Act- I - Jan Lokpal
These are interesting times in Delhi. A time to taste the sweetest and the cheapest of the watermelons and the Arab spring. It’s all happening in Delhi. Delhi’s Arab spring began with Anna Hazare’s satyagrah for the ever so doomed lokpal, perhaps the longest languishing bill in the history of independent India. First tabled in 1962 and since then has been tabled 9 times and has failed to pass through Rajya Sabha. Over the last 49 years all the right minded citizens have supported it, the civil society is behind it, the popular opinion is behind it, all major political parties are behind it and endorse it ‘in principle’, top corporate honchos, film stars, sports personalities, senior babus’s and you name it... they support it. Alas!! For all the reasons better known to them... govt hasn’t passed it. After all, who would like to reform the system that has put one to the power?
In the era of gargantuan scams dwarfing the size of many economies and the retail trade of morality, Anna’s movement represented not only an apolitical moral force but also a forum for venting anger and continued frustration. Anna’s clean Image, rural roots and statesmanly demeanour made him a darling of Delhi’s bourgeoisie. The four days of fasting saw people from all walks of life, joined by the common strands of anger against govt and faith in Anna, queueing up for a "darshan" at Jantar Mantar. The satyagrah highlighted the issue of corruption in our society and presented the Jan lokpal as a panacea. And perhaps a panacea it is, in all senses of the word. Soon under the people pressure (some called it a blackmail) the better sense prevailed or at least it seemed so, as the govt announced a joint drafting committee for the reinvigorated Jan Lokpal bill.
However, the real cat and mouse (a game where no one knows who’s after whom), begins now. First comes, a volley of baseless, senseless and slanderous accusations on the civil society members of the drafting committee, the slanderous coterie being led by none other than his holiness Baba Ramdev. Then came, the “CD Gate” and the mighty bureaucracy, trampling everything which was put forward by the civil society members of the drafting panel. After the entire storm, it looked like the coalition of the willing would not hold. Baba Ramdev parted ways and vowed to open another flank of black money against the government.
Act – II - Black money.
It was an unseemly sight. First, the government lost all moral authority by its complicity with corruption. Scams after scams proved that the political class had abdicated its role. Civil society steps in to fill the vacuum. Hunger strikes begin. And the government of an aspiring superpower, instead of behaving like a government, succumbs to blackmail after blackmail. The “Baba” arrives. Practically all of government that matters shows up in attendance. God forbid if the Baba curses them (gives them a “shrap”).
Then there was lipstick for the soiled face. First abdicate responsibility, then cravenly submit and then call it responsiveness. Two days before Baba Ramdev announced his dharna against black money, our responsive government and with its responsive ministers sleepwalked to the airport, to lay bare into the feet of Baba Ramdev before he could catch his private jet - A baba who advocates death penalty for economic offences, whose views on sexual minorities border on the fascist and wants a ban on high-denomination currency notes– 1000, 500, 100, as a measure to check black money. This was not enough to avoid the curse of Baba so our responsive government followed him to the finest of the hotels that the capital has.
The Endgame
Despite all the responsiveness shown by the government and various shady, behind the door deals baba continued with his satyagrah, after all, a lot of political currency was at stake. With all the yogic currency, that the baba has, to assemble a crowd of 50000 proved no big deal. Now the responsive government and its responsive ministers were scared, so they decided to turn autocratic. 65 years back, the British left them with a gift called “police”, so they decided to use it. The police did what it had learned from its parents- At the midnight, "the Police" raided the Ramlila ground when most Satyagrahis were sleeping, and left 70 wounded souls - The unarmed and hungry souls were protesting peacefully with their mentor, as they had always done in their yoga camps. “The Police” obviously do not understand these things, because the British never taught them so. Dressed in a ladies suit, baba decided not to give his arrest, as is the tradition of satyagrah, but to flee. Unfortunately police nabbed baba, and threw him out of the capital.
4 day since the raid, the government is in a state of paralysis. It does not know where its foot is (It only hopes that it is not in its mouth). Government has charged baba of holding political rallies, gathering 50000 people, amassing wealth, selling medicine, doing yoga and what not- as if these were crime and as if it did not know all this when its ministers were following him to airports and five star hotels. There is a morally insidious vacuum in the government and a self styled civil society is asserting its own stake in the power pie. Certainly these are interesting times in Delhi… we should follow Baba Ramdev’s old advice: ...take a deep breath.
4 day since the raid, the government is in a state of paralysis. It does not know where its foot is (It only hopes that it is not in its mouth). Government has charged baba of holding political rallies, gathering 50000 people, amassing wealth, selling medicine, doing yoga and what not- as if these were crime and as if it did not know all this when its ministers were following him to airports and five star hotels. There is a morally insidious vacuum in the government and a self styled civil society is asserting its own stake in the power pie. Certainly these are interesting times in Delhi… we should follow Baba Ramdev’s old advice: ...take a deep breath.
