Anna Hazare's campaign against corruption seems to have spiralled to a movement against the government. Both the ruling party, the Congress, and Anna Hazare's team at the moment are stuck in an ego fight. Where will..

ANNA HAZARE'S campaign against corruption seems to have spiralled to a movement against the government. Both the ruling party (Congress) and Anna Hazare's team at the moment are stuck in an ego fight. Where will this lead us?

Introduction

Current mass agitation reminds one of fight against emergency and subsequent election that saw mass upsurge on an unimaginable scale. Time has changed and so have tools of mobilization, but human beings are still the same. What are the lessons that we can draw from the second war of independence (for democracy in 1975-77) to see that this third war of independence spearheaded by Anna doesn’t peter out?

After intoxicating euphoria over Anna – the hangover?

I have not written for some days now. The fascinating historical moment, and inspiring moments around us, along with inexplicable idiotic behaviour of the ruling party, perhaps born out of arrogance of natural party of governance, was so spell binding that writing on such a fluid scenario seemed too presumptuous.

Then, a friend asked me, Anna begins his fast in Ramlila Maidan, but what will happen after these 15 days of protest? I mumbled something as a great optimist for Bharat’s future.  Honestly, this question has rankled me too. Today, my wife asked me the same question. So, here I am, trying to look for an answer.

To begin with, let me put this current movement in the right perspective so that we can learn something from our past mistakes. This is the third war of independence and not second as the copy writers of anti-corruption struggle have called it.

The second war of independence was fought in 1975-77 when grandmother of the current yuvraj imposed the draconian emergency that stifled our democracy to the extent that it would have died, but for the intrepid struggle put up by our generation at that time. It was a tougher struggle as there was no social media network, no electronic media; and print media was all but bludgeoned to submission. Thus, fight was highly one sided. Nearly one lac people were put behind bars. The movement was supported by Socialist groups, RSS, Sarvoday (founded by Gandhiji and run by Gandhians) and all opposition parties, sans Communists. Communists supported emergency to the hilt. Lest we forget our lessons, Communists had supported China during 1962 war and also supported British against Independence movement till Russia, their mai-baap, shifted allegiance and joined Allied forces when attacked by Hitler. They had supported creation of Pakistan too. May I remind readers that even today, there is a strong leftists ‘civil society’ group, populating NAC type organizations, that is opposing Anna led anti-corruption movement. Listen between the lines on TV shows or read Shabnam Hashmi’s recent statement.

Coming back to the original narrative, once elections were declared people started coming out slowly against the almighty Indira Gandhi and soon there was an avalanche of support for democratic movement that none of us struggling for 18 months could even imagine. The same euphoria, the same spirit, the same unimaginable ground swell!  This support was not so easily discernible till the election results came as there was no social media or electronic media. Thus, second war of independence restored democracy for good. One must credit the then Janata Party government for dismantling the dreaded anti-democratic apparatus so well through constitutional amendment that it is not possible for any government to destroy it now, whatever its intentions.

Our lessons lay in what happened during the time of second struggle and after the elections were over. Permit me to summarize the major points –

1. The movement was sustained and run over a trying period of 18 months because it was backed by well organized groups and organizations.
2. Politicians were not discredited so badly that they were shooed away from this movement. In fact, they provided intellectual and strategic leadership.
3. There was Jai Prakash, as we have Anna Hazare now. When I see and listen to Anna, I feel he is more like JP rather than Gandhiji, with whom the popular media and publicists are comparing him. Both are products of grass-root movement, both have proven their vision of grass-root democracy that doesn’t depend on party politics.
4. There was no Civil Society movement at that time. The term had not been coined till then. But, it was backed by various non-political organizations and voluntary organizations and youth with no ambition for political power.

On the negative –

a. Political leaders of the time sidelined JP, like Congress had done with Gandhi ji.
b. Petty politics of naked political ambitions, where every leader wanted to become the PM, killed the idealistic anti-corruption movement. Just to remind today’s generation, emergency was imposed to quell anti-corruption movement that JP had led through Navnirman agitation that was snow balling into a major problem for ruling clique of Indira Gandhi and her band of courtiers. The statements of today’s courtiers give me sense of déjà vu actually!
c. People who had given their all for fight against corruption either went home, believing their leaders will do the needful then onwards or joined politics (like Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad, Sushil kumar Modi). Samagra Kranti movement of youth, the Civil society group of that time, died down slowly. Idealism died with it.

Thus, people amongst us from that generation, who suffered heavily in their careers, business etc., carry a cross of wasted efforts. Let us not fall into such a trap this time and learn from history.

The lessons to my mind are –

• Such struggle needs to be sustained to bear fruit.
• It needs to be backed and run by a proper organization and people with long term vision and goals.
• No section of the society or no organization can be considered untouchable, including politicians. Were it not for backbone of RSS, the anti-emergency movement would have collapsed. (70,000 out of the 1 lac arrested were from RSS and allied organizations). Not all politicians are bad; nor are all civil society leaders bereft of personal ambitions, though holier attitude will not help.
• Politicians can be made a part of such movements on condition that they have proved their probity in public life and pledge to be transparent in future in public life.  After all, ultimately, the laws are to be made and operationalized by these people, not you and me, who will go back to their regular lives.
• This is a struggle which is more for Bharat than urban India alone. This Bharat suffers more than us due to corruption. This is the reason why Baba Ramdev had more supporters from villages and muffosil towns than cities. So, let not media trivialize this anti-corruption move as an elitist or urban middle class phenomenon.

Our roots are still in Bharat that is why we have fallen in love with Anna Hazare, and not media savvy TV room civil activists.
• Lokpal is only a beginning and not a cure-all solution. The civil society movements must provide a clear road-map to its supporters about what else needs to be done and give a long term road-map so activists have a sense of mission.
• As part of this movement, can we resolve to stick to rules, something that is in our hands (like Sarvodaya volunteers of yesteryears did), and try to avoid paying bribes or indulge in corruption (which is not always in our hands) - ‘as far as possible’?
• Rather than shun politics, join politics. See to it that you don’t change as years go by, but force the political party to stick to what it started out with or change it!

It is said time and again - if we don’t learn from history, history repeats itself, first as a tragedy then as a farce. This is the reason I have underlined the facts and lessons of second freedom struggle so the third freedom struggle doesn’t go down as another one-time spring.