How to identify & expose Psuedo Recallists?

The “psuedo recallist” is a term we have invented to designate leaders whose goal is to take naive recallists activists to a dead end and thus sabotage and kill RTR movement. In Aug-2011, the biggest psuedo recallists are The Anna, The Team and Nitish. The psuedo recallists will openly project themselves as torch bearer of right to recall movement, and the paid media will also call the as Great Leaders for RTR movement. But a close look at their actions will show that they only intend to misguide the activists.

 

Following are some key characteristics of psuedo-recallists, & a way to counter a psuedo-recallist:

1. A psuedo-recallist will discourage activists from reading drafts, forget writing drafts: Lawdraft writing is not the job of the lawyers, not of the judges, not of the MPs, but of us citizens!! Yes, you and me, the commons have to give the drafts to the MPs, who then pass the drafts. The psuedo-recallists discourage draft reading by engaging the activists in activities like running schools, shouting slogans, campaigning for elections, character building, rallying, demonstrations etc. They will never ask the activists to read the drafts , forget discussing them. Thus activists will never get information about importance of Right to Recall.

 

How can a true recallists counter this trick: In front of activists, ask the leaders to give the drafts of the law-draft he supports to reduce poverty, improve Military etc. If he refuses, then tell his activist followers about importance of the Gazette Notification draft, and explain how leader is wasting their time and nation’s time by insisting on a draftless movement. Please keep a sample xerox copy of any Gazette Notification with you. And then compare draft-less leader as someone who gives cheque but refuses to sign that cheque !! For more, pls see chap-16 on importance of drafts and more steps to counter draft-less leaders.

 

2. A psuedo-recallist will say “I support Right to Recall” but never tell RTR over which positions : If one does not specify the vehicle details, and says “I want wheel”, he is making empty statement. Wheel of what? Airplane, car, cycle or toy car? Likewise, words “Right to Recall” are always attached with position eg Right to Recall MP, Right to recall MLA, Right to Recall PM, Right to Recall judges etc. Saying that “I support Right to Recall” and then refusing to enumerate positions is a sign that the person is psuedo-recallists.

 

How can a true recallist counter this trick: Pls ask him if he supports\opposes Right to Recall Lokpal, RTR-PM, RTR Supreme Court judges etc. The psuedo-recallists will repeatedly refuse to cite the positions, and you repeatedly ask him to specify if he supports Right to Recall Lokpal, RTR PM etc. This way you can convince his activists that the leader is a time-waster.

 

3. A psuedo-recallist will insist that RTR should be supported but ‘later’ : (later = next life) : If a person insists on postponing Right to Recall MP, RTR-PM etc laws to later (later = next life time), he us a psuedo-recallists and wants to waste away time of Recallists and kill RTR movement. The “laterist” will cook several excuses --- (a) Now government will not pass it (b) Everything cannot come at same time. (c) If we raise RTR now, our unity will break (d) We will first get some XYZ law-draft (like Lokpal Bill) passed and till this XYZ law-draft passes we should stop activists from working on RTR and only after XYZ law-draft passes we should focus on RTR. (e) we should choose good MPs, and bring them to power. All these are useless arguments.

 

How can a true recallist counter this trick: Please ask the “later-sayers” in front of activists if they promise to promote RTR-Lokpal, RTR-PM etc draft in next lifetime and also tell them that they have been promising since past 7 lifetimes that they would work on RTR in next lifetime. Essentially, publicly insult everyone who talks about RTR “later” by throwing sarcasm that he will promote RTR is next lifetime.

