Majority of Indians seem to be smitten by Anna Hazare’s antics. He has become a hero of sorts within days if not hours. I personally think he is just a media hyped personality who has been used by the media to fill in the gap between the World Cup and the IPL. I am biased. I don’t believe in someone who has dodgy intentions and even dodgier methods to achieve them.

I am opposed to; corruption, hunger strikes, misgovernance as well as the Jan Lok Pall Bill. No, it’s not contradictory.

First of all, what Anna Hazare is doing in unconstitutional. He is literally mocking the democratic procedure established in the country. I am not sure how he elected himself and his small band as the ‘representatives of the civil society’.

Civil society is all of us. We all choose our representatives when we vote. They draft the Bills so aren’t the representatives already drafting the Bills? All legislations can have a ‘Jan’ in front of them according to Anna Hazare’s logic.

Mr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta said “The morality of fasting unto death for a political cause in a constitutional democracy has always been a tricky issue. There is something deeply coercive about fasting unto death. When it is tied to an unparalleled moral eminence, as it is in the case of Anna Hazare, it amounts to blackmail.”

Anna Hazare says that he is a populist leader. He claims he has the backing of the people. If you are so confident that people have faith in you then why not stand for elections? Populist leaders can easily win elections, can’t they? You can then draft the legislations and work for the society. It’s the constitutional way of doing things.

Anna Hazare benefitted from the fact that the media was news deprived and the people were very irritated with the UPA government’s misdeeds.

I have some questions for Anna Hazare.

Where were the holders of candles, wearers of Gandhi topis and hunger strikers when the offices of the Chief Election Commissioner, the Central Vigilance Commissioner and even the President of the Republic were handed out to persons with dubious credentials? If you didn’t come out to protest the perversion of these institutions why are you somehow more likely to turn up to protest when a dubious person is sought to be made the Jan Lok Pal?

Anna Hazare even supports Raj Thackeray’s tirade against non-marathis. Are only marathis included in the civil society Mr Representative?

Anna Hazare had said that he respected what Narendra Modi had done with Gujarat. He was all praises for him. It received a lot of news time. Anna came to Gujarat a month or two after this and openly criticized Narendra Modi, again catching a lot of eye balls. When asked why he had a change of heart, he said he found out the actual condition only after he came to Gujarat. So if you had never been to Gujarat and did not know what work Narendra Modi had done then on what basis did you praise him in the first place? Or is it all about staying in the news?

When the dust over this issue was settled Anna Hazare again announces that our Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh is a good man but Sonia Gandhi controls him with a remote control which stops him from working to his full potential. Another controversial statement at the time when the newspapers seemed to have moved on to other news. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

There are people who believe that the Jan Lok Pal Bill will create a separate government like structure and that Anna Hazare is trying to be the Prime Minister of that government.

We don’t need the Jan Lok Pall Bill. We already have enough laws to tackle corruption. We just need better people to manage the country. We need people to vote responsibly. We need to work as a nation. We don’t need a revolution. We need a well planned and constructive plan to tackle corruption and improve governance. We don’t need Anna Hazare or representatives. Individuals or a small group can and always will make a difference but not when their intentions are questionable and their means unconstitutional.

I would like to end by quoting Dr. B.R. Ambedkar from his Constituent Assembly speech.

“…we must abandon the bl**dy methods of revolution. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.”

Jai Hind!

P.S. – I just want to let everyone know that Anna Hazare is not Mahatma Gandhi like some people are trying to portray him. My views in this post are strictly showing just one side of the story. I personally think that the dark side is overpowering the bright side as of now. It’s just my view. I would love to hear your counter view on this.

Article by-

Apoorv Shah

Gujarat National Law University

[Submitted as an entry for the MightyLaws.in Blog Post Writing Competition, 2011]