Anna Hazare’s Campaign against Corruption: A Perspective from India’s North East

By Madhu Chandra
Anna Hazare and his team known as Team Anna, is deeply debated as a movement manufactured by Indian media, particularly electronic media and Television News Channels. Team Anna has repeatedly claimed that the whole nation of 1.2 billion people is with them for their campaign against corruption. This claim is from the respond to Anna Hazare’s Lila at Ram Lila ground in September last year, which lasted 8 days fast. Their claim of whole nation supporting their cause has been proved wrong, first when the Scheduled Caste and Tribe communities marched out at India Gate on September 22 last year against Anna Hazare and his team’s method of demand to bring Lokpal Bill. Secondly, he and his team failed to bring the crowd when he launched fast protest in Mumbai in December last year and so is the same episode this time at Jantar Mantar where the man behind Team Anna’s brain storm, Mr. Arvind Kejariwal and his colleagues are fasting for last 9 days.

The nation has not responded this time as the Team Anna wanted. What is the response from entire North East India toward Anna Hazare’s campaign against corruption? The supporters of Irom Sharmila, who has been fast unto death for last 12 years, once decided to join the support and should found out that Team Anna, not for the cause of Sharmila’s struggle but to use her as a poster ground on his Anna Lila. Many objected to the Sharmila’s supporters yet went ahead folding hands but only to be rejected. If one could analysis the motive behind the supporters of Sharmila, one can find that it was not really to the cause of Anna Hazare’s struggle against corruption but wanted to take mileage of highlighting Sharmila’s fight against Armed Forces Special Power Act that has been imposed upon the entire North East India for last 50 plus years. Akil Gogoi the Right to Information (RTI) Activist, went to Ram Lila ground, a lone representatives though disappeared sooner than what he wanted to be. His face was not much appealing to the crowd as Delhi is top most racial hatred against North East communities.

To mention one more figure, definitely list on top of all is none other than the famous anchor of Time Now TV news channel, Mr. Arnab Goswami, who originally hailed from Assam and residing in Mumbai. His channel was one of the media who led manufacturing Anna Hazare like Mahatma Gandhi and his team as sole messiah for India against corruption.

Do Anna Hazare and his team really see North East India with all the challenges, issues and problems in the region see as a matter of integrated nation? One of worse communal violence, begun in lower Assam  just few days before Anna Hazare and his team begun the current fast unto death at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. Does Anna Hazare and his team care of the lost of 50 lives, thousands homes, hundreds of home destroyed and over two lakh people became homeless. The region is still burning and not a single sign of concern from Anna Hazare and his team.

What will matter if the method adopted by Anna Hazare and Team Anna to push through their version of Lokpal for whole nation and what about for North East India? Have we seen the forces behind Team Anna? It is worth to understand Team Anna and invisible forces behind the show, the method used to push their demand and the content and consequences of their version of Lokpal Bill.

All sections of Indian society have suffered from corruption and all must fight against it. Everybody has a right to protest against corruption in a democratic manner. Civil society’s fight has a big role in bringing policies, laws, and plans of action against corruption. Having said this, there remains many unanswered questions related to the whole issue of corruption among them is the version of Anna Hazare’s civil society and the rise of the anti-corruption movement.

Is monetary corruption the only challenge in India which Team Anna is concerned about? What about socio-religious corruption of caste? What about ensuring affirmative action for marginalised people in corporate establishments? What about the failure of the state to fight communalism against minorities, marginalised people, and the rise of fascism? These are questions left by Team Anna while fighting against corruption. They are interlinked with corruption in general.

First, it has the invisible forces:
According to Arundhati Roy, it was a force of (a) Vande Mataram (b) Bharat Mata ki Jai (c) India is Anna, Anna is India (d) Jai Hind. The background of Vande Mataram written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadyay in his book Anandamath has deep connection with Anti-Muslim message. The controversy becomes more complex in the light of Rabindranath Tagore’s rejection of the song as one that would unite all communities in India.

Tagore wrote:
The core of Vande Mataram is a hymn to the goddess Durga: this is so plain that there can be no debate about it. Of course Bankimchandra does show Durga to be inseparably united with Bengal in the end, but no Mussulman [Muslim] can be expected patriotically to worship the ten-handed deity as ‘Swadesh’ [the nation]. This year many of the special [Durga] Puja numbers of our magazines have quoted verses from Vande Mataram—proof that the editors take the song to be a hymn to Durga. The novel Anandamath is a work of literature, and so the song is appropriate in it. But Parliament is a place of union for all religious groups, and there the song cannot be appropriate. When Bengali Mussulmans show signs of stubborn fanaticism, we regard these as intolerable. When we too copy them and make unreasonable demands, it will be self-defeating.

