It can be exciting for a daydreaming idealist to get caught between two sets of rebels in the heart of the national capital, even on a humid day.
On the one side, arrayed, are Anna Hazare's men, who have declared war on the political class and the prevailing system. They feel an ideal state of affairs would emerge, once the politics is purged.
Their journey, barely a year old, started with the battle for the Lok Pal law, which they believed could change the country, and end all forms of corruption. Having found it was not possible to get such a law passed by the present political system, they decided to fight for a place among the ruling class.
A few meters away from Anna's stage, on the other side, were the original rebels: The hoary generals of the Left parties — Prakash Karat, A B Bardhan, Sudhakar Reddy, Abani Ray, Amarjeet Kaur and Brinda Karat. They have already traversed the path Annaites are talking about. Of course, their goals were much higher than those of Team Anna’s — to root out all that caused corruption and bring about equality through the establishment of a socialist society, free from class exploitation and social oppression.
What could be better? It promises everything short of salvation, if that is even possible.
But, where do they find themselves? They have no presence in states with the greatest squalor. They have not made an electoral mark anywhere, except in three states. In fact, they are best at being out of power. To imagine they would arise from their slumber, and captivate the attention of the crowds whose cause they stand for, is to be unrealistic.
And yet, on listening, it became apparent that both sides were on the same page on corruption and nuclear plants; some of the speeches even echoed each other; and the crowd freely moved from one camp to another. While the speakers at Anna's gathering mounted attacks on the nuclear plants, the fraud surrounding land and spectrum deals, something the Left has always been doing, the latter talked about farmer suicides, food security, and of making surplus food grains available to the masses.
While Annaites were ready to pressure Parliament for a legislation, the Left ideologues chose to don a Robin Hood hat, asking the masses to get hold of the rotting grains in the Food Corporation of India’s godowns. That it was illegal did not matter. “If the police in your state opens fire on you, they are anti-poor. If they don't, they support us....,’’ went one speaker. This was CPI National Secretary Atul Anjan.
If that was not enough, the Haryana state secretary of CPI(M), Inderjit Singh, had this to say: “When the parties present a letter to the prime minister, asking for changes in the Food Security Bill, please take Rs 22 from me and give it to him. Ask him to live on that for a day in my village...'' He was referring to the latest consumer expenditure survey’s numbers, which show the poorest of people live on Rs 17 a day, and rural masses on Rs 22.
But Hazare's critics see no comparison between the two sides. While Hazare chooses to treat symptoms with quick fixes like the Lok Pal Bill, the Left prefers long-term solutions to deep-rooted problems of hunger, unemployment and so on, says a former student leader and activist Anil Chaudhury. While immediate problems stir popular interest, long-term solutions and problems of social change won’t get a popular following, he explains.
Why the Left failed is a subject worth writing a thesis on, but many, like Chaudhury, are willing to vouch for the fact that the Team Anna experiment will bite the dust one day. Chaudhury laughs at the idea that a gram sabha would be able to take perfect decisions. “What stops a gram sabha from allowing a nuclear plant for instance,” he asks.
