He wears  the Gandhi topi, the white clothes, the frugal lifestyle (according to medical reports, Anna only eats one major meal a day), usually seen in police stations and of course, the giant black and white poster of M.K.Gandhi as a background wherever he is spotted and he claims he is not Gandhi!

In fact for the first time we agree with him to the same. Anna Hazare is not M.K.Gandhi. He never was and can never be the father of nation. He can never lead us the way Gandhi did. Gandhi fasted to convert an adversary into a friend. Hazare however fasts against enemy that would be our own government in this particular context. In fact all the fasts done by Anna Hazare were with the sole motive of forcing his thoughts, ideologies and methods on the government to which the government must mandatorily comply with. Team Anna, the group of few famous social activists and socially driven individuals from fields of academic, law and administration, is an organization of supporters of Hazare in Anna’s war against corruption in India. The Team stands firm on the ground that the present government is corrupt to the core and needs to be removed from authority. In replacement, the society-favoured ideas of Team Anna must reign. Anna says that the Indian democracy will work only if the ideas of every citizen is put into action and the government is there to just follow the commands. But, being as acute as the Team and Anna himself are, it is ironic that they have forgotten a very important detail. India is no longer a laissez-faire economy rather it is a welfare state. There is a social contract between the citizens and the government. The government is elected by the citizens. This government is there to administer, not merely to fulfill the citizenry’s command. The government cannot be made a mere spectator in the recent developing times. Corruption is to be found at every stage where there is power. They both go hand in hand. And it is not the government only which is corrupt. The picture perfect scenario of Team Anna, if looked into the background, points out that these strong assertors of non-corruption were corrupt themselves.

Going back in time, we see that team Anna had a very interesting background from where they come from and what they claim to do. To start with Mr. Anna himself, an army driver named Kisan Baburao Hazare who returned to Ralegaon Siddhi, his village, after a revelation, and created waves of terror through the village's vices. Anna was awarded with Padma Bhushan- third highest civilian award- for his efforts in establishing this village as a model for others. But, here is actually what he did.  He imposed his religion and made changes which weren’t temporary in nature. The condition of his home town is such that now alcohol is strictly prohibited, a business that sustained the economy and life of villagers for several years in Ralegaon Siddhi. This, too, was done by using force and violence. The one’s who were smart enough to ignore it were rounded up and flogged publicly with Anna's canvas army belt, Tarun Mandal, and sometimes by Anna personally. The manufacturers who did not succumb to social pressures were forced to close their businesses when the youth group of Anna’s Tarun Mandal smashed their premises[1]. And Anna is famous for his NON-VIOLENT take towards reforms in the society. Meat was banned because Anna “believed” that it increased the urge to consume alcohol.[2]

The biggest shocker: Anna Hazare is very casteist. Asked about the status of Dalits in his village, he stated:

“We started telling them the reasons why people kept them at a distance. We said that the society condemns you because your way of living is dirty, your food habits are dirty, and your thinking is dirty. Therefore, you have to change. With such constant hammering, the Dalits were also made vegetarian.”[3]

Easily, it can be construed that his stance to change his village into an all-vegetarian-people’s society was in order to ‘make the Dalits a better lot’ to be around. This can be said to be an instance of untouchability camouflaged as step towards betterment of the society. This proves Anna’s double-standards as he was the one who initiated the social program against untouchability and social discrimination in his village.

His authoritarian views on justice, including death as punishment for corrupt public officials and his alleged support for forced vasectomies as a method of family planning, exhibit his take on the society and steps necessary for its ‘betterment’. This is irony at its best as Anna himself had 2 sisters and 4 brothers, all younger to him.

Ironic to what is he up to now, looks like they all changed their stands. In the last six months, Anna Hazare has gone from being a social activist to a national icon. He now chalks out future strategies for his agitation; he speaks about being labeled the second Gandhi, the future of party politics in the country, and the need for co-existence, development and corruption alleviation.[4] Anna seeks to overthrow the existing machinery with his ideas of Jan lokpal Bill.  According to him the major power should be in the hands of people while government sits there doing nothing. It’s time somebody informed Mr. Hazare about the social contract between the people and its government.  Famous jurist Rousseau propounded a theory as to why a rational individual would voluntarily give up his or her natural freedom to obtain the benefits of political order. Ergo, the whole concept of democratic government goes into drains if Mr. Hazare is allowed to continue.

