[Debate] Update 4 on the Anna Hazare stir in India, and some further thoughts

Sun Aug 21 18:17:48 BST 2011

Sunday, 21 August 2011

Update 4 on the Anna Hazare stir in India, and some further thoughts

(For those who are not following the ‘Anna Hazare stir’ in India  
closely, further to my last but one posting on this list – reporting  
that Anna Hazare was due to come out of jail and move to the Ramlila  
Ground on Friday afternoon, that was what happened, and he is now  
there, continuing his fast – now in his sixth day – and along with  
him is a quite large gathering of followers.  As expected, some  
members of his team have now openly declared that they have no  
intention of complying with the condition that they signed (of  
completing this action within fifteen days) and that they will  
continue ‘as long as necessary’.  The team is however also giving  
confusing signals, possibly deliberately, with others saying that this  
is not and will not be a ‘fast unto death’, but is only an  
‘indefinite fast’… In the meanwhile, the man himself has said  
that his ‘team’s ‘Jan Lokpal Bill’ must be passed by Parliament  
– and by August 30, otherwise he will issue a call to his followers  
to jail bharo – fill the jails, by courting arrest.)

First, for those who would like to take a look at the Jan Lokpal Bill,  
see http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.org/; and for those who’d like  
to also take a look at the government’s Lokpal Bill, it's available  
at <http://isikkim.com/2011-08-text-of-lokpal-bill-as-introduced-in-loksabha-on-august-4-16-01/ 
 > or at <http://www.prsindia.org/billtrack/lok-pal-bill-2011-1873/>.

(Thanks, Sukla (Sen).)

Second, here is an article that points out one dimension of what is at  
stake : The future of the arguably most powerful person in the country.

World's #9 Most Powerful Person Now Accused of Corruption --
Will She Fall?

Posted: 04/25/11 07:17 AM ET

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cleo-paskal/worlds-9-most-powerful-pe_b_853132.html

And third, and at this time, I would like to ask all those who are  
watching what is going on in India – and who have any thoughts on it  
– to write, publicly, and especially to reflect critically on what is  
going on and write.  If possible, on this list; or wherever.

India is a huge country, and what happens here as a result of this  
powerful stir that is taking place will affect everyone - everywhere.   
The ‘movement’ that is building up behind Anna Hazare is, while  
deeply moving and exciting in many ways (and my own first postings  
reflect this), also severely problematic.  The movement is popular,  
yes, mass, yes, large yes, but it is clearly now also already deeply  
infused with a kind of ‘nationalist populism’ (or populist  
nationalism) – and this is what makes it dangerous.  Because it is  
now, already, easily susceptible to being used, especially by  
fundamentalists.  (It may already be being used.)  And crucially, also  
because of the rage that is in the hearts and minds of those who are  
now the mass membership of the movement, male youth.  Their rage is  
about ‘corruption’, yes, but it is also about power : About the  
choice of being powerless or being powerful.  And where being involved  
is movement like this is empowering, but this empowerment also has all  
kinds of meanings and possibilities, and can easily be abused and  
manipulated by demagogues.

(I am separately posting another very moving and powerful essay about  
rage.  Thanks, Kolya (Abramsky), for focussing my mind on this.)

Equally, the politics that some members, at least, of the Anna Hazare  
team are now indulging in – playing to the crowd and to the media,  
and clearly being thrilled to do so - is also severely problematic.   
The right in India is already there, deep within the stir, and there  
is enough experience in history – here in India, and elsewhere in the  
world - to know what can happen.  And the mass media is of course  
always there, making all those who they project feel larger than  
life.  It's all about power, and of feeling powerful.

There is also the powder keg that lies under the team itself.  The  
regressiveness and harshness of Anna Hazare’s own politics and  
practices in ‘his’ village at Ralegaon Siddhi (in the state of  
Maharashtra, in western India), which he virtually rules, has been  
deeply questioned, publicly, by several people, and should be very  
troubling for anyone with their eyes open, given the virtues that are  
today being so blindly attributed to him.  These ‘virtues’ now  
include cheerful but fascistic slogans by some of his team members,  
such as ‘Anna is India, India is Anna’.  On the one hand, if  
Ralegaon Siddhi is how he sees governance, this itself is a huge  
problem; and on the other, this slogan and slogan shouters are also so  
reminiscent for us in India of the mid 1970s in India, when the  
acolytes of the-then prime minister Indira Gandhi – who had an  
Emergency (suspension of all civil liberties) imposed on the country,  
because she had been politically challenged - shouted  ‘Indira is  
India, India is Indira !’.

And there are now also questions that are beginning to do the rounds  
about some key members of his team, including in terms of their own  
track records.  In a way, at times like this, this is almost  
inevitable.  So far, those who are aware of this are – as far as I  
know - holding back, perhaps partly out of respect for what in many  
ways is a huge achievement – lighting this fire of concern and  
involvement, at what is evidently at a huge scale – but perhaps also  
because they do not know what will happen if all this comes out in  
public.  ‘The movement’ has clearly succeeded in finding and  
touching a nerve.  But things are that lying under will come out, when  
push moves to shove.  And if and when they do, the consequences for  
the movement of internal contradictions will be huge, precisely  
because of the nerve it has touched.

Among other things, it is therefore a time when those leading the  
movement need to attempt to come to terms, privately but also  
publicly, with any such warts in their past or present.  To reconcile  
themselves with the truth.  And where those working with them need to  
help them do so.

On the other hand, it’s also key that we all think about what is  
going on, and that we all come out of our closets and share our  
thoughts.  There’s too much at stake.

             JS

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Jai Sen

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