Anna Hazare may be the best thing to happen to this country this century. Coming out of relative obscurity, he has completely transformed the fight against corruption and brought it from the innards of our self-conscience and out into the open and right into Delhi, and other centers of power across India. Many wrote him off. The corrupt babu's who currently hold power would never give in to his 'outrageous' demands. Of course, why should they return the money which they had worked so hard to steal in the first place. And so, a battle of will, and of wit and tact began. Baba Ramdev was honoured by no less than 4 cabinet ministers in an effort to sideline the more suave and less dramatic Anna Hazare. But on seeing the kind of mass support that the famed yoga guru had, and because the Swami was in no mood to put a stop to his 'hooliganism and other outrageous activities', those honorable ministers were forced to take police action against him. Of course, the police action was peaceful, but the Baba claims that he narrowly escaped with his life.
(At this point, those who fail to notice the sarcasm in my tone, you are super dumb :P)
So, one person disposed of, the government thought that Anna, the suave, soft spoken, leader of only the elite with no mass appeal cannot possibly be more troublesome than the Baba. There was probably champagne being served at 10 Janpath that day.
Alas! The celebration was short lived. Beacuse, soo after the episode with Baba Ramdev came to a close, Anna Hazare suddenly became a rock star. He was the new poster boy of the media. Move over all the Rakhi Sawants and Mika Singhs of the world, because Annaji is here to stay. Even India TV, aired exclusives on him. How could a dull social worker from the interiors of Maharashtra without even one scandal to his name could occupy so much prime time, was simply beyond the understanding of all the well fed babu's. But our great leaders, the masters of public administration knew how to cut short a revolution. Cut off the head and the snake dies. So, they went and arrested Anna Hazare. BIG MISTAKE!! :D
The arrest of Anna sparked simultaneous protests in every nook and corner of the country, of the scale probably not seen since independence. The government was aghast. None of the tricks they had up their sleeve seemed to work. They tried mud slinging.....but Anna Hazare's image was immaculately clean. In fact, it seems that all the mud just bounced off him to hit Digvijay Singh splat in the face. They tried negotiating, but Anna Hazare was determined that his demands should be met in totality. In fact, he began his hunger strike write from his jail cell, reminiscent of the freedom struggle. Keeping in tune wit the masses, he declared this movement to be the second freedom struggle. Arresting Anna Hazare provided him with support from virtually every segment of society, be it rich or poor, save for the occasional uncalled for tirade by Arundhati Roy. Rickshaw drivers, and IT professionals marched side by side, chanting slogans in one voice. Celebrities, politicians and Swami's all came down to support Annaji. The government was left with no option but to release him, hoping that the wave of displeasure created by his arrest would eventually die down after his release. As we all know, nothing of the sort happened. Once he was rleased, Annaji smartly used all the new weapons of mass approval in his arsenal and periodically kept on bombing the congress leadership with them. Even Digvijay Singh was now forced to shut up. As a last desperate measure, the age old foreign hand (read USA) card was played. That too failed. The opposition parties made life none the easier for the ruling UPA. The odd remarks of disapproval of Anna's campaign by the odd Lalu Prasad Yadav was drowned out by the development that had happened in a Lalu free Bihar. Good news! Lalu is gone from Bihar, but the samosa still has aaloo in it. And it's probably fried in a lot more hygienic oil now and in a much more peaceful environment, not while staring down the double barrels of a world war 2 vintage rifle. In the midst of all this, leaders like mayawati, for reasons only known to her found it to her benefit to support Anna. Maybe she believes that she can't be caught. How can the future PM of India be put behind bars. The very idea is ridiculou to her. But maybe she should have a chat with Kanimozhi to this effect.
Faced with increasing domestic pressure on account of Annaji's failing health, the ruling government finally had to concede to most of Anna's demands. Brand Anna had won the day. The government had promised to introduce Anna's Jan-lokbal bill in the parliament. But as expected of it, the congress is again taking half hearted steps towards the implementation of this bill. A lot of politicians are probably running scared of this bill, as this bill gives enough power to a committee to investigate any MP found indulging in fraud. As and when that happens, we'll start to have an increasingly empty parliament. Good! At least, that way there will be less ruckus and more work will get done. Maybe it's now time to kick the congress out of office and hope that the NDA under either Narendre Modi or Nitish Kumar can do a better job. If they fail too, we'll kick them out too, and reelect......who? Maybe Annaji should float a party of the educated people of India who can legitimately get elected and work for the country. The masses of this country have been fooled for too long by the shrewed babu's, whose favorite passtime is preying on the hapless civilian and draiing them of their life energy. The people in power today are soul sucking vampires. Maybe that's why, we can't see them in their provinces apart the time when they are campaigning for reelection. Maybe, reelection time is their night and the interim period is their day, it spoils their health to visit their constituencies any other time. That's probably it.....how else can one explain the long absences if they are as honest and efficient as they all claim to be.
