The morning after Anna breaks fast: What happens now?

R Jagannathan and Anant Rangaswami

It’s the morning after the day Anna Hazare broke his fast. He won a victory, with a small ‘v’, we said as the curtain came down on a long and tiring drama.

What happens now?

When do Indians win? It’s time to make this a win or loss for India, not a win or loss for Anna Hazare.

The most important measure of the victory will be the discussion of, and consequent tabling of, a strong Lokpal Bill. The worrying aspect is how the government handled the last stages of the discussions with Team Anna, when they went back on a commitment to vote on the resolution and diluted it to become just arriving at a ‘sense of the house’.

It seems, then, that Anna Hazare will have to continue to maintain the pressure on all political parties and force their commitment to a strong Lokpal Bill.

In parallel, political parties need to pay attention to the need to introduce electoral reforms – and not wait for Anna Hazare to force them to do so.

For the victory to become one with a capital ‘V’, Anna’s pressure needs to continue and politicians will have to demonstrate that all those magnificent speeches in parliament were not just play-acting.

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