LOOSING THE WAY

Perhaps the worst of the fears of Anna,his team and his supporters has come true.The proverbial wily politicians had their way by scuttling a crucial piece of legislation. In what could have been a historical turning point in the the way the citizenry of this country interfaced with the state, we are now left,once again with a hollow sensation of yet another betrayal by the political class,actively aided and abetted by an equally discredited bureaucracy.Anna's agenda of coercing the political class in general and the government in particular remains where it began-a wishful thinking. A nation wide awareness and an agitationist mood by a significant section of the masses for a workable mechanism against the scourge of corruption eventually became a zero sum game.

The genesis of such an outcome,somehow, could be traced to the initial phase of this movement where the terms of reference of this confrontation with the state were taking shape.To begin with, and perhaps the most crucial one, is the lack of objectivity in defining the very word CORRUPTION.Being loosely termed in generic words, the essence of the argument was left open to the scutllers and the obfuscationists to corrupt the mind of the general public whose support mattered. Corruption, in the current context should have been clearly defined as an overt or covert act of seeking or granting a favour in return of a consideration(material or non-material) ,by a public servant and therefore involving the public money, including acts of embezzlement of public funds using one's official position in the state. Clearly, the underlying protagonist of this word corruption should have been the public servant, who are on the pay-rolls of the public money. Not that such a phenomenon,called corruption is non-existent in other stakeholders of the society like corporates,professionals, entertainers etc.But there are ways and means to deal with them(see case of Ramalingam raju of satyam) and if need-be,necessary tweaking of existing legislation can be effected to improve the overall environment.Here, we are dealing on a specific issue. The scope of this legislation should remain focused and limited in order to thwart any attempts by the scuttlers to take the arguments to unfathomable planes,eventually to kill it.Observe the course that this movement has paved since it became significant in the public domain and it will be amply clear how its opponents, politicians particulary attacked it from all fronts.Crooks like Lalu's,yechury's, sibals and kurshids are past masters in these games of obfuscation. The loosely worded definition and the scope of applicability aided them to dilute the core issue by widening the scope to other players like corporates and NGO,s etc and creating smoke screens,effectively rendering it non-operable.

Secondly, I feel they(the team anna in particular) failed to carry out a correct stock-taking and mid-course corrections,post Ramlila ground face-off. The magic of numbers in this case, of the crowd made visible thanks to an omnipresent media was mistrued as necessary and sufficient wherewithal to corner the wily law makers into legislating what they prescribed.Indeed it was a potent weapon--the politician can only be scared into submission by the very tool he consider as its strength-the crowd power.However, there is a problem here.In this case, the crowd, however motivated and voluntary in nature, was a nebulous one. Spontaneous and therefore unpredictable in a subsequent time frame.The cause,fighting corruption in public life and dealings remains largely an esoteric issue, whatever be its relevance in our daily lives. Once confronted with more worrying matters, individual comprising this crowd forgets the preceding issue and disperse in thin air, rarely to re-group again. It is in stark contrast with the type of crowd that our politicians use to emphasise his relevance in public domain.They enjoy a dedicated crowd whose sole aim is to show their physical presence in numerical strength,,even if shouting slogans, no matter if individually they care two-hoots for anyone least of all for the one for whom they assembled.This, our wily politician knew too-well.Therefore, they waited for the Ramlila ground to disperse, let the dust settle down a bit and then attacked yet again anyone and everyone associated with the movement,by whatever means at their disposal. When you are deficient of reason, logic and rationality in your argument, use smearing as your weapon to discredit your opponents-this was the undeclared but obvious tactic of the cornered politician to rob the winds out of the activists sails and retain their ground.The kinds of Digvijays and lalus used and abused every kind of mechanisation to vilify the activists. The aim was singular-to deny them the very moral platform of probity that they used in the campaign, even if it amounted to outrageous accusations.As the public memory and attention waned away from core issue of effective legislation, the obscurationists usurped into the vacant plot of public discourses in the form of debates,discussions interviews and what not. Anna and his mates, unfortunately were too naive to appreciate this and therefor unprepared in their response. Unwittingly,they played into the hands of the wily politician by reacting to all the provocations.Every rebuttal meant loss of precious thought process and time, away from core issue to non-issues.Silence,could not have been more golden for team anna at this juncture. Secondly,Hissar was a failed experiment as it denuded the movement of its professed apolitical texture leaving its flanks open for yet another kind of smearing-that of indulging in partisan politics. Despite being armed with written assurances of the sense of the house as well as that of the PM, equivalent of nukes in this battle,the actvists could not use this tactical pause post Ramlila ground face off to their advantage. Instead, they got embroiled in one controversy over other,primarily engineered by the politico-bureaucratic nexus.On the hindsight,they could have remained focused on the core issue maintaining silence and waiting for the JPC's as well as the subsequent winter session outcome.Those who supported the movement during ramlila ground face-off too were closely watching the move of the lawmakers.Interestingly, every episode of high decibel dramatics of the parliamentarians betrayed their ulterior motive of deceit. A legitimate cause for a full blooded agitation was brewing. Anna and his team in all probability knew all this, but unfortunately took a pre-emptive decision to hold the fast and rally,even as the final acts of the parliamentary drama was unfolding.This mistiming as well as the choice of location was to prove a great error of judgement and the detractors wrested the initiative out of them. Accused of blackmailing the lawmakers and facing almost empty stands at the sprawling MMRDA ground, team A started losing the way and unmistakably felt their momentum slowly weaning away. A little patience, a little silence at this crucial phase-and the outcome could have been dramatically different,for now,they had the perfect pedestal of being "betrayed and deceived", to launch another blitzkrig against an insensitive establishment for diluting or scutlling the passage of billSS.They had the full wintery months ahead to warm up and ignite the multitudes who had dispersed post ramlila maidan.Instead, the wily politician once again walked away gleefully,successfully scuttling the final verdict and leaving team A to carry the burden of the failure. It was, in every sense of the word, an anti-climax. But for those who are too eager to write the epitaph of this historical movement led by anna and his gallant team, the full story is yet to unfold as a re-grouping and re-strategising is in progress by those who strongly believe in the eventual birth of a just,efficient and effective ombudsman who can take on the scourge called corruption from public office.