Looking back at the events of the year, I would like to highlight what I believe was the real achievement of the India Against Corruption movement: giving a sense of agency to a large number of people, especially middle-class youth. It was a sense of agency which, in contrast to the Maoists, is also nonviolent. To me, this sense of agency, that one is not a passive victim of a political order and circumstances beyond one’s control, is Anna Hazare’s most important legacy which, I hope, will continue to animate our youth irrespective of the fate of the Lokpal Bill.
My own appreciation of what has happened has less to do with all the sound and fury around the Bill itself, effective/ ineffective, good/bad, or with the personalities of the individuals spearheading the ‘movement’ and of others opposing it, but with the rediscovery of the ‘Gandhian moment’ as a way out of cynicism and despondency.
The Gandhian moment, as the political philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo defines it, is understanding citizenship ‘as a form of moral and political agency outside the framework of the state and in relation to an active exercise of dissent.’ To Gandhiji, in a democracy, the exercise of active citizenship was primary while its other features, elections, parliament, etc, were secondary. More than the shape of any future legislation, i think Gandhiji would have seen the events of last year as a major success of our democracy, not in a sense of winners or losers, but as a dialogue of citizens among themselves – the essence of democracy.
~ Sudhir Kakar, SALCETE, GOA
(Letter to The Editor, Times of India, January 2, 2012)
