The Bangalore Metro Reporter
THE FALL OF THE LEGEND!
ANNA TEAM DISBAND, WILL ENTER POLITICS!
As long as India Against Corruption movement led by Anna Hazare was a social movement, people showed support. Once the IAC became India Against Congress, people started distancing. When Anna Team proclaimed that they are above parliament and started dictating terms to the parliament it lost political support from the opposition. When the Anna Team’s movement for the establishment for Jan Lokpal Bill turned into targeting selected political leaders it lost the relevance. The Indefinite fast undertaken by the Anna Team including one a week back, were simply ignored by people. And now, Anna Team which has abandoned the Fast and the IAC, have opted for formation of a political party, betraying the political ambition of the Anna Team.
THE BEGINNING FIRE!
History repeats, they say, and they also say that the second time, it is farce. In 1975 Loknayak Jaya Prakash, Narayan, started the fight against corruption and arbitrary actions of the then Prime Minister Smt. Indira Gandhi. Jayaprakash, a respected leader had shunned power. He was a tall figure even during the Freedom movement and his name itself was sufficient to the people. He started the Nav Nirman Movement.
The Nav Nirman movement which was first limited to Bihar very soon spread across the nation. Interestingly the Nav Nirman movement was the offshoot of an agitation of Hostel students in Patna who protested steep hike in their monthly fees. This simple incident resulted in the resignation of Bihar CM Abdul Gafoor a politician known for his simple life and honesty. But the Bihar government was full of corrupt ministers. The movement acquired national dimensions for the simple reason that Jayaprakash led the movement.
Soon, Trade unions, RSS and opposition political who were against each other, joined the Nav Nirman movement and from there on, it was known as JP movement. The main target of JP movement was corruption and it struck a chord with the people. At one point of time, it looked as if the entire country was pitched against Smt. Indira Gandhi, her Congress and its corruption.
EMERGENCY & THE DOWNFALL!
Unable to fight the unrest, Smt Gandhi imposed emergency. Consequently, the 1977 elections witnessed the groundswell of support to JP movement and the people gave a fitting reply by defeating the Congress. JP masterminded the unification of majority of opposition parties by forming the Janata party. Once Janata Party came to power, JP distanced again from politics. As the JP movement became political, naturally it could not survive for long and the Janata party split into many groups. Jansangh broke away and formed its new version BJP. People, who taught Smt Gandhi a bitter lesson in 1977, chose to elect her in the 1980 snap polls. The moral of JP movement -as long as the JP movement remained a movement to weed out corruption a social evil, people backed it completely. And once the JP movement got converted into Janata party, it lost the relevance. Today, nobody talks of JP. Interestingly, JP had at that time itself admitted his admiration for Hitler!
HISTORY REPEATS!
And 37 years later, we are facing the similar situation. Corruption has become synonymous with government. Central ministers, state Chief Ministers, ministers etal are charged with criminal cases for looting lakhs of crores of rupees. Whether it is Congress or BJP or DMK or any other party for that matter which are governing the states and the centre, there are no exceptions. One can count honest politicians by the fingers. No political party has done anything to fight the menace of corruption. And what about the bureaucrats? The bureaucrats have become the other side of the coin of political corruption. Even defense is not spared.
Of course, politics has been highly criminalised and commercialised. More than 50% of our MPs, MLAs etc. have criminal background. The elections have become cost prohibitive where only people with money and muscle can contest and win the elections. Today, a candidate for Assembly seat has to spend not less than five crores! There may be rare exceptions to this general rule.
There is the urgent need for a tall leader who could provoke the people to fight this cancer of corruption. But there seems to be no one in sight like JP who could lead the people to fight the rot that has set in the vitals of the government and the society as well.
THE NEED!
It is not that there were not attempts at forming an anti graft body to tackle corruption at the high levels. As far as bureaucratic wing is concerned, there is CVC which covers central government employees. In fact, the central government way back in the eighties decided on the Lokpal to cover even the politicians in power at the centre. Every time, the Bill was introduced, the parliament used to be dissolved. At the state level, many states have introduced Lokayukta to fight the grafts, which has jurisdiction over bureaucrats and politicians in power including the Chief Minister. But the Lokpal at the centre has remained a mirage.
It is only in last year, the central government took up the Lokpal issue seriously. It drafted the Lokpal Bill which is nothing but a make believe. It had no teeth. As per the draft bill, the Lokpal can investigate cases referred by the Speaker of the Loksabha and Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. It can only submit its findings to Speaker/Chairman. And there is no provision to make the report binding on the government.
THE BIRTH OF ANNA!
It is at this juncture, that Anna Hazare, a social worker in Maharastra came to the fore. Anna Hazare, a military drop out was known only in Maharastra for his fight against few corrupt ministers. In fact, Anna Hazare was dragged to the fore by few retired officials like a former policewoman Kiran Bedi, a former IRS official Arvind Kejrival who is also an RTI activist, former law minister Shanthi Bushan, his son Prashanth Bhushan etc. They named the movement - India Against Corruption and Anna Hazare was declared the undisputed leader of IAC.
Anna demanded the introduction of Jan Lokpal Bill which was prepared by Bhushans, Karnataka Lokayukta Santhosh Hegde and other legal personalities. The Anna team rejected the government’s draft Lokpal Bill, lock, stock, and barrel. To demand the implementation of Jan Lokpal Bill, Anna sat on an indefinite fast in Maharastra. The Anna Team has used the TV Channels, high tech communications to get the support to the movement. It is no wonder that the IT people formed the majority of Anna supporters. The TV Channels provided the backbone to the IAC.
