Anna Hazare should say – in Marathi and Hindi

Yesterday, Anna Hazare’s official blog, annahazaresays.wordpress.com, was officially shut down. A terse, six word post said, “This Blog Has Been Closed!” The previous post on the blog was one that was uploaded by Raju Parulekar, who was, when the blog was launched on 17 September, ‘authorised’ by Anna to publish Anna’s views. In his first post on the blog, Anna Hazare had written,“People from world over want to know my thoughts on various issues. Many a times people (even those who are closer to me) make statements that do not collaborate with my thinking. Henceforth, through the medium of internet I will personally make sure that my thoughts and views reach over to the people. http://annahazaresays.wordpress.com http://annahazaresays.blogspot.com [caption id=“attachment_127930” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Yesterday, Anna Hazare’s official blog, annahazaresays.wordpress.com, was officially shut down.”]  [/caption] These are my official blogging sites. I hereby authorize Shri. Vijay Kuvalekar and Shri. Raju Parulekar to henceforth publish communique on the above blogs on my behalf. The matter will be multi-lingual i.e Marathi, Hindi, English and any other Indian regional language if necessary. The thoughts and the stand taken on issues published on the above blogs will be officially mine and hence one cannot publish anything on the blog without my permission.” Since then, the internal conflicts between key members of India Against Corruption and Anna Hazare came to the fore, with rumours that Anna Hazare wanted an expansion of the Core Committee doing the rounds – and Raju Parulekar confirmed that Hazare was keen to do so. This statement was quickly denied by Kejriwal, followed by a denial by Hazare himself, with Anna Hazare rubbishing Parulekar’s claims that Hazare had spoken to him about the issue. Parulekar proceeded to ‘clear his name’ by posting the now famous ‘proof’ of Anna Hazare’s thoughts on expansion of the committee – notes in Anna Hazare’s handwriting. It was clear that this was a rogue post – and could never have been uploaded with Anna Hazare’s consent. Hazare announced yesterday that he would close down the blog and launch a new one. “Following the spat with his official blogger, Raju Parulekar, anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare has now decided to start a new blog. The Gandhian said he will separate his blog from the existing one and will appoint two experts for it. “Whatever I will write, they will upload it on the blog. Our blog has over two crore followers. We will also create a record for the same (the new blog),” he said, reports India Today. The damage done to Anna Hazare thanks to the blog is considerable. In just 54 days, the blog has been transformed from being Hazare’s official mouthpiece to one that will have proof of the divisions in Team Anna recorded for posterity. It will also, forever, be a demonstration of how Anna Hazare couldn’t even manage a team of three – himself and two ‘authorised’ ‘publishers’. In this instance, Hazare cannot say that the Parulekar episode is one more instance of the dirty tricks of the UPA or the Congress; it is, simply, a failure of Anna Hazare (and not of Team Anna) to manage what should have been the simplest of tasks – managing a website. And finally, while there is certainly need for Anna Hazare to air his views from time to time, there is no need whatsoever for him to make his point in languages that he is uncomfortable in. Perhaps he should stick to just Marathi and Hindi. To do so in other languages means that you could have losses in translations — and you could have the embarrassing losses of translators.