The Back-Benchers' Blog

Ignorance is indeed bliss. This has been reinforced in my small little brain after I read some juvenile attempts on the internet by the “Internet Subject Experts” lumping Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare together. As Atanu Dey writes here, when it comes to politics, economics, geology, stock markets and many other subjects, that Baba Ramdev would do himself and others great service by keeping as away from them as Digvijay Singh from sanity. And in much the same spirit, when it comes to the knowledge of people working on grassroots, contribution of some activists to problems of the distressed, contextual analysis of economic policy and many other topics that require slightly deeper understanding of a subject than Google, bloggers (many, not all) should also refrain from them. (I too have indulged in casual criticism of something or the other in the past but the Anna episode has made me realize that I need to dig slightly deeper in order to say something significant.) They need to take some efforts to evaluate whether they possess the understanding/information/knowledge to criticise/poke fun at Anna or Baba. It is of course pardonable should a person think, upon hearing Baba’s solution to homosexuality, that this man has just about enough brains to open his mouth to eat but no more. But a bit of effort to understand the men in question would probably do everyone a lot more good, or so I believe.

But the issue is the Anna-Baba hyphenation. Do we like Ind-Pak hyphenation? How would Sachin Tendulkar feel upon reading Sachin-Venky-Sreenath as some great players of the 90s? Would AB Vajpyaee ever be able to digest it if someone were to write something like “Vajpayee-Singh type of PMs are ever reticent”? Then why not apply the same yardstick to Anna?

Baba Ramdev is a yogic guru who has managed to make a fool of himself thanks to his ludicrous ideas of solving social problems. It is not anyone else but he himself who is solely responsible for the mockery that he has been subjected to lately. At the same time, he is phenomenal when it comes to Yoga and Pranayama. Thousands of well-educated people are his followers. He does not preach astrology. He preaches only Yoga and millions have benefited through it. So those deriding Baba-The Yogi, can continue to do so without ever realizing how outrageously stupid they sound in declaring that thousands of highly-placed managers, engineers and others, who are Ramdev’s followers, are in fact stupid and it is them who possess the knowledge to separate the wheat from chaff. Equally, he has no experience whatsoever in dealing with the corrupt leaders of the country that run across all the parties in equal measure. He should, in the very first place, have not taken up the issue at all. Like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, he should simply have played a silent-supporter only supporting the cause and let the experts decide on the means.

Mr.Anna Hazare is not an expert on this either. However, on a scale of one to ten, if Baba is at two then Anna is at eight. And I can’t think of anyone even at seven, forget about nine of ten. He is most certainly not perfect. He does not have the political acumen or intellectual depth to draft the constitution of India. For that reason, he should never be entrusted with the responsibility of drafting a legislation. Agreed completely. But the problem is two-fold. The government simply does not want a law that would in any way, impinge upon their right-to-corruption. Government has transcended into an Orwellian world where it can practically achieve any outcome it wishes to. Akin to dropping cash-bags from helicopter, it gave loan-waiver at the expense of taxpayers. It indulged in other various policies that breed incompetence and corruption. It indulged in crony capitalism. And while all this was going on, in the name of secularism and free press, it tagged the fourth estate of democracy along with it. If this cobweb of disgusting leaders, scams of growing order day after day with Antonia Maino and her son Rahul Vinci the largest beneficiaries in all, somebody has to shackle the order. If there is hope it lies in the common man. Illusions of revolution are not to be realized. We are too big too fail. And for the same reason, too organized to be challenged.

In these circumstances, people cling on to hope. They make a Sun out of the moon, without realizing that it’s not the moon that shines all by itself. But that’s irrelevant. The fact that it shines in the dark is enough. Anna is the moon in this dark age. The reason is simple. The man is absolutely clean. All his accounts are open for all to check. And he has more experience than anyone in taking the corrupt leaders head-on and make a difference. Yes, make a difference! I have often come across naive-suggestions by various “policy experts” on twitter and other such forums educating how “voting them out will achieve the desired outcome and protests are unnecessary” and other such tripe. Such arguments are like the nutcase libertarian free-market arguments. Just the way economists have understood beyond any reasonable doubt that many-a-times, government intervention in a market corrects for some issues, political scientists too have realized the trap of uneducated voters electing bad leaders. It is conceivable that “experts” arguing for “voting them out” probably have very little, if any, connection with ground. A two-day trip in any rural part of India would expose how the elections actually take place. Moreover, with Police, probably the most debauched institution in India, at the mercy of the state and centre machinery, the government has the power to silence any democratic force. Coupled with that, the fact that these atrocious politicians often disburse direct-cash to voters to lure them. Since the poor outnumber the rich and the rich typically can’t make it to the elections because of “busy schedule”, the election is a big farce. In fact, the concept of Tyranny of the majority says the very same thing. I met a couple last month who have some land near Pune. They are being pressurized by political leader to sell it at 30% of the market prize. They were threatened to face the consequences otherwise. The leader who pressurized them would then dole out gifts for the poor. Are the experts going to advocate risking one’s life for this “noble cause”? Or are they living under the illusion that you can vote them out? Isn’t it an obvious case of the “Tyranny of the majority”? The next step, the experts will advise contesting elections. Then when you cite the finances reason, they’ll say earn money. And we come back to square one.

