A year on, life around has not changed much. The country is discussing corruption much more but is nowhere close to an intelligent solution to tackle it. Forget a solution, we still don't have a debate on options beyond the supposed silver bullet — Lokpal. What we have instead is a nasty, growing sub-culture where allegations and accusations overwhelm facts and the sense of good judgment.
This day last year when Gandhian Anna Hazare started his fight for a strong Lokpal, the all-powerful anti-corruption watchdog, he was an instant darling of the urban middle class Indian. He was a simple man with simple ideas articulating the anger and frustration of the man on the street against the corrupt in an uncomplicated way. It helped that his language and demeanour were earthy and immensely likeable. Being a recluse, he did not have to gain anything from the fight. He was fighting a selfless war. That added to his aura.
When he and his team attacked the political class and bulldozed them into submission, people just loved it. They hated politicians but never dared to be open about it. Here was a man giving to the political class what they deserved. And he appeared to talk sense. The media, at least a big section of it, lost sight of objectivity and worshipped the new Gandhi on the block.
That was the beginning of the Anna Hazare movement and not many were still fully aware what Lokpal meant and what it was supposed to achieve and how. Raw enthusiasm was ruling over balanced reasoning then. A year down the line, it is not the same movement anymore. Anna and his team still thunder on against politicians and talk corruption but they no more arouse the same passions. Even the politicians are not too worried about them.
It’s not that the issue has lost relevance; it is the aura around the anti-corruption crusaders that has diminished. Their movement was well-organised, had a decent support base and a good cause. Why then did it ebb out the way it did?
Some of it has to do with the idea Anna and his team tried to sell. The idea of Lokpal was full of good intentions but good intention without a pragmatic outlook hardly goes far. The more the Jan Lokpal Bill of Team Anna was discussed by experts, the more it looked like a poorly-thought-out idea with little attention to practical issues. To make matters worse, Anna and his team were in no mood to make even the slightest of compromises on their bill. After a point, they had started coming across as an obstinate bunch of people who were more interested in abusing politicians and courting cheap publicity than getting a Lokpal created.
Ironically, the very popular passion that propped up Team Anna was its undoing. The hyperactive media had created a ‘you are either with us or against us’ scenario, alienating people who would have been happy to support the movement. On social networking sites, any criticism of Team Anna, even if well-intentioned, was being denounced mercilessly. The madness in the support for Team Anna only highlighted the many weaknesses of the movement. It was clearly being backed by some wrong people.
The Mumbai fast disaster revealed that the Anna phenomenon was a spent force. He had probably overdone the ‘fast’ act; his close associates probably stood too discredited; and the real intention of the movement was under a cloud of suspicion. The general feeling was Team Anna did not want Lokpal as much as it loved the attention it received from bad-mouthing everybody. It did not help that its call to defeat corrupt candidates in the recently held assembly elections had little impact on voters.
Is it the end of the road for Team Anna? One hopes not. It’s a good idea that the team has decided to reach out to people and broadbase the movement. It must realise that it need not depend on the rant media to get its point across. A good cause will always find its audience. It would also help if Team Anna became more flexible in its approach and more accommodative to different points of view.
It cannot afford to sound like a bunch of dictators if it wants to change India.
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