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Anna Hazare and the members of his team, comprising Messrs.Prashant Bhushan, Shanti Bhushan and Arvind Kejriwal and Ms.Kiran Bedi, are committing the grievous blunder of disregarding the people's capacity to see through their continued irrational behaviour.
They had made the passing, by August 31, of the Jan Lokpal Bill, exactly in the form proposed by them, without subjecting it to any kind of further scrutiny by any Parliamentary Standing Committee, a non-negotiable pre-condition for breaking Mr Hazare's fast. After a lot of huffing and puffing, they announced that their differences with the Government were over with the adoption of a ‘Sense of the House' motion in both Houses of Parliament agreeing to three issues: Incorporation of a Citizen's Charter, inclusion of the lower bureaucracy under Lokpal through an appropriate mechanism, and establishment of Lokayuktas in the States.
The motion only said that Parliament ‘agrees in principle', and will “forward the proceedings of the House to the Standing Committee on Law and Justice while finalising its report.”
Even the ardent supporters and sympathisers of Team Anna were at loss to understand how this became in its eyes a monumental triumph for its cause to the extent of making it a pretext for the breaking of Mr Hazare's fast.
All the Ministries of the Central Government had already had their respective Citizens' Charters for some years, setting definite time limits for complying with the demands of citizens. Team Anna's suggestion that the Charters should specify the nature of punishments for non-compliance is not, in itself, of such a stupendous significance as to be made a substantive issue. But it was touted as a big deal, although the Parliamentary motion makes only a bald mention of ‘Citizens' Charters' without any reference to sanctions.
QUIXOTIC
The point about inclusion of lower bureaucracy in the Lokpal Bill is no doubt a major one, but Mr Hazare and his Team members have shown lack of administrative sense and practical wisdom in insisting on it. They have failed to take account of the hugely cumbersome establishment that will be needed to attend to thousands of complaints and cases all the way from the Ministries at Delhi right down to the lowest level Central Government offices in every State.
Team Anna has again shown itself to be quixotic by raising the establishment of Lokayuktas in States as an issue. There are quite a few States which already have Lokayuktas and there has never been any objection ‘in principle' on the part of any State to the arrangement.
There is nothing to gloat over its mention in the ‘Sense of the House' motion, and that too, ‘in principle', as a basis for forwarding it to the Standing Committee for further examination.
In short, there is nothing in the Parliamentary motion to send Team Anna into raptures. If anything, it allowed itself to be outmanoeuvred by the Government by being forced to give up its original stand on every count.
What has been happening after Mr Hazare gave up the fast is more bizarre. Mr Hazare and his team members have gone back on their acceptance of the motion, which includes the possibility of modifications by the Parliamentary Committee, and are once again resorting to their threat of a third fast if the Jan Lokpal Bill is not enacted in the Winter Session retaining original features.
Their latest stunt is to make forays into electoral politics, proclaiming their determination to defeat the Congress in the Hissar by-election and the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh elections for its failure to support the Jan Lokpal Bill.
It is the Parliamentary Committee, and not the Congress, that is seized of the many different versions of the Lokpal Bill. It is open to Team Anna to air its contentions before that Committee and bring it round to its view. It passes one's comprehension how the Congress comes into the picture at this stage and why it should be blamed for anything.
Team Anna perhaps needs a bit of counselling to enable it to see things from a worldly-wise perspective and not to shoot its mouth off meanwhile.
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