Similarly, the concept of Bharat Mata predates the partition of India. She is intended to represent “Aryavarta”, the motherland of Hinduism in Hindu nationalism, not merely restricted to the secular Republic of India. Bharat Mata remains a symbol of the “vision of a unified motherland” in Hindu nationalist thought.
If one looks at these invisible forces, one will find different forms they have incarnated into in last two decades. There seems to be no connection with any corruption movement in these periods. They had Anti-Reservationists during the Anti-Mandal I in 1990, when the Mandal Commission recommendations were introduced to be implemented.

One incarnation was the Youth For Equality movement during Anti-Mandal II opposing UPA government’s 27% OBC reservation in higher technical institutions in 2006. Interestingly both Anti-Reservationists and Youth For Equality were orchestrated by the All India Institute of Medical Science in New Delhi.
Another incarnation was the India Against Corruption movement during Anna Lila at Ram Lila ground. What form of incarnation will appear next, nobody knows and only time will tell. But the reality is that every movement they come up with becomes stronger and imperils the nation.

Second, it was an attempt to assault Indian Democracy:
M. K. Gandhi was assassinated by a gun but Anna Hazare, who has been acclaimed by some as the second Gandhi, was almost killed by hunger at Ram Lila ground. What would have had happened for the nation, if he had died at Ram Lila? The parliament perhaps would have been overthrown and the nation thrown into chaos. An imposed national emergency could have occurred and the communal party would have gotten political mileage.

This was like holding the Parliamentary System hostage at gun point compelling the My Way Highway mentality. The government succumbed to their pressure and the opposition took advantage. It is a danger for the country if the democratic process can be manipulated by mobocracy. People being supreme above Parliament were a massive assault on democracy!

Third, it was an assault on Parliament:
Dalit columnist Chandrabhan Prasad said, “The Anna Hazare phenomenon is leading us to the rejection of representative democracy itself. The movement is an upper-caste uprising against India’s political democracy. That apart, vesting so much power in the Lokpal, a non-elected person, could lead to a dangerous situation.”
In a democratic nation, the elected representative members make the laws of the nation and the state. The upper caste community, whose population is much smaller compared to the Indian vote bank, are fearful that their chances of winning elections to State Assembly and Parliament are being diminished. If they are not elected then they do not become a member of the State Assembly or Parliament, which means that they will not be a part of the law making body. So they are desperate to impose a system that allows un-elected members to still be involved in the law making process. This is the attempt we have seen in Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption, while trying to pass the Jan Lokpal Bill.

If they had succeeded in bringing My Way Highway of their version of Jan Lokpal Bill, then tomorrow they would organize another mobocracy to bring a law against reservation, to rewrite the Indian Constitution, anti-conversion laws, and implement their version of electoral reform etc.

Fifth, Anna Hazare’s Civil Society was incomplete:
Are Team Anna and their Civil Society a complete representation of India? What about the half billion people who belong to Others Backward Classes (OBC), the 250 million Scheduled Caste/Tribes, and the 150 million minorities? All India Confederation of SC/ST Organisation had to launch a campaign against Anna Haraze’s incomplete civil society. Over 10,000 Dalits, OBC, and Minorities marched on at India Gate. The voice was heard by the Parliament, Standing Committee, and even Team Anna.

The Anna Hazare movement was manufactured by media particularly Television News channels. Parthasarathi Swami writes in Hindustan Times, “What is Anna Hazare? What is brand Hazare? He is a creation of the Facebook Generation… How much is brand Hazare worth? Believe it or not – nothing.”

The arrangement of Television News channel at Ram Lila ground and at India Gate rivaled any found at a Bollywood shooting or a cricket match. IT professionals belonging to upper caste and middle class were behind the stage monitoring the campaign through all forms of social network – Facebook, Twitter, Google and Blogs.

Abhishek Raghunath writes in Business, “SMS GupShup, a group messaging service, was responsible for sending several of these messages. GupShup groups like Anna, Jaibhim, newsb and Jago Haryana – each with more than 50,000 members – along with a bunch of smaller groups, sent out over 1 crore messes in a week.”

The writer Madhu Chandra is a social activist and research scholar based at Kakching, Manipur. He works as Regional Secretary of All India Christian Council (www.indianchristians.in) and Spokesperson of North East Support Centre & Helpline (www.nehelpline.net).
(The views expressed by the author are personal)

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