Team Anna, time's running out; opt for plan B

Team Anna must pack its bags, go home, and ‘THINK’. Its negotiations with the government over the Lokpal Bill have hit a wall. With both sides taking aggressive absolute positions, the chances of its views getting accommodated in the government’s draft bill are remote. It has to redraw its strategy, if at all it had one, and make best use of the time between now and Anna Hazare’s proposed fast on 16 August. The period is crucial. By 30 June, the government will produce the draft Lokpal Bill. It will be the government’s version of the bill with minor concessions made to the civil society. Once it is out in the public domain, the entire national focus will shift to the pros and cons of the bill. Then, Parliament will take over. The civil society will hardly have any control over the fate of the bill then. It is easier to threaten the government, Parliament is a different ball game altogether. [caption id=“attachment_27475” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Social activists Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan, members of Lokpal Bill drafting committee, speak to the media after attending a meeting of the panel in New Delhi on Wednesday. Shahbaz Khan/PTI”] [/caption] There’s no reason to doubt the government’s commitment to present the bill on 30 June. Given the predicament it is in now, it would be happy to let the Houses take over. It would try to make some progress before Anna begins the fast. If nothing happens by then, it can easily pass the buck on parliamentary procedures. In such a case, the civil society members cannot run to the media with a complaint. They have to think fast. The current situation was not entirely unexpected. To begin with, the government wanted to take the whole credit for the Lokpal Bill. It had begun the drafting process — without being too serious about it though—when Hazare barged into the picture. It had to accommodate his nominees in the drafting panel since elections were taking place in four major states and it could not have afforded bad publicity. Basically, it was buying time, which it managed successfully. Now, it can dump the civil society and move ahead. The latter had no strategy, only a lot of passion and goodwill to fall back on. Team Anna never realised the fact that arm-twisting the government would not help much. Even if it managed to thrust all its demands into the draft bill, there was no guarantee that it would have been accepted by Parliament. Moreover, the government itself would have been lukewarm in pushing the bill. Anna Hazare and team should think of ways to tackle the developments after 30 June. One of its biggest problems is maintaining the support goodwill base. It is evident now that fatigue is setting in and the base is getting eroded. The group seems to be working in isolation with other civil society groups maintaining a studied distance from it. Not many influential activists have come out in open support. It has to rope in more powerful and vocal groups into the picture before the session begins and broadbase the fight for the bill. This has to be a well-calculated step. If some other civil society group comes up with its own draft bill, the entire movement will turn chaotic and crash. The government would be waiting for an opportunity like that. It could do well to bring in some political parties into the debate before Parliament takes over. Actually, this should have been among the first moves. By now, the entire political class seems to have turned indifferent. It must jettison that ‘all or none’ approach and hang on to whatever it has wrangled from the government so far. The gains are not all that bad. Moreover, it needs a face-saver desperately. If the UPA government corners all the credit for the Lokpal Bill, in whatever shape, the entire movement over the last two months will come across as a pointless exercise.