Disaffected grumblers with noble intentions
By Amulya Ganguli
Writing about the ‘first and only meeting’ of Anna Hazare’s team some time after his break with Arvind Kejriwal, a former IPS officer, Shashi Kant, who recently resigned from the coordination committee constituted by Anna, said that the meeting was ‘ugly and bitter.’ According to him, those who had been with the movement from the beginning ‘boycotted it, alleging maltreatment by some senior members.’ The reason that he gave for his resignation – that “everything has stagnated” – will not surprise those who always suspected that a movement based on pious wishes cannot go far. It got off to a heady start because it reflected the public mood of anger and disillusionment with the government at a time when scams were surfacing almost every day. But, tactical errors, an impractical, utopian attitude towards problems and the inevitable ego hassles could not but lead to its collapse.
The fatal signs were evident within a few months of the start of the movement from the thin attendance at Anna’s meetings in Mumbai in December 2011. The admission that the meetings were being shifted to Mumbai to avoid Delhi’s cold was a laughable excuse for it suggested that the crusading zeal against corruption needed favourable weather conditions. Moreover, those belonging to Maharashtra who were familiar Anna’s career pointed out that he had never made much of an impact in the state. However, it wasn’t only a case of a prophet going unhonoured in his own state, for his failure to make an impact elsewhere is also evident.
A major reason for this inability is tactical. The fasts, which he undertook in the initial stages, did make an impression. But, it was felt even then that they would cease to be effective after a time. Besides, the fact that he recuperated in a five-star hospital undermined their appeal since it showed that he wasn’t quite the simple yogi that he claimed to be. However, this wasn’t his only mistake. What was no less harmful to the agitation was the hauteur of some of the top-level campaigners, one of whom was told by the CPI’s A.B. Bardhan to remember that he was not the repository of all wisdom.
This hubris was epitomised in the Jan Lokpal bill drafted by Team Anna, which claimed to have found the solution to the problem of corruption by bringing everyone from a peon to the prime minister under its ambit. Not only that, the pompous self-righteousness of the propagandists was evident from their refusal to accept any modifications presumably because of their conviction that everyone else other than them were untrustworthy. Anna himself gave expression to this conceited belief when he accused the entire political class of being purchasable or bikaau, to use his word. It was only to be expected that this contempt would soon be transferred to the entire political system, an attitude which was reflected in the slogan of an aficionado that Anna was India and that he was ‘above’ Parliament.
Not surprisingly, the smug arrogance which characterised the campaign infected individual members, leading to a split. Had it been an amicable rupture, it would have substantiated the claim of the crusaders about their high-mindedness. But, not long after the break-up, Anna described Kejriwal as “power hungry”, a damning epithet which negated the pretences of the civil society activists to be a breed different from the crooked politicians. As if to confirm that this group did not always follow what they preached, Kejriwal and Co formed a political party despite their earlier refusal to join the ranks of a class whom they professedly despised. While setting up a party, however, to indicate their entry into the supposedly flawed existing system, its members also exhibited an anarchist tendency by burning electricity bills and turning their wrath on the water bills.
Even if these gaps between word and deed are due to a failure to decide whether they should function as politicians or activists, what is obvious is that the entire group, including Anna and Kejriwal, has been unable to come to terms with the existing political set-up because they transferred the dishonesty of the politicians to the system itself. As a result, there was a time before the Mumbai fiasco when the campaigners wanted a referendum on whether the parliamentary form of government should be replaced by some other system. They may have now realized that they were overstating their case. But, it is still a grudging acknowledgement on the parts of both Anna and Kejriwal. While the former intends to tour the country to “rouse” the people, the latter’s first test will be the Delhi assembly elections this year. But, since the endeavours of neither are likely to be a resounding success, they will remain disaffected grumblers, albeit with noble intentions. (IPA Service)