 

4. Psuedo Recallists will never refute claims of anti-recallists that RTR procedures are "impractical" or "unconstitutional" : A psuedo recallists will make tall claims for Right to Recall. And then when anti-recallists make counter-claims that RTR is impractical, these psuedo-recallists will never refute their claims, and thus they will create an image that RTR is indeed impractical. The best example of 1951-1977 was Jayprakash Narayan. The paid-media appointed him as the torch bearer of Right to Recall movement. To give lip service, JPN would always support Right to Recall 3 times a month. During debates, JPN will give draftless and abstract speech on RTR. Next, the anti-recallists such as Morarji Desai will make claims that “RTR will increase instability, will be too expensive etc”. And guess what --- JPN will never ever refute these claim. So to a large chunk of audience, RTR will appear as money-wasting and bad proposal. As of today (Nov-2011), The Anna is the biggest psuedo-recallists skillfully letting anti-recallists win the debate. Eg. The Anna claimed he supports RTR in apr-8-2011 and again on 28-aug-2011. Next, many anti-recallists such as CEC, LKA etc said that “RTR will instability”. And The Anna deliberately did not refute the claim, which created an impression in many people that RTR is indeed too expensive and can cause instability.

 

How can a true recallist counter this trick: Explain to audience that the some of proposed RTR drafts, such as the drafts I have proposed, are practical, and hence the leader who is not refuting these claims is damaging RTR, and hence he is a psuedo-recallist.

 

5. Psuedo Recallists will put weak Right to Reject to diffuse Right to Recall Movement : When Rajiv Dixit used words Right to Reject , what he said was “a law-draft by which citizens can reject anyone from Supreme Court judge, PM to MLA, Sarpanch any day, not just once in 5 years”. The psuedo-recallists have hijacked the words “Right to Reject” and given it a new and useless weak meaning  : power to reject only MP\MLA candidates, that too only once in 5 years !!  IOW, the initially, Right to Reject had same meaning as Right to Recall, and now a new weak meaning has been given and this weak Right to Reject is being posed as something more important that Right to Recall and used to diffuse focus on Right to Recall.

 

How can a true recallist counter this trick: Explain audience about the fact that “None of the Above” button will cause no change whether 1% people will use it and will cause no change even if 100% people use it”. And also explain audience why “Right to Reject PM”, “Right to Reject MP”, “Right to Reject judges” anytime, not just once in 5 years is better option. And also explain that that Right to Reject is only used to kill and diffuse Right to Recall movement.

 

6. Psuedo Recallists will use Lokpal, Right to Reject etc proposals to kill Right to Recall Movement : A new breed of psuedo-recallists have popped up since Dec-2010 and have become very strong due to MNC paid TV-channels. They insist that RTR should be brought in future and must be opposed till Lokpal bill passes !! IOW, it is just another time wasting technique.

 

How can a true recallist counter this trick: Counter these Lokpal-vaadies with Right to Recall Lokpal clauses given in chap-50. Pls explain audience that you are NOT changing topic, but you are still talking about Lokpal only and that Right to Recall Lokpal is related to Lokpal. When these Lokpal-vaadies oppose RTR-Lokpal, they will get exposed.’

 

7. Psuedo Recallists will demand signature based RTR procedure and oppose appearance based RTR procedure : There are two broad categories of recall procedures – signature based and appearance based. The signature based procedures is incomplete, fraud prone and extremely expensive for Govt (costs will run into Rs 50 per voter), while appearance based procedures have negligible possibility of fraud  and cost is low (Rs 3  for voter which decreases to 5 paise later, zero for Govt). Despite this, the psuedo-recallists will demand signature based procedure and thus give opportunity to anti-recallists that Right to Recall procedure is unviable.

 

How can a true recallist counter this trick: Explain appearance based procedure to activists and cite that leader is deliberately refusing to support appearance based procedure and deliberately asking for signature based procedure so that RTR gets a bad name.

 

8. Psuedo Recallists will sell butter milk as milk: i.e. Psuedo-recallist will give uses procedure and then call it Right to Recall. eg when someone asked The Anna “do citizens have Right to recall Lokpal if Lokpal becomes corrupt?” . The Anna said “yes, the citizen can complain before Supreme Court judges and they will expel corrupt Lokpal !!”  This is selling butter-milk as milk. How? Right to Recall means procedure by which citizens can expel an official by proving majority but don’t need to convince any authority which too can be nexused. IOW, procedure to expel via judges may be good or bad, but it is NOT Right to Recall, and only a psuedo-recallist will call it Right to Recall.

