To say that no one has elected Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and the rest to speak for ordinary citizens is to say the obvious. The mostly middle-class people and the chatteratti (film stars, celebrity cops and so on) who have rallied to Mr Hazare’s cause remind one of the people who held hands and lit candles after the November 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, saying, “Enough is enough”. TV stations lionised them then, as now, and it bears pointing out those holding hands in November 2008 did not bother to vote in the Lok Sabha elections six months later.
But to point to all this would be to miss the point, which is that the government has alienated the public through months of scandal on a scale not seen till now. The loss of credibility has become obvious — consider the response to the Prime Minister’s comments to TV editors. If a personally honest Prime Minister is seen as an umbrella that protects ministers who indulge in loot (and everyone can name half a dozen such in the Cabinet), the stage comes when the umbrella no longer offers protection.
Ordinarily, this situation would cause people to embrace the Opposition. However, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is also tainted (think Mr Yeddyurappa, the mining lords of Bellary, and now the land gift to the Khushabhau Thakre Trust in Madhya Pradesh). The CPI(M) has Mr Pinarayi in Kerala, and institutionalised goondagiri to answer for in West Bengal. In Tamil Nadu, we have the “Karuleone” family. It has not helped that the Central Bureau of Investigation is compromised, the appointment of the Chief Vigilance Commissioner struck down, and even former Supreme Court Chief Justices hit by the corruption taint.
Faced with widespread charges of corruption in the past, with no systemic solution available, the people turned to Jayaprakash Narayan (J P) in 1973 and V P Singh in 1988. J P called for “total revolution” but had no credible action plan, and his Navnirman movement was fizzling out when the Allahabad High Court unseated Indira Gandhi in 1975, setting off a chain of events that led to the Emergency. V P Singh focused on the Bofors scandal, and on unseating Rajiv Gandhi. But he could not offer a credible alternative.
This time round, Anna Hazare is a determined Gandhian figure whose simplicity contrasts with the image of corrupt ministers in private jets and parliamentarians in SUVs. He also has a record of effecting change, in his village through community action and in his state for booking the corrupt. His methods can be rough and ready (stories are told of how he used to hang erring officials upside down, by their feet!). His demand is simple: place before Parliament an effective Lok Pal Bill. Such a Bill will not be a panacea for the widespread corruption that exists; but it has focused attention on a problem that has hogged the headlines, and exposed the sham legislation that the government had been planning.
Fortunately, unlike Indira Gandhi in the 1970s (who tried to pack the Supreme Court) and Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s (who tried to gag the press), the government and the Congress today have avoided confrontation. This is wise because the growing middle class makes for a more articulate and voluble urban citizenry than existed a quarter century ago. Also a factor is the prominence gained by civil society activists. A third development is the reach of private TV channels, which magnify the voice of protestors in a way that print cannot do. So it is futile arguing that elected legislators have a monopoly on representing the people. They do, technically. But reality has moved on.