Fall of Anna: Is underestimating Arvind Kejriwal the reason?

It is difficult to decide whether the stray TV images of Anna Hazare sitting on fast in Ralegan Siddhi are tragic or heroic, pathetic or bathetic, inspiring or irrelevant. What can be said with certainty is that from dominating the headlines once, he has been relegated to the inside pages of newspapers and the dying minutes of prime-time TV news. This is a heart-rending decline for the septuagenarian Gandhian from Maharashtra. Over the last two years, every time he descended on Delhi to fast unto death for compelling Parliament to adopt the Jan Lokpal Bill, he sent a shiver down the UPA spine, lured newshounds, and sent a frisson through the city and the nation. Where once the Union Cabinet’s bigwigs implored him to break his fast, it is a minister from the State Cabinet who was despatched to Ralegan Siddhi to reason with him. He demonstrated the familiar resolve to continue on his chosen course, but there were, at least in the initial two days, no throngs egging him on. For this overnight demotion in the hierarchy of news and in people’s affection, Anna has himself to blame. Analysts may cite several factors for the ebbing of support for him, but, ultimately, he has been diminished because of his seeming inability to transcend such human attributes as envy and vanity. There was also the fatal mistake he committed of harbouring the belief that it was his charisma alone which was pulling the people whenever and wherever he sat to rail against the  discredited UPA government. [caption id=“attachment_1282405” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Anna Hazare. Agencies.[/caption] In the flush of palpable public acclaim and accolades, he forgot the calibrated process through which his popularity, till then confined to Maharashtra, became truly national. It was Arvind Kejriwal and his comrades who provided him the national proscenium to perform, inviting him to lead the anti-corruption movement in Delhi. They also worked the network of volunteers to mobilise support, and harnessed the power of media to multiply and make appear the thousands protesting with Anna as a veritable groundswell. No doubt, his own persona was winsome – the toothy grin, for instance; as also his child-like simplicity and the awe-inspiring capacity to go without food for days to end. Perhaps the most endearing image of those months was Anna outpacing his much younger police escort as both raced to take shelter against pelting rain. As Kejriwal decided to defy Anna and enter politics, the septuagenarian perhaps believed that minus the glow of his charisma, his pugnacious lieutenant was bound to eat the humble pie. Accustomed to calling shots, to having his way, Anna did not understand that he needed Kejriwal as much as the latter required his support. This reality he has perhaps belatedly realised, perhaps the reason why he has undertaken fast this time round in his citadel. Perhaps Anna did not try to fathom the symbiotic nature of his relationship with Kejriwal because, like so many others, Anna thought Kejriwal and the AAP would sink in the mire of politics, and he would, after the party’s ignominious defeat, fall behind and accept his line – that politics is a dirty business, and the way to reform the system is by working outside it. His hubris was the reason why he kept away from campaigning for his acolytes in Delhi, unwilling to even recommend them to the people. Truly, like the Congress, Anna didn’t have his fingers on the people’s pulse. As volunteers poured from different parts of India to lend their shoulder to the AAP wheel, as Kejriwal hit the campaign trail months before the Delhi election, wooing and winning the denizens of slums and posh colonies alike, the political class woke to the possibility of an electoral upset. Politicians adopted dirty tricks to stump the AAP. Anna turned sullenly silent and then acerbic. It appears as if envy took over Anna. Around the time political parties of all hues began to, rather hypocritically, question the AAP’s source of funds, Anna too joined the chorus. He wrote a letter to Kejriwal claiming there were allegations against him for diverting the money collected for the anti-corruption movement. Anna said the AAP had been using his name in its campaign even though its leaders knew of his opposition to their participating in politics, and that ‘Anna SIM cards’ had been sold and the proceeds misappropriated. To many, it seemed an outwitted leader, in pique, was backstabbing his lieutenants perched on the cusp of astounding success. Feeling betrayed, the AAP convened a press conference to rebut Anna’s letter and offer to have their accounts investigated. In his own defence, Anna said his missive was personal in nature. Why did Kejriwal have to make his letter public? But the AAP leaders were apprehensive that considering the acrimony between them and their guru, the letter to Kejriwal would be leaked in the week before the election, leaving them with little time to efface the stains on their image. The AAP’s strong showing also brought out Anna’s vanity. A day before he sat on fast in Ralegan Siddhi, journalists reminded him of his past observations that if he were to contest election, he would lose his security deposit as he did not command money and muscle power, considered essential to succeed in the country’s political system. Then came the stinging question: How did he then explain Kejriwal’s triumph? Anna is said to have paused for a considerable duration, perhaps because vanity contended against generosity inside him, before he remarked that had he campaigned in Delhi, the AAP would have swept the polls and Kejriwal would have become chief minister. This was an incredible display of petulance and pettiness, more so because voters and AAP leaders believed Anna had it in him to give the party the additional momentum to help them cross the majority-mark. Obviously, you can’t fault Anna for adhering to his ideal of not participating in election. But then think, a man so conscious of his popularity is also the man who wrote the letter accusing the AAP of diverting funds. It tells you that it isn’t politics alone which brings out the worse in a human being. Soon, Anna fired another volley. He said it wasn’t possible for Kejriwal to pass the Jan Lokpal Bill as it was only Parliament which could enact it. He forgot that the model Lokpal Bill Anna and Kejriwal had together framed comprised a chapter detailing the features of a Lokayukta Bill which the States could pass. It was a brownie point schoolboys participating in debates try to score. In hindsight, you can’t but help feel that he wrote the script of his ongoing fast on certain assumptions. Believing the AAP would get hammered in election, he perhaps thought his fast would not only trumpet the sagacity of his line to not participate in politics, but would also lead to the spotlight being trained on him and the Bill. And should Parliament pass the Bill, the civil society’s triumph would be credited to him. The government may pass the Bill, as it has said it would, but the nation will perceive this outcome as a consequence of the fear in the political class about Kejriwal and AAP’s rise. You can’t but feel a little sad for the doughty septuagenarian, who has forfeited his following as also the respect he once commanded. And all because he wasn’t willing to accept his lieutenants could succeed without a helping hand from him, in spite of subtly subverting their run to the finish-line. The author is a Delhi-based journalist, and can be reached at ashrafajaz@gmail.com