Why Do I, Among Others, Feel Excluded, Mr. Hazare?
By Sharib Ali & Shazia Nigar
28 April, 2011
Countercurrents.org
The effectivity of the Jan Lokpal bill has been argued by many. Shuddhabrata Sengupta has dismissed it, Nigam while accepting its appeal seems cynical about it, and P.Sainath has famously asked us to ‘forget it’. These are, of course, a few opinions from civil society who have attempted to asses the bill, or in fact, the movement, and what it can achieve, as opposed to a larger number who see it as the final solution, so to speak.
I am, as a student, probably too naïve to pass a judgment on the way a bill, drafted by our respected Annaji and other luminaries, will be effective in ruling out corruption from a complex society as ours( we have just been too good at it). But what I write about here today is how I, as a student, and a Muslim, in spite of my desire to be a part of removing the ills that plague our country, felt quite excluded form the movement as spearheaded by Anna, and not just from the movement, but also from the very idea and vision of the Indian nation that the ‘second revolution’ seeks to build. And how I feel threatened by the way the movement can be appropriated by the political aspirations of those who not only sat with Anna, but whose contributions were central to the movement itself
What actually happened, in the three day spectacle that unfolded before our eyes, was that a constantly growing sense of public anger over all those injustice we have been talking about- rising prices, rising crime, famer suicides, drowned homes, displaced and abandoned people, conscious and unscrupulous looting, and most importantly the all prevalent anger in the streets, in homes, in local trains, and rotten fields of failed crops- deriving itself from an apparently diffused idea of ‘fate’, but located in the very constituting principles of an unequal and exploitative structure- found its legitimate expression in a perfectly timed and organized movement against corruption.
There is no doubt that sitting there in perfect white, Anna was able to connect with a much wider audience, quite beyond the influence of the corporate media. What Anna did was to transform legitimate anger against systemic injustices into a perfectly sane, civilized and quite harmless movement against a specific grievance- corruption-example of which have been unusually high in the last few years.
What the Anna Hazare movement, or rather, the week long spectacle did, was to produce a brilliant catharsis. Translated roughly catharsis means ‘to purge’. Theatre in ancient Greece, or more specifically, tragedy as a form, was used for this effect: to purge the audience of the emotions of pity and fear to transform them into undefeatable warriors of the state. It is for this reason that theatre was tolerated, or even promoted by the authorities. Something similar happened here. The 90hr spectacle, performed on television sets across the country, produced a collective catharsis of all the anger accumulated over the nations two decades- controversial tryst with neo-liberalism, wonder rates of growth accompanied by wonder rates of suicides and dispossession, genocide, communalization, and the rise of terrorism, and much more. Which is not to say that the anger has disappeared, it just means, that the specific moment which is a culmination of historical forces where all, especially the middle class, move beyond their four walls and particular struggles, and come together in a spontaneous expression of mass dissent, an expression with revolutionary potential-as witnessed in history before-, is just past. Moments such as these come, but rarely, and in our country it usually takes about two decades. And the one which we just witnessed arrived with a bang, became a brilliant safety valve, and sought to produce just a whimper- and that too a seriously debated one. It never, from its very inception, sought to alter the state of affairs in any meaningful way or in a way that questions, or threatens the powers that be-and here I don’t mean just the present government, but the structure, or the very hegemonic order itself.
It is here, to answer, Shuddhabrata Sengupta’s question, that the fundamental difference between this fast and all the other fasts lies.
It was also not surprising, given the quite harmless character of the fast, and the therapeutic potential that the movement had to strengthen, sustain, and perpetuate not just the system but also the specific desires of those in power, that all parties joined in, and consciously promoted the spectacle- from corporate media, to beaureaucrats and politicians.
I joined in with great enthusiasm when it all started. The impeccable white of Anna Hazare was comforting. From sometime back I had started fearing deep colours- saffron, the black of shining shoes, or even colorful flowers seen waving all around. Anna Hazare was thankfully white. But then as the cameras zoomed out it was a little discomforting. India was there for sure, standing tall and concrete from Kashmir, to the Northeast, and to Kanyakumari, but I had to strain my eyes for there stood something on that India, tall and wide and blocking my vision entirely- a deity draped in deep red. It was a shocking though not unfamiliar sight, reminding me of all the calendars of banks and companies that came to my home with their versions of Bharat Mata, and which somehow left me intrigued. This time it was really surprising- what was it doing here, right in the center of a space and people which sought to build a new India?
