Sunday, May 26th 10:03 AM IST
 

Anna Hazare should enter politics

Akshaya Mishra

It’s high time the country looked for a political alternative beyond the Congress and the BJP. Both the parties have run out of fresh ideas and look in no position to usher the transformation the country so desperately requires. There’s a vacuum in the political space. Anna Hazare could fill that. His efforts to fighting corruption have been acknowledged across the country. It helps that he has been a social worker of eminence. He already has a dedicated following and he has a team of honest people to fall back on. He could be the face of the masses which no other party has. If Team Anna could work out an ideology to fire the imagination of all sections of people, he could be the politician the country is looking for. He should get into politics. It does not matter whether he wins many seats. His presence will be the pin-prick of conscience for the political class.read less read more

Anant Rangaswami

The moment Anna becomes a politician, the rules of the game change. The reference points of comparison become other politicians, not great change agents in history, as the reference points are today. “Is he another Gandhi? A Mandela? A Martin Luther King?”, will transform to “Is he another Mrs. Gandhi? A Vajpayee?, etc.” As a politician, he will not be allowed to stay a dreamer and an idealist – he will have to acknowledge the realities of a political system. Most dangerous is the fact that his popularity will be measured at the hustings, and a glance at history in democratic societies will show that ‘good’ people do not win. In fact, they almost always lose. As long as Anna is apolitical, he will forever be seen as ‘good’, even if he does not deliver on his promises and does not achieve the dreams he allows his followers to dream.read less read more