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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Anna and a govt at sea by Arati R Jerath

Anna and a govt at sea by Arati R Jerath

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published Published on Aug 23, 2011   modified Modified on Aug 23, 2011

Gandhi, JP, VP. . . Anna is being compared to many stalwarts. But is this gummy old man tilting at windmills or is he a genuine harbinger of change?

When Arvind Kejriwal and his partners in 'India Against Corruption' brought Anna Hazare to Delhi as the face of their movement for a Jan Lokpal bill, they little imagined that this gummy old man from tiny Ralegaon Siddhi in Maharashtra would capture the imagination of middle India so comprehensively. Or that he would have the Manmohan Singh government gasping for air in just four months.

Indeed, Anna is no longer a mere headache that can be ignored. Three nights in Delhi's Tihar Jail have catapulted him to pole position in a race with unexpectedly high stakes. In a country steeped in the tradition of Gandhian satyagraha, a stint in jail for a just cause is a passport to instant heroism. Anna has metamorphosed from a provincial activist into a national figure who threatens to present UPA 2, and the Congress party, with its most serious challenge to date.

There is belated recognition within ruling circles that it was a monumental blunder to arrest Anna and put him in prison. The move not only gave him a special aura, missing till then, it also changed the direction of the discourse, taking it down a path that is infinitely more dangerous, both for the government and the Congress. Suddenly, the issue was no longer the Lokpal bill. It was much more: democracy, the right to peaceful protest, governance and leadership. With illconceived arrogance, the government had created a platform for the urban middle classes and the entire opposition, from Left to Right, to unite behind Anna. The array is formidable and the mood definitely confrontational. More significantly, it hints at a revival of anti-Congress politics that seemed to have disappeared with the formation of the UPA in 2004.

As the government flounders for a strategy to defuse the Anna bomb, comparisons from history are inevitable. Certainly, there are elements of similarity with two stalwarts from earlier eras who also brought the government of the day to its knees. Ironically, both were Congress governments. The chatter on television, the political buzz and the blogosphere are full of references to Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) and even V P Singh. They took urban India by storm with their anticorruption crusades, one in the 1970s, the other in the 1980s. That they also succeeded in dislodging the governments in power at that time (Indira Gandhi's and Rajiv Gandhi's ) is something the Congress would do well to remember.

BJP leader Arun Jaitley, who joined JP's movement as an activist of his party's student wing, ABVP, believes Anna is as big a phenomenon as JP was, if not bigger. "He has an honest image and is credible. Like JP, he has the youth with him but where he scores over JP is that he has inspired the non-political class of India. People are fed up with politicians. Because Anna is nonpartisan, he has managed to mobilise people who otherwise never came out on the streets. This gives his movement additional strength as compared to the one JP led, " said Jaitley.

Lok Sabha MP Pinaki Mishra of the BJD, on the other hand, sees shades of V P Singh in Anna. "He is the new V P Singh and his cabal of five is the new Jan Morcha. They are keeping aloof from politics for the moment, but they will have to join politics ultimately. That is the logical conclusion of their movement. And the entire opposition, including the BJP, will have to support them, like it did VP, " Mishra maintains.

It must be evident to the government by now that Anna cannot be neutralised with the same ease as the other anti-corruption warrior, Baba Ramdev, who was sent scurrying from Delhi after a midnight raid on his protest rally. The yoga expert was completely out of his depth when the police descended and tried to flee dressed in women's clothing. The ultimate humiliation came when he was caught and exposed. "If he had courted arrest instead, like politicians do, the story may have been different, " says political columnist Swapan Dasgupta.

Anna is an old warhorse, a veteran of many fasts, a crusader with several success stories to his credit. He has used the fasting technique perfected by Mahatma Gandhi to force the resignation of two corrupt NCP ministers in Maharashtra in 2003, the adoption of a stronger Right to Information Act by the state government in 2006 and the scrapping of the state's grain-based liquor policy in 2007. A sit-in combined with an indefinite hunger strike is his natural habitat. The government went horribly wrong, not only in its assessment of his character but also in its calculation of the support he would get on the urban street, on television and among opposition parties.

Anna's campaign is now poised at a critical juncture. So far, he has kept politics out of it by shunning any association with mainstream political parties. He and his team have relied on television and social networking sites to mobilise non-partisan support and called prominent civil society activists like Medha Patkar and Swami Agnivesh to share their platform.

But after the face-off over his arrest, it is proving difficult to maintain the same degree of sanitisation. The crowds flocking to his protest venues include activists and supporters of the RSS and its affilitates. And opposition parties are raring to jump on his bandwagon to attack the government.

As the support for Anna widens, his team must have realised that it will be difficult to sustain a movement run purely on popular mood. Both JP and VP had to turn to established political parties to maintain the momentum of their campaigns. Much depends on the skill with which Anna handles these pressures and the forces that have united under his banner. His opponents in Maharashtra describe him as an obstinate loner with an authoritarian streak. The government, which has so far blundered at every step, seems to have no strategy other than a vague hope that ego clashes will prove to be Team Anna's undoing.

Times Crest, 20 August, 2011, http://www.timescrest.com/coverstory/anna-and-a-govt-at-sea-6071


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