The unprecedented publicity received by Anna had unnerved the UPA government. It dispatched two senior ministers to meet Anna and invite him to Delhi. As Anna is a primary school dropout, he was not accustomed to nitty gritty of discussions particularly the legal issues. The government formed a committee of 10 members of which 5 are from Anna Team and the rest is from government to draft the Lokpal Bill. Anna’s team included Bhushans, Santosh Hegde, Kejrival and Anna himself.
ANTI GOVERNMENT STAND!
From the very word go, the Anna Team played politics. As the government was represented by five ministers among whom Pranab Mukherji was made the Chairman, Anna team wanted equal share. It forced to the government to make Shanthi Bhushan the Co-Chairman. While the government went a mile further to accommodate many of the features in Anna’s Jan Lokpal Bill, the Anna Team was stubborn that their version of the Jan Lokpal Bill be finalised. Finally, the Committee failed to come to a common draft.
As such the government went ahead and cleared its reformed Lokpal Bill. Once it became known that the government was going to place the Bill in the Parliament, the Anna Teams was furious. In fact Anna set a deadline to the government to enforce his Jan Lokpal Bill before August 15th last year and threatened to undertake fast unto death. The Anna Team started enlisting the support of the opposition parties to their Jan Lokpal Bill. Amidst all these, Anna and his teams never uttered a word against the unimaginable corruption in BJP ruled Karnataka and Gujarat where the CM Narendra Modi has not cared to appoint Lokayukta for the last ten years! The idea behind this selective attitude is to get the support of BJP to the Jan Lokpal Bill.
Anna Team was not prepared to tolerate any delay in the Jan Lokpal Bill. When the parliament was in Session, Anna undertook indefinite fast. The arrest of Anna provided further high velocity publicity to Anna Team. The government released him unable to withstand the public pressure and media campaign. Anna continued the fast and started dictating terms to the parliament. Kiran Bedi coined the word ‘Anna is India and India is Anna’. Not to be left out. Arvind Kejrival asserted that Anna is above parliament.
Of course, there were hunger strikes in many capitals. In Karnataka, Santosh Hegde led the movement in Freedom Park. College students took to streets, IT-BT people took part in the movement. When Anna’s health started deteriorating, the parliament discussed the issue. It is another matter that the Parliament was not prepared to forego the sovereignty of the parliamentary democracy at the behest of Anna and his Team. However, the parliament requested Anna to end the fast promising to take up the Lokpal issue. Anna ended the fast.
By this time, Anna had already become an icon. Still, Anna movement simply did not spread to the rural India. It remained an urban oriented middle class people’s movement. After the Fast was over, Anna went back to his village. Anna wanted to prove his hold in Maharastra also. Another ‘fast’ was arranged in Mumbai, but the response was very poor. Not even hundreds attended the meeting. The venue was booked by Anna Team for several lakhs for over a week. But the poor attendance forced the Anna Team to end the meeting the next day. In fact, Anna Team was not prepared to pay the ground rent for the venue. It went to the High Court for directing the Mumbai Corporation to give the ground to it free of cost, but, the HC which threw out the Writ even had passed severe strictures against the Anna teams demand.
THE BOOMERANG!
Whatsoever, Anna team continued their tirade against the government and other democratic institutions. Sometime later, the misdeeds of few members of the core group of Anna Team started surfacing. More than anything, questions were raised about the source of crores of rupees spent on organising the IAC movement. Then came the stories about how many corporate houses have opened their purse strings to fund the movement. At the same time, the political ambition of few core group members also surfaced. From targeting the corruption as a whole which Anna Team did it in the early days, the Anna Team started targeting individual, politicians in power. And the Anna team took sufficient care not to raise the issue of corruption in BJP ruled governments.
Amidst all these, Anna’s foot in the mouth syndrome has not gone down well among the urban people, in particular his advice to beat the people who drink. When Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar was slapped by a man, Anna endorsed the action! All these had dented the image of Anna and also his team mate.
THE FLOP SHOW!
This time Anna Team had threatened to undertake final war for enforcing the Jan Lokpal Bill and also for taking action against 15 central ministers whom the Anna team had charged with corruption. In fact, Anna was to begin the fast three days after his team starts the fast at Janata Mantar in Delhi. The Anna Team had made elaborate arrangements to hold the Fast in Delhi and other state capitals and expected lakhs of people to participate in the movement. They expected a sort of revolution. They also expected to force the dissolution of the Parliament and midterm poll by the sheer power of the movement.
But all their calculations went awry. On the first day, there were not even 300 people. The same was repeated on the second day. It is at this time, Baba Ramdev, a Yoga guru arrived to the venue with more than five thousand of his disciples. And Anna too came with Baba and that saved the face. The government simply refused to talk to the Anna Team, as their demands were too high. Moreover the Anna Team refused even to talk with the Prime Minister himself. Such was their arrogance.
THE POLITICAL MOVE!
After a week, the Anna Team have realised the bitter truth that is, people are no more with them. Finally, Anna Team announced the decision to form a political party to get to power so that they can bring their Jan Lokpal Bill. The Anna Team has showed its true political colour. Interestingly, the Anna Team have invited the reaction of the people to their political arrangement through Facebook, Twitter, e-mail etc. What they do not know is that majority of the people have no access to hitech communication. Curiously, the Media campaign was very conspicuous by its absence.
To put it bluntly, the Anna Team’s movement against corruption started as a social movement and has turned into a political activity. It is worthwhile to remind them of the JP movement in the seventies.
And that is all.
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