Why I chose to be anti-Hazare.

Anna Hazare- the new age Gandhi came to prominence last April when he started a movement which demanded the passing of a bill named Lokpal which supposedly would cure one of the biggest plagues that has caught the country-corruption. Well, not much of us did know of this Gandhian until this movement kicked off, and a great many of us even mistook him for a Venezuelan model on hearing his name for the first time .Well, jokes apart, Mr Hazare is the recipient of the third highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan for his altruistic works in structuring and developing a village called Ralegan Siddhi in Maharashtra.

His anti grafting movement met with immediate success, as Mr Hazare went on to threaten the Indian government by saying he’d go on an indefinite hunger strike till the bill gets enacted. We saw the uprising of the Indian middle class who gather in large masses and made this movement a big hit along with the media frenzy behind this which gave Mr Hazare a larger than life image. Team Anna as they call themselves came up with stock phrases like “Second fight of Independence”, “New age Gandhian” which evoked self righteousness among different strata of the society. Even with such massive advertisements the movement was polarized. For many he was God without a halo and to the rest he was a right wing sanctimonious tyrant. I belonged to the latter minority.

From the genesis of this affair, the whole idea of a magic bill that kills something as deadly as corruption never appealed to me. We are a population of over a billion and to wipe out corruption we need stronger moves. This doesn't mean that I am pro corruption. No, it’s just that ideas professed by Mr Hazare’s and his minions’ don't reconcile well with mine and those who think like me. Well, since I was a minority whatever I voiced fell into deaf ears.

Now about the people who were pro Hazare fell into two categories.

1. Those of who vouched for a better tomorrow but suffered from myopic vision.

2.Those who  had absolutely no idea of what postulated the bill, but went on advocating it, because it had become a part of popular culture.

Well after his first stunt, the government agreed to draft a bill, and as expected it didn't meet his demands. So Hazare set out on his second death fast demanding a powerful anti-corruption agency.

The fast was a big hit with celebrity intervention. Chetan Bhagat, Aamir Khan added pomp and splendor to the gatherings at Ram Lila maidan. Invariably Mr Hazare was arrested by the police, ostensibly in the interest of law and order.

He was like a little child who refused to eat and speak (yes, he went on a Moun vrat, in between) because Mommy didn't buy his favorite toy.

I said Team Anna and his minions had a myopic vision of the entire affair because India has a deep rooted and complicated relationship with corruption. And just as Mr Prime Minister rightly pointed out,

 a “magic wand” cant end corruption in our country. So it was wise to stop this hurly burly and for once capitulate. So in the map of the world India’s population was divided into two. The good guys and the bad guys. The bad guys being the politicians and the good guys being the middle class who lamented the bad. To solve a problem like corruption we need more than just a bill. And Team Anna never really understood what it meant by coming to terms with the government who proposed its own version of the bill which was presented in the upper house of the parliament. Well long story short, nobody could take Mr Hazare and minions for a ride.

In the meantime a couple of his allies, Mr Arvind Kejriwal and Mrs Kiran Bedi were charged with minor corruption charges which set a big blow to the self righteous rage they were cultivating. The media quizzed him on everything and he responded amiably. Projecting Mr Modi, the Gujarat CM who is the main accused in the mass homicide of hundreds of Muslims in Gujarat riots as a righteous man who ushered “rural development” exposed him as a very different man from what was made to believe.  He is dead against foreign investment and compared it to the East India Company which once colonized India. He declared that he’d campaign against the Congress in the coming election, as a punishment for not passing the bill. The question is, why does he fail to realize that, demoting Congress means supporting other corrupt politicians since he himself isn't contesting in the elections?

Well, the story doesn't end here; there was yet another hunger strike where we saw his halo diminishing. His credibility started eroding but still had the support of the middle class wearing “ I am Anna caps” who are embarrassed to admit that they are wrong. The public ground that can house over 10000, weren't getting filled up as expected with only a few thousands turning up. Poor health forced him to retreat to the hospital and in nut shell, everyone was getting sick and tired of this business.

I would never say Mr Hazare’s motives were that of a sinister. His ideas and advocacy for a corruption free India are a pathetic excuse for a democratic country where his dreams of being the dictator of sanctimoniousness were merely futile.