Rallying forces

The UPA government ties itself in knots in response to the popular support for Anna Hazare's demand for a strong Lokpal.

in New Delhi

FROM complacent smugness to arrogance of power, then shocked bewilderment to nervous fiddling around with options, and finally to total recapitulation. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government could not have had it worse as it tried to stop Anna Hazare and his supporters from holding a fast in New Delhi to press for the introduction of a strong Lokpal Bill in Parliament.

In its nervous handling of the situation, the government lost not only its credibility and face but also the trust of lakhs of people who came out on to the streets all over the country to exercise their democratic right to protest and show dissent.

If the government thought it could do a Ramdev on Anna Hazare the use of brutal force on Baba Ramdev and his supporters at the Ramlila Maidan not too long ago had not seen any outburst of public anger the plan misfired horribly. The damage control that followed only made the government look even more stupid.

The harmless 73-year-old man was remanded to seven days' judicial custody in Tihar jail for real or imagined apprehensions of breach of peace. He was released within 12 hours, but he refused to leave, reducing the government to almost begging him to go.

Anna Hazare agreed to leave Tihar jail only after he got the government to allow him to sit on a fast without preconditions on the time limit or the number of people or the use of loudspeakers, and so on.

People's power

From the morning of August 16 to the noon of August 18, people's power was on display across the country in a definite reiteration of the relevance of the Gandhian tool of non-violent protest to force the government of the day to listen and act. It was essentially people's power which forced the government to release Anna as it had simply not bargained for such a spontaneous outburst across the country, said Raj Gopal, a key member of the 21-member Team Anna, which is campaigning for a strong Lokpal.

Raj Gopal is the president of Ekta Parishad, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), fighting for the rights of farmers and tribal and other indigenous people over their land. The groundswell of anger left the government no option but to allow Anna to have his way. This time the government will have to agree to our demands. It cannot beat around the bush anymore. Either it agrees or it falls, he says, pointing to the unrelenting public pressure on the issue of corruption.

This is the time for action and it is now or never. So we will not relent until a strong Lokpal Bill is passed, says K.N. Nirmal, a retired government employee who has been associated with the campaign since April. This now-or-never sentiment seems to have propelled students, young professionals, government servants, retired defence personnel, housewives and even schoolchildren to insist that the movement must continue until the government accepts Anna's demand for a strong Lokpal.

Fast and arrest

Anna Hazare had announced that he would sit on a fast if the Jan Lokpal Bill drafted by Team Anna was not adopted by the government to be passed in Parliament. The government denied him permission to fast at Jantar Mantar, and then allowed him to sit at JP Park near the Ferozeshah Kotla in the heart of the city, provided he fulfilled a host of conditions.

Among them were that he would fast only for three days, would allow not more than 5,000 people to accompany him, would not allow more than 50 cars at the venue and would not use loudspeakers.

Anna refused to accept the conditions and announced that he would proceed with his fast irrespective of the conditions at JP Park. But even before he could leave his place of stay at Mayur Vihar, he was arrested along with four of his supporters, Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, both right to information activists; Shanti Bhushan, former Union Law Minister; and Kiran Bedi, India's first woman IPS officer and Magsaysay Award winner for her pioneering work in Tihar jail in Delhi.

Once the news of Anna's arrest spread, people all over the country poured out on to the streets. In Delhi, people tried holding marches and demonstrations but were arrested even in areas such as Pragati Maidan, where no prohibitory order was in force. By evening, chaos reigned with hordes of youngsters being arrested and stuffed' in the already cramped Chhatrasal Stadium, which was converted into a jail. Many were taken to the borders of the city and set free. They walked back all the way and courted arrest again.

An exasperated government justified its action by pointing to intelligence inputs that anti-social elements would try to create trouble. Union Ministers P. Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal and Ambika Soni, who briefed the media, were at pains to point out that it was only police action to maintain peace and law and order and that the government had nothing to do with it.

Meanwhile, Anna, Kejriwal and Sisodia, were remanded to judicial custody, while Shanti Bhushan and Kiran Bedi were released. Anna refused to leave the jail if he was not going to be allowed to proceed directly to JP Park. After several hours of intense negotiations, when crowds continued to gather on the streets in cities and towns across the country, the government had no option but to allow Anna to sit on a fast, initially for 15 days, which could be extended, at the Ramlila Grounds.

The government came out with its reputation in tatters when senior Ministers took shelter behind the men in uniform and attributed everything to the Delhi Police.

The only political response came from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the next day, August 17, in Parliament, but he too justified the police action. Ignoring the spontaneous support, he painted the episode as Anna vs Parliament. He described Anna's insistence on going on a fast to press for a stronger Lokpal Bill as misconceived and fraught with grave consequences for our parliamentary democracy and added that Anna Hazare, as far as he understood, had questioned the sole prerogative of Parliament to make laws.

Manmohan Singh also questioned the wisdom of Anna Hazare and his supporters insisting that their point of view be incorporated in the proposed Lokpal Bill. He said: I will only say that a functional democracy must allow multiple voices to be heard. But differences of opinion must be resolved through dialogue and consensus. Those who believe that their voice and their voice alone represent the will of 1.2 billion people should reflect deeply on that position. They must allow the elected representatives of the people in Parliament to do the job that they were elected for.

The Prime Minister also hinted at a foreign hand behind the entire movement. This was seen as a convenient ploy that governments use to wriggle out of uncomfortable situations.

India is an emerging economy. We are now emerging as one of the important players on the world stage. There are many forces that would not like to see India realise its true place in the comity of nations. We must not play into their hands. We must not create an environment in which our economic progress is hijacked by internal dissensions, he said.

The opposition parties were quick to distance themselves from the Prime Minister's views and made it clear that despite their reservations about Anna Hazare's Lokpal Bill they supported his right to protest and dissent. They drew parallels with the events during the Emergency of 1975 when democratic rights were trampled upon.

In the Congress, there seemed to be two points of view on how to handle the protests. A senior party functionary who did not want to be named said one was the hard-line stand, which was to the fore so far, and the other was of reconciliation and reconsideration.

Once he sits on the fast, we have got time on our hands. We can plan. The monsoon session of Parliament will soon come to an end [on September 8] and the winter session will still be some months away, so we can always talk and find a way out. The Bill is with the Parliamentary Standing Committee and can be modified to make it suit all, the functionary said.

According to him, the other possibility was to have a member introduce the Jan Lokpal Bill as a private member's Bill, and that can be debated in both Houses of Parliament.

Varun Gandhi [BJP MP] has offered to do so, so this could also be a way out. But for all this we needed to take attention away from the confrontationist approach of Team Anna, and we have successfully done that. So we are proud to say that the first round, irrespective of what the media says, has gone to us. If we had allowed him to straightaway go on fast, then our time span would have been reduced and the entire focus would have shifted to the Bill, says this leader.

Dialogue only way out

Even Team Anna realises that dialogue is the only way out and that hardening of its position will not help.

We are willing to talk, provided the government brings all its proposals on the table in one single basket. For example, as far as the inclusion of judges under the Lok Pal is concerned, let the government assure us that the Judicial Accountability Bill will be passed soon. That could make us give up that demand. As for the inclusion of the CVC [Central Vigilance Commission] and such other agencies, let the government promise us that the CVC will be made more powerful, maybe then we can think over it, said Raj Gopal.

Some give and take is possible, but the government has to come forward with its proposals. This attitude of totally dismissing our proposals and insisting on their own draft will not work, he added.

Team Anna's overzealousness notwithstanding, popular support for an effective anti-corruption mechanism is stronger than ever before. The time is now for the government to make it a reality.