Why the Anna 'movement' leaves the aam aadmi cold

It does not matter if the NDA was as corrupt as the UPA or less. This shameless government sucks. It does not matter if Team Anna is a bunch of right-wing and/or foreign-funded megalomaniacs. They want to end corruption. It does not matter if thousands of Anna supporters are out on the streets to earn their few moments on TV or a righteous high. They support the cause. Yet, Anna’s “second freedom struggle” leaves the real aam aadmi feeling cheated. They are much more aam than you or me, and they are not both victims of corruption and potential victimisers. For example, they are not your regular three-wheeler guy who fleeces you and is in turn fleeced by cops. The more aam the Indian— the vast majority — the less he is  in a position to offer or demand a bribe. So why does he feel cheated? Is it because the aam aadmi has been offered a Hobson’s choice: suffer corrupt politicians who handpick corrupt bureaucrats to loot the country on behalf of corrupt business interests; or back a group of self-appointed, ham-handed dictators who blackmail democracy with a fast-unto-death to force us to accept their panacea of a law? Is it because some (not-so-aam) people want the rest to believe that the end justifies the means? Ironically, this approach is the first sign of the corruption that Team Anna’s fascist “means” so dramatically aim to “end”. When a few men want Parliament to accept a law they drew up in their drawing (or conference) rooms, it corrupts democracy itself. If successful, it will be a dangerous precedent since most Indians have some experience in fasting and many are far bigger crowd-pullers (read _mob_ilisers) than Anna. And few of them even pretend to be Gandhians. [caption id=“attachment_64471” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Anna Hazare waves the Indian nation