Anna’s drama in delhi

By Prem Chandran

The hero from Ralegan Siddiqui, Anna Hazare, is back in capital Delhi, making new waves. Good. The nation missed him for a couple of years after he landed in Delhi and raised the heat and dust, donning the role of an anti-corruption crusader. His Nehru cap and simple disposition gave us the impression there was someone up here to steamroll the vested interests. Those were the days.

Now, with a satisfaction that he has accomplished the task, and having taken some much-needed rest to recharge himself, he is back on the stage with a new agenda: protect the interests of the farmers whose land is being "appropriated" by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his men through a new land acquisition ordinance. What does Anna Hazare take the people of this nation for? Clearly, his perception of them is no better than that of the hand-in-the-honeypot politicians of this country: fools!

Anna Hazare thinks the people of this country would buy his new enthusiasm to set things right for the farmers. So, what of his first crusade? Let us believe for a moment, with due respect to his old age, that he used a magic wand and vanished the whole army of India’s corrupt bureaucrats and politicians, and is now baying for the blood of the new powers that be. If Anna Hazare does not descend on the capital to fight for the cause of exploited farmers, who else would?

It would appear that the very thought of coming to Hazare’s mass protest site and sitting in the front row of the commoners, as the ageing crusader has proposed, has Rahul Gandhi performing a vanishing act himself. To borrow a phrase from Kiran Bedi, junior Gandhi might have found the proposal nothing less than “toxic” –a feeling she experienced years ago when she had to share some of her precious time with (less-blue blooded, racially inferior?) present Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. Rahul Gandhi certainly has better things to do.

If anything, Anna Hazare, who was para-trooped from Ralegan Siddiqui by a band of well-meaning anti-corruption activists in 2011 in the hope that his patently clean image could be the insignia for their fight against the establishment, proved to be the undoing for the movement. When the captain of the ship deserts the ship, can the ship move forward? In the months and years that followed, it was abundantly clear that Anna Hazare had no fire in his belly to take the anti-corruption movement forward. He stopped in his tracks for no obvious reason other than his visible lack of interest in pursuing a fight against the deeply entrenched power centres in this country that wallowed in corruption and looted the public exchequer right and left. By contrast, what did a Jaya Prakash Narain do when he took on the establishment at a crucial time in the mid 1970s? He took the fight to a logical conclusion, put a dictatorial Indira Gandhi in her place, and made a highly dignified exit. He had the nerve to carry on with his campaign and he accomplished his mission. He set right something that was going wrong with Indian democracy. Anna Hazare does not deserve even a minute comparison with the likes of JP. Facts are facts.

And, now, Hazare's Second Coming. He is all set to set things right for the farmers. A fresh wave of electronic media blitz is inevitable. But, a reasonably justifiable worry is, when is he going to cut and run from the new engagement?

Anna Hazare has done some good work in his base, in Maharashtra in the past several years. The results are there for all to see. Our salutes to him for being so very different, though the region he hails from –Western Maharashtra – has had more than its fair share of social reformers who did the nation proud. That greatness, though, in later years was turned on its head by the likes of Sharad Pawar and the highly corrupt bunch of men who surrounded him. A clean chit by Narendra Modi to Sharad Pawar would not wash off that stigma. That, rather, is indication about the kind of politics that the new Prime Minister is going to foist on the nation –unless he proved otherwise by his words and deeds.

A problem with electronic-media propelled leaders is that they lose the game with the same ease with which they won the first round – by rabble rousing. Sensationalism has no lasting value. Those who do the real groundwork might sustain themselves. Anna Hazare has lost the plot. It is unlikely that he would make a difference to the present scenario in this country with his new bout of activism.

Narendra Modi as PM too is largely but not entirely a product of the carefully cultivated, PR-propelled electronic media frenzy starting from his Sadbhavana meet that went live on television. He turned the tables on the antagonistic media by his smart operations. That smartness, one supposes, is his ultimate strength. He had his plot ready before he put his step forward. What of Anna Hazare?

Those who thought that they could turn the tide against Modi by latching on to the Anna bandwagon, in the current spell, might be in for another disappointment. Modi, insisting that he would stay the course, and telling party parliamentarians that the new bill is in fact pro-farmer, means he has already sized up the Hazare threat and cares two hoots for the crusader's fresh bout of bluff. And, worse come to worse, the PM has charted an escape route – that, by way of a promise that if any clause is found to be anti-farmer, that would be removed. Amit Shah has already formed a panel to study the matter. So?

The cause of anti-corruption crusade, packed and put in freezer by the likes of Anna Hazare, remains lost in the wilderness. The 20-plus years of Sonia Gandhi governance has half the nation and its wealth in the hands of scheming politicians and bureaucrats. If what we heard in the past was about Delhi or Maharashtra or Tamil Nadu, the past two years have brought up several new scams. A massive Saradha scam, if properly investigated, may have both Mamata’s men and the likes of P Chidamabaram in deep trouble. A proper investigation however is a tall order in a country where systems have gone in for a toss. The corrupt have become a class by themselves, over and above political shades, protecting each other by turns.

In neighbouring Orissa, two scams – coal block allocations scam involving a supposedly 6,000crore killing, and a ponzi scam involving fooling of small-time investors to the order of 20,000crore are smoldering. Politicians of the two states' ruling parties are deeply involved in both the daylight loot. Indications are that the CBI probe is going round and round, also for the reason not enough manpower is provided for the investigations. Which is another way of making a farce of the investigations. Ultimately, who wins? Who other than India’s corrupt politicians and bureaucrats? Whether there is a material difference to governance in this country under the new dispensation can be gauged from the way institutions like CBI carry on with their investigations.

What is of interest is whether the new Narendra Modi government has the nerve to take on the vested interests in this country? And, what is Mohan Bhagwat’s stand on the issue of corruption eating into the veins of this Hindutva nation? Or, is he as also his khakhi clan interested only in raising an occasional roar against the issue of religious conversions in this country, which is no doubt a serious issue in itself, considering the conversion game that's going on without any hindrance in the North-East and several other backward regions targeting innocent tribals and the like for ages.But, more importantly, how will this Hindutva nation progress if the collective loot continues?

The progress that we crow about in this country in the Manmohan-Sonia era was for the Top-20 segment of the population, much of which include politicians and bureaucrats and the business class, what with their four-wheel drives roaring down the city streets and yachts dotting the seafront! It would be educative to enquire how much of the ordinary workers’ salary has gone up in the same period, be it in the megapolis of Mumbai or elsewhere. Most of Mumbaikars with their petty salaries are unable to grow beyond their Shiv-Sena inspired 'vada paav' days to sustain themselves! That the Shiv Sena clan and the politicians and BMC bureaucrats that surround them have fattened themselves with slush money is an altogether different matter. BJP and PM Modi are caught between two devils --the NCP and the Shiv Sena --two of the most corrupt entities, in Maharashtra. premcee@gmail.com