degeneration in the society has wrought itself up so completely that the honest clerk or the Babu is seen as a threat to the system that gets jammed the moment an honest officer blocks the smooth running machine of corrupt practices in the State. The machine is so well oiled that it ejects out the honest link in the chain as an irritant unacceptable to the smooth functioning of the system that is dishonest, unscrupulous and worthless.
There are scores of examples when honest civil servants have been made to pay for their 'folly'. Sometimes in the name of inefficiency, sometimes in the name of arrogance, the honest have always been pushed to the wall. Ironically, the odd honest Babu is not liked either by his/her superiors or those working under him/her. The peon guarding the door of the honest officer is disgruntled at the unusual and disturbing trait of his boss.
There is a well known example of an honest secretary/commissioner in the civil secretariat who asked his peon not to allow people into the officer's room when he would be busy with the disposal of official files. The peon is believed to have smiled and politely told his boss that otherwise also nobody ever approaches the officer since his reputation of 'not helping people' had already travelled to the department which he was heading in the secretariat.
This is the plight of our system. Many senior IAS officers of the State cadre have repeatedly requested for central deputations after being completely frustrated by the local system and the interference by the politicians. Little wonder that Anna Hazare's countrywide campaign has fewer followers in Jammu and Kashmir. |
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