Team Anna’s saffron slip

It is time to disentangle the various strands that go to make up the Anna Hazare phenomenon. The Maharashtrian peasant leader is riding on the crest of a wave of frustrations and aspirations driving the middle class and other sections, and his main theme of busting corruption has struck a chord with vast sections of the population. Second, there are no two views on the maladroit moves of the government and the Congress Party in coping with Mr Hazare’s second fast.

Third, the Anna team, drunk on its own success, has taken up unreasonable positions and is indulging in a new form of arrogance.
Indeed, the surprise is that the form of public diplomacy the team has adopted has left the government far behind in the information war. It has used social sites to great effect, was ready with video clips of Mr Hazare’s homilies after his arrest, a stupid act, and getting the former policewoman, Kiran Bedi, to film him on a mobile camera while he was refusing to leave the Tihar jail, later linking it to television channels. But it is a sign of the new arrogance the team has developed that Ms Bedi harked back to the slogan of the hated Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi in 1975 to amend the slogan “Indira is India and India is Indira” to “Anna is India and India is Anna”. Another sign of intolerance is the totally unrealistic deadline given to Parliament to pass their version of the Lokpal Bill.
It is clear that Mr Hazare’s Jan Lokpal (ombudsman) Bill, as opposed to the government’s Lokpal Bill initially introduced in Parliament, will be a disaster for the Indian system of parliamentary democracy if passed in its present form. It would institute a hydra-headed monster of a panel of men and women who would sail above every form of democratic governance on the assumption that they are demi-gods immune from the temptations of the flesh.
The proposals of social activist Aruna Roy make more sense in their methodology of tackling corruption, but thus far Team Anna is not listening, convinced of the irrevocable righteousness of its own panacea seemingly set in stone. There will conceivably be retreats from this impossible position in the days to come, but Mr Hazare and his team must adopt a posture of some humility in suggesting curbs on the evil of corruption that has spread to every aspect of life.
There are, of course, wider aspects of the Anna phenomenon that will leave a mark on the Indian political system. The declamation that it represents a “second independence movement” can be dismissed as populist propaganda. An attempt to link this movement to other movements concerning land acquisition and industrialisation seems a tentative testing of waters.
But the Anna phenomenon will need all its wisdom to guard against being hijacked by the BJP, its mentor the RSS and the various affiliates of the Sangh Parivar such as the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, which has already indulged in depredations in its efforts to force schools to close on a particular day.
Judging by the slogans being raised by the supporters of Mr Hazare’s movement, a pro-Hindu and an implied anti-Muslim (and anti-minorities) tinge is already becoming apparent. It is no secret that the BJP is desperately seeking to return to power at the Centre after two successive defeats, but it is a new BJP under the thumb of its mentor, the RSS, which is setting the agenda for the party and the country. The Sangh Parivar is obviously hoping that the Anna phenomenon will do for it what the incendiary Ayodhya movement did for it to catapult it into power in New Delhi.
The political undercurrents swirling around the Anna phenomenon are a handicap to the spirit of hope the movement initially brought about, gathering a motley crew of a newly empowered middle class and other frustrated and aspiring sections of the population. In a sense, the youth are asserting themselves in a political culture in which wisdom is equated with age and the so-called Young Turks are in their forties and fifties. A beginning has been made in inducting the princelings — men and women related to established leaders and political families — but it is thus far a timid beginning.
What of the future? A government in drift is not in the best position to impose its agenda and the official version of the Lokpal Bill is found wanting in several respects. What remains to be seen is how and when the Anna team will dismount from its own hobbyhorse of the Jan Lokpal Bill or nothing. The Manmohan Singh government has been forced to show greater flexibility and many formulations are in the air to resolve the crisis.
Both the Anna team and the country will pay a heavy price for a contest of wills, if taken beyond a point. In India, a disinterested soul spurning power and pelf for achieving his objectives has an abiding appeal. But an artificial propaganda barrage calling Anna Hazare “a second Gandhi” or “a second JP (Jayaprakash Narayan who led the movement that unseated the Congress Party for the first time in New Delhi)” is doing as
much harm to Mr Hazare as it does to the memory of two exceptional leaders.
Having won the first round, Mr Hazare should show maturity and humility in gathering the fruits of a new era of hope he has set in motion. In a sense, that has been the easier part. His real test lies in the future in guiding the thrust of his movement towards a new system that makes corruption subject to effective laws and an implementation mechanism to punish offenders not in a spirit of vengeance but in rendering justice to the abused, particularly those belonging to the poorer sections. Both the government and civil society must use their reserves of wisdom to take advantage of a new beginning to make the country a better place to live in.

S. Nihal Singh can be contacted at snihalsingh@gmail.com