On Anna, UPA swings between suicide and sanity

Sanjeev Srivastava All through Tuesday –a day of fast-paced developments in the national capital which saw anti-graft campaigner Anna Hazare being sent to Tihar jail—government ministers as well senior functionaries of the UPA tried their best to explain that the government simply had no other choice but to do what it did. By late evening, the government was however sending out a clear indication that it wants to backtrack. There was an offer to release Anna Hazare and his key aides like Kiran Bedi and Shanti Bhushan were freed. But the efforts to explain away their rather ham-handed approach of the morning was not entirely discarded with a number of UPA bigwigs still talking about the “government having no alternative but to arrest Anna”. The tragedy from the government’s perspective were that there were no buyers for this argument and public mood across the country swung between anger, bewilderment and helplessness over the manner in which Team Anna was first denied their democratic right to protest and then arrested. A bungling government also ensured that it became the target not just of Anna’s supporters. In one stroke the government on Tuesday also managed to unite the entire opposition—bringing the BJP and the communists on the same platform—who are keen to make an example of Anna’s arrest and project it as an issue of government’s efforts to muzzle dissent and clamp down on every form of democratic protest. It’s clear the government has shot itself in the foot on la affaire Anna. A bigger problem from their perspective is that they seem to have no strategy to extricate themselves of this mess. But more on that later, first lets sample some quotes from the ministerial press conference Tuesday afternoon. This gives a peep into both the government’s dilemma as well as a lack of strategy going forward. Kapil Sibal said the media has all through missed out on the key issue. Anna has always demanded that the government either accepts his version of the Jan Lokpal bill in its entirety or he will sit on a fast unto death. Sibal asked whether it was a reasonable and democratic position and whether it was possible to accept such a demand. When asked why the government was not continuing to engage Anna in a dialogue,  Chidambram said the ministerial team had nine rounds of meetings with Team Anna and the matter was now before the parliamentary standing committee. He also repeated how the government has accepted 34 out of the 40 points Anna Hazare wanted to include in the Lokpal bill draft. In response to another question, an exasperated Home Minister even asked a journalist about what else the government could have done under the circumstances. And Ambika Soni held forth on how the government is always judged on the anvil of popular expectations and has to suffer the disadvantage of incumbency. It’s quite apparent there is no clarity of thought and purpose in those shaping the government strategy vis-à-vis Team Anna. Even as many in the governing alliance concede that popular mood today is overwhelmingly in favor of Anna Hazare and his campaign against corruption, their calculations on how events will unfold hereafter rest on a few assumptions which have been proved right time and again in the past. Also there is this feeling amongst those advocating a tough line against Team Anna that the anti-graft agitation cannot be sustained without the support of the masses and with Anna Hazare now behind bars, popular support will gradually wither away and the movement will die a natural death. Also since the next general elections were still nearly three years away , there is also an element of cockiness amongst a section of the UPA leadership which propagates the theory of Indian public memory being famously fickle. [caption id=“attachment_62243” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“P Chidambaram with Kapil Sibal during a press conference on the arrest of Hazare. Subhav Shukla/PTI”]  [/caption] The example of Baba Ramdev is also bandied about repeatedly to support this line of thought. The logic being that after the first flush of headlines and hullaballoo, the government’s move to disperse Ramdev and his supporters in a midnight swoop exposed and embarrassed Baba Ramdev more than the government. The government response will really be shaped by popular reaction in the coming days. The overwhelming nationwide response against Anna’s arrest on day one has already indicated that the government move to  play it out like a sequel to Baba Ramdev has backfired on them. The biggest difference between the popular response to Ramdev’s and Anna’s campaign is the big turnout of students and youth in case of the latter. By late evening one could sense some signs of a thaw and better sense from the government side as it released Kiran Bedi and Shanti Bhushan. Congress sources are hinting at Rahul Gandhi’s intervention in this “buy peace and show reason” approach. All is still not lost and the governing alliance can still try and cut its losses if it changes tactics and engages with Team Anna rather than confronting them. Whether that happens will be as much a function of the voice of sanity within the UPA as on continuing mass support for Anna’s campaign.