Its seventh day of the fast
of Team Anna and 3rd day of Anna Hazare himself and even from the
outset the look and feel of this agitation appears different from what it was
just a year back, when it was termed as second freedom movement and Anna
Hazare hailed as next Gandhi with due justification. Throngs of people gathered
on these fasts and rallies and millions more worked behind the scene , on
internet, blogs and social networking sites to spread the message, media hailed
it a truly historic movement and true to its impact, govt literally bent to accommodate
most of their demands and Lokpal felt like a distinct possibility, in not too
distant future.
What happened in next one year
is not what people anticipated, at least ones who genuinely expected a change. It
got stuck in parliament once again as there couldn’t be any consensus on
several key issues. Political mudslinging ensured that the Lokpal is thrown to back burner again, Anna Hazare trying to revive it again but even he wouldn’t have
expected the kind of response they are getting this time around. Its no longer
a monumental movement that media had described it only 12 months back but how
in their analysis it turned into a disaster as team Anna supposedly lost
strategic and political game against govt. How after attacking 162 parliamentarians
with criminal background they lost support of very people who were supposed to
help them pass the legislation, how they should have kept mum on 15 tainted ministers including one who heads the
group and one who was elevated to the honor of first citizen of the
country. Media is literally gloating
over the lack of crowd in agitation this time and their coverage is limited to
that .Even ordinary citizen seems distracted and confused and clueless, at
least that’s what appear from the outset if crowd is any indication of
popularity of an event.
So what went wrong, if any ?
A seemingly easy question but very difficult to find a definite answer.
Obviously an impartial observer would say strategies of Anna Hazare and team were
not flawless and that’s a fair statement , but fair only in sixty four squares
of a chessboard. Are we talking just
strategies here, a political game where a see saw battle is expected and you couldn’t
be a winner all the time . Was that all this movement all about , a game of one-upmanship
? Most of us who genuinely expected it a historic movement would vehemently
disagree.
The basic issue remains the
same, corruption. Why we aren’t this time talking about that ? Even a cursory look of corruption charges against ministers (http://news.indiaagainstcorruption.org/iac_new/index.php/tainted-ministers-documents
) evokes strong suspicion of doubt in the mind of ordinary citizen. Arent conduct
of public servants need to be always
beyond any reasonable doubt and aren’t they need to be under scrutiny all the
time ? Why isn’t there any public debate to see if there is any
need for the SIT ? Why transparency and governance to those sitting in highest
office optional and not absolute must ?
The list of questions are endless and one must strive to find an answer
, mostly within oneself before looking to find it outside.
Fact remains that our leaders come from the same
society that is ridden with corruption itself. Have we cleaned ourselves before
targeting and cleaning corruption in the society ? Have we stopped giving bribe
to traffic violation to the cops , have we as employees of govt and private
offices resorted to a clean and transparent process that is free from any
malpractice ? Why am I wrong to assume
that the crowd that associated with Anna’s movement last year included people
from dubious intents , people who talked
against corruption but had no intention to clean themselves as a pre requisite.
Any movement will lose steam in such circumstances. If we tried to get rid of corruption on the
support of these very people, we probably were wrong to start with.
True , society reflects
collective instinct of the people it
consists off. The changes have to come
within ourselves before it transcends into sustainable and game changing moment
for the society and that’s not easy. Its an arduous task that will need handwork,
commitment and above all sacrifice of all sorts . Are we ready to do that ? If
not we will continue the game of mudslinging because that’s all we know and
have inculcated in our thought process .
Its grim even to think where
we are heading next.
No comments:
Post a Comment