Hazare once served in the military and lives off his military pension. He has no family and stays in one room attached to a temple in the village of Ralegan Siddhi, which Hazare has transformed over the 30 years from poverty-stricken helplessness into a showplace of Indian modernity.
In doing so, Hazare has gained a somewhat authoritarian reputation. By virtue of his small military pension he was one of the wealthiest men in Ralegan Siddhi and over time he has been able to enforce his will on the community. He has banned smoking and drinking and has been known to flog citizens publicly for drunkenness.
No elections have been held in Ralegan Siddhi for at least 20 years, apparently on the instructions of Hazare. He has reportedly demanded that lower-caste families go on an all-vegetarian diet and has apparently flogged some who refused. His anti-corruption revolution, nonetheless, has resulted in great strides for Ralegan Siddhi as a model civic showplace. Poverty has been markedly reduced. Clean water and numerous other community advances have been lauded by the World Bank among other UN agencies.
The conclusion being reached by the UN and Western media alike seems to be that, generally speaking, the movement is a very good thing for India. If India, the logic seems to go, can reach a level of honesty and transparency of Western societies, then what has traditionally been seen as a third world country, can transform itself into a first-world estate similar to Europe, Britain or America.
Hazare, who dresses only in white, has styled himself as a modern Mahatma Ghandi, and this has no doubt helped his appeal at home and abroad. He has used hunger strikes like Ghandi and and marches against the government. A hunger strike last month in Delhi resulted in the government agreeing to consider a platform of Hazare reforms, which the Wall Street Journal calls a significant achievement as politicians of all parties have "stonewalled the creation of an anticorruption agency for 40 years."
Hazare's support, which seems to have deep resonance with the Indian middle class, is important, too. The Journal estimates that "the middle class is almost a third of India's population today, up from 8% in 1980. Since reforms in 1991, India has become the world's second-fastest-growing economy and the middle class is expected to become 50% by 2022." Here's some more from the Journal article:
"There are still vast areas of horrible deprivation, but a significant number of Indians have experienced a palpable betterment in their lives. As a result, the discourse of the nation, or what Alexis de Tocqueville called "habits of the mind," are changing. People have begun to believe that their future is open, not predetermined, and can be altered by their own actions.
"The same thing happened in the West after 1800. In her book "Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World," Deirdre McCloskey argues that the West rose not only because of economic factors but because the discourse about markets and innovation changed. People became encouraging of entrepreneurs. New perceptions and expectations emerged.
In the same way, the rise of India and China has brought dignity to their middle classes. Ordinary conversations over chai in India are now about markets and focus on the contrast between private success and public failure. While the private sector provides cutting-edge services and products to the world, the roads outside are potholed, electricity is patchy and water supply erratic. The difference between the two worlds is accountability: In private life, if you don't work, you don't eat; in public life, jobs are effectively for life."
The Journal has some cautions. Hazare's movement may contribute "to undermining India's finely crafted constitutional system, which has made its democracy the envy of the developing world." Hazare's hunger strikes have caused change, but legislation can only be realized by working within the system.
"India's churning reflects a deep middle-class anger with pervasive graft in the government, police and judiciary. Bourgeois dignity may well hold the key to this Indian puzzle, but it needs to find expression within the bounds of the country's constitutional system. Street theater seldom makes for lasting reform—and sometimes brings down the good with bad."
This is the conclusion to the article, and while it sounds reasonable, it seems to us that the assumptions on which the article is built are not necessarily accurate. For one thing, the article glosses over the fairly Draconian authoritarianism of the anti-corruption movement.
For another, the article assumes that the current Indian vitality is the result of inexorable cultural and entrepreneurial shift. We would argue this is entirely incorrect. India's resurgence is driven by central banking money printing and may not be seen as a natural expression of industry and society.
It is extremely important that the progress of the BRICS be placed in perspective. Brazil, China, India, even Russia, all have aggressive central banking policies. China and India, especially, have economies that are obviously being stimulated by excessive money printing. Both countries have a problem with price inflation as a result.
Progress built on printing money from nothing is ephemeral. In America and Europe, thanks to the debasement of money and the vast resources it grants (temporarily) to government, economies can seem quite healthy one moment and then ill the next.
Money printing hollows out economies. It distorts business and job growth. It makes people feel wealthier than they are in reality. In both China and India, economic implosions will eventually take place. It cannot be otherwise, because central bank money stimulation inevitably leads to an exaggerated business cycle and subsequent busts.
The Daily Bell, Staff Report
"India's churning reflects a deep middle-class anger with pervasive graft in the government, police and judiciary. Bourgeois dignity may well hold the key to this Indian puzzle, but it needs to find expression within the bounds of the country's constitutional system. Street theater seldom makes for lasting reform—and sometimes brings down the good with bad."
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