 

How can a true recallist counter this trick:  Explain to citizens that Right to Recall means expulsion by majority without having to approach or convince anyone, and that procedures like expulsion by judges or impeachment (expulsion by MPs) or non-confidence motion against PM\CM (expulsion by MPs\MLAs etc) are all prone to corruption, nexuses and nepotism.’

 

9. Psuedo Recallists will never give cost estimate of RTR , so that anti-recall persons can easily push claim that RTR is too expensive :  The costs in RTR-PM procedures I have proposed on Govt is zero, and citizen pays Rs 3 per recall filing per citizen and so if 75 crore citizens exercise RTR-PM procedure, cost to replace PM will be Rs 210 crore. And cost per citizen decreases to a few paise per citizen when system becomes accessible via ATM and SMS. IOW, I have given cost estimates. So now if during a discussion or debate, if an anti-recall person says “RTR is too expensive”, audience will disagree. But a psuedo-recallists will deliberately not give a cost estimate and thus keep audience guessing, and enable anti-recall people to comfortably make claims that “RTR is too expensive”.

 

How can a true recallist counter this trick :  A true recallist should explain RTR DEO, RTR PM etc procedures and then explain that costs estimates are below Rs 3 per voter per recall vote (i.e. approval filing) and decreases to few paise when system comes on ATM and SMS. And also cite the fact that when recall procedures come, need to recall decreases and so procedure hardly needs to be invoked.

 

10. Psuedo Recallists will insist on negative recall and oppose positive recall procedures: The anti-recall people cite a valid argument that Right to Recall may increase instability due to vacuum recall can create. This true for negative recall method, but not true for positive recall methods. (Let me explain. There are two types of recall procedures --- negative recall where a voter can demand expulsion only and positive recall where in a voter can register positive support for alternative, and replacement happens when alternative crosses a threshold. The positive recall procedure answers “who is alternative” before person is removed, while negative recall only removes person and cites no alternative. In positive recall, there is never a vacuum. The positive recall procedures do not cause instability as next person comes only if and when majority has agreed in transparent way that replacement is more preferred.) A psuedo-recallists will almost always demand negative recall procedures and oppose positive recall procedures because negative recall creates a fear of unknown and instability and thus anti-recall person can defeat the proposal with ease.

                   How can a true recallist counter this trick:  A true recallists should explain to audience the difference between positive recall and negative recall methods, using Right to Recall District Education Officer or Right to Recall Lokpal or Right to Recall MP procedures as examples. And true recallist should make it clear that he is supporting positive recall and not negative recall, and so (valid) objection raised by anti-recall person is not applicable.

 

11. Psuedo Recallists insist only elected persons should be subject to Right to Recall and unelected persons like Janlokpal must NOT be subject to RTR : In order to ensure that Higher Officials like Supreme Court judges and Janlokpals can serve MNCs and corporates, the psuedo-recallists will

 

                 How can a true recallist counter this trick:  There is no clause in Constitution which says that citizens can expel only elected person. Also, all RTR-drafts I have proposed, including Right to Recall Supreme Court Chief judge and Right to Recall Janlokpal is 100% Constitutional.

 

                  All in all, we Recallists have to study the tricks of psuedo-recallists carefully. As the movement grows, many anti-recallists will pose as psuedo-recallists, capture Right to Recall movement and make RTR look like infeasible and stupid proposal and thus ensure that RTR laws never come. This has happened numerous times in past. The Right to Recall demand was first put by Sachindranath Sanyal, the Guru of Bhagat Singh, in 1925 in manifesto of Hindustan Socialist Republic Association. And since then, from time to time, anti-recallists with co-operation of psuedo-recallists, have created a perception that Right to Recall is unviable and thus sabotaged RTR movement. Can you guess the biggest psuedo-recallists in India from 1950 to 1970s? And who is biggest psuedo-recallists as in oct-2011?

 

 

About Us

TCP