India Against Corruption leaders drafted a Jan Lokpal Bill aimed at curbing corruption in the country and sent it to the Prime Minister who chose not to respond. This angered the activists who were seeking popularity for themselves. To retaliate the government's inaction, they approached Anna Hazare for help who immediately agreed to sit on 'fast unto death' in support of their bill. People of India provided their unconditional support to Anna Hazare and many sat on 'fast unto death' with him but none of the so-called and well-publicized leaders of IAC went on fast unto death. Since, this reflected badly on the leadership, they chose not to publicize about others fasting along with Anna. Even media danced on the leaders' tune and blacked out others fasting with Anna. On the contrary, a popular Hindi newspaper published a false news that one of the IAC leader was on fast and further glorified the leader's children for their patriotism.This is how the modern Indian leaders establish their leadership on the sacrifices of others.
The publicity and support to Anna made him the final word on the issue and he began dictating his terms in an autocratic manner. Originally, Anna is a genuine Gandhian and such a behavior is unexpected of him. May be he is now acting on somebody else's advices at the cost of tarnishing his own image.
The greatest folly in the matter has been nominating a father-son duo on the committee for drafting the bill along with the government representatives. Ramdev objected to this, but he was calmed down by the dictatorial attitude of Anna Hazare. He thinks that by his support to the duo, the wrong thing stands corrected. India is a large country and has many capable legal a social activists, and one more such person would have enriched the committee by his/her presence. None including Mr Hazare should have been allowed to dictate his terms in the matter.
Unfortunately, there is no woman member on the committee from any side. For the public, the government and social activists have imposed a 50 percent reservation to women but when it comes to their own attitudes in the matter, they behave quite differently.
Until the drafting committee was formed, all IAC leaders were very rigid on their demands saying it was in public interests. After coming close to powerful politicians, they have softened themselves on the issue of public interests. This means public interest is what these few persons say and keep on changing at their whims. This has been a tradition of Indian politics that a leader talks of public interests when in opposition and forgets about it after coming to power. The tradition continues even with Anna and other leaders of IAC.
Just before the drafting committee was formed, Anna managed to remove Sharad Pawar from the government's nominee on issue of his doubted involvement in corrupt practices. Now that father-son duo on the committee are said to be involved in corrupt practices but they are being defended by the same Anna. Further, declared assets of the duo are also enormous from any standard putting a question mark on their character. This is also being ignored by Anna.
During his fasting days, Anna Hazare had dealt with the government very toughly in public interest. Now that he is on the committee for drafting the bill and close to those in power, he has been softening his stand gradually forgetting all his claims about public interests. Earlier, he forced in an autocratic manner the government to accept his unconstitutional demand of 50 percent members from public on the drafting committee, but now he turned to be a democrat leaving everything on the Parliament. This sudden change in heart is astonishing.
Through extrapolating the ongoings so far, it can easily be predicted that the people of India have misplaced their trust in Anna Hazare and they stand to gain nothing ultimately. But some IAC leaders are surely going to gain through their high power contacts through the drafting committee.
