The problem is Anna himself

You know someone has failed when they start giving excuses. By common consensus, everyone now acknowledges that Anna’s third fast was a flop show. Team Anna tried giving excuses for it – crowds aren’t the point, no autos at the suburban station to bring in the people, the ban on bulk SMSes, etc – but the empty MMRDA grounds told the real story. Outsiders have tried to say that Anna has been badly advised by his team: Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and Prashant Bhushan, among others. True, but irrelevant. Anna still took their advice. However, no one has told it like it really is. The reason why the movement is running into the sands of apathy and imminent dissipation is Anna himself. Anna is the wrong leader with the wrong ideas for the time. Despite his animosity for Rahul Gandhi, Anna shares this with the young Congress Dynast: he too is the wrong leader with the wrong ideas for today’s India. Anyone who has been watching prime-time TV would have seen young, fresh-faced, articulate members of India Against Corruption (IAC) stoutly defending Anna and his various viewpoints – including the latest one announcing his decision to target the Congress in various state assembly elections. But what I saw was the body language: much as they tried defending Anna, the IAC leaders’ body language said otherwise. In fact, there is probably a realisation among them that they are defending someone who does not really represent their views. [caption id=“attachment_167979” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“As much as they try defending Anna, the body language of IAC members tells another story: PTI”]  [/caption] Who are the people in Indian Against Corruption? They are young, highly educated, middle-class and upper middle class people, who are sick and tired of old style politicians and their hypocrisies. These are people who work in the modern corporate sector, or even NGOs, who earn good salaries and would like a new kind of governance replacing the old. Most of them are young urbanites, for whom a city should be run like an efficient corporation – with promised services delivered like stockholder returns. Corruption is something they dislike, and in most cases they don’t see much of it in their own lives. Most of the services they seek are provided by private organisations – banks, airline and railway tickets, the good things at the mall. However, whether one likes it or not, this middle class is ashamed of the corruption it cannot avoid in its interface with the government: the poorly-run and corruption-infested RTOs, passport offices, municipal offices, etc. They are also offended by big-ticket corruption of the Raja and Kalmadi type. In short, the IAC crowd represents a modern, outward-oriented, aspirational generation spawned by the economic liberalisation of the 1980s and 1990s. On the other hand, look at who they have chosen as their leader: Anna Hazare, an anti-modern, moralistic, finger-wagging old man who lives in a time-warp. With hindsight, one can say that the movement chose Anna as an after-thought since they needed someone who wasn’t corrupt, and whom the politicians could not junk as just another crook with a Gandhi cap. It was a colossal mistake. The right movement got the wrong leader – and that’s what went wrong with Anna Hazare. I too backed Anna when it seemed like it was the right idea for the time, but as I watched Anna belt out his pet idiosyncrasies, I found myself rooting for the movement but not Anna. Now, let’s take a look at Rahul Gandhi. Fresh-faced and young, he could actually have provided IAC the right kind of leadership, but Rahul is caught up in the wrong party with the wrong ideas. Even as India is yearning to break free from the forced paternalism of the mai-baap state, Rahul and his mother are trying to force one down our throats. They want to perpetuate old-style patronisation of the poor: hence the Food Security Bill, reservations for minorities, etc. IAC members – often run by many minority faces – would be appalled by this. In fact, the right man to actually lead IAC would have been Rahul’s father Rajiv Gandhi, who had all the right ideas – till Bofors did him in and he went into a shell. Rajiv was far ahead of his party in terms of modern thinking; Rahul seems far behind his party which is ready for radical change, but is stuck with dynastic paternalism. The tragedy of both Anna and Rahul is thus the same: they are wrong leaders with the wrong ideas. But here’s my prediction: India Against Corruption will thrive and prosper only if it gently eases Anna out and looks inward for better leadership. The movement is the right one for urban India – and the sooner it finds the right leader the better it will be. While IAC has managed to get a government to bend on the Lokpal through a lucky combination of events – a stumbling UPA, a general urban upsurge against corruption, and a leader (Anna) who temporarily looked like he had the gumption to take on the old order – future battles will need better strategy and better mobilisation. The dilemma for IAC is the same as the Congress: they are stuck with Anna just as the Grand Old Party is with a lacklustre Rahul. Congress has much better leaders outside dynasty, and IAC in its own ranks. The right answer for both is the same: leave the unacceptable leaders behind.