बुधवार, 20 अप्रैल 2011

Anna the Android !!!

Anna the Android !!!!!
Perhaps no other event in the recent past drew as many eye balls and consumed so much of space in media as Shri Anna Hazare’s fast at Jantar Mantar against corruption and for Jan Lokpal Bill did. The otherwise dull and drab Square of Jantar Mantar which gets some people off an on only for eating Dosas and idlis on normal days, suddenly turned into yet another Tehrir Square of Cairo like theatre.
And Anna Hazare literally turned out to the” Android tool” for many social activists and conscience keepers of the civic society who had been ruing on their fluctuating fortune because of one reason or the other. He became the engine to galvanize the entire nation in its manifestation of disgust and distrust against the government on the question of tackling corruption.
I was also one of the witnesses of that high voltage drama for at least five days at Jantar Mantar jamboree which became the “epicenter” of the fight against corruption. But I felt more appalled than amused at the whole exercise which looked more like a well- orchestrated and well- coordinated event management event than otherwise.
While I never doubted the personal integrity and honesty of Anna Hazare and no conscientious citizen of this country would ever dispute that either.. At this age, his fierce sense of determination and sincerity of purpose is indeed commendable. There is no doubt that corruption has become almost a part fof our daily life and the people by and large have started losing faith in every public institution and this disease has spread all over, be that the government, bureaucracy, academia and even our own media. In the midst of these, Anna Hazare’s struggle came as a whip of fresh breeze and engulfed the whole nation in no time.
With due apology to Annaa Hazare however, I am not able to convince my own conscience if he has belittled himself with his reckless statements on the whole issue of Lok Pal Bill in just one week. At the same, I am trying to console myself if it was indeed justified to compare this Janatar Mantar spectacle with mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha. In addition, I was searching for credible answers to a few questions about the points of comparison between Anna Hazare, Mahatma Gandhi and Jayprakash Narayan and their crusade against the system as most of the media persons beaming’ breaking news LIVE “ made sustained and strenuous efforts to make me believe them. An endless stream of SMS campaign and comments and expression of support on sites like facebook and Twitter all these days made me feel all the more cheated when I tried to look into the “ News behind the news”.
I am still wondering if the majority of people actually still know the true Anna Hazare and his sage of struggle and crusade against corruption. But those people who know Anna Hazare personally paint an entirely different picture. Anna studied till class 7th and then started selling flowers in Dadar. Later he joined Indian Army as a driver and came back to his home town Ralegaon Sidhi in 1975 after taking voluntary retirement.
He started working on water-shed management projects in his village with success and after that, became instrumental in fighting against social evils like prohibition, corruption and community marriage at young age. He became immensely popular and emerged as a key figure in the fight against the system. He began his fight in 1991 against 40 corrupt forest officials and succeeded. Since then Anna has waged many” stayagraha in Maharashtra” against the corrupt government and the establishment . Till now, at least six ministers and more than 400 officials had to loose their jobs because of Anna’s fight.
However, Anna’s success rate in these’ Satyagraha” has not been less than 25 per cent whereas Mahatma Gandhi won every Satyagraha right from Champaran to Dandi March and eventually the independence of the country.
There was no SMS campaign, no” I am Anna Hazare” caps no Candle light brigade and not even posters in Anna’s fight in Maharashtra against the state government when he started his movement in 1991. But the amount of money spent on the Janatar Manatar campaign was perhaps more than the total amount of money spent on his satyagrah since 1991.
Anna was indeed a pioneer in water shed management projects not only in his village but in his district also and he could have done wonders for the state of Maharashtra during the last 26 years as the State has been facing recurring droughts and starvation deaths and more than 2000 farmers have committed suicide. The people of Maharashtra must ask Anna as to why his attention never got directed towards those issues and instead., he diverted his attention towards the fight against corruption at public places.
Or is it that many unscrupulous politicians in Maharashtra started using Anna and clean image as a rouge to settle political scores against each other? Has the same thing continued at Jantar Mantar as well those shenanigans of Civic Society have made good use of his image to serve their own personal ends and agenda? Have a few of his lieutenants quietly assured themselves at least a Rajya sabha seat or some other slice of power in the coming days at the cost of Anna?
