By Rigya Singh:
Few weeks earlier the headlines had been monopolized by Anna Hazare and the anti-corruption movement. When the government finally decided to give in and be reasonable, we all thought we will have a corruption free nation and this was the end of it. The word ‘corruption’ has been rooted out and won’t ever be mentioned again. Boy, were we wrong!
The ten member committee that had been selected by Anna Hazare himself, to draft the stringent anti-corruption or the Lokpal Bill, allegedly has two black sheep by the name of Shanti Bhushan and Prashant Bhushan providing their valuable input to free our country of fraudulent leaders. It is paradoxical that people against corruption are being accused of shoddy dealings. Now the question that is troubling everyone is whether they are innocent baits of a well-structured ploy on the part of the government (more specifically the Congress party) to debase this noble cause or shrewd members of a committee that questions their past dealings?
With a population of 1.2 billion, we cannot come to a unanimous stand. But first we have to become acquainted with the allegations that are being pressed against them. On Friday evening, several media outlets received a CD that claimed to be about a conversation between Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, politician Amar Singh and Shanti Bhushan. The latter supposedly promised to ‘fix a judge’ for 4 crores with the help of his son, Prashant. Next blow came in the form of land allotment controversy. Bhushan and his son Jayant were allotted two plots by the Mayawati government for one-fourth of the actual market price according to some estimates. Earlier Jayant Bhushan had taken on Mayawati in a court case for construction of memorial park in an ecologically sensitive area. For some it is a clear cut case of bribe by the UP government.
But don’t we all know that governments are corrupt. Wasn’t that the agenda of the Anna Hazare campaign? We formed a committee that aims at destruction of all corruption. Whether the committee members are corrupt is not the concern. Loopholes will appear that will serve as pathways for shady individuals to escape to and these loopholes will be the work of these very corrupt individuals. When trust is placed in someone’s hands, you have to be very careful not to break it. If the allegations are proven right, the society will feel betrayed by the Bhushans.
Now the Bhushans do assert that the CD is a compilation of various conversation put together to form a dishonest and defamatory account but the forensics disagree. It is science versus proclamations by Anna Hazare’s supporter, fact versus could be fabrication. Who will you support?
With the cry for their resignation from the committee, they will surely defend themselves and that is a basic human instinct- protect yourself whatever the outcome may be. So, we cannot hold the Bhushans liable for blaming the government. But we live in a world filled with intelligent beings and we tend not to believe everything that has been told to us. Whether these accusations have been contrived or are products of a sour reality, we can be sure of one thing that all rumours have basis in facts.
Should the Bhushan’s resign from the drafting committee?
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The writer is a Trainee Editor with Youth Ki Awaaz and a student of English at the University of Delhi.