Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
Notice (8): Undefined variable: urlPrefix [APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8]latest-news-updates/anna-wont-get-off-govts-back-by-sankarshan-thakur-9550.html"/> LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Anna won’t get off govt’s back by Sankarshan Thakur | Im4change.org
Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Anna won’t get off govt’s back by Sankarshan Thakur

Rattled by swelling political and public anger at the preventive arrest of activist Anna Hazare, the UPA government backtracked late this evening and announced his release to a street sensed of victory against a shaken ruling establishment.

But signs that the panicked U-turn will bring the beleaguered government little relief were immediately visible as Hazare refused to leave Tihar Jail, demanding that he be guaranteed permission to fast at central Delhi’s Jai Prakash Narayan Park.

Delhi police exhorted Hazare to walk free, but he began an impromptu and dogged dharna in the offices of the director-general (prisons), Neeraj Kumar, within the jail premises.

Emerging briefly from the prison gates, Manish Sisodia, a Hazare associate, announced to a restive gathering that the lead activist was “unwilling to leave unless the authorities can give an unconditional undertaking that the fast will be allowed” at JP Park.

The government — now faced with a belligerent Opposition and an emboldened anti-corruption upsurge — seems to be groping for options. It blinked today and appears to have exposed a softened underbelly.

The stick has not worked, and it has no carrots in evidence to offer. Should it extend the carrot, there is a likelihood its arm may be bitten off because the activists are demanding far in excess of what the government is willing to concede.

Worse, it is struggling to reason and plead the constitutionality of Parliament’s primacy on law-making. But that, as one Congress leader admitted, was part of the crisis the UPA is saddled with. “It is a ridiculous situation that a group of activists wants to dictate to Parliament,” he said. “But it is equally true that we are finding it difficult to impress constitutional proprieties on the current mood.”

The decision to let Hazare and seven others off from temporary internment was a calculated corrective after his arrest dramatically swung the discourse from corruption and the Lokpal legislation to more fundamental issues of democratic rights, uniting the Opposition against the government and igniting flamed clots of protest in several cities, including Delhi.

They didn’t swarm to court arrest, as Hazare’s team had appealed, but as the day wore, chanting crowds gathered, especially at the gates of Tihar.

The scales against detaining Hazare any further tipped at an evening meeting at Prime Minster Manmohan Singh’s residence which had originally been called to discuss the Uttar Pradesh polls.

Sources told The Telegraph that as intimations of widening protests poured in, the Prime Minister held an informal core group meeting with some senior cabinet colleagues and Congress leaders, including general secretary Rahul Gandhi, who has been named by an ailing Sonia Gandhi as part of a team to oversee party affairs in her absence.

Rahul, sources said, was among those who argued against fuelling confrontation with civil society.

The overwhelming sense in the government and the party by early evening was that it would be “political counterproductive and damaging” to keep Hazare in jail, especially as the Opposition had begun to scream “Emergency!”

Ideological divides were forsaken for the moment and the BJP, the Left and groups like the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal slammed the government for “usurping the fundamental rights to freedom and protest”.

That the decision to abort the protest was unpopular even among those who do not see eye-to-eye with Hazare’s Jan Lokpal campaign had become increasingly apparent.

Civil society leaders who work closely with the UPA, too, objected vociferously. “It is the democratic right of every person to protest peacefully.… How can Delhi be the capital of the largest democracy in the world and yet not allow the people of India to exercise their basic democratic rights?” activists Aruna Roy and Harsh Mander, both members of the UPA’s National Advisory Council, said in a statement signed by several others.

An emerging sub-plot the to theatrics around Hazare is the emergence of Rahul as an intrinsic part of top-level decision making in the party and government. Rahul, who arrived here on the eve of Independence Day already tasked by his mother to perform a central role in Congress affairs, has had to land running for this is by far the UPA’s most critical test.

This was a changed role-player from the well-intentioned lobbyist Rahul, who has pleaded the case of interest groups such as farmers and tribals with government thus far.

As the crisis escalated on the streets this afternoon, Rahul went into a huddle with senior-most cabinet minister Pranab Mukherjee and home minister P. Chidambaram in Parliament to discuss what needed to be done.

Later in the evening, Rahul was part of close-knit meeting at the Prime Minister’s residence, shortly after which word was sent out to release Hazare.

Although the release was couched in the technicality of Delhi police withdrawing charges and the requirement of a personal bond from Hazare, the activist’s discharge from detention — as his arrest — was a political decision driven by spiralling, and hostile, protests.

A senior Congressman tried to put a convenient picture on the release saying the government “never intended to keep him for seven days, that is something the courts did”, but the explanation rang suspiciously of post-facto course alteration.

Through the day, the government and the Congress changed course and tenor, strongly justifying the arrest to begin with and raising doubts about the movement itself.

HRD minister Kapil Sibal said the campaign was “orchestrated” to bring down the government. “Crore of rupees have been spent on SMS. T-shirts have been distributed… regional channels are running a 15-minute capsule of Hazare. You should know that someone else is funding the entire campaign,” Sibal said.

Chidambaram raised issues of political and constitutional propriety. “I want to ask the people of India should laws be made by Parliament or by a group of activists in a maidan (ground)? If a few activists, however well-meaning and enlightened, decide this should be the law and nothing else will be accepted, I want to know if this is the way forward.”