Ramdev vs Hazare: The politics of saffron and white

By Shiv Visvanathan

There is something comic about the political circus unfolding in Delhi. Suddenly the huge political machine and pentagon of bureaucracies is playing court to two people it cannot understand. Two characters, who would have earlier been bundled out like village idiots from the capital, suddenly rule the roost, turning government into a slapstick act. Both Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev seem puzzling to political cynics who have seen the Tikhaits, the Naxals and the epidemic of anti-dam activists come and go. These two seem to belong to a different tribe, indulge in different rituals, and speak a different idiom. They seem naïve, indigenous and yet seem to threaten the polity in strange ways. The pair sit demanding allopathic treatment for a corruption that our government prefers to treat in small, homeopathic doses. Both Ramdev and Hazare are obsessive, each in his own way. For one, the lokpal bill is a panacea to all ills, for the other the end of black money is the beginning of a new ram rajya. Two parallel battles, each seeking to fight two faces of corruption, one targeting black money and the other battling the cynicism of high places. [caption id=“attachment_20338” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Baba Ramdev (L) is the prophet of yoga. Anna Hazare (C), in comparison, is a priest, and priests are ready for negotiation.”]  [/caption] Their very names – Hazare and Ramdev — sound like characters out of an Amar Chitra Katha. There is a comic book familiarity about them, and they attract in the same way. They appear normal but in action – speaking up on the stage or on television — they become caricatures of the stereotypes that are deeply familiar to us, the middle class. There is a touch of the Katha and the satsang about each; their protest is more like a festival rather than a movement. Each appeals to a different collective unconscious, i.e. the set of myths and symbols we consumed with our mother’s milk. Hazare: swadesi ascetic in white Anna Hazare is Gandhian high priest of alternative development. He won the Magasaysay award for developing his village, creating a sense of community self reliance, a village proud of its own competence in technologies like drip irrigation. Unlike his political sibling/rival, his emphasis is swadesi simplicity. Life is simple, and simplicity is health. Hazare is the Gandhian ascetic who limits his needs. He is symbolized by white: the white kurta and cap of a Swadesi Congress. Ethics too are simple. Hazare is entirely matter of fact, literally as-is-where-is. For him truth is obvious; corruption is obvious and we have to face up to it. Weeding out corruption is like spring cleaning. A community has to come together to work on it, just as a village comes together to work on drip irrigation. Ramdev: the saffron yogi Baba Ramdev smacks of the indigenous, the native, the smell of soil, of ayurveda, but ayurveda reduced to yoga as theory and practice. Ramdev speaks of politics as health. Black money is an ayurvedic problem. He lists its symptoms and treats it as a rich man’s disease, demanding an instant purgative, a cleansing of the system. It is a doctor’s prescription and if a collective emetic has to be delivered, so be it. There is little room for negotiation here. Ethics are the sign of health for Annaji, while for Swami Ramdev, the ethical act is a means toward the end of achieving health. Health itself is the culmination of physical and spiritual fulfillment. His keyword is not simplicity but adulteration, be it of materials, the body or the spirit. They each employ a different language of morality: Ramdev treats corruption as a sin, Hazare as crime, which creates the illness of body politic. Performatively what we are seeing is a double enactment of renouncer and ascetic, of saffron and white united against corruption as illegitimate excess. Where the ascetic simplifies his needs, Ramdev, the yogi gives them up altogether. The ascetic lives modestly even as a householder while the renouncer gives up the world to participate more keenly in it. Both command respect, but there is a different power about the renouncer. Priest vs Prophet Swami Ramdev is the prophet of yoga: Every word is a spiritual law. Anna Hazare, in comparison, is a priest, and priests are ready for negotiation, ready to delegate decision-making to their followers. Hazare’s ethics are more reasoned. He proceeds through a chorus of debate which is why he sounds both firm and hesitant. He is as effective as his chorus of negotiators. There are no readymade communities that spread the Hazare message. Hundreds of individuals, NGOs work in solidarity with him. His following is amorphous, a collage of people who respect and believe him. The prophetic Ramdev has more powerful forces at his command: the satsangs and now the BJP cadres who see him as a new kind of VHP force, canning civilisation into easily consumable parts. Ramdev is a horde of numbers. Power in a democracy is built around numbers. Therefore the government fears him more. The Centre is also sharp enough to realise that while Anna Hazare represents civil society, Ramdev is community as in samaj. He locates the roots of the social in the traditional forces, in idioms of folklore, a sense of desh rather than rashtra, capturing nuances and possibilities that eludes formal English constructions. The codes are different. Where civil society is more modest and associational, samaj can be hegemonic as a way of life, dictating to domains that a secular constitution might be protective about. Domains where the religions idiom can be coercive. Yet there is a sense that both seek exemplary punishment. Both are targeting men at the top. There is no sense of bureaucracies and institutions or the rites of clerks. Both are masters of the ultimatum. Together, they create a T-20 politics around corruption which takes years, decades to unravel. I said the capital is a comic place. Comedy has its twists and turns. That great expert on theatre, Karl Marx claimed that history repeats itself twice, first as a tragedy, second as a farce. But comedy is more lethal. It can invert history as theatre, to repeat itself twice; only this time, first as a farce and second time as a tragedy. Shiv Visvanathan is a social science nomad.