Anna jaise Hazaron ho?

Shri Anna Hazare’s fast, pressing for introduction of Jan Lokpal Bill has captured the imagination of the Nation and the entire political class has been shaken with the hype it has generated. The Government of India had to capitulate and prima facie, has accepted Anna’s demands. Even if nothing tangible comes out in form of an empowered Lokpal finally, the fast has certainly served to channelize the growing impatience of public with the state of affairs of our country. However, beyond the hype, it would do good to appreciate that the support which Anna drew was more on cyberspace and would-do-anything-for-eyeballs media rather than on ground. Even after 4 days of fast, the maximum crowd which Anna could draw up was around 6,000, a tiny number by any reckoning.

Without in any way belittling Anna’s efforts to clean the system, it is my humble submission that his right thinking supporters will do good to evaluate if righteousness of the larger cause is sufficient reason to ignore fallacies of the immediate cause around which campaign has been built.

While there cannot be any doubt that the Augean stables of corruption need to be cleaned, will the Jan Lokpal Bill model, as proposed by Hazare, really be a panacea to our ills? The model bill proposes a draconian authority that would be larger than any of the elected or nominated constitutional authorities. Looking at authorities like the Election Commission of India, while the Nation may owe a debt of gratitude to TN Sheshan, the havoc a Naveen Chawla like person could have wreaked, had he enjoyed powers like Sheshan did in his heydays, can only be imagined. Likewise, when we know that nomination to most august of bodies is only made by Government and that too from its preferred bunch of bureaucrats and retired judges, can it really be in the interest of larger society to have so powerful an individual to be at helm?

A more critical evaluation is required on the aspect of ‘civil society’ participation. Firstly, what exactly is civil society? Does it mean representatives from cross section of public or does it mean a group of people only with decidedly leftist leanings? If it means the latter, than automatically, at least one quarter of the entire Indian population, majority of the professional / middle classes and an entire thought process, is completely exluded. Even more critically, does it mean representation of people with dubious backgrounds and funding and even more dubious intentions? Who do we have in the name of this civil society today? A Teesta Setalvad who has had numerous strictures, a Cedric Prakash, who manufactures all sorts of lies, a Arundhati Roy, who berates the idea of India, the likes of Agnivesh, who has been expelled by his own ilk but goes around in saffron robes? Who or what has given the idea that a Nation run by a group of shady individuals, with even more shady funding and shadier intents, would be better than our politicians? As far as morals (or the lack of it), biases and thick skin are concerned, our ‘civil society’ members would put many a seasoned politicians to shame.

That said and in spite of the fact that I find Anna’s antidote to corruption woolly headed and impractical, it is sad that this well meaning personality is being subject to attack from the left, right and center. Politicians and columnists have sneeringly called for Anna to fight an election and many have accused him of subverting the constitution. His fast unto death has been denounced as blackmail and tactics undemocratic. While the left sees him as a stooge of the Hindu Nationalists, further certified by his apparent praise for Narendra Modi, the Right sees him being propped by the Congress to subvert Baba Ramdev’s own movement against corruption. Whatever the truth may be, one cannot deny that if the rulers of the day are insensitive, tools used to wake them out of their slumber cannot be of their choice. Had the rulers alone been final arbiters’ of dissent, social revolutions in any part of the world would not have happened, pre independence INC would have forever remained a party of prayers and petitions and Indira’s dictatorial rule would have continued unabated. Desperate times call for desperate measures and the state where India is in today, with the Nation sold to crony capitalists, the babus and the netas, there is little hope for the common middle class person if a well meaning individual is thus ridiculed!