Team Anna shooting itself in the foot

Is there no one, but no one, at all among those advising Anna Hazare who has even a wee bit, just a wee bit, of an inkling of the manner of leading a movement, the functioning of a team, maintaining the credibility of a cause, dealing with officialdom and other sections of the civil society, or building a mass base?

Aren't they aware that even those, like this columnist, who had a fund of goodwill and sympathy for them at the start of their campaign for Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayuktas in the States, are now gnashing their teeth at their antics? Are they taking the trouble to be in touch with the outpouring of criticism against their tantrums and quirks in the newspapers and TV channels?

Haven't they realised that the cacophony emanating from members of the miscalled “team” members in the Anna's camp and spewing out of the print and electronic media is simply driving crazy every one who sets store by norms of purposeful leadership, coherent thinking and rational behaviour?

One such example of how crazy people can get is that of Mr V. Narayanasamy, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), who has gone overboard by declaiming that Anna Hazare is “surrounded by anti-national elements and people who have been supported by foreign forces”.

ABSURD CHARGES

This is just one of those instances of overkill — classic ready-at-hand ruse — to which the Government takes recourse whenever cornered to bring to heel anyone opposing its misguided policies and questioning its waywardness.

The same kind of accusation was levelled at Jayaprakash Narayan in the 1970s when he had almost succeeded in rousing the masses to bring about a “total revolution” for purity, transparency and honesty in governance.

Going farther back, the DMK leader C. N. Annadurai too was similarly sought to be painted as a CIA agent for spearheading the anti-Hindi agitation in 1965.

More recently, Justice A. P. Shah has documented how the Government went all out to crush the mass agitation by the Idinthakarai people against the Koodankulam Atomic Power Project, on the ground of its being instigated by some “foreign hand”.

(The Government nowadays does not stop with such absurd charges: It also unleashes the hounds of the CBI, and the Income Tax and Enforcement Departments to frighten into submission those fighting the injustices of the Government.) No, I do not view either Anna or his team members as being under the influence of any anti-national elements or foreign forces. Watching them go about their mission, I am convinced that they do not also need the leg-up from any of them, since they are quite capable of shooting themselves in their foot without any help from any extraneous source!

VERBAL PYROTECHNICS

If “Team” Anna is really a team, what is its clear-cut goal? There is tremendous confusion on this point. Does it want to focus on a Jan Lokpal?

Or, does it want to eliminate corruption and black money at one go, and if so, will its strategy be differentiated or identical? Does it want to unearth scams, or does it want to go after individual Ministers and bring them to book, and if so, how will it guard against lapsing into the tactics of the notorious Senator McCarthy?

In short, I haven't in my life seen a more confused and mutually squabbling bunch than what goes by the hyperbolic appellation of Team Anna. There are flip-flops, U-turns, somersaults and verbal pyrotechnics galore in the various postures each one of the team members assumes from time to time. All of that would have been laughable, except that they are causing grave damage to what they have set out to do.

Anna himself is doing no service to himself or his cause by constantly hurling threats of fasts. A tiny effort of introspection tinged with an iota of human psychology will bring home to him how such threats, repeated ad nauseum , lose all meaning and, indeed, will be seen as rollicking buffoonery.

I have one simple, single sentence advice for him: More work, less talk. (This was the only gem to come out of Sanjay Gandhi during Emergency: But when carried over to fliers, posters and placards, somebody, I think mischievously, printed it as “More workless talk”!)

COMMENT NOW