Call it non-violence?

Anna Hazare and his team are busy drawing up plans to garner more support for their Jan Lokpal proposition. Hazare says he will endeavour to catch out parliamentarians opposed to his overweening version of the Jan Lokpal bill. A mob of 1,000-2,000,he said,should besiege the houses of such MPs — “we should not allow them to move out of their houses,” he detailed. Yet there is a caveat: while doing so,there should be no violence.

Questions apart about the kind of non-violence that can be claimed for such coercion,the plan of action is stridently political. For a “movement” marketed on apolitical markers,the advocacy of Hazare’s team has been thoroughly targeted at the politician. They have sought to target key MPs through straw polls in their constituencies about support for their legislation of choice. Now,says Arvind Kejriwal,the detail man on the team,they will organise a “referendum” in the constituencies of MPs on the standing committee tasked with scrutinising the Lokpal bill. Advocacy is an important way for civil society to put forth its views to power,and thereby broadbase the consultative processes that inform legislative business and policy-making. The standing committee,in fact,is an instrument to deepen this consultation and to keep the process as non-partisan as possible — therefore,the insistence to keep proceedings in camera,so that members can speak freely without fear of being seen to defy the party-line.

What badgering-by-referendum is supposed to achieve is mystifying,but then it’s the democratic right of every individual to garner information as she sees fit. And Team Anna are entitled to that right to conduct opinion polls — just as individual MPs are entitled to their right to free movement

and thought.