The anti-corruption crusader will begin an indefinite hunger strike today, asking for the implementation of Lokpal and raising farmers’ issues.
Mumbai: Anna Hazare is back – he will launch an indefinite hunger strike at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan today. But according to him and his team, the anti-corruption crusader never went away.
While he didn’t launch a campaign anywhere near as big as his 2011 Jan Lokpal agitation, his team says he was merely biding his time, giving the Narendra Modi government a fair window to try and deliver on his demands.
Hazare has lost a number of disillusioned supporters in the last five years or so, after he had an unpleasant split with Arvind Kejriwal over the latter’s decision to branch out into active politics, and his team is now actively trying to attract them to support the latest stir.
The 80-year-old from Ralegan Siddhi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra is set to demand the implementation of the Lokpal legislation and electoral reforms, and highlight farmers’ issues.
“Many people are making allegations, asking why Anna was silent in the first three-and-a-half years of the Narendra Modi government. Why is he suddenly agitating on 23 March in Delhi? I want to tell such people that I wasn’t silent,” Hazare said in a video posted on his official Facebook page on 8 March.
“Narendra Modi came to power in May 2014. I wrote my first letter to Modi about Lokpal, Lokayukta and farmers’ issues on 26 August 2014. I didn’t get a reply. After that, I kept on writing letters to the government on these issues.”
Hazare’s team even released a 124-page file of all letters that he sent to the Prime Minister’s Office. His volunteers say Hazare sent 43 letters to the government, but did not receive a reply to a single one.
Sunil Lal, a Lucknow-based advertising professional and a member of Hazare’s core team, said: “It was a new government at the Centre and we wanted to give it time. Nothing can be done overnight. Anna ji has very reasonably given more than three years to the government to act on the demands we have been raising since 2011.”
What Hazare has been doing since 2014
Hazare’s first public agitation against the BJP government was in February 2015, when he staged a two-day protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar against the controversial land acquisition ordinance. He was joined by activist Medha Patkar.
In April, after a closed-door meeting in Pune, volunteers part of Hazare’s group said he was keen on undertaking a fast in Delhi on the issue, but they were dissuading him on health grounds.
In July 2015, Hazare joined a gathering of protesting ex-servicemen to demand the implementation of ‘one rank, one pension’. He also planned a hunger strike on Gandhi Jayanti if the protesting ex-servicemen’s demands were not met by then. He, however, later called off the strike, saying the government had accepted the ‘one rank, one pension’ model as well as declared that it would not bring out an ordinance on the land acquisition bill.
In 2016, Hazare lauded the prime minister on demonetisation, calling it a “revolutionary step” and saying it would go a long way in clamping down on black money and corruption.
Since 2014, none of the activist’s mass protests have focussed on his original demand of having an effective anti-corruption ombudsman. Hazare and his team were also largely silent after the crusader called off his 2 October protest.
Plan for the 23 March agitation
The seeds for the latest stir were sown in mid-2017 with Hazare touring various states and addressing public meetings to drum up support. He announced concrete plans of a protest in October 2017, and soon after, set up a core committee of 20 people from across the country — with a condition that none of them will join or back any political party.
His volunteers say in preparation for the 23 March agitation, Hazare addressed 42 public meetings across 21 states.
Hazare’s demands include immediate implementation of the Lokpal-Lokayukta legislation and appointment of a Lokpal, scrapping of amendments moved by the Modi government that allegedly weaken the law, and promulgation and implementation of acts for the appointment of competent Lokayuktas in every state.
For farmers, Hazare and his group of volunteers are demanding the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations, Rs 5,000 pension for farmers over 60 years of age, and a constitutional body status and complete autonomy for the Commission for Agricultural Costs & Prices.
Besides this, the agitation will also press for electoral reforms, including printing of colour photos of candidates on ballot papers as their respective election symbols, a ‘right to reject’ status for NOTA, and providing citizens with a ‘right to recall’.
Scepticism
Many old associates of Hazare who backed him during the 2011 agitation are, however, sceptical about the impact of the planned protest.
One such senior volunteer, who later joined and then quit Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party, said: “Hazare’s thought process on politics and governance seemed confused and his flip-flops with Arvind Kejriwal further disillusioned many old volunteers organised under India Against Corruption back then.”
The volunteer said though Hazare claims he has been writing letters and taking up issues, it does not amount to much. “The movement was dead, and there has been a huge loss of credibility,” he said.
Sunil Lal, a Lucknow-based advertising professional and a member of Hazare’s core team himself is a EX AAP guy, is now a self proclaimed Coordinator of the so called IACVA. He fools around public like us and takes loans to run the IACVA and cheats the members and public. Now how can he is core team member of Anna Ji?
Anna Hazare is well intentioned, no doubt, but no longer the force he was when he made life miserable for UPA II. People have used and discarded him in the past. It will bear watching how much attention is paid to him by the media, a much quieter beast now.