Letter to PM from Civil Society Members

Press Release

Date: June 13, 2011

Mr. Pranab Mukerjee has stated that Civil Society agitations and fasts are undermining established institutions of democracy such as Parliament. He has reportedly said that the Congress Party has produced a document for countering the Campaign by Civil Society which he accuses of being supported by the BJP/RSS.

Such statements betray a distorted understanding of democracy and an arrogance of power. They show a mistaken understanding that the people have no role to play in governance and law making once they have elected their representatives and they have formed a government. It is this kind of arrogance of those who have got themselves elected in elections which are largely won on money power which is undermining democracy and leading to decisions which are anti people and opposed by the people (such as the large scale appropriation of land from the poorest people who depend on it for their livelihood for the benefit of the largest and most corrupt corporations).

Democracy means rule of the people, by the people, for the people. It does not mean rule by a coterie of those who manage to get themselves “elected”, in elections held once in 5 years. That is why the constitution gives the people such important fundamental rights as free speech and freedom of assembly and association (which includes the rights to information and the right to protest by means of fasting or otherwise). Fasting, as Gandhi demonstrated, is the most non violent and civilised means of expressing oneself and exerting democratic pressure on any government. Unfortunately, a party which considers itself as the political legacy of Mahatma Gandhi is reviling civil society movements and fasting as anti democratic. Shows how far they have gone from Gandhi, his methods and thinking. That is why they now talk of “countering” this civil society movement against corruption. Will they counter it by a movement for corruption?

The same contempt for the democratic rights of people is visible in the refusal to telecast proceedings of the drafting committee. A government which claims to be wedded to transparency and the right of the people to know what its elected representatives are doing in their public functioning is now saying that if people see what arguments are being given by the government for opposing various provisions of the Jan Lokpal bill will convert the deliberations into a circus which will prevent members from expressing themselves candidly. Are they saying that Parliament has become a circus where members cannot express themselves candidly, now that the proceedings are being telecast? All this shows a contempt for democracy and democratic rights of the people and is being sought to be sold as a love for democracy.