where lies the conflict....

let us put this whole episode of anna's crusade against corruption in proper perspective. it will help to understand the equation between anna hazare, jan lokpal bill,  and indian political system. anna has been doing fasts and dharnas at state level in maharashtra till other day. with jan lokpal bill he moved to delhi first time. due to naivete of congress about his ways, they allowed his first fast in april 2011 casually. to their surprise and horror when they saw swelling crowds in janter manter and all over india they got worried and gave in by agreeing to joint drafting committee with team anna. but here congress thought they can always resort to all time remedy of diffusing the public anger by buying time by setting up joint drafting committees, etc. and we did witness how beautifully they staged managed the  show of joint drafting committee and ultimately only presented their version of bill to parliament. 

let us analyse this. why they presented their version of bill. are they not ignoring a mass movement for jan lokpal bill just witnessed as on 5th april. herein lies the political reality of india. who can recognize and tell any political party how this mass movement will get translated during electoral times. and until bill is presented and debated in parliament and ultimately passed political parties have all the time to score brawny points keeping their electoral vote bank in mind. so it makes sense to congress to dilute the bill to  current form. even other political parties had not made their position very clear in the all party meet with congress. they insisted on giving their views only on draft bill when put up for debate in parliament. so blaming congress alone on this makes no sense at all. 

so this whole circus of jan lokpal bill is not being played out in single one large ring. if you take whole of india with all its constituents as one ring then its okay. but let us break this large ring in to multiple rings to make our task easier. now each ring has different set of rules by which players play. so when anna goes to people with jan lokpal bill they stand up immediately because in this ring it pays to people to be counted and put pressure on government. in this same ring where congress has to interact with anna hazare they appear to just paying lip service and accommodating him to disperse people or crowd away. when people are back in their home, congress brings in to play another ring of political circus where it has to deal all political parties, inside and out side parliament. let us think on this matter also. will it be not be more sensible for team anna to wait till this whole political circus is played out. then this chorus of 'parliament' verses people's power will die out a natural death. but i see why team anna is impatient. they have already seen in their hind sight that nothing meaningful will come of this conclusive political circus of parliament. credibility of parliament is indeed very low. but they (MP's) need to introspect seriously for such perception of people of the parliament and its functioning.

so a simple question is why any political party is not able to translate this mass movement into their vote bank. this has two layered answer. first is the nature of the bill. assuming that all political parties need funds to fight elections and they have to resort to some form of corruption to collect this fund, then they will definitely like to weigh each clause of jan lok pal bill against how much they want their neck to stick out to noose of strong lokpal. second, you need a very strong political leader with lot of vision and gut feeling and power to take his/her party along to reap such benefits of mass movement. now let us see who has this leader in their party.

congress at present can be best described as organisation which behaves like INC to run india on behalf of Ms sonia gandhi, till heir apparent mr rahul gandhi is ready. so expecting such strong political leadership from any congress man to tap in to such mass movement is as futile by very nature of its 'employee' mind set. can any employee take more responsibility than owner of a company. as regards ms sonia gandhi i will not blame her for not being able to wear the shoes of such leader because firstly she considers herself as custodian of power till rahul is ready to take over. and second, apart from constitutional position of her validity of taking highest position of PM due to her foreign origin, she is dis-qualified simply because she cannot have that gut feeling of mass leader which comes naturally to son/daughter of the soil who is born here to Indian parents. i am sorry to say, but indianness comes with some price attached. and let us grant her so much credit for not occupying PM's post by respecting the sentiments of majority of Indians. she has done great service to our nation by refusing to take PM's post from time to time. rahul is asserting himself every now and then when he feels that political climate will get muddied for him to take over as PM. but still he is not confident to take a role of strong leader who can take whole congress with him at this juncture. so let us give him all the time that he needs. so till then congress has nothing to show us by way of strong leadership to tap into such mass movement not seen in last 25 years, what should we do. can india wait any longer for a mass leader with good political intentions to deliver.

for BJP after mr bajpayee, mr advani could not tap into the psyche of indian people. indian people are emotional. and they connect with political leaders who has such oratory skills which appeals to their emotion. vajpayee was such one rare speaker. he could not only connect with ordinary people but also with MPs in parliament whenever he rose to speak, either as PM or opposition leader or even as ordinary MP. in these days of mass movement i really miss him. as opposition leader, if he were around, he could easily tear into congress ineptness of handling anna hazare's crusade and paint them in poor light very easily, inside and out side parliament. so regarding mr advani i think that he is distinctly disadvantaged because he is coming after mr vajpayee and secondly the nature of politics is changed from the 1st innings of BJP when they came to power for 6 years way back in 1998 to 2004. so mr advani has yet to bring a meaningful break through in this new political reality which orients around the youth and development. so even though BJP may want to tap into this mass movement, but as on now it is not clear whether they are able to do that. . 

for other political parties there is no necessity to dwell in detail. there is dis-connect between left parties and people of india after nuclear deal and also ms mamta derailed them from paschim banga, too. so due to lack of mass leader people have no choice but rally around mr anna hazare who is very easy to align with due to his clean image and selflessness, in spite of what congress spokesman speak of him. but i want to ask a question here. till this issue of jan lokpal bill is resolved why this very movement cannot be converted in to a political movement. why can't it lead to a new political party with political manifesto. who will be leader (in case anna declines to be leader) and who will fight elections can be decided later when elections come. why should we look for a leader in other political parties to support Jan Lokpal Bill and why not we create our own leader from this very mass movement. i hope somebody from team anna looks in to this seriously. the manifesto is  easy. a single point agenda of 'corruption free india' is good enough starting point. 

so on concluding note we are witnessing unprecedented times today. we all need to introspect further. democracy is ultimately about electoral process. even though team anna wants more participatory democracy like having their say in drafting of laws like jan lokpal bill. but what could be a better participatory democracy then being in charge ourselves. believe the kind of crowd we see on streets today is dream of any political party. and here we have the crowd but no political hue to the movement. i rest my case. 


JAI HIND !! VANDE MATARAM !!