If you are an anti-corruption crusader and enthusiast, I feel for you, your sadness. Anti-corruption saga that has enveloped India is now, IMHO, in a very peculiar strait. It is as if it is digging itself into the ground. More it crusades, more it becomes stuck.
At the very core, it’s the dilemma of trust. Imagine one of those Hollywood movies where bunch of people are stranded and one by one people begin to disappear and suspicion moves from one person to another. So in the end everybody is a suspect, and distrustful; and almost always the evil goes scot free. Anti-corruption movement, more like a rag-tag bunch of people, few with genuine interest and sacrifices to justify claim its leadership and a lot more with social media endorsed adrenaline rush, are like those stranded people who have no clue as to who is a genuine crusader and who is a traitor.
In effect, what happens is lots of little battles are fought - cold wars, mainly- along with a larger do-or-die war against corruption. There are probably thousands of groups or individually driven attacks on the corrupt entrenched fort. These are very initial stages of the revolution but that these stages, they mainly fail.
These little skirmishes are NOT going to yield any results but it is essential for evolution and nurturing of the movement to the subsequent stages where larger consolidation of activists takes place.
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The biggest problem is unless these energies of anti-corruption activists are organized, concentrated and focused, the larger enemy will go scot free. Crusaders have to learn to trust each other, even though some of their decisions would turn painful at later stages. Believing that movement would have grown in strength by that time, it would be a much better option.
This is not going to happen unless they have a unified vision, process and a leader whom every section of the forces can trust. A Leader, who can lead, while managing the ship full of rag-tag mutineers. Do you see such a leader around?
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Every major change in history has come about by these free radicals. Be it the communism, the fight against Mughals, guerilla warfare, anti-feudalism, Protestantism, naxalism, the freedom struggle etc. As a matter of fact, any attack against a major entrenched enemy starts out as series of skirmishes by these ‘radical’ groups. There are so many examples from the art to corporate to warfare to politics where the first ideas were adopted by radicals who later gained popular strong holds.
The reason I would like to mention this is because every time such a new 'system' or a change has been put in place, the new system / rule / party has gained all-powerful authority right onto the verge of corrupting itself. (You will find numerous examples in history and in present day Africa.) The party if it were to grab such a prominence has to be something that stands up for everybody - all sections of society. But at some point to time even that party will fall into ignominy.
[The Congress party in India itself was a fist formal amalgamation of the moderate thinkers and early freedom fighters. This was made to organize a substantial ‘dialogue’ with the ruling government. This later on added more people and thought makers from left and right, and in course of time became almost the central source of fight / negotiation with / against British rule.
The Congress, however, has remained a very prominent party even after six decades of accomplishment of its stated goals only due to the above stated phenomenon. Unfortunately, like everything else, Congress has misused its powers.]
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Unfortunately, the lack of unity of the fighting forces, allows ruling elite to sow the seeds of distrust among the fighting forces and the loyalty to the causes.
Look no further than the British rule, where the British put across the Prisoners' Dilemma to most the petty kingdoms, zamindars and feudal lords and annexed the kingdom in the guise of protecting them against their supposedly evil-minded neighbors.
You will see a lot of ‘in-fighting’ happening among these anti-corruption forces mainly because it benefits the ruling elite to sow such distrust and allegations. As long as the elite are successfully creating such discord, they are safe and corruption movement effectively dysfunctional.
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Therefore, one thing is pretty much certain, unless the anti-corruption activists drop their stance of having multiple fronts, attacks and parties / means; the ruling elite have nothing to fear. It’s just like British do not have anything to fear from a gang of few (hot blood) gentlemen with a pistol or two.
The urgent solution required is also very simple: Anti-Corruption activists need a new "Congress" - a place where they can all come under a common manifesto with an explicit vision to eradicate corruption and bring about a free society in a democratic manner, and preserving the democratic nature of the party and its functioning.
If they can do it, they have won. Else, it’s a long time to go.
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