If I had a world of my own everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because anything would be what it isn’t. And contrary- wise, what it would be and what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see? (Lewis Carol in “Alice in Wonderland”).
But Anna Hazare thinks otherwise. Obstinacy and outlandish mindset seems to be driving his cause and demands. Now, he wants the local Grama Panchayats superseding the Parliament. Effectively that will ensure besides anarchy, the rule of the rouges, more pernicious than what we have from the dispensation from five hundred plus elected members of parliament.
I have been a person with pro ANNA leanings. Mainly because the movement that he created in India ,was after the mass agitation evoked by Jaya Prakash Narayan in the mid 1970’s against the autocratic, corrupt reign of Indira Gandhi, the most passionately evocative movement. The cause was inevitable, and the time was nothing but ideal. We are mauled, haunted and sick of corruption, and looting by politician – business nexus. And a mass agitation to incorporate a constitutional law to address the inexorable slide of the country into depths of economic chaos and social upheaval was most necessary.”Cometh the hour and cometh the man”, one may have desperately thought of Anna Hazare!
Anna Hazare seemed to have risen for the hour. And a conscientious team including the super cop Kiran Bedi lined up behind him. The government as expected tried everything in the book and out of the box to scuttle the movement. A Five Star Yogic charlatan was even made a decoy and planted as an alternative cause centre. Allegations of financial irregularities by some members of the Hazare team were made out and leaked out with surreptitious intent. The intrigues and manoeuvrings were obvious and on expected lines, when one considers the criminal legal minds who are in the Congress party, Kapil Sibal, Abhishekh Singhvi and P. Chidamabaram. But the much required provision for benefit of doubt and being the wronged was given to Anna Hazare and his team.
However it seems that the twist to the game Anna and his team made, such as some of the eccentric provisions of the Jana Lok Pal, the obstinacy that Parliament should pass it within a short time frame and to hell if required to the debates and discussion in the house for such a vital proviso of national and constitutional importance all point to one direction,”south” in terms of sanity. And in between we heard Anna Hazare endorse the man who presided over the greatest mass extermination of Muslims since the partition. Narendar Modi.
Then, the much dramatised act, hand in gloves with the right wing Hindu parties. Anna announced that he will campaign against the Congress, which can only mean he will endorse the BJP. And the BJP cannily scuttled the very same Lokpal bill in the parliament with ulterior design and intent.
And now look at the picture in this post. Constitution of India it says, and has Sivaji, the Maratha warrior King, the Rani of Jhansi ,Swami Vivekananda, Vinoba Bhave and Abdul Kalam Azad. And only the later was related to the drafting of the Indian constitution. What message does this send? Vinoba Bhave while he was alive was apolitical and not identified with the right wing Hindu clan. Sivaji was a local warrior who fought the Muslim rulers of India.. Rani of Jhansi fought for her right to be the queen and have her kingdom not taken away by a weird law the “Doctrine of lapse”. Swami Vivekananda was not a Hindu fanatic, but a thinker and philosopher. But we see Anna and his coterie , perhaps with the auspices of the right wing Hindu group, usurper the Rani, the Swami and the Bhave into the group of their iconic symbol- Sivaji. Swami Vivekananda has long since been kidnapped by the Hindutva group.
Wonder what these folks have to do with the Indian constitution? The picture cannot be a coincidence of insignificance.
By now, we see the end of the dream that was a mere pipe dream- an effective law to unravel corruption and punish the guilty. There is much for all to celebrate except the vast majority of the people of India who still long for a square meal a day.
9 comments:
Anil - I am loving your dig with the current affairs, blending history and giving life to the whole thing.
Anna Hazzare and his movement, I was never a supporter. Intentions, must be awesome, but the means adopted was neither revolution nor satyagraha. but instead the mob looked up to Anna as the messiah, they weren't sure, what it was for, nor what is to be done. all they knew was to look up to him and light candles in solidarity. Phew..
