I am sick tired of listening the sentence “Team Anna”. It wasn’t the long ago when I was among the
excited and exhilarated crowd supporting the anti corruption movement
spearheaded by “Team Anna”. In November Govt. came out with its draft Lokpal bill.
It looked ok in my eyes. Most of the point on which August movement was based
was addressed somehow, though half heartedly. We finally had a strong Lokpal Bill with some
glitches. Now ideally there should be some back door campaign to correct the
glitches, as the most important demand of a strong Lokpal seems imminent. That’s why I was very surprised by the
announcement of Team Anna to move forward with their protest plan. Now it
seriously seems over doing it. I could feel that it’s going to fail as what
will be moral ground to protest over some tiny 2 and 3 points (Primary of which
was inclusion of CBI, which was controversial in many experts’ view) and failing
will have dire consequences which will lead to complacency of political leader
and we might end up with having no Lokpal at all.
The enthusiasm which was created in August for strong Lokpal
was certain to be subsided. When people
are hungry, they are sure to take up the protest with much enthusiasm to get the
food. But if the belly is full then hardly anyone will bother to hit the street
for the quality of food. A street
protest is not done on such matters. These matters should be handled by experts
at back door.
August movement equipped all of us with a weapon – weapon of
mass power against the corrupt and inefficient. We were elated and ready to use
it at appropriate moment in future. Team Anna have lost us that sword with it’s
over ambition which clearly looked as a personnel vendetta.
Many of us clearly saw that protest and ‘Jail Bharo’ which Team
Anna is planning is going to fail. But it’s really incomprehensible for me that
how can a team packed with so many elites and intellectuals fail to comprehend
this simple logic. Were they really blind with their hidden ambition? Though I
have lots of respect for them, but I am still furious on them. I give them
credit to really stir the India. If Lokpal is in parliament today, that’s entirely
attributed to them. But in the mean time If Lokpal fails to get through the
parliament then Team Anna will have to share a bigger part of the blame(Status of
constitutional authority for Lokpal has already been defeated). Without constitutional
authority Lokpal will be toothless and any Govt. at any point of time can stuck
it down.
Now Anna is talking about campaigning against Congress in election. May some sense prevail on Team Anna and they make some distance from politics. They have already lost a large chunk of credibility; they should strive to save the rest. They should leave the choosing the candidate on people’s wisdom. In this leaderless country where we never had any voice, Team Anna came as a little ray of hope. I hate to lose that hope; please don’t take that from us.
