THE Gandhi way still works - in India at least. The complete capitulation yesterday of the government of the world's largest democracy to a 74-year old man on the 13th day of his hunger strike against corruption showed that Mahatma Gandhi's example, although dormant for more than sixty years, can still prevail against official obstinacy if the cause is right. Anna Hazare sipped honey and coconut milk when he learnt that the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, had won parliamentary approval to establish a comprehensive national system against corruption that would even include himself, in place of the less ambitious government scheme previously proposed and criticized by Hazare for not including MPs, ministers and other VIPs.
In a country the size of India an effective monitoring of pervasive corruption - demonstrated only too clearly at last year's Commonwealth Games - will require a huge, costly and newly-recruited and trained organisation, and may take years to establish. Mr Hazare's victory comes, however, at a time that India's national leadership is in trouble.
Prime minister Singh is 79 and has health problems; Sonia Gandhi, chairman of the powerful Congress party is in the United States for unidentifed medical treatment and her grandson Rahul is losing support as heir apparent. If India is to maintain its recent rapid economic growth it will need both Hazare's anti-corruption discipline and new political faces.
No comments
To be able to write a comment, you have to be registered and logged in
Currently there are no comments.