Anna Hazare: the last Gandhian standing

When Manmohan Singh gave his Independence Day address to the nation yesterday, one man was missing in action. Mahatma Gandhi. Usually no Independence Day speech is complete without some quote from the Father of the Nation. But this time there was only one mention of his name: the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Act. Singh probably didn’t want to draw too much attention to the Father of the Nation when his government was making plans to put the most famous Gandhian around into preventive custody. An intention he signaled when he declared any Bapuji-style dissent to be unproductive and improper:

It is essential that when we consider these issues, we do not create an atmosphere in which the country’s progress comes into question. Any debate on these matters should reflect the confidence that we can overcome these challenges… Those who don’t agree with this [Lokpal] Bill… should not resort to hunger strikes and fasts unto death.

In one fell swoop – in the name of defending progress – our Prime Minister repositioned his government as the Gandhi-shunning angrez sarkar. And come the morning after Independence Day, we found ourselves transported back to the days of the British Raj: preemptive arrests along with calls for a jail bharo movement. As a grizzled Anna Hazare supporter on television put it, “It has become like a British government. As of this day, I am naming Manmohan Singh government as the sarkar of Churchill.” [caption id=“attachment_61829” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The UPA government played right into Anna’s hands this morning. Adnan Abidi/Reuters”] [/caption] Game, set, and match to Hazare. A planned protest that could well have tested the patience of a nation od-ed on fasting leaders now has the makings of a nationwide civil disobedience movement. Gandhi-giri zindabad! From Anna to Mahatma Back in April, when Anna Hazare talked about a Corruption Bharat Chhodo movement, it seemed a clumsy attempt to re-stage a bit of swadesi theatre, complete with prabhat pheris and patriotic songs. At the time, media commentators dismissed him as naïve, arguing Gandhi-giri was better suited to fight colonial rule than the far more insidious and ubiquitous disease of corruption. Hazare was living in some Gandhian Neverland, an old man trying to relive his glory days. As damning evidence of his anachronistic politics, he’d even been joined by Gandhi’s last living personal secretary, Venkita Kalyanam. What was the old man going to do next? Make some salt? As it turns out, he didn’t need to – thanks to the UPA government which played right into his hands this morning. “During Jallianwallah Bagh, the gora Angrez did a terrible injustice. Now the kaale Angrez have done the same,” said Hazare after the government’s Ramdev crackdown. A charge that didn’t quite take root with Ramdev because of his reputation of a bit of a carpetbagger with political ambitions. And while the government’s midnight raid didn’t do its reputation any good, Ramdev’s attempt to flee from the Ramlila grounds in a salwar-kameez didn’t help him either. But where arrests and crackdowns may have worked in sidelining the yoga guru, they have the precisely opposite effect with Hazare who is chomping at the bit to be a 21st century Gandhi. His video message to the people makes that clear when he describes the anti-corruption movement as “azaadi ki doosri ladai” (the second Independence struggle). By throwing him into preventive custody, and sweeping up Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi — just as the British did with Nehru, Patel and Azad — the government is playing its part to a tee. The problem for the UPA is that a cranky, dogged old man has managed to get a famously apathetic cynical middle class off its collective butt. The only reason he’s been able to do it is because there is no indication of a personal agenda or power grab. His claim to moral authority rests on the fact that he appears to have no interest in electoral politics, or in securing himself any position of political power. He’s also stayed above the fray of party politics, having never once asked for the resignation of the UPA government despite all its scams. And that is why all of the government’s ham-handed attempts to discredit him have fallen flat. At a time when the Gandhi topi itself had become the symbol of the greedy politician, he’s put the starch back into the old khadi. Congress leaders clearly gambled on a Ramdev Redux. Just shove the guy off-stage and out of sight and the country will go back to channel-surfing. The TV channels instead are filled with images of crowds slowly gathering in various cities, from Mumbai to Patna, and of activists and lay citizens bearing banners proclaiming, “Arrest Me.” Now is Manmohan Singh really ready to deal with a new jail bharo andolan on his hands? Whether a crowd gathers at Jantar Mantar or merely on Facebook, whether Hazare is able to spark a genuine civil disobedience movement or not, the government comes across as the burra sahib with a tin ear, making noises about corruption but without any conviction, as the British once did about self-rule. The UPA government has turned Anna Hazare into the last Gandhian standing.