Anna and the horse-traders

Some of the elected representatives of Bihar and Maharashtra told the country this week that a bunch of people claiming to represent civil society could not dictate legislation to Parliament. Lalu Prasad Yadav was suddenly espousing the ideal of authority over agitation, ironic given that he cut his political teeth in the JP movement. But then Lalu has always been an idealist: during his tenure he was so intent on the ideal of social empowerment that he forgot the more mundane task of providing bread and butter to his people. So they eventually threw him out. He was replaced by Nitish Kumar, whose trademark in Bihar has been engagement with practical issues. Perhaps the difference between the two is that Nitish has espoused principles over ideals, whereas Lalu is perceived to have, behind the veneer of ideals, dumped his principles in the dustbin.

The UPA-2 has ideals pertaining to social welfare and bettering the lot of the poor, and like Lalu its heart is in the right place since India’s basic problem continues to be poverty. Some say so what, there will always be poverty, and that the main thing is to facilitate big business and work towards effective strategic power projection. The flimsiness of this argument is shown by the way China has raised hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty (even if the country is on the precipice of economic meltdown now that the property bubble has burst). The UPA-2’s problem is that the lack of principles of some of its constituents has drowned out the message of its ideals. The monies involved in the 2G scam boggled even the most cynical minds. The entirety of 2011 was spent by the UPA-2 trying to regain a handle on its own narrative; to try and convince the public that it had not lost sight of its ideals, and that the unprincipled behaviour of some constituents was just an aberration. They might have succeeded had it not been for Anna Hazare.

The 74-year-old Gandhian may not have ideals that everyone shares (particularly not the English-speaking middle-class) — take the authoritarian manner in which he deals with social issues in his own village — but to most voters he appears a man of principles. His fasts are more convincing than that of the Gujarat Chief Minister. He may be surrounded by a bunch of usurpers, but the contrast has only served to depict him as less worldly, less rough-edged and less manipulative than the others.

The UPA-2 helped his image with its ham-handed arrest, etc. His insistence on his Jan Lokpal Bill, as terrible a legislative idea as it is, has painted the political class as a slippery bunch that is twisting itself out of shape to ensure it remains free to loot; it makes Anna appear as if he is sticking to his single principle of eradicating corruption (which we all know is an impossibility: it is perhaps easier to eradicate poverty).

Some newspapers declared that, following the recent local bodies’ elections in Anna’s home state Maharashtra where the Congress did not get wiped out, there had been no Anna effect, and this has led some to deduce that Anna is now subject to the law of diminishing returns. This is as absurd as thinking that there should be an Anna effect during elections to the Press Club of Mumbai. It would be similarly absurd to expect an Anna effect in the coming Mumbai civic elections, where a sort of Mexican standoff between all parties appears to be taking shape. There is sure, however, to be an Anna effect in the UP elections in February.

The talk about UP Chief Minister Mayawati is that though she is scientifically planning her party’s campaign in “strategic” seats, the anti-incumbency factor that the Anna movement has exacerbated is sure to dent her tally, even if she eventually ends up as the single-largest party in a hung assembly. There are those who, impressed with Mulayam Singh’s son Akhilesh’s barn-storming of the state, say that the SP will be the single-largest. In any case, either will need an ally to form a government, and they will not look towards one another. This is the gap that the Congress hopes to fill.

However, the Congress campaign betrays a hesitation by its leader that will no doubt cost them the seats to fill that gap. Such hesitation does not indicate a leader without principles, but it does not reveal hidden principles either. Perhaps he’s given up; perhaps he’s not interested in being “confined” to be being a leader of only UP. However, it might be better for him to emulate not ally Lalu but opponent Nitish, and focus more on principles than on ideals. Rahul Gandhi could do that by declaring himself his party’s chief ministerial candidate; surely that would neutralise the Anna effect in the UP elections.

Yet he will not, and come March 4 we will see the horse-trading in UP begin. The very thing that Anna stands against will be on display: politics based on money, principles be damned. And despite Lalu’s words in Parliament, our elected representatives will have ceded further legitimacy to an unelected civil society. I’m betting that 2012 will be a worse year for the political class than 2011.

The writer is the Editor-in-Chief, DNA, based in Mumbai