During the past fortnight, reams of newsprint have been expended in detailing every aspect of Anna Hazare’s people-power revolution. This has been a laudable, if somewhat excessive, endeavour. However, what has not been adequately highlighted is the object lesson that Anna’s movement has provided for political parties who profess to be the voice of the people, or at least a particular community. What has set Anna’s methods apart is that he has consistently exhorted his followers not to resort to any form of violence, even in the face of grave provocation. For example, he urged his followers to remain calm even if he was forcibly removed from Ramlila Maidan on the pretext of concern for his health. And the people responded with great enthusiasm. Contrast this with the monotonously familiar tactics employed by outfits like the Shiv Sena and the MNS who take up a jingoistic “cause” – without invitation and ostensibly on behalf of the “people” – and issue veiled threats of retaliating in “typical Sena/MNS style” if their demands are not met. Hopefully Anna’s spectacular success will cause them to reflect on the error of their ways – but I’m not holding my breath.
So what does one make of the whole Anna Hazare-Lokpal-Congress brouhaha? On the face of it, the Congress party comes off as a collection of bungling morons stumbling from one avoidable catastrophe to another. The sequence of events is now the stuff of legend: Manish Tiwari’s foot-in-mouth aggression against Anna; Anna’s ill-thought arrest and quick release; the list goes on. It was almost as if the Congress was tired of governing and was inviting the BJP to please relieve them of the burden – a death wish, as it were. But power is a heady drug, isn’t it? No one gives it up willingly, least of all politicians. So what is going on?
It could be that the Congress was guilty of the twin failings of arrogance and disdain. When they fielded articulate and intelligent luminaries like Kapil Sibal and P.Chidambaram against a man they perhaps regarded as a glorified country bumpkin, they may have believed it would be a walkover. But the bumpkin proved to be too smart for the geniuses. He was too savvy to engage them in a debate he was aware he could not win. Instead he simply ignored them and went over their heads directly to the masses. Ordinarily, he would have received a lukewarm response, but he very cleverly latched on to the one issue that had long impacted the maximum number of people and, besides, had been featured by the media, ad-nauseum, for months on end: corruption. It helped that the chief perpetrators of this malady were politicians; a tribe most Indians love to hate. The icing on the cake was that even some high profile entrepreneurs and their underlings were also found guilty; and the common man has always been envious and somewhat resentful of the obscene wealth amassed by these perceived parasites.
Suddenly Anna had an “army” of raucous, flag waving zealots who gloried in their two minutes of fame on television channels and thereby attracted even more recruits. It was as if Cairo’s Tahrir Square had been transplanted in New Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan. The hapless Congress leaders could only watch and gape. They were bemused and eventually overwhelmed. Worse, the Supreme Leader was out of the country due to illness and not available to hold their hand. And of course, the BJP sensed a golden opportunity to kick their hated rivals when they were down – and took it gleefully. Above all, the prospect of Anna dying due to his fast – and the Congress being blamed for it – was too disastrous to contemplate. The Grand Old Party went into encephalitic shock and meekly gave in to conditions on the Lok Pal Bill that it had been vehemently opposing for months.
It wasn’t all serious however. Providing entertainment were the likes of Om Puri and Kiran Bedi; the former fulminating openly against politicians and articulating the opinions held by a majority of citizens; and the latter getting carried away by the moment and putting in a Filmfare Award worthy performance of mimicry and contempt. For sure, there seems to be a universal perception among the populace that our politicians are uniformly corrupt; and those who ridicule them – like Om Puri and Kiran Bedi recently – are regarded as heroes. But are those judging them as pure as the driven snow? Foe example, I found it hugely ironical that the very same taxi and auto drivers who took out a procession in support of Anna Hazare merrily fleeced passengers, as usual, on the day when bus and train services in Mumbai were thrown out of gear by recalcitrant unions – and that too while Hazare was still on fast. And just recently, we read about how the BMC “chabiwallas” who regulate the flow to our taps continue to extort the public by tactics which are nothing short of crude blackmail. Then again, a newspaper report revealed how the Department of Women and Child Welfare has been squandering funds on grossly over-priced medicines, utensils, etc., most of which never reached the angadwadi children for whom they were ostensibly meant. I can cite numerous instances where we the people – who were having a gala time sporting “Anna” caps and waving flags do not hesitate for a moment to grease palms to “get their work done”. Before we start complaining sanctimoniously – and hypocritically – it would be appropriate to turn the focus on ourselves. Who are the hypocrites here?
Now that Anna’s fast is over, his team is trying to keep the momentum going, although I fear it appears to be more symbolic than effective. Volunteers from the NGO “India Against Corruption (IAC)” are proposing to go round the city asking civic and government officials to sign a declaration stating that they will neither receive bribes or indulge in any form of corruption. Although well meaning, these IAC guys seem to be living in la-la land. It has been well established that our public officials belong to one of the most shameless species on the planet. Even repeated exposure by the media and entrapment by the Anti-Corruption Bureau has proved woefully ineffective in curbing their malpractices. And now, signing a piece of paper is supposed to make them honest? Give me a break. All this will accomplish is to make the bribe takers less brazen and carry out the transactions behind closed doors. Besides, why should the entire onus fall upon public servants? Don’t forget that corruption flourishes mainly because there are far more citizens prepared to pay bribes that those ready to accept them. What is going to change their mindset? Even after the public spectacles during Anna Hazare’s fast, it is pretty much back to business as usual. Instead of expending considerable effort and manpower on such fruitless endeavours, the IAC should spend their energy on trapping the wrong doers in the act and ensuring that they are not let off with a mere transfer or suspension. This is the only deterrent that has a chance of working.
So where do we go from here? At the moment, we are at a sort of crossroad. The “people” have discovered they have power, but they are not sure how to use it. Everyone agrees that the present system of governance needs to change, but they are unclear about how to achieve this. Waving flags and shouting slogans is not going to accomplish anything concrete, nor are cosmetic measures like signature campaigns. The government was badly rattled by Anna’s tour de force, but now they have time to breathe – and to strategize. The Lokpal Bill is now in Parliament; familiar territory where the government is adept at obfuscating and procrastinating. The government is hoping that, over time, the peoples’ passion will abate and wither away; and unfortunately, past experience supports this theory. It is up to us to prove them wrong.