In any case, many social workers and high profile crusaders have sat on “dharna “ at Jantar Mantar in the past.? Why was it that media never took notice of their cause and struggle however genuine they may have been.? How is that Anna Suddenly became the” Second Mahatma Gandhi’ in the eyes of the whole country as a star reporter of a respected TV news channel was flaunting a Rs 500 note in front of camera and blaring that the future generation would perhaps see the photo of this” second Gandhi’ on this currency note and a motley crowd of 300 odd people started clapping at this hyperbole.. What a chutzpah !!!
But all those hype and hoopla have come crashing on the question of Lok Pal Bill because of Anna’s own changing stance during last one week. The first was his statement on the videography of the meeting which the government flatly refused. This was followed by the controversy on the names father-son duo , Shanti Bhushan and Prashant Bhushan and the CD episode which brought out the “alleged doctored and spliced conversation of Mr Shanti Bhushan with Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh. Then came his statement on keeping Ministers and Judges out of the purview of the Lok Pal Bill. Now the moot question is if the Lok Pal Bill does not cover these two sections then would the whole exercise be meant only for clerks and sub-Inspectors?
Still bigger question is whether the people of India who swore by Anna just a fortnight ago on the question of corruption and against the perfidy of the government, would continue to believe him now in the same way ?
It appears that Anna Hazare has once again become an object of use and throw by those high profile social activists of Delhi who wanted to achieve their own ends at his cost. In the process, Anna has fast started losing his credibility. I sincerely hope, I am wrong in my assessment of the situation but the indications on board are clear that the menace of corruption would not end even with this Bill.
Did Anna Hazare realize that his one word of praise for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi would have put paid to all his sacrifice and the image of a mahatma in the eyes of many people overnight?
Does that mean, Anna Hazare was coned by his own people as well as the government which just wanted to bid time and make him break his fast unto death as the State elections were at the head. Or was that Anna could just not under understand the game of the UPA government which was playing double game at the same time.?
How is that while the Prime Minister was lavishing his praise on Anna Hazare for his impeccable credibility and honesty on the one hand and HRD Minister Kapil Sibal and AICC General Secretary Digvijaya Singh were leaving no stone unturned to tatter his image and credibility through their volley of allegations.?
What is the guarantee that the Central government which has been dithering for the last 42 years on this issue would keep its word in letter and spirit and introduce the bill in the next session of parliament? Or is that the government is waiting to see some more fissures erupting within the team members of Anna Hazare on one point or the other and use that excuse to throw the whole thing into back burner all over again?
Or it was just that Anna Hazare just could not understand the schemes and game plans of those sharing the dais with him at Jantar Manatar not he could gauge the real motive of the UPA government which had tried all tricks in the book to make” Mahatma Anna Hazare a muckraker and eventually succeeded?
Even more bizarre and bewildering was the attitude of the media at this whole tamasha which started looking more like the extended and enlarged version of Amir Khan’s Peeli Live. In this case, just a few examples would suffice.
One was that most of the star reporters of televisions news Channels” termed this event as “ historic ‘ where lakhs of people had converged in Support of Anna Hazare. Well, historic it may be in the sense that the Mahatma of Ralegaon Sidhi has sat at this place for the first time in full media glare and became more famous than IPL matches on those days and nights but where was the crowd of Lakhs of people ? To the best of my knowledge and sense of geography, that particular junction at Jantar Mantra would hardly be 40X 45 feet. Then where on earth would more than a lakh people converge ?
Secondly, some star anchors compared this to the movement of jayaprakash Narayan. I wonder if anyone of these would have seen actually seen that. I also wonder if they would have even see the rally of Chaudharu Charan Singh or Mahendra Singh Tikait which had taken the city of Delhi to random in 1990 for five days and those agitators didn’t leave the place even after 90 persons had died in the biting cold.
In this case almost 90 percent of Anchors doing One hour LIVE show or those hallowed correspondents hurling or inflicting “ Breaking News” at every hour were either totally ignorant and just too stupid in their comments and analysis as they had little sense of proportion or the understanding of the basic part of the whole issue. No wonder then that we are always accused o turning trivia into titanic and this was one such example.
Equally hilarious and sometime besmirching was the caricature and graphics designs and templates made on these days of news cast by a bevy of channels which tried to be different in their approach and treatment of this event coverage.
This event should serve as a good lesson to media to do a serious soul searching and correct itself in the best interest of its survival and credibility. Otherwise, media would start getting laughed at as a joke and politicians would have a field day biting and bullying on the camera on such issues all over again. !!