"The Emergency reminds how the Parliament and the Supreme Court can trample citizens' freedoms when even the right to life was suspended and the Supreme Court upheld it in the habeas corpus case."
— Sudhanshu Ranjan in Deccan Herald

The audacity of Kapil Sibal in saying that the government would no longer involve the Civil Society in drafting the Jan Lokpal Bill can be matched only by the reluctance of the political parties and the parliamentarians to pass the Lokpal Bill pending for 42 years. This in spite of the fact that the whole country is submerged in the ocean of corruption.

Thank God, now there is a ray of hope for the country from being driven to a kind of people's uprising as we saw in 1975, led by Jayaprakash Narayan (JP). The Civil Society calling itself as “India against Corruption” led by Anna Hazare has set out to do what exactly JP had set out to do in 1975. Our only fear is that Anna Hazare's movement too should not lead us to another Emergency of the kind Indira Gandhi had declared, turning India into a dictatorship, snuffing our democracy.

Our present rulers, UPA led by Congress of the 1975 vintage, should remember it is at present walking on the razor's edge with so many major corruption scams compounded with maladministration. Therefore, it is all the more reason why it should not ignore or despise the efforts of the Civil Society to provide the nation with a strong and draconian Jan Lokpal Bill that would really act as a deterrent in combating corruption. After all, we know that corruption has already spread its tentacles into every single government department and rooted itself deep inside.

Let our present rulers, as also the political parties specially BJP, know that a token Lokpal Bill that the rulers and politicians are now envisaging will prove itself an apology for their intention, but it will not help check corruption from the highest to the lowest in our administration. The result will be an uprising, peaceful in the beginning as happened with June 4, 2011 fast at Jantar Mantar by Anna Hazare, but violent as the confrontation continues between the rulers and the ruled — civil society.

We must remember that there is a new political awakening all over the world since December 1991 when Soviet Russia collapsed. And recently we have before us the example of Tunisia's Jasmine revolution that dislodged its President Ben Ali and the Lotus revolution of Egypt where it’s President Hosni Mubarak was removed.

Interestingly, there is a metaphorical reason for calling the revolution, which fortunately was a peaceful uprising of the unarmed people, as Lotus revolution. Lotus is known as the flower representing resurrection, life and the sun of ancient Egypt. In Buddhist nations, lotus is the flower dearest to Lord Buddha, hence the offering of this flower to his idols. However, in India, lotus is the symbol of BJP, a political party, hence its opponents both in politics and in civil society may be allergic to the use of this name lotus for any uprising in India! Should the present intransigence between the UPA and the “India Against Corruption” with regard to Jan Lokpal Bill persist leading to an uprising [I hate calling it a revolution], what could be the name the journalists would like to give it?

Rose revolution? A flower dear to Jawaharlal Nehru who always sported it on the button - hole of his sherwani? Impossible. Anyway there was already a Rose revolution of Georgia in the year 2003. Well, the name I would suggest is “Anna Movement”, after the “JP Movement”. The word “movement” is suggestive of peace unlike “evolution” which, though a natural process, still connotes some kind of surge and the word “revolution” connotes violence, no matter you call it by the names of flowers!

It is, therefore, most unfortunate that the Union Human Resources Minister Kapil Sibal, who ironically has also become the Union Minister for Telecommunication following corruption charges against his predecessor A. Raja who is now in JAIL, exhibited an irreverent behaviour by emphatically saying that in future there would be no question of involving the Civil Society representatives in law making and the present Joint Drafting Committee for the Jan Lokpal Bill should not be considered as a precedent. Well, is Kapil Sibal going to be a life - term Minister and is the UPA going to be the permanent government for this country? What audacity?

No democracy in the world can function in its true spirit if the elected representatives think, once elected, they are the masters and can do or not do whatever they like for the period of their term in office. Let us introspect. Why is it all of a sudden people of this country developed special love for Civil Society leadership? No doubt, by electing these politicians we, Civil Society members, have traded some of our rights and freedom to these law - makers under democracy in trust. But when these law makers, though promised to make laws like Lokpal Bill and Women's Reservation Bill during the election, failed to give us these laws after the election, what should the Civil Society do? Wait till the next election only to be fooled again and again?

Well, Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest among the American Presidents, has truly said, "after all, you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."

Kapil Sibal, hear this? Sonia Gandhi, hear this? Pranab Mukherjee, this time you must at least condescend to hear this voice of Abraham Lincoln, before giving time to Sonia Gandhi to hear her inner voice, as she did in 2004, turning down the Prime Ministership.

After all, elections are held under the Constitution which provides for a "social contract," as Rousseau put it, between the ruler and the ruled. If the ruler (UPA government) broke this sacred contract, covenant, as in the case of Jan Lokpal Bill and the Women's Reservation Bill for example, the ruled could by right rebel against the ruler. This will leave just two options to the UPA — either declares election or emergency. The former is the only option going by the past 1975 experience. Time is running out for UPA, monsoon session of Parliament is almost here.