Anna’s fast: Let’s get back to the original issue please

His movement has been overtaken by politics. The venerable Gandhian would not have anticipated the storm that has grown around his anti-corruption stir. The irony is, the recent developments have little do with corruption.

When Gandhian Anna Hazare sits down for his dharna at Rajghat at 10 am on Wednesday, the mood in his camp would be vastly different from what it was during the original fast in early April. Two months earlier, the mood was of jubilant expectation, now it is one of nervous anxiety. The Lokpal bill has gone nowhere in the interregnum while too many distractions have crept in.

The fast on 8 June is in many ways a reflection of how the original issue has got buried in just over 60 days. It is a one-day protest fast against the government action on yoga guru Baba Ramdev and his supporters. “Come what may, I will go ahead with the fast,” said Hazare. Had things been normal, he and his team would have made some progress on the draft Lokpal bill by now despite the resistance from the government.

The template is by now familiar. A good movement originates, takes shape grows and finally gets lost in the politics of the day. It’s not clear which way the anti-corruption bill is headed now. The present full scale war of words between the Congress and the BJP has little to do with the bill. But it threatens to kill the bill or leave it hanging indefinitely. Worse, it has started reducing the icon of the anti-corruption movement, Anna Hazare, into any other political mortal.

In a direct attack on Hazare on Tuesday, the Congress called Hazare the mask of the BJP and the RSS. It alleged that he was part of a larger conspiracy against the Congress hatched by the Sangh Parivar. The attack was frontal. Surely, the honest social worker does not deserve these words. They won’t diminish his appeal but would certainly cause a damage to it by turning him into a controversial figure.

Hazare was denied the permission to hold his fast at Jantar Mantar. He shifted to Rajghat in protest. “Anna has never provoked anyone. He never had a violent history. Now he says, he wants to assemble peacefully, what is the need of Section 144. If police tries to stop us we will not resist, but just offer ourselves for being arrested,” said Arvind Kejriwal, member of the Lokpal bill drafting committee.

That things have come to this pass is certainly a reason for worry for the civil society groups. They have lost the initial advantage by inadvertently crossing the line that separates activism and politics. Now, it’s going to be a long haul.