Anna Hazare’s movement has lost its steam, wind has gone out of its sails. The movement has gone haywire at numerous levels. The friends and managers of Anna hazare have managed to turn friends into foes and has given their detractors reason to get united. Those who were at the centre of the corruption storm are now defending the citizenry while the defenders of faith in democracy have found themselves in the quagmire of dubious distinctions. The immense public support that the movement got has been squandered in the very firt meeting of the committee on Lokpal Bill.

The very first meeting displayed the serious shortcomings of the members of the civil society. on the one hand there were such political figures of immense deliberative acumen as P Chaidambaram, Kapil Sibbal, Pranab Mukherjee and Veerappa Moily who have all the armory to thrash any argument then and there while on the opther hand there was a lawyer father-son duo who are themselves under the scanner of corruption and one Anna Hazare who is not adept at English language, when all the proceedings of the meeting and the Lokpal Bill itself is drafted in English. The only one cr3edible enough to question the government was Arvind Kejriwal. Actually the Anna Brigade did not understand the simple maxim of negotiation table that the body language and mental state is more important while facing the opponent across the table. The PM and the Opposition were inserted on the issue of appointment just as in the case of the CVC and it is a well known fact that PJ Thomas got to be appointed as the CVC even as he was facing corruption charges with the same mechanism in place. An army general had once observed in during the 1971 war that India won the war but lost the battle at Simla across the table. The same seems to be the case here too.

Anna Hazare made a number of tactical mistakes. The first was not to take Baba Ramdev into confidence given the fact that it was the Baba who had first raised the issue of Black Money and corruption in India. And the moment cracks in the movement appeared in the movement the hawkish power brokers started witch-hunting the crusaders of truth and Shanti and Prashant Bhushan were targeted with numerous allegations.

Another mistake was to nominate two persons from the same family in the committee ie Prashant and Shanti Bhushan. The entire movement seenmed to have been captured by a bunch of 4 or 5 people. The biggest example of this was that of Ramdev who was not even allowed to sit at Jantar Mantar. Also the political figures who wanted to join Anna were shooed away such as Uma Bharti and Om Prakash Chautala. This was one of the biggest blunders. All this on the one hand while the people who sat on fast with Anna felt betrayed as none gave them any credit. Also rumours were afloat that the movement was funded by Congress leaning industrial house of the Jindals. Some put forth the argument that the entire movement was fomented and funded by congress in order to divert India’s attention away from Ramdev and the serious allegations that he has been leveling against the first family of Congress party.

There is a stark similarity between Anna and Ramdev. Both seem to be control centered and secretive. They want everything and everyone to be under their strict control. That is why both have a coterie of advisors. In the case of Ramdev this may be traced to his inspiration from the RSS and the Dayanand Saraswati and Arya Samaj. He is often found voicing such Sangh arguments as undivided India. but we Indians must remember that India against corruption is not the heritage of some Anna Hazare aor Ramdev. It is a movement that will not die only that new faces and new leadership will emerge as has always happened. India has no dearth of able leaders.

It seems the prime motive of Anna and his associates was not to get the Lokpal Bill passed but to take the credit for it. had it been that they sincerely wanted to get the Bill passed into a law, it could have been accomplished in just one stroke.   Anna failed to understand that India has no dearth of able people who can and wish to fight against corruption. Also he could not understand that in order to counteract political machinations one must also be adept at politics. To say that we have drafted the Lokpal Bill and thus we only have the expertise to understand it in the right perspective is wrong. India has numerous towering legal figures. After the movement Anna must have appointed such men to the committee who would have ensured that not only a powerful bill was drafted but also that it would have got passed in the Parliament. People like Arun Jaitley, Sitaram Yechury, Fali Nariman, Subramanyam Swami would have frayed the arguments of their opponents from the government and would have ensured that the Bill was passed in the Parliament.