Right below the Bharat Mata stood the faces of three leaders- Gandhi, Vivekananda, and Rani Laxmi Bai. And on the left faces of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. A peculiar choice from the mosaic of leaders invoked to inspire and bless the proceedings. The peculiarity stems, not from the nature or character of the historical figures themselves, but rather, from the way they have been appropriated by the Hindu rightwing to promote the hindutva brand of politics-a mix of the ideas of purity and violence. Vivekananda is evoked in every argument of the ABVP, the RSS, and the BJP. And Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev stare down from every poster. Brought together with Gandhi by Anna Hazare, they all rest uneasily, and for me, disturbingly.
Standing in front of Bharat Mata and other visionaries Hazare requested his fellow countrymen to join his struggle against corruption, but the very vision and its ideals as displayed behind him seemed to be an indicator of who was invited and who wasn’t, for, in the collective imagination of at least one third of the nation’s people, India has never been a sari draped Bharat Mata, and Vivekananda and others a reminder of saffron fear.
I am probably over reading it, but is it unjustified to expect sensitivity from a person or a movement on which one pins its hope on, or wants to participate in?
For the exclusion was not concretized yet, and not even till it all started- from chants of ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, to the saffron brigade joining in with RSS national executive committee member and other senior office bearers like Madhubhai Kulakarni, Bajaranga Lalji Gupta, Dr.Shyam Sundar, Om Prakash and several other ‘karyakartas’ sitting in with Mr.Hazare, while Javed Anand, a journalist was called up and asked to join because they did not want ‘bad Muslims’.
And while reports came out of Relegan Sindhi with the temple at its centre- both as the house of Anna Hazare and the centre of all decision making-, Ramdev stood on the platform talking of bringing ‘pavitrata’ to the nation and hanging all corrupt. I was confused, for listening to him and news reports of Anna Hazare’s support of Raj thackeray’s agenda against north Indians, coupled with tales of public floggings and bhajans as the only celebratory music allowed in Hazare’s model village, I wondered at the nation that he, along with his friends, wanted to build. That Anna Hazare sat surrounded by, and enthusiastically enjoyed the support of, a colorful set of people who think that Muslims don’t belong to India, and that homosexuality is a disease, and who belong to a color which has come to symbolize a demolished Babri Masjid, hundreds of massacred Muslims in Bombay and a bloody state sponsored riot in Gujarat, is in itself not a problem. Everyone has the right to participate in the building of a new nation, and to contribute in it as people in the same way as I do. The presence of Medha Patekar, and others from civil society were a case in point- all were there against corruption. But it was the crucial line between receiving support, and joining the brigade that I hoped, and lets confess, prayed for. But then, when all of India had joined in, and the spectacle reached its climax with Hazare being touted as the new Gandhi, our new leader, that Anna issued that statement-his first statement of his vision- which collapsed all lines, and set in motion the process of exclusion as well as all little signifiers which come together into a collective, meaningful whole.
‘The kind of model that gujarat and Bihar chief ministers have presented, that model should be emulated by all other chief ministers…’
But let’s come to rural development first. According to the Planning Commission report Gujarat hosts 31.8%, the highest in the country of poor people. At the same time 16,000 farmer suicides have also taken place in Modi’s vibrant Gujarat. The agriculture production has also decreased from 65.75 lakh tonnes in 2003-04 to 51.33 lakh tonnes in 2004-05. Further, as pointed out by Mallika Sarabhai in her letter to Annaji, Modi’s regime in Gujarat has witnessed several instances of corruption- “there has been no Lokayukta in Gujarat for nearly seven years, so hundreds of complaints against corruption are lying unheard. From the Sujalam Sufalam scam of Rs.1700 crore, to the NREGA boribund scam of Rs. 109 crore, and the fishery scam of Rs. 600 crore, every department is involved in thousands of crores of scam. The poor and the ruram people are being sold to modi’s friends- the industrialists.
It is difficult to understand how Mr. Hazare was unaware of the situation in Gujarat. But regardless of that, and even if Gujarat had a blindingly beautiful picture of rural development to present, how could our new leader, who represented the whole of the nation, present Gujarat as an ideal state, where very recently about 2000-5000 Muslims were murdered, and another 1,50,000 were rendered homeless in an act of communal genocide. And how could he present to us an ideal leader as someone who not only organized and saw through the genocide, but also had the nerve to call it ‘Gujarat Shining’. Is genocide of Muslims absolutely disconnected with humanity or that very idea which informs what Mr.Hazare called ‘rural development’? Is this the new India we are building, which will, of course, be free of corruption?
As the Bill gets embroiled in controversy, loosing its strength as several key people threaten to disassociate themselves, along with a number of others who already have, its time not to play identity politics, but to work towards something which will be a step towards inhibiting the conscious and unscrupulous looting of the common people of India- and this means a lot more than just bringing to task all those who have been caught in scams.
And when that happens Mr.Hazare, I would like to be a part of it
Sharib Ali and Shazia Nigar are students of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
This article first appeared in Himalmag.com.
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