Into the mainstream

Anna Hazare goes for broke again — after having ensured that Parliament was committed to taking his version of the Lokpal bill as a starting point,he now threatens another insurgency against the Congress-led government at the Centre if the bill does not become law by the end of the winter session. He and his team will campaign in the five states that head for elections next year,appealing to voters to defeat the Congress. In short,it will take the elections with full seriousness,and try its best to influence the outcome.

This venture marks a new and welcome stage for the movement. While earlier,it was high on hubris and certainty but innocent of constitutional process,now it is articulating its opposition within the democratic sphere. Earlier,its energies were spent in decrying elected representatives and their claim to represent the people. India Against Corruption implied that it,as a caucus of well-meaning people,had greater moral legitimacy than those tested by a free and fair election. It imagined that its own sloppy referenda were a gauge of popular will. Now,the decision to actively engage with the upcoming assembly elections shows that it is finally beginning to address itself to the electorate,canvassing support and asking people to reject a political party that it opposes. Team Anna will begin a sustained attack on the Congress in the Hisar parliamentary by-election,and Kiran Bedi described the announcement as “giving advance notice to the government”,rather than a war-cry.

Either way,familiarity with the electoral fray and the various concerns that it will inevitably encounter,might perhaps give the movement some more heft and dimension,a fuller policy agenda rather than just a mechanical chant for a specific vision of the Lokpal office. They are now trying to work within the system,speaking for and mobilising certain constituencies and testing the strength of their own ideas when pitted against other mobilisations. Rather than thinking of themselves as more elect than the elected,this engagement might mark Team Anna’s entry into the field of serious and legitimate politics. Then again,might it,after all?