How did a 73-year-old fasting Gandhian instigate thousands of busy people to join his fight to change incredible India into credible India, kicking off an edge-of-the seat drama.
While Anna Hazare’s supporters are out celebrating the victory of the people, there is a nagging question that refuses to go away.
How did a 73-year-old fasting Gandhian instigate thousands of busy people to join his fight to change incredible India into credible India, kicking off an edge-of-the seat drama and sending the UPA government in Delhi into a tizzy? Over the next few days, many will air their views on the subject. The real issue, however, has been overlooked: we desperately need a law on fasting.
In this thriving democracy of ours, anyone is free to eat anything. But fasting ought to be limited to religious occasions, the seriously fat, and for the triumph of Indian cricketers. For the sake of national stability, there should be a ban on fasting by doughty 73-year-olds, especially if they have been former soldiers, have a history of successful social activism and won awards from the government of India and institutions like the World Bank for outstanding public service.
An analysis of the ‘Hazare phenomenon’ by eminent thinkers with a finger on the people’s pulse (TFPP) suggest that such a hunger-striker secretly nurtures the subversive dream of becoming an youth icon, not just in his or her village or hometown, but across the country, in the blogosphere and among the diaspora.
It is nice to be a youth icon in a country where the vast majority are young, and when it comes with the thrill of being chased by panting corporations. But it doesn't come easy. When a septuagenarian without an image consultant morphs into a youth icon overnight, and can get thousands of young men and women, Bollywood A-listers and the likes of Mahendra Singh Dhoni rooting for his anti-corruption agenda, one has to start worrying.
Last week, I was down at Jantar Mantar in the heart of New Delhi to catch a glimpse of Young India’s new messiah. There was no star-studded Bollywood set, no cricket pitch in sight, no freebies being distributed. Flanked by his team of social activists and Magasaysay award winners, Hazare sat on a fast in the scorching sun. Some 40 outdoor broadcasting (OB) vans from various TV stations were parked nearby. But it did not look like Hazare had slipped out in between for a quick make-over.
The crowd around him was an assorted one — of the young and the old, the timidly attired and the bold, clerks working in government offices, youngsters from snazzy corporations, housewives, students and artists. I was looking out for the jholawallahs — the NGO alarmists, the publicity-seekers, collectively labelled ‘civil society’ — who, according to the TFPP, were goading Hazare to court trouble.
As luck would have it, those I spoke to that afternoon had cunningly camouflaged themselves as ordinary people and recounted their everyday tales of corruption and utter powerlessness. A 23-year-old doctor who had come down from Ludhiana said Hazare’s message got through to him instantly because it was as precise as a pulse polio campaign. The demand was for a Citizen’s Ombudsman Bill that would create a Jan Lokpal, an independent body that would have the power to prosecute politicians and bureaucrats without government permission. The doctor had got a seat in a government medical college on merit but still had to pay a “commission” to a clerk to get his medical degree. He was in Jantar Mantar because he was inspired by Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and Swami Agnivesh. “I know Annaji will not cheat me. He is fighting for the young and for India’s future.” There were myriad such tales.
The drama has ended. But the real battle has just begun. As images of the surging, cheering crowds of Anna supporters across the country resound, the voices of cynics and critics will grow shriller.
If only Anna Hazare was a more reasonable man, if only he saw corruption as a truly complex problem, which requires, above all, more seminars, symposiums, and panel discussions with the TFPP. But 73-year-old youth icons who have passed out of the Gandhi School of Mass Communications stubbornly demand action. The law on fasting is absolutely essential. If that does not quieten the irrepressible Hazare, just whisper that it was the fasting Gandhian who gave Nike, a multinational, its slogan “Just do it”.
Patralekha Chatterjee writes on development issues in India and other emerging countries and can be reached at patralekha.chatterjee@gmail.com
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