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Hazare's protest reminds 1974-75 mass agitation by CP Bhambhri

Anna Hazare's agitation in defence of his version of the Lokpal Bill seems to have revived public memories of the 1974-75 Jayaprakash Narayan-led anti-corruption mass agitation, especially among the new generation of technology-driven middle class youth in metropolitan towns of India.

But can Anna Hazare's anti-corruption crusade become a benchmark comparable with the historical mass mobilisation movements launched by Gandhi from 1920 to 1947 or the one popularly known as the JP movement of 1974-75?

A mass movement has to be distinguished from political mobilisation undertaken by every political party in a competitive democracy because, unlike parties which mobilise their voters and supporters for winning an election, people's movements are launched for cleansing the system of its fundamental ills. Gandhi prepared Indians to fight the struggle for Independence and for this mass struggle he created a united social bloc of castes, classes, religions, regions and women.

The Gandhian movement was socially broad-based and inclusive of all major group identities of the country. The JP movement, unlike Gandhi's struggles, had a limited reach, where he raised anti-corruption issues facing India.

Further, JP, unlike Gandhi, had no mass base of his own, and he led the movement on the basis of cadre provided by Lohia socialists, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Jan Sangh. Essentially, JP launched a movement on the corruption issue primarily directed against Indira Gandhi as an individual and as a leader of a corrupt party and government.

The lesson from the JP movement is that a large-scale mass movement has to be a product of preceding small-scale mobilisations as Gandhi did from the 1920s to 1947. Anna Hazare's movement has some salient features that are a replication of the JP movement, but it has nothing in common with Gandhian movements.

Hazare's movement has spread in towns and cities, especially after his arrest by Delhi Police on August 16 and angry people have come out on the road in support of him. It is a repeat story, because the JP movement had assumed an all-India status only when the Allahabad High Court judgment of June 1975 set aside the election of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

This support of the urban middle and lower middle class to Hazare is not only because of his anti-corruption crusade but because it is also an expression of their general frustration with the existing situation for which the easy whipping boy is the Manmohan Singh government.

Further, Hazare himself and many of his supporters on the streets are targeting corrupt politicians, but in reality they are themselves apolitical, even anti-politics, in their daily life and ideological value system. Hazare has debunked the system of elections by publicly stating that 'elections are won by bribing the voter' and his complete lack of faith in the democratic process of India can be summed up in his oft-repeated statement that 'the transfer of power after 1947 was from the 'white' to the 'brown' and 'black' Indians and 'nothing has changed during the last 64 years of India's Independence'.

Further, unlike Gandhi, Hazare who has no faith in democracy, has adopted 'fascistic methods' to get a seal of approval by Parliament for his demand. This has nothing to do with Gandhian movements because Gandhi suspended his movements and never feared to negotiate with the colonial rulers. Anna, like JP, has been compelled to depend on the mobilisation machine of the Sangh Parivar and its communal-fascist cadre of the RSS. The BJP within Parliament and the whole joint family of the Sangh Parivar on the streets are providing the whole structure of support to keep the pot boiling to stigmatise the Congress, its main rival in politics.

Gandhi's movements had a long-term impact on Indian public life, Hazare's movement, like the JP movement, has political consequences and its impact will be felt only in electoral politics. The age of large-scale united all-India mass movements has come to an end because a socially and regionally fragmented country will have, and has been, witnessing local/regional movements or caste-based movements. Our national identity, which was created by Gandhian struggles from Kohima to Peshawar, has been pushed to the background by movements launched by 'fragments' on particularist demands of sections of society.

Political competition among parties around 'local grievances' has become the reality of democratic India. It is no one's case that 'politics' will be missing from social movements; the only issue, as raised by the German philosopher Habermas, is that every social movement should be critically evaluated on the basis of its leadership, its social base, and the social cause pursued by the leaders. On the basis of the analytical yardstick suggested by Habermas, Hazare's movement and the social support generated by it clearly reveals that the communal-fascist Sangh Parivar is the main driver of this movement.