Some people will raise objections about Anna’s virtues too. But, truth is not so easy to find out in reality. Reading some non-sensical articles on internet where some “investigative journalist” claims to have found corruption in Anna’s trust is too superficial and often a naive approach. And why do I say this with so much of confidence? Because I have had the fortune of seeing the man very closely. And of what relevance or trust is an anecdotal evidence like this? Probably nothing for the cynics. But for those who are open-minded there’s plenty to look at. Anna’s trust for example, does not come under the purview of “Right to Information” act. It is NOT a public trust. However, Anna was the one who went on a public agitation against the Maharashtra Government in 2004 for the introduction of the RTI act in Maharashtra. The result was the RTI act that was introduced in Maharashtra in 2005. Anna, and other committee members, stressed upon the need of having zonal commissioners for RTI appeals for the convenience of the common man. The then CM Vilasrao Deshmukh agreed and Maharashtra, till date, is the only state which has a decentralized arrangement of this sort. Keeping his own role in introducing RTI in mind, Anna has followed RTI in his trust where anyone is free to seek any information. This is just an example to show the integrity of a man.

Anna Hazare was a truck driver in the army. In the war of 1965, he was with two of his colleagues who died in front of him. A person like me, in that situation, would have thanked the Almighty, for saving my life. Anna, on the other hand, first cursed God for not taking him away. Then, he thought to himself that God must have had something bigger in his mind for which he saved Anna. Now, the cynics and the intellectuals might find this laughable. They sure will. But it is not the cynics who make a difference. Neither do the intellectuals. It is the men with silly little hopes, beliefs and a shade of insanity that make the difference.

Anna decided to devote his life to social service upon his return from Army. He came back to Ralegan Sidhhi (henceforth Ralegan). He abandoned his house and started living in a temple. His mother used to live in his house and come to meet him but Anna never went to his house. For Diwali, his mother would get sweets for him at the temple. Anna would not go home.

When Anna went to Ralegan, the village was full of vices of all sorts. Alcohol, corruption, fights. Anna launched a campaign against alcohol. Today, Ralegan is alcohol-free for all practical purposes. That Daru-bandi changed lives of women in the village forever. Ralegan is in Ahmednagar district. It has a serious problems of irrigation that plagued the largely agricultural economy of the village. Anna designed and implemented a project of Panlot Kshetra for irrigation that solved the village’s irrigation problems completely.

Anna initiated collective farming in the village that is running successfully even now. Anna started a school only for children who fail repeatedly. Students from across the state come to that school and benefit.

While Anna was doing all this on a local level, Anna launched his first campaign against the Pawar government in early nineties. Anna does not have media. He does not have money. All he possesses is a suitcase and a few rupees. His only weapon is his fast. A weapon that Mahatma Gandhi used. When he used that against Pawar and Congress, the Congress labeled him as an RSS agent. Deja vu? A few years later, BJP-SS govt came in power and Anna went on a fast against them. This time, BJP-SS labeled him as a Congress agent. He persisted with his fight in spite of these allegations. He marched on. Achieved some success, some failures. But the man has always taken the state-machinery, all by himself.

He exposed the multi-crore Telgi scam. He exposed the scam in Maharashtra’s health-ministry. He fought for RTI. And he is still fighting for many other things. Whether what he is fighting for right now is worth it? Or is it principally correct to establish an all-powerful-superpower LokPal? I don’t know. Probably not. But, he is not a man who knows nothing. He is shrewd. He knows that when you ask for a mile the government gives an inch. I don’t think even he is expecting to get all that he’s asking for.

He is a seasoned anti-corruption crusader. It is very hard to measure the success of his campaigns. Whether he has managed to curb the growth of corruption in Maharashtra? Perhaps not. But he has raised a voice. And in some ways, he has probably reduced corruption. And most importantly, much in tune with most of the netizens, underneath all the fight is nationalism and not some nihilistic Maoist, romantic pro-poor rant that he is indulging in.

The man has a face that all the parties equally dread for they know the power behind it. He has the integrity, the character and most importantly the experience to fight the corrupt politicians. If there is something that he lacks it’s the support of people, the people who will stand behind Anna, the people who will stand as a barricade before Anna should the government wish to bulldoze the force. He lacks the force of genuine intellectuals, the intellectuals who wish to work for a better, stronger and a stable India, the intellectuals who have the acumen for drafting legislations, fighting it out in the court and creating a strong intellectual face for the movement. The movement needs them all. And at the face of the movement, is the man with strongest character, integrity and determination.

This is not the time for claptrap on questioning Anna’s integrity. It’s the time to ensure that the force prevails. It is the force of the strong leaders, their intellectual front at the back and the others that show the numbers to scare those who wish to crush them, that can destroy the Italian connection, the Mafia Raj, the Maino-kingdom, the Quattrochi den.