INDIA'S GANGRENE: How to slay the demon of graft

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• June 12, 2011 
• By Dipankar Banerjee / D.C..

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• By all indications, the issue of corruption has once again begun to assume explosive proportions in Indian politics. Given the unprecedented scale of scams and the wide range of institutions that have been exposed to be affected by the rot, the public outrage should not cause any surprise.
  Unable to whitewash the scams or satisfy the people with any convincing action, a rattled UPA government is now behaving increasingly despotically. Swinging from one extreme to another, the same government which sent a high-profile ministerial team to receive Baba Ramdev at the airport unleashed a midnight crackdown to evict sleeping protestors from Ramlila Maidan, and now the ‘Ramlila model’ is being projected as a lesson for all future protestors. The current rhetoric of the Congress party and the UPA government reminds one once again of the Emergency era.
  If the powers that be once again represent the lethal mix of megabuck corruption and high-voltage repression, to be sure, India will also witness a people’s upsurge to save democracy and the country from this disastrous combination. The growing anti-corruption mood of the Indian people definitely contains seeds of such a larger democratic awakening.
  True, one does not yet see the kind of mass political momentum witnessed during the 1974 student-youth movement popularly known as the JP movement or the ‘Rajiv hatao’ campaign in the wake of the Bofors scam in the late 1980s. It is easy to lament the absence of leaders of the stature of a Gandhi or a JP, but it is important to appreciate the objective conditions that distinguish the current phase of anti-corruption movement from the 1970s or 1980s.
  Today, it is not only the UPA government at the centre which is in the dock on the issue of corruption, many state governments, too, are facing the heat, and the BJP’s Karnataka government is at the top of that list. The BJP naturally cannot lead any credible charge against corruption. Unable to mount an independent challenge, the party is trying to ride piggyback on Baba Ramdev. It is the utter lack of credibility of most political parties on the issue of corruption that has brought the civil society initiative and discourse to the fore.

Very Good Analysis!

Full Article at,

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/360-degree/how-slay-demon-graft-828