As has been said that everyone comes with their baggage, here is some critical information about Anna. He underwent a ‘fast until death’ on 9^th August, 2003 against the Congress-NCP government. This he did for he was initiating a movement against corruption. But, this fast of his ended on 17^th August, 2003 after the then chief minister Sushil Kumar Shinde formed a one-man commission headed by the retired justice P. B. Sawant to probe his charges[5]. The P. B. Sawant commission submitted its report on 23 February 2005. Three trusts headed by Anna Hazare were also indicted in the P. B. Sawant commission report.  220,000 spent by the Hind Swaraj Trust for Anna Hazare's birthday celebrations was concluded by the commission as illegal and amounting to a corrupt practice[6]. Though Abhay Firodia, an industrialist subsequently donated  248,000 to the trust for that purpose[7]. A question needs to be raised here – since when did the trust fund started to be used for birthday celebrations? Not just this. The setting apart of 11 acres of its land by the trust in favour of the Zilla Parishad without obtaining permission from the charity commissioner was concluded as a case of maladministration. The commission also concluded that the maintenance of accounts of the Bhrashtachar Virodhi Janandolan Trust after 10 November 2001 had not been according to the rules and  46,374 spent by the Sant Yadavbaba Shikshan Prasarak Mandal Trust for renovating a temple thwarted its object of imparting secular education[8]. Hazare acknowledged his belief in violence after his "just one slap" remark in which the victim of violence was Sharad Pawar, a rival in Maharashtra[9].

Recently Team Anna member Prashant Bhushan was beaten up by three people inside his chamber in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, because of his comments on the removal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act from the Kashmir Valley. His snide comments were met with violent reply from the opposite side stating, “If u will try to break my nation, I will break your heads.[10]" It is not about how the government ought to work, it is about how to improve it with a step at a time. A nation as desperate as India is a danger to itself. Yes, it is high time that we realize that the Indian machinery is going in drains but it no where implies that in order to bring a change, we turn the people of the country against them.

There was a time when Gandhi fought to free India from the shackles of British. Gandhi galvanized millions and was instrumental in bringing them into the anti-colonial movement. But the numbers coming out on the streets to support Hazare are minuscule, and they hardly cut across social classes and regions – his following as yet is predominantly urban and significantly middle-class. People have nothing better to do and judging by the way they are glued to whatever Anna says, apparently they rather criticize than work with it. It is hilarious to quote that most of them have no idea what they are standing for. It is just the mob.

India got her independence 60 years back and adopted a constitution as complex as it can be to avoid any kind of loopholes, it does not require another independence movement.  Moreover, it certainly does not require childish solutions which Anna is coming up with which sounds like, “Lets line those corrupt dogs together and shoot them up.”

Coming to the Jan lokpal! Hazare initiated a Satyagraha movement for passing a stronger anti-corruption Lokpal Bill in the Parliament. He came up with his version of Lokpal Bill, called the Jan lokpal Bill. Hazare forced the government to accept his demands and went on hunger-strike for this in Delhi on 5^th April, 2011. He broke his fast after the government formed the joint committee he demanded for. Hazare later said that if the Jan lokpal Bill wasn’t passed, he would call for a nation-wide agitation. The defect with this stand is that the Constitution is the law of land. Not an individual or a group of individual. There is a process established in constitution for passing a Bill. There is a social contract between the government and the citizens, whereby the Parliament is entrusted with legislating. Forcing the Jan lokpal Bill on the parliament with a mandate to pass it and threatening to create chaos if not passed is not Satyagraha. It is merely an action of blatant violation of established principles and such kind of rigid approach is bound to destroy the nation in the long-run instead of reforming it for good.  His ideas of merging the CBI with the Lokpal and of bringing the lower bureaucracy, the judiciary and the Prime Minister under the institution have drawn sterling response from the people. However, it is the need of hour that Mr. Hazare understands that whole country works on a certain democratic principle and he being a person with no legal knowledge cannot just change the face of Indian machinery and draw us back to anarchy.

Gandhi had a holistic social and political philosophy which underlined his actions and which he tried to make the basis of the movement he led – which, too, had universalistic aspirations. That can hardly be said of Hazare. If he has a larger worldview, we have not yet been told about it, and his movement is also informed by often superficial assumptions. One is that the political/bureaucratic establishment is almost solely responsible for corruption and, therefore, setting up an authoritarian ombudsman operating outside the process of politics can eradicate this canker. Indeed, Hazare and his associates go to great lengths to dissociate themselves from politics – though, of course, they are anything but apolitical[11].

