Team Anna, Rise and ...

The Rise

When you are travelling alone in the dark (even though thousands are around you, you cannot see them in the dark), if you see a light, even if it might be your illusion (chances are high), your hopes will raise, confidence will boost, and senses will come to life.
Exactly thats what happened in 2011 in India. Enough scams, More than enough high profile arrests and much more high pitch debates by Media, suddenly everyone is talking corruption. And then everyone saw the hope, Anna Hazare, his team and some entity called Civil Society, which has started demanding for a strong anti corruption system to oversee practically everyone in the country. Everyone in literal sense, from Prime Minister to CBI to class 4 employees.
Suddenly the frustrated middle class, frustrated because they can clearly see that someone cheating them, eating the tax payers money, and they literally cannot do anything because they cannot control government and bureaucrats, started liking the concept of some entity controlling government, which has the power to prosecute anybody including PM, based on anyone's compliant. Its really fancy to connect and everyone literally was blown away by it. They are more than happy to see this kind of system. What happened is we have seen in August 2011.
People celebrated (almost) second independence, as some of my friends termed it. But I never understand how can we be independent overnight from anything that is grass-rooted in the system. The first independence struggle took nearly 100 years.

The Retardation

What happened in December last week might be surprising for some people. But there is a clear logic for it. Ask any successful leader, Causes will draw people, not people. People were drawn to team Anna not because of some person, they identified and connected with the cause in April and August, its corruption, plain just corruption. For people, Lokpal bill is a weapon to fight it. They dont want to be bothered by the clauses and intricacies of it, it might be painful, but its the truth.

Anyone who want to connect to masses, will always use simple things. Analyze Chetan Bhagat's success, you will understand. You bother them with clauses and sub clauses, thats the end of it. Exactly this is the point where Team Anna has failed. Even Gandhi and the other great leaders never bothered the people with clauses and sub clauses. They use simple things to create maximum impact. And the people's interest started fading in it because they are exactly not clear why Team Anna is fighting even though the government seems to be doing some thing on Lokpal.

The Contradictions

There are some people who are against it since beginning. They have valid concerns which I want to mention here.
Our constitution was written with a utmost care and ensured that none of the power centers should have absolute power to avoid the risk of Dictators surfacing and becoming a Banana Republic.
Our justice system has a baseline that even though some guilty get away, no innocent should be punished.
Will the Lokpal proposed by Civil Society ensure the continuity of it, Sorry, I have my own doubts. For me to support it, it need to be answered first.

Going Forward

Team Anna asking people for future course of action is funny. Wisdom of masses works in Marketing, not in politics, true, even you deny, they are in politics now.

Great leaders never worry if people dont come to their meetings, they never worry if they are criticised by opponents. They believe in their cause and pursuit it relentlessly. If you want to draw masses, take the small causes and draw people.


Even though its bitter to say, any society gets what it deserves. To get more, it need to deserve more, to deserve more, it need to continuously improve. And thats what every society is doing. But are we very slow in improving?