Arvind Kejriwal, one of the activists behind the Janlokpal Bill, in his interview to The Hindu said, “People wanted the JLB”.
That is a patently wrong assumption to derive from the popular
anti-corruption movement that we witnessed in India over the last few weeks. Most people who showed up at the Anna Hazare
Movement gatherings in various cities of India have not read Janlokpal Bill
created by these activists. They do not
know that these activists are bent on pushing their version of the bill onto
Indians riding the popular mood than sitting down to discuss and debate the
issue with others. Many Indians came to
show their support to Anna Hazare who, according to them, is fighting the
corruption in India. These people
wanted to express their solidarity with any anti-corruption campaign, not
necessarily the Janlokpal Bill.
Kejriwal himself admits in the interview:
When we conducted referendums on the JLB, we used to try and
explain its contents to people. But they said they did not want to understand
the details. They just wanted to put a mohar [stamp] on Anna.
Kejriwal and his gang of activists are using Anna Hazare to promote their
version of the bill which is not very different from the bill proposed by the
Government, except that these activists want sweeping powers to one single body
without any accountability. If people were
to read various versions of the bill, they would get confused because they all
look very similar, except that the devil is in the details. Looking at the bill proposed by the
government, it seems as though Government of India is as keen as these
activists to root out the corruption; so why all this hullabaloo and tamasha, one may ask?