In order to love one’s country, one must love his government first! The so called campaign set up by team Anna has done nothing but created a belief that whatever government has been doing all these years is futile. More than the half of the Indian population is glued to television sets to keep a track of what happens around. They don’t need to go in depth and certainly do not care as to what goes behind those close doors. Almost everything said in the news is manipulated such that most of the country believes it word by word. In this era, media can both make a commoner a “god” and at the same time a god into “nobody”. The Anna campaign has been on for past several months. Judging by the state of literacy in the country, it is safe to say that most of the people vouching for Mr. Hazare wouldn’t even understand the complexities of the bill they are protesting.

One of the famous and outstanding members of team Anna is Kiran Bedi. It’s a name which when said strikes momentary fear at the same time respect in one’s mind. Miss Bedi recently said that “Yatras being taken out by political parties in UP are an opportunity for them to express their seriousness towards Jan Lokpal Bill.… Credit will go to all political parties. Without passage of the bill there will be no meaning of yatras[12]” which is again a controversial statement since political parties are the basically the root of corruption in India and not the ruling government, but the other parties and the left front are also responsible for corruption. There is a reason nobody likes stepping in the pool of politics. However, Miss Bedi would rather take help of the corrupt politicians to remove corruption!

The recent flip-flops by Anna Hazare would have confused, if not disturbed, his admirers. The anti-corruption crusader has found it difficult, of late, to make up his mind. He initially indicated his intention to reconstitute his core team following a number of allegations that surfaced in the public domain against some of them. He then publicly denied any such move, but within days he has again spelt out his plans to expand and restructure the team. Similarly, on October 31, he wrote to the Prime Minister that he and his team would not campaign against any political party in the Assembly elections scheduled to be held early next year. Instead, he wrote, he would campaign to persuade people to cast their votes against ‘goondas’ and ‘looters’ and in favour of clean and better candidates. Within days, however, he changed his mind and asserted that he would personally campaign against the Congress in the Assembly elections.[13]

Poor Mr. Hazare seems to be quite shaken in his minds as to what he wants. He is not able to decide what he is standing for. He keeps changing statements and keeps giving out statements which show that it is his anger speaking, and not his knowledge. Team Anna, it now seems, is deviating from its stand and it is quite clear that once not willing to get into politics as a party, team Anna is now vouching for power itself. And given the past profile of the leader of the team and its member, it will be interesting to see how Team Anna reacts to power.

- Eesha Gupta and Shreya Parashar.

[1] Seabrook, Jeremy (1993). Victims of development: resistance and alternatives. Verso. p. 250.ISBN 0860913856. Retrieved 14 June 2011

[2] Why anna hazare is not mahatama Gandhi. By  kunal anand. http://www.mensxp.com/special-features/today/5648-why-anna-hazare-is-not-mahatma-gandhi.html

[3] (Sharma 2006, p. 1984)

[4] I am not Gandhi: Anna Hazare by RALEGAN SIDDHI

[5] "Anna Hazare ends protest fast". Rediff.com. 17 August 2003. Retrieved 8 April 2011

[6] Joshi, Poornima; Kavita Chowdhury and Sangeeth Sebastian Kurien (17 April 2011). "Congress continues to target Anna Hazare on Narendra Modi remark". India Today. Retrieved 11 June 2011

[7] Damle, Manjiri Madhav (29 June 2004). "Trust funds used for Hazare's birthday: Jain". The Times of India. Retrieved 17 April 2011

[8] "Report: Justice P. B. Sawant Commission of Inquiry". Government of Maharashtra website. pp. 256–372. Retrieved 8 June 2011.

[9] Anna Hazare Justifies Just One Slap Remark

[10] http://ibnlive.in.com/news/prashant-bhushan-beaten-up-inside-his-chamber/192453-3.html

[11] India's anti-corruption leader Anna Hazare cannot yet be compared to Gandhi by suhit sen. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/23/india-anticorruption-leader-comparison-gandhi

[12]http://www.indianexpress.com/news/yatras-have-no-meaning-without-passage-of-jan-lokpal-bill-kiran-bedi/846462/1

[13]Anna’s growing pains : The crusader’s credibility is suffering           http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20111109/edit.htm#1