Anti-corruption movement: Divided they fall

13 August, 2012

The smirk on the faces of ruling party politicians would have been turned into despair, if Team Anna and yoga guru Baba Ramdev had joined hands and started a joint movement against corruption and black money.

MUCH TO their dismay, the anti-corruption movements, led by both Team Anna and Baba Ramdev have received minimum attention by the Congress-led UPA government. These agitations, which initially did generate lot of hopes have fallen by the wayside.

There is a big smirk on the faces of most congress politicians, with some even taunting these two agitationists that they knew, all along had political ambitions. The point is if having political ambition is so bad and that politics is so murky then what are these shining white dhoti kurta clad Netas of UPA doing there? Especially, when they sermonize that they while sitting at the high altar of Parliament are working for the betterment of people of India.

Last year, both these movements got rousing support from the people, because they saw in these movements issues which are affecting the majority of the people of all caste, creed and religion. Nobody can deny the fact that 1.78 crore bureaucracy of India from top to bottom is corrupt. Nothing changes without the Aam Admi paying under the tables. As for Indian politicians with going rate of 10 crore for election to the post of MP and 5 crore for state legislature, less said the better. In this totally murky scenario with World renowned agency, Transparency International rating India as one of the most corrupt countries and its police getting Olympic Silver medal of being the second most corrupt in the World, in these two agitations people saw silver lining in otherwise a very dark sky.

Had Baba Ramdev campaign against stashing of black money abroad by Indians estimated to be 1796 billion dollars –highest in the world, and Anna Hazare demanding strong Jan Lokpal Bill to check rampant corruption, joined hands from the beginning and formed a coordinating committee to channelise their agitations, instead of smirk there would have been dark clouds of consternation on the faces of Indian politicians today and maybe we would have seen action on the ground.

Unfortunately both these movements became mutually competitive with each trying to gain limelight. For any agitation to succeed basic Mantra is transparency in the actions and need to implement what you say. Unfortunately both these movements have suffered from lack of specific goals, objectives and key result areas. As a result, people have got an impression that they are directionless, thus losing their belief. This also enabled the politicians in power to plant stories and follow the policy of divide and rule.

Even now it not too late. Let Anna and Ramdev come together, thrash out their differences behind closed doors, appoint an all powerful coordinating committee and issue a joint white paper, listing out what is the minimum they will settle with the government in power. After this, there should be no moving of goal posts. They should work out number of strategies and have them handy. Do not give an impression of groping in the dark. Instead of everybody grabbing the mike and becoming motor mouth, appoint spokespersons who would daily give out statements to press. Debate the issues at all India level. With Anna’s urban following and Ramdev's grip on rural India, this joint movement will then become unbeatable.