There was nothing calculated about it. Anna didn't know how many people would protest and how. It was the Spontaneity that surprised our own selves, and put the government on a backfoot. The Satyagraha was called off when the government gave in.
I don't think we rooted for Baba Ramdev when we fasted, or he was part of the 'package' that the mass protest rooting for a corruption-free India, took inspiration.
I tell you -- the mass will not be there this time, whoever is fasting wherever.
Whatever Ramdevji did was premature, and it allowed the Home Minister (who is in the Lokpal Bill panel) to assert : "..the members of the Civil Society are divided in opinion." He didn't mean the 5 who are in the panel. He meant Ramdev's demands. This gentleman should keep himself to the job he thinks he does well. Why is he being allowed to enter the issue in the way that the country observes? He might be having millions of 'fans' in heaven and on earth, he is most welcome to support the cause, but since when has he taken up the 'mantle' of being one of the voices of the Cause. On that note,which I hope will not offend one for that is not my intention, I must say I wouldn't like a Yoga exponent representing my voice against corruption, who wishes to cure the "disease of homosexuality with herbal medicine."
Ordinary apolitical people like me are perceiving an atmosphere of a Tamasha that's gaining momentum, and this is Very Very Disappointing. And we are feeling devastated, and utterly frustrated, and now I understand why the country continues to be in the state of utter mess despite having patriotic citizens. The planned Tamasha is Ram Leela Maidan later this week is likely to see more 'mass support' by 'paid' followers of the Divine Cause, shouting and sloganeering, and that will portray a very, very distorted face of India, the face we have continued ignore due to personal prejudices --- the very contradiction that lies unfettered in India's consciousness. If we do not act now, nobody will ever act in future, nor mentioning the painful heartbreak of 1.2 million Indians.
Every action has a time. (If one prepones or postpones it, the entire action is nullified in effect. Exactly what the government seemed to be trying to do by throwing the rule-book back, that disappointed members of Civil Society 3 days back). As a commoner I will not like to dissect the constitutional and technical aspects of the consensus that was reached then. Not that I can't. But the son of a farmer who took his own life in Vidarbha last year out of hunger and heartbreak wouldn't. He wouldn't care, not at this stage.
I have got no issues at all with anybody coming up with any form of non-violent protest, against any institution if the agenda is pro-people and pro-India, no matter who might be uncomfortable with that. But a false perception is defusing out to India. Please let him not interfere with the Specific Process that is on roll at the moment regarding interactions in the Lokpal Bill panel. It is giving the government, or that part of it with vested interests, chances to sabotage the process, the specific process of what should be included in the draft. It is diluting the effect that the mass movement had brought about, no matter how patriotic somebody's intention might be. And that is where it is getting prematurely politicised (we can't avoid that in the future, but in the Right stage). And This is where Anna Hazare scored -- no ambiguities in his words, and his staunch resistance to let in any sort of political gamesmanship that might threaten to divert the focus off the real issue. He represented Balance, as a Responsible leader.
Today it is 'black money'. Tomorrow it shall be 'female infanticide'. Day after tomorrow, it would be 'BPO and Rs.20/- a day'. Everything is valid and correct. But it has to be organised and focus as perfectly as possible. We need Responsibility now, not unharnessed emotion (it would have been relevant if we were trying to make a mass movement, like the one 6 weeks before. And it is Our responsibility to do that and share. We owe it to the dead farmer's son.
The only point I shall continue to comment on with utmost humility, no matter what, is the issue of the Jan Lokpal Bill which is yet to be drafted conclusively and to be passed in Parliament. A specific momentum has gathered, and it's our duty to thwart any factor -- animate or inanimate, irrespective of caste, gender, religion, financial condition, rural or urban origins, that can decelerate the process. Let's keep our focus on that. And it points exactly to one of the reasons why Ramdevji should tread carefully as far as the Lokpal Bill is concerned.
The issue of the Prime Minister's Office and the Supreme Court related to the Jan Lokpal Bill has continued to confuse the mind of the common Indian. Everybody associated with the Jan Lokpal Bill seems to be giving touch-in-cheek monosyllabic answer, and the fumbling phonetic intrinsics are adding to the confusion. Who is this holy Father to opine on whether the PMO and the judiciary should be kept out of the proposed ambit?
I have no doubt about the truth of a report because I myself watched Ramdevji say that he is against the idea of the issue of the Prime Minister's Office and the Supreme Court coming under the ambit of the Jan Lokpal Bill. I watched him saying these very words on a TV news channel on 31st.May, at a convention in Madhya Pradesh (related to his Swabhiman Yatra, I guess). I felt all the more sad as I watched him on the same news channel yesterday evening, saying that his words have been 'misqouted' or have been 'perceived in the wrong context' by the media, when he was asked by Arnab Goswami to clarify his take on the issue of the Prime Minister's Office and the Supreme Court coming under the umbrella of the Jan Lokpal Bill. I still fail to comprehend what he actually meant. The Indian commoner has become tired of such ambiguities -- one of the reasons why we all have developed a wholesome apathy to political exercises, no matter what and where, and lack political consciousness.
The Indian common man has become tired to the point of disgust and ironic amusement, having been at the receiving end of the infamously comical "misquoted or wrongly contextualised" for years, as and when eminent people have rushed to utter these words at the drop of a hat, whenever caught on the wrong foot. And this is where and how Mistrust creeps in the equation, and we, ourselves, let vested interests capitalize on such avoidable cracks in the solidarity of India's collective consciousness.
In times of confusion and impatient unrest like now, (I guess it's natural when a unique democracy like India stands on the threshold of a controlled implosion and changes long overdue, some being radical), I find the 'silence' on our part deafening and scary too. And unless we do not listen to each other and know each other, we would be guilty of not being compatriots, despite being responsible citizens of the same country.
It's our voices that matter. At least the Great Indian Silence (a deafening one, which seems to have been passed down generations since India turned Republic in 1950) seems to have been broken, and I hope the trend shall continue to flourish. I am not picking out individual perceptions. But it is my responsibility to speak out if I see a conflict of interest as far as the Lokpal Bill drafting and its validation in Parliament. (I hope our common focus remains there still). On that note,which I hope will not offend one for that is not my intention, I must say I wouldn't like a Yoga exponent representing my voice against corruption, who wishes to cure the "disease of homosexuality with herbal medicine."
We cannot do without debates as long as the focus is unanimously identified, and we consciously refrain from confronting each other with *individual perceptions about each other*, thus edging out the core issue and distorting the order of our *common priorities. Active debates with full freedom of expression shall enable us to understand each other, criticize each other, and learn from each other -- something needed so direly, if we decide to protest and fight shoulder to shoulder. That is one democratic way without distorting propriety, by which every dark corner of India, ignored before, can be enlightened, enlightening our own selves too.
India cannot agree if Indians do not agree to disagree.
Sent from my BlackBerry®Smartphone
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Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri M.B.B.S
Consultant Physician (special interest in
Cardiology&Critical Care)
Mumbai, India
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Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been
there before me (Sigmund Freud)
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