Anna Hazare

Some 5 months back one obscure figure, who had apparently sworn to rid India of corruption shot to fame on national media. His apparent weapon an obscure bill called the Lokpal bill, which I am sure none of us has read, but believe will rid this country of corruption. The only problem being that the government does not quite seem to agree with him and he has made an ego issue out of it.

Before we delve any further, I would like for you to be able to ponder about a few questions:

Why doesn't Hazare protest against letting people with criminal records stand for election? That is a bad thing is it not?
Why does he not protest for those with a record of wrong-doing in politics to be barred from contesting elections? They should be shouldn't they?
When the IAS officers who work for the government, under the ministers, need to pass such grueling exams, why cant education be a pre-requisite for becoming a minister? Why does the blind get to lead a man with eyes in this country?
Why was he absolutely silent about the indiscretions of BS Yeddyurappa while being extremely vociferous about the Congress ministers?
How does the Lokpal really solve the issue? They can be hand and glove in corruption?

First things first; how do you know that giving someone the 'License to kill' ensures that it will mend the system? The only thing that will happen for certain is that this power drunk agency will misuse this power. This is precisely the reason why there is no Spiderman, Batman or Superman in the world. If they did get that kind of power, they would be putting it to much selfish use. Also, all power drunk agencies have a negative image, FBI, CIA, MI6, Mossad, etc.

To illustrate this point better, let me take the law on dowry. There was injustice, unfair practice, to eliminate it, this law was enacted. Today every husband in India has to wish and pray that the wife is not insane enough to go and file a dowry case. Irrespective of your background, caste, creed, history; you and your entire family can land up in jail if a woman decides to file even a baseless case. That is how beautiful the law is. It needs more thought for certain and in the current form it is absolutely one-sided, which has had negative consequences.

So coming back to the point, the government does not wish to create a one sided bill of this nature and Anna has a problem with it.

Now coming to the more important question. How does 'Mr. I am Gandhian' coming from an obscure village in I don't know where, suddenly get recognized and covered so heavily by media. Me sitting in a city like Bangalore with all the social network and internet and media at my disposal can't get more than a sympathetic nod if I were to take any issue up and make a hue and cry about it.

Obviously, somebody bought the media and bought the coverage OR Anna Hazare is the best PR Agent known to mankind and he should start a PR Agency and give every top PR firm a run for their money. Anna Hazare does not seem to have such a strong background in PR so it is safe to assume that there is money backing him.

Just to compare, Baba Ramdev, a TV celebrity having crores in the corpus (and Hundreds of Crores at that) and a huge fan following, due to his yoga; needed to travel all over the country to gather support. He had been travelling and meeting opinion leaders for about 4 months and then he had to buy media time with his massive financial resources. Then he had to go on an all out 360 degree marketing campaign before the fast. Despite all the money and arm-twisting, he got whacked by a cane out of the Ramleela Grounds and got sent back to where he belonged. This for a man who had Hundreds of Crores at his disposal.

So again, how much money and power is really backing Mr. Hazare?

Anna Hazare is not fighting for corruption, I am sure even he has not read the Lokpal Bill completely, only parts and excepts. He is doing this show for some political party that wishes to soil Congress's image (as if that needs so much work). I will give you 10 guesses to guess which political party.

This bill will never be passed. This noise will last till the next election. This entire campaign is a subterfuge.