I have lot of friends, who has Anna as the FB status, bumper stickers and where not and most of them aint actually sure, what the Lokpal is all about. They know it is to keep a check on corruption. But then doing what? doing how? they don't care nor they want to care.
Anna and his movement had no other way, but join the right hindutva group and maybe en-cash some votes of the idiots who wears "Lokpal Bill" on their sleeves and doesn't know a dime about it.
I think you went over the board comparing Anna's park-meetings with JP's ventures; for I believe my friend, that was one man against the most powerful person ever existed in independent india, Mrs. Indira Gandhi and her arbitrary governance. from the claws of the Nehru-Gandhi clan, when it felt independence might become a forgotten dream and we would always have the rulers and the subjects. Anna's aint big enough, the cause nor the mean.
Vivekananda been endorsed by the hindutva groups from quite a long time now. and not just him, but a few from the independence movement and from time immemorial. I often pity Bhagath Sigh, Azad and Bose, for they get printed on the posters of almost all the parties. At times I have felt sad about, not one of them wanting to come forward and endorse the great deceased as theirs.
Hi Anil,
My thoughts exactly. I began as an ardent admirer of Anna but now I am not so sure. I remember something that we had learnt in college- when the radical left begins to take on the behavior of the radical right then it is time for the equilibrium to shift once again! I sometimes wonder if Anna really knows what he is talking about these days. Sometimes I think that team Anna's arrogance has grown too much to the extent that they think that what they mouth are the vedas! Public flogging, admiration for Narendra Modi.. I wonder what next!
Meera
PS Don't see you much on my blog these days.
The nation and the world is going through a hard time.. Anna Hazare was inevitable.. but I continue to believe that it was for a reason and that something good will come out of it.. if indeed this movement has been hijacked, it will be rejected by the people.
@ meeraSundarajan,
Yes you seem to be telling the truth. With the noticeable mass support Anna seemed to have got, he and his team may have developed arrogance and obstinacy and demanding without common-sense and reason. His pro Hindutva leanings have already risen its head. Who else will support a man like Narendra Modi even if he brings riches galore to the State while his agenda is to cleanse in his philosophy, the land off foreign blood. Macabre and bizarre!
I cannot access the comments post in your Blog. I have been trying to inform this to you but your emails are not in your profile. Another Blog post "Insignia" had the same problem and she did some changes in the settings and now I could access and post.The Post comment as- window dose not open.
@ Osu
Now that the government is gunning for the social net works, I feel that a law must be enacted forbidding the politician rascals from using the names of men like Bagat Singh, Bose, Ganddhi, Vivekananda, etc. It is an affront and outrage that they invoke these names for their mass campaigns.
As for Anna and his coterie and demands , some of us were fools to be carried away .
Anil,
From the beginning, I could not relate to the Anna movement. It was a mass hysteria; people were unclear about what was to be achieved.
Even though I was an ardent supporter of Anna and his team, slowly I got fed of their act. I admired Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and Anna himself, but soon their arrogance really put me off. I still feel Anna would be better off all by himself, instead of having these useless people tagging along with him, and bringing bad name to him and his cause.
I am not a fan of the people running the government, nor do I like the BJP, or any other party. They all seem to be fully corrupt.
If this is the state of our country, I really fear to imagine the future of our country.
I am glad you could finally come to my blog and post your comment.
Thank you.
Each one of us an opinion on what Anna should/could have done.
Whatever, we cant get away from a fact that he DID bring corruption centre stage which might result into some sort of chunning
@ Insignia,
It was badly managed and then , the cat was out of the bag. It was not anti corruption , but safron agenda.
@ Rama,
Yes you are right. The disillusionment with Anna steeped in gradually. What surprises me most is people like Ms Bedi and Shanthi Bhushan have much knowledge and expertise in government and functioning of the law, that even they joined the stupid chorus for a legislation without any sensible guide line.
@ BK Chowla,
I do not decry your optimism, but I admit my pessimism. Indians need corruption and bribe as oxygen and water.
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