Mumbai: Noting that the anti-corruption
agitation by Team Anna is a "corporate-sponsored media
campaign", writer Arundhati Roy on Friday said that the law
(Lokpal) they are advocating is "un-Gandhian".
Roy also criticised Team Anna for keeping mum on
corporate power and cross-ownership of business.
"Their anti-corruption agitation was a corporate-
sponsored media campaign and hence Team Anna chose to remain
silent," she said, adding that even though the movement was
said to follow Gandhian principles, the law they advocate is
highly "un-Gandhian".
"They want a centralised, draconian agency with powers to
prosecute, investigate and punish," she said, while delivering
the 4th Anuradha Ghandy memorial lecture.
"This movement did not say a word about privatisation,
corporate power and economic reforms. It did not demand end to
cross-ownership of businesses or laws that could dismantle
concentration of wealth and power," she said, adding that
there was only public mauling of politicians.
Roy said that Hazare`s definition of corruption came
from an accountant`s imagination.
She also said that the media, "which is hostile to
people`s movement, became travel agents for Anna Hazare."
According to her, the movement capitalised on genuine
rage against corporate scams and fury of ordinary Indians.
"A round-the-clock corporate sponsored media campaign
proclaimed it to be the voice of the people," she said.
PTI
