Today India is at a strange crossroads. Anna Hazare has become the symbol of resistance of the common man of India. Indian youth is on the roads holding candles and organizing anti-corruption marches. The whole dichotomy of treasury benches versus opposition has been refigured. Not just the governing party but the so called opposition, the bureaucracy and the entire ruling elite of the country is locked in a sweeping opposition with the people of India ranged on one side united against corruption and for political accountability.  The people of India just want that the leaders do their job honestly and that the tradition in which electoral victory has become synonymous with license ends. Why otherwise is the Lokpal or Ombudsman Bill languishing in the files for the last 42 years? Why do the scamsters go scot free and why at all the last standard of punitive action against a corrupt minister is supposed to be his resignation?

It is strange that a country struggling under the weight of corruption does not have an effective law abridging corruption. Whatever furniture of legality that exists in the country is only able enough to nail small time corruption. Ombudsman Act is needed as it will furnish to the people an avenue of speedy redressal against a corrupt public servant in any capacity. It will be the enabler of common people and the ennobler of the entire system. The people will for the first time to intervene at the highest levels of government where an iota of corruption may be taking place. The people believe that not just the governing party but the opposition too is equally complicit in the collective loot that the Indian exchequer and the public has been subjected to.

The people at Jantar Mantar rejected the political class in toto. Sharad Pawar, Uma Bharti and Om Prakash Chautala were not even allowed to speak at the rally. It is especially shameful for the BJP that its leaders were turned down and out. Had the BJP courageous enough to have thrown Yedyyurappa out in Karnataka, it would have earned the moral right to lead this campaign against corruption. It is high time that both the party in power and opposition realize that the youth is so frustrated by both of them that it is not ready even to listen to them anymore.

People like Anna Hazare, who are non-political are thus attracting such huge number of supporters. These are people who are not political either. They belong to all walks of life and are also not like the paid gatherings at political rallies; these are simple people who want a stringent anti-corruption law in the country. But the infelicity of this country is that none among the ruling party is giving any signs of what they actually intend to do in response to this; are they really serious to root out corruption is only a matter of conjecture.

Anna Hazare, 72, has, not in a fit of anger, decided to go on fast unto death. He had been writing to the PM and Sonia Gandhi since last December but, leave apart a reply, did not even get an acknowledgement. Thus in February this year he wrote to the PM conveying that he would go on an indefinite fast starting 5^th April if the Lokpal Bill was not amended and introduced in the Parliament. The PM immediately invited him for talks. Actually the government wanted to pass a toothless bill which would be highly weak. Anna and other NGOs of the country wanted changes be made to make it effective. What is the logic of a Lokpal which is not able to apprehend the most highly placed and yet corrupt people? Also the government lost the trust of the people as just a few days ago it had tried to take the teeth away from the RTI Act itself. And all this undermining od Indian democracy happed under the leadership of a PM who is largely considered an honest man.

The new Lokpal Bill may not meet the same fate as the RTI Act, thus Anna wanted that the Committee to draft the Bill may equally comprise of officials as common people. The PM rejected this demand and Anna sat on his fast. On the first day there were 129 people with him, next day the number grew to 147 and the third day saw 316 people sitting with him on fast unto death. Actually all these people were the common people of India ranging from IIT engineers, doctors, professionals and mostly youthful. The people showed such overwhelming support for Anna that atleast 7 lakh people fasted in around 400 small and big towns of India.

It is of utmost importance to understand the politics of Congress. The party had been on the backfoot for quite sometime owing to the spate of scams and scandals that had been coming to public notice one after the other. The opposition had gained an upperhand and the party was facing the heat. It decided to bring the Lokpal Bill to gag the opposition on the one hand and tell the people that it was more serious to fight corruption than the opposition, on the other hand. Thus the Lokpal Bill of the government was more of a political ploy to serve its narrow ends than a serious initiative to put paid to corruption.

The movement of Anna Hazare has inflicted maximum damage to the political career of Rahul Gandhi. Congress wants to project Rahul as the leader of the 21^st century, the leader of the youth. But the same youth was seen throwing his lot with Anna against the Congress. Also five states are going to elections and after the Bihar debacle, the Congress did  not want another fiasco as was apparent when Rahul and Sonia were greeted by empty chairs when they went visiting Tamil Nadu. Thus on the second day itself negotiations were opened with Hazare. Thus Manmohan’s acceptance of Anna’s position must be seen as a political expediency than any commitment to public good.

The motives of government are suspect. This is so as the government has drafted such a Bill that gives all the powers to the same political leaders. Whether a case has the merit to attract initiating proceedings will be decided by the Speaker of Lok Sabha and the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. Now history has shown that these positions have not been able to elevate themselves over narrow political interests and many a speaker of The Lok Sabha have later gone on to become ministers. Thus it will be a tall order asking them for unflinching honesty.

Just suppose if in the case of A Raja, the Lokpal had been the Speaker, then for sure he would have gone scot free having already gotten the clean chit from his party and the Prime minister. Had CVC PJ Thomas and Kalmadi been apprehended while such a weak Lokpal been in place that the government envisages? The Congress party says that framing laws and legislations is the work of the legislature and must be left to it. The government does not want to set up any such precedent in which it may be armtwisted into doing something under pressure, as if at the barrel of a gun. The Congress believes that those who are participating in the hunger strike are neither politicians nor MLAs/MPs nor bureaucrats thus they cannot be legitimately be included in the committee set up for the drafting of the Bill. But the Congress party, itself the oldest political institution of the country must not lose sight of the fact that the spirit of democracy lies not in red tape but the people and public opinion. How could it forget the movement for Total Revolution of Jayprakash Narayan when in 1974 under his leadership the youth of this country made Indira Gandhi succumb to public pressure? Anna Hazare too has been well supported by the urban youth of the country.

The kind of Lokpal that Anna wants will nail all the so called high power elite of the country including politicians, officials, bureaucrats, businessmen and even judges. This Bill talks of getting the looted amount back to the coffers of the state. It gives protection to the whistle-blowers and talks of punishing the culprits. It makes the institution transparent and screens it from all political influence. Anna does not want that his bill may be enacted in totality but only that people must be made to participate in this exercise of law making to which the PM and Congress have serious reservations. There has been constituted an empowered group of ministers and that Anna can suggest, just.

The political class, it seems, is under the trepidation that if an empowered Lokpal gets to be established there would be no profit in being a politician anymore. That they would no longer be able to have their fill of the corporate loot and from where will they garner the amounts needed to run parties and fight elections. It is time that the people of India will have to decide which side of the curtain they want to be on. If they want to make this movement a success then the youth, farmers and everyone will have to stand behind Anna just as the youth and the people of the country had stood behind JP decades ago. A historical window is open in front of the country and to squander away this chance would amount to discarding our future to a black hole.