Political Psychology Of Annajees
By Anil Gokhale
05 March, 2012
Countercurrents.org
“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." As historian, Karl Marx in preface to Second edition of “Eighteenth Brumaire" says that he intended to "demonstrate how the class struggle in France, created circumstances and relationships that made it possible for a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero's part”.
Political fantasy and Revolutions of 2011
The year 2011 saw re-birth of Mahatma Gandhi when agitation led by ‘Ex- Army man- Anna Hazare' became euphoric and spilled over into Delhi's Ramleela ground and across the metropolitan cities and urban areas. Modern day Mahatma Gandhi led the ‘ India against corruption' movement with sole fanatic aim of implementation of ‘Strong Lokpal', was propelled by despair and anguish of the middle classes. It rattled the centrally ruled congress government. Release from Tihar Jail, turned Anna into a National leader and a hero. The first year of the decade had ushered politicization of under-privileged classes which had lost capacity to strike back against impact of rising tide of neo liberal globalization which in last three decades has re-casted the entire class structure and relations in India. TV Channels hailed the agitation and the yearnings for immediate implementation of ‘Strong Lokpal' as India 's second freedom struggle. Media followed and covered Annajee for 24x7 and projected the aging hero as New Father of the nation, national hero and Modern Mahatma Gandhi. “We have not seen Gandhi but we have participated with modern Gandhi's struggle for freedom against corruption.” middle classes reacted.
The profound financial scams of extremely high magnitude, exploding one after another so to say, displayed the bankruptcy of the ruling class of politicians. Shrill, grating and ear piercing propaganda led and hyped by TV NEWS Channels and Media cleverly concealed from the public gaze the reckless manipulations and awesome corrupt practices and influences exercised by financial and industrial tycoons. It camouflaged competing interests of internationally ambitious capital and neo liberalism on the political executive and on Annajee's movement itself! The central cabinet and Prime minister exhibited their shear helplessness in dealing with the retrograde movement which had only one and sole frightening weapon at their disposal, the threat of ‘Indefinite Fast', equivalent of suicide bombing to compel implementation of ‘Strong Jan Lokpal Bill'.
It all began fuming out in March 2011 when Anna Hazare announced his Indefinite or Fast unto Death fight against corruption and was amplified on much larger scale in June 2011. The frustration and anxieties of crowds exploded on political horizon. Politically, the most backward and immature sections of the nation, middle classes, the trading community and petit Bourgeoisie took upon themselves the role of ‘savior of the nation' and unleashed movement for “National Renaissance and redemption” amidst ‘the national disaster and shame' perpetuated by sprawling and spiraling corruption. ‘Save India ' from corruption enshrined and embodied in lower rungs of bureaucracy and ruling political class became the slogan of the day. TV NEWS media played the role of a vanguard in projecting an all encompassing fetish of corruption to facilitate political fusion of these classes into oneness under Annajee's ‘Anti Corruption' umbrella. Corruption was equated with covert disease contaminating and ruining the vital functions of the nation.
Just before scams broke out, the corporate Media, MNCs and Industrial captions who were promised peace on labor front after the G20 world summit and after drubbing the left and winning the confidence vote in Parliament, were singing chorus in one voice, “Singh is King” for PM who was the first to ushered the reforms in 1991 . On sensing the magnitude of discontent spilling over of an urban resistance movement with street demonstrations and led by aged authoritarian leader with parochial and highly mediocre background, government officials and Ministerial trio began appeasing Annajee. The unconquerable Anna, became the, custodian and signifier of ‘anti corruption' obsession and fanatical irrational fury of middle classes. Truly a pathologic character occupied the political stage for months together. Threatening Indian Political establishment with near suicidal weapon of ‘indefinite fast' was unusual and new. Raked up ghosts of Scams forced PM and the trio to bend down on their knees before Annajee to douse the fire and to prevent total erosion of middle class support.
TV News agencies promoting hysteria and ‘I am Anna' cult were engaged in drawing parallels between Annaji's Ramlila Ground procession and revolutionary upsurge in Egypt and victorious celebrations in Tahrir Square and across Egypt. Annajee's demand of 'watchdog institute of ‘strong lokpal', focused on ‘employees of lower bureaucracy' and total exclusion of corporate, when confronted with those of Egyptian upsurge exposes Annajee's ‘anti corruption' episode as grotesque fantasy! While summing up of the major popular economic demands of Egyptian revolution, Mostafa Omar, the American –Egyptian writer activist in his “ Egypt's unfinished revolution ” sums up the demands surfacing with the call for ouster of Mubarak and the corrupt regime run by his henchmen. “Workers' demands vary from one sector to another, but they revolve around four main issues: Workers everywhere want to raise wages and benefits; they want permanent status for the millions who have been working as temporary workers, sometimes on contracts as short as three months; they want an end to the neo-liberal policies of privatization of companies, and many in the public sector are calling for the re-nationalization of companies that were privatized and sold to investors at below market values; and they want the ouster of all the corrupt CEOs appointed by Mubarak” .
The contrasting set of economic and political demands exposes not only the class characters but also the political psychology of Annaji movement . In Indian context the contrast becomes magnified and sharper when compared with another coeval parallel movement occupying the same time span from March 2011 to November 2011 of equal magnitude and scale. The mass strike and agitations inspired by Maruti Suzuki workers. TV and Mass media camouflaged and pushed under the carpet the much more intense protest movement of the working masses involving much larger crowds. It paid attention to it only to the extent of covering vitriolic propaganda against production losses. Annaji's movement rode on to a furious fantasy of political turmoil while the fearless series of strikes and different forms of protests by Maruti Suzuki workers provided panic jerks to the social foundations of Neo Liberalism . The demands awakened the hopes of working classes and electrified segments of working masses across India and abroad. It was first display of a spontaneous united upheaval and solidarity action after the defeat of textile strike in Mumbai. This forward and upward movement exposed the industrial legal political system and perils of neo liberal corporate capitalism which had pushed working classes into state of oblivion.
Tall and Invincible Anna
If historical parallel is to be drawn it can be with impact of failed Panama Project of the ‘French Panama Canal Company' in which Ferdinand and Charles de Lesseps were both indicted for fraud in 1889. The project led to loss of thousands of lives and millions of Francs. Political bribery of French Parliamentarians was laid bare and were accused of ‘not representing the people' in moral sense! Corruption undermined rule of law and let loose irrational powers and mass anger. Anti-Semites, the enemies of ‘Republic' broke through the soil and seething buried tensions of French Society gushed out. When France erupted into turmoil it also questioned the liberals in Austrian and German political systems as well. It raised serious doubts, ‘what is the use of Parliament which is vulnerable to corruption and assaults'?
Cultural corruption advancing rapidly with neo liberal onslaught and ‘downfall' of moral values provided Anna team a readily available cannon fodder to stir up the ‘corruption complex' and patriotic fury which evoked sense of national redemption and cry for liberation of the motherland from the noose of the political and bueurocratic crooks.
Annajee signified the instinctual and psychopathologic rage. The reactionary and irrational content of his populist campaign disguised and concealed the class belongings. Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and others created corporate scaffolding for him to make Anna stands ‘tall' and invincible. During December 2011 flopped campaign Kiran Bedi tweeted for encouragement, “Corporate world in Mumbai now has an option of joining the movement. Support Anna, get the law and help shoot up Sensex” and exposed who calls the shots. Throughout the upswing of the movement Annajee remained under ideological siege of Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi, Manish Shishodia and others who represent the face of Neo liberalism and its CEO culture. The clique was incessantly engaged in concealing the enormity and extent of involvement of Corporate players in promoting culture of corruption in social life and within the ranks and files of political democracy. But a leader is nevertheless and is always a relation between people and the individual who embodies their collective demand. Anna has claimed that not only he knows the Gandhian language of non-violence but also Shivaji's language of sword. He intended to invoke popular compound image of and for himself as an aggressive adamant and ruthless furor wearing a Gandhi cap. Finally 2011 ended by turning the hero in to Gandhi's caricature! Anna's personality and his peculiar aggressive and dictatorial traits became sharper the more prominent as soon as he sought in himself the secrets of his success in popular mobilization . But that is exactly why anatomy of his personality explains why in this transitional time it was difficult to have another political figure in the same measure, ideologically bankrupt and completely unaware of the anonymous driving forces of history. Events on national scale cleared his way to become short term transitional patriarch and a hero destined to get exhausted.
Psychoanalytic Literature and political anatomy of ‘Modern Gandhi'
Literature in abundant was published and posted on internet during 2011 dealing with Gandhi and the modern day Gandhi- Annajee. Unfortunately little has been done to bring out psychological foundations of their political anatomies and historical significance of the movements. I have reluctantly engaged myself to attempt and undertake the resolution of these conflicting interpretations made by two social activists.
“What clicks with Anna Hazare is his apparent simplicity, rooted ness in the familiar Hindu tradition and the penchant for nationalist rhetoric . The manner in which he has taken up the issue of corruption sans its complexity gels well with the large population of urban upper-caste middle class, which, variously, grudge the government not being conducive enough to their progress” (Dr.Anand Teltumbde).
G.R. Khairnar (Anti Corruption and demolition crusader) slams this comparison, “There is a huge difference, it's almost like the earth and the sky”. Anna Hazare's abusive and sexualized language (Calling opponents ‘Banjz- infertile- impotent woman) also came under his severe criticism.
Middle classes discovered in Anna the modern ‘Mahatma Gandhi'. However the comparison ends with his dhoti and Gandhi cap he wears and his mimicry of Gandhi! It will be interesting to confront political psychology of Annajee and Political character logy of Gandhi. Anna has kept his personal life within moral limits defined by him the most importantly self imposed limits on instinctual urges and ‘non corrupt',puritanism in particular. However his mystical and opaque personality cracks up as soon as he raises his finger in the style of a dictator abusing his opponents and calling them impotent. Violent sexualized imagery beneath Annajee's Gandhian language betrayed at an occasion when he hit out at his opponents, “banjh kya jaane prasuti vedana (what would an infertile woman know about labor pain). The remarks invited severest criticisms from Women Activists. Activists said “the remark was insensate and smacked of sexist mentality. (Lawyer and women rights activist Flavia Agnes)).
Annajee seems to be unaware that Gandhi is not known for using abusive or coarse language against women. Psychoanalyst Mr. Sudhir Kakker explored Gandhi's personality in his well known fiction “Mahatma and Mira” where in he weaves the facts with fiction in the story of Gandhiji's relationship with Madeleine Slade, in the mirror image of Lord Krishna and Mira. It depicts reciprocal relationship of devