If there were an Olympic medal for persisting with a grand folly, Anna Hazare would not have missed the target like Deepika Kumari and struck pure gold.New Delhi: If there were an Olympic medal for persisting with a grand folly, Anna Hazare would not have missed the target like Deepika Kumari and struck pure gold. There's no Indian who'll disagree with Anna's determination to root out corruption with the Jan Lokpal Bill, but to inflict yet another fast-unto-death on an unsuspecting nation on a weekend is a ritual that exposes yet again the true colours of the 'Gandhian.'
Like his supporters mainly drawn from the RSS, Anna is a fascist with the vision of a village sarpanch. He cannot keep arrogating to himself the powers of the sole spokesperson of India's collective conscience without playing his political cards with the honesty that is expected of a man occupying the pedestal he does.
We have a political system that has worked largely to our advantage despite its many flaws. Why should we let it be hijacked by a man who has fought no election and has little to offer beyond a one-point agenda devoid of any overarching political vision? And how can Anna have any credibility in the eyes of the people when he's aligned with a Rolls Royce-loving yoga contortionist whose business empire is under investigation?
Baba Ramdev is the last person an anti-corruption movement should be seen with, till he comes clean about the sources of his funds. Yet, he's the man who has emerged as Anna's other crowd provider. The sales agents of his magical cures are ever ready to congregate at his call at the Ramlila Grounds, or wherever their bread-provider directs them to go.
The yoga teacher has never hidden his political agenda, which clearly is backed by his immensely, and ungodly, deep pockets.
But what about Anna? Whose side is he batting on? Why doesn't he take on the politicians he so loves to berate, in electoral contests? If Anna were a democrat with a vision, he would have led a political movement against the present political order, but his politics is that of a village bully.
Listen to him, or else he'll put on display, for one more time, his incredible ability to go on a long protest fast. That may be a salve for the conscience of the South Delhi-South Mumbai middle class, which when it's not expressing its solidarity for Anna, feeds the venality of politicians and bureaucrats, but that's not the political solution to a deep-rooted malaise that's been singularly responsible for bursting India's success-story soap bubble.
As our economic miracle resting on one-sided growth turns out to be as bad a joke as Rahul Gandhi's hunt for gainful employment, the country's piling problems require a multi-pronged attack powered by a new vision, a new force. Anna with his tunnel vision and limited arsenal of political weaponry, is certainly not that force. He's more of a caricature of his cause than a credible alternative. And that is our national tragedy.
2 comments:
why dont u offer a solution then?
Before Team Anna started their agitation against corruption it felt so impossible that india could ever get rid of corruption , because corruption is so deeply rooted in india that it somehow seems so normal living in this corrupt system , it feels proud to see that there are people who want to sacrifice their lives for this noble cause and it somehow makes us feel that if we force congress to pass a strong lokpal we could reduce corruption to some extend which would be a big achievement in itself , Media has been talking about low crowd in first 2 days did media ever talk about low crowds in rahul gandhi and sonia gandhi rally's . I think media also needs to be responsible here , it's our country and everybody is responsible , moreover in political rally people join because political parties lure them in different ways to join in . but people came to jantar mantar without any cheap interest of their own and people gathered in huge numbers like yesterday there were around 20,000 people alone at jantar mantar did congress ever manage to gather such a huge amount of people in their rally's .
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