Anna walks into political parlour!

India’s political class must be dancing a jig of joy on hearing that Anna Hazare is to float a political party to cleanse the present dispensation. In fact, he even seems to have thought of a name for it: Anna’s Janata Party or People’s Party.

The outfit calling itself India Against Corruption is particularly in a state of rapturous delirium. “Anna has sounded the bugle!” it cries. He has entered the battlefield to trounce all political ragamuffins, it promises. He will fill Parliament with “good and ethical people” says Kiran Bedi. Anna will take the fight from the streets to Parliament, exults Manish Sisodia.

The more the drum beating by Anna’s ardent supporters, the more the applause of the political class. Every political party, and every political leader, worth the name, has gleefully welcomed Anna’s walking into their parlour. The Congress party maverick, Digvijay Singh, has, obviously tongue-in-cheek, rejoiced that all political parties will now be able to learn from Anna’s Party how to fight elections without money and without any bothersome paraphernalia.

Only two of Anna’s admirers, who are also core members of his team, are finding it difficult to go to town along with the rest. They are sober, thinking persons of the category eulogised by Rudyard Kipling in his poem ‘ If’ more than a hundred years ago: They are keeping their heads when all about them are losing theirs and are not afraid of uttering home truths even if others find them unpalatable.

WARNING

Medha Patkar has not minced words: “…one has to think a 100 times before taking the plunge into electoral politics... When people with noble intentions join politics, either they don't last long or they don't achieve much”.

Justice Santosh Hegde has also been outspoken: Pointing out that Anna's identity is not of a politician but one who wants to bring about social change, Santosh Hegde is quite categorical that “Anna is not meant for forming a political party”. He has no objection if individual members of Team Anna contest elections “without any support from political parties involved in corruption” which means that they should not take any support from any political party anywhere in India!

He has been both realistic and farsighted in expressing his doubt about the availability of ‘‘that many people who have capacity to fight an election’’ for Anna and bring about a systemic change in Parliament and State legislatures. “That is why”, he says, “my view is that if there are good people, maybe from Team Anna or any other team, they can be supported, but it should not be done under Anna's banner.”

There has been no instance in India’s history of political parties formed at the national level surviving the stresses and strains of electoral politics. All the pre-existing, predatory political machines see to it that they are ground out of existence within a short time.

GODSPEED

Remember, the political colossuses with a long and impeccable record of uprightness and sacrifice that were behind their formation — whether it was the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party of Acharya Kripalini, or the Swatantra Party of Rajaji, Janata Party of Jaya Prakash Narayan or the Lok Satta Party of Jaya Prakash Narayan (a retired IAS officer turned political activist striving for implanting rectitude and service-before-self in the political system).

Running a political party imbued with lofty ideals, such as Anna’s Party, if and when it takes off, demands whole-time cadres and workers in their prime who will be prepared to put in all their energy and time into building it and making it an irresistible force in less than the two years that remain before the next election.

Anna’s supporters largely comprise yuppies, time-killers, mall-goers and comfort-seekers. None of them working abroad (whom I have asked) has contributed any significant part of their income to Anna’s cause to demonstrate their individual social commitment. The moment they are called upon to devote 24X7, they will vamoose.

Secondly, Anna’s movement is almost entirely confined to the Hindi-speaking belt.

The populations of the more sophisticated and advanced States have not been touched by Team Anna’s homilies in that language, and are unlikely to be turned on by the new move.

All the same, Godspeed Anna!

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