Why Is Anna Such A Hit?

The newspapers are filled with life and time of a 74-year old man, who loves to talk and doesn’t quite like it if a politician calls him “old”.Well, there has been a deluge of editorials and views off-late on the “second struggle for freedom” as the man in focus, Anna Hazare, calls it. And believing in the same ideal of “democracy” that this man has stood for, I have dared to write this article.

Brilliantly using the Indian Media and cashing in on the current anti-Congress (political) sentiments a social activist launched a fast unto death on April 5, 2011. (Did I say just 2 days after Team India won the ICC World Cup and TV news channels were looking for their next big kill? Oh, come on, that was something I read in another Editorial.)

Irrespective of whether he made any ideological sense or not, the Media jumped into the Anna bandwagon. The whole Anna phenomenon, also being tagged as “August Kranti” by some of my fellow media persons, created a sense of erroneous belief that he was the biggest crusader against corruption.

Suddenly, the entire focus shifted from other important issues like rising prices and escalating crime against woman in the capital to humungous scams India witnessed in the first 2 years of UPA II.

People were so moved by the appeals made by Anna that they even forgot about the lakhs of rupees struck in the “land acquisition controversy” in Greater Noida.

The April 5-9 campaign was a success. Government agreed to form a 10-member joint committee to draft the Jan Lokpal Bill. Almost everyone from the urban middle-class learned the term “civil society.” Not even bothering to know if there was any difference at all between society and civil society. Five (only male) representatives including an eminent father-son duo of lawyers, a Justice (Retd), a former IRS officer and a social activist formed a group named as “Team Anna”.

They held a series of meetings with “Team Manmohan” which included our Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, a veteran Congress leader and a taint-free Cabinet ranked minister.

After several deliberations on an anti-graft bill or the Jan Lokpal Bill, the two sides exchanged their drafts of the same. The discussions were not kept to themselves rather Media was called after almost every meeting to accuse and abuse the ruling political class.

The movement started to change colour from an anti-corruption campaign to an anti-Congress one. As if all the previous non-Congress governments had been corruption free.

There were accusations and counter-accusations among politicians and the new-found representatives of the civil society. Some of the Congress men went to the extent of calling Anna an agent of Hindu nationalist organisation RSS (as a backlash of Centre’s show down on emerging “saffron terror” in the country). There were reports of free meals at Anna’s 12-day battleground, Ramlila Maidan, being funded by one of the affiliates of the right-winged Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The Sangh and its associates, however, denied any direct links to the campaign.

It was after the government referred their version of the bill, bypassing Team Anna’s draft of the Jan Lokpal Bill, in the Parliament that the campaign turned more aggressive and in many ways one-dimensional.

Why Anna Is Not Gandhi

The whole Anna movement spoke of either standing with them or being pro-corrupt. This in itself is “undemocratic”. There is always a space for debates and disagreements in a democratic set up. But this seemed to disappear in the second campaign. Anna declared: “You pass my bill, or I shall go on fast-unto-death”.

The theatrics and the symbolism used by Team Anna during the entire campaign made the comparisons with Mahatma Gandhi an anomaly. Gandhi led India’s biggest freedom movement by spreading awareness among the common man.

Here, the situation was completely different. Public emotions played a great role. Most of the people joining the campaign either didn’t know what the Jan Lokpal Bill was or didn’t bother to quantify the implications of implementing all the conditions proposed by Team Anna.

Only a select few could see the castle of “unrealistic” expectations this movement built. A single piece of paper (The Jan Lokpal Bill) promising billions of people including the corrupt ones to rid the country of up to 70% corruption. Amazing, isn’t it?

Ignorance can mobilise crowds, even as the Media can make anything look “larger than life”. Thousands of people pledged support to Annaji without getting into the feasibility aspect of the Jan Lokpal Bill.

The campaign now changed from anti-Congress to anti-Parliament with Anna telling the crowd about how the Jan Sansad was above the real Sansad i.e. The Parliament. People were moved, some celebs and some wannabe activists shared dais with the star campaigner.

People used the stage to vent anger against the ruling Congress. Forgetting that corruption was as much rooted in state politics, as it was in the politics of the Centre.

Policies are made at the Centre but (not) implemented at state levels. Anna never spoke about the corruption in BJP-ruled Karnataka during his entire campaign. (Some of us had not been able to forget his praise for BJP poster boy and Gujarat CM Narendra Modi).

Neither did he spoke on how the present provisions under the law could be strengthened to curb corruption.

How his bill would stop the local policewala to take bribe from hawkers and street vendors. How it would stop shopkeepers at Railway stations and other public places from overcharging consumers. How it would contain the root cause of corruption i.e. malice and sheer poverty? 

Several questions were left unanswered. The entire attention diverted to long speeches, melodrama and extensive live coverage. Some musical bands performing at the venue took care of the rest. Popular youth poet Dr Kumar Vishwas was the stage manager, sometimes citing his famous lines (Koi deewana kehta hai).

Anna’s fast-cum-campaign, criticised of being highly rightist, ended with two Dalit and Muslim girls (hand-picked from the crowd) serving him coconut water with honey. This was the perfect ending to a well choreographed show backed by large-scale SMS, social media campaigns to make sure they did not miss out on the “Youth”.

The August 16th fast-unto-death movement gathered maximum eyeballs on news channels even as the TRPs of TV soaps slumped.

Anna seemed to be the face of the campaign with others like Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi being the real voices behind. The exit of Swami Agnivesh and Justice (Rtrd) Hegde gave force to this belief.

Secondly, Anna’s announcement of a campaign for electoral reforms has left me pondering as to where would this hijacking technique end?  This self-proclaimed Gandhian chose to suggest people to reject an elected representative Govt than to encourage the urban non-voting middle class to vote for the right candidates.

Looking at the huge public support behind him, he should have encouraged people to come forward and join Politics. After all, this government or any government in the next General Elections needs people who want to work for the country, on or off the camera.

Also Read: Does Lack Of Political Will Or Ignorance Kill A Social Moment?

What Kills A Social Moment? Power Play or Ignorance

Even before the Hazares and the Ramdevs hogged the limelight, there were several others leading silent protests in different parts of the country.

Irom Sharmila is the first name that comes to mind, a lady on a fast-unto-death since 2000 against Armed Forces (Special Forces) Act in Manipur and other Northeastern states. Neither has the Media been too generous in showing her plight to the ignorant minds nor has the Centre sent anyone to talk to “the world’s longest hunger striker”.

Not even a veteran social activist like Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan could get the kind of “political mileage” these modern-day heroes, ranting against corruption, have garnered in recent days.

Are the causes raised by them more important than their contemporaries? How do we differentiate between one movement and the other? Why are we so moved by “highly publicized” media campaigns even as we turn a blind eye on those which fail to appear on social networks like Facebook?  

Media, surely, has a bigger role to play than just being a toy in the hands of wannabe social activists. For the aam aadmi it is virtually impossible to lead a social movement. And for large-scale public support one has to resort to social networks, media and PR (here, I mean Political Relations).

The Baba Ramdev Movement that started as a public outcry for justice apparently turned into a battleground for power. Too much politics at both ends killed the purpose. And that is my intention of writing this piece. What is the “purpose” of any movement? Not only waking up the Government and the masses from their long slumber, but also bringing “substantial changes” in the present social order. For any campaign to be successful it’s important for the leader to tread the political path with care, maintain complete transparency and credibility.

All those self-proclaimed “Gandhians” must not forget that Bapu’s conditions and his intentions for “Satyagraha” were reasonably different. Neither was the then Government our own, nor were we in a democracy.

Even after Independence, several have fasted to death for prominent issues like creating separate linguistic states. The recent death of a Swami fasting against illegal quarrying near Ganga in Haridwar and the lack of “political empathy” towards him has raised grave concerns on the thin line between social and political movements. By latter, I mean movements with political aspirations of an individual or group under camouflage of a social movement. What make a movement successful are the support it generates and also the final outcome.

Most of the movements in recent times have been state-centric, at least to the casual observer. However the anti-graft movements for black money and Lokpal have been of a different nature.

Anna Hazare, a veteran activist himself, may have got 360 degrees support from civil society members, former bureaucrats like Kiran Bedi and the Opposition. But the controversies surrounding other members of his Team and his noticeable differences with Baba Ramdev drifted away the attention from the real goal.

Both the Anna and Ramdev Movement, despite being lead by two distinct personalities, have come down to be counted as one.

“Power play” is the best word I get to explain my stand.

People coming in support of the two men gave more attention to the fact that the movements were essentially “anti-Congress” and failed to quantify the possibilities of some of the claims made. Now that one of the two is left with just “allegations” and no fruitful results, it needs to be seen what way does the Anna Movement takes us to.

With the Govt all set to go ahead with its draft of Lokpal Bill in the Parliament anytime next month, Hazare has announced  a “Second Independence Movement“ to call for a strong Lokpal Bill.

Now, this raises questions about the authenticity of “hunger strikes” itself. Is this theatrical approach to the issue avoidable? Can the Parliament like the politicians in power be “blackmailed” on the pretext of changing the socio-political order?

No doubt the issue is important and is in the benefit of common people. But there are things beyond this and until every individual partakes in chucking out the roots of corruption no movement can actually turn out to be totally social.

The saddest part is that people are least interested in what affects them the most- the politics of the country. Even a strong protest falls silent without proper “political care”. By politics I mean good leadership, accountability and a vision. Not the distorted version we are witnessing in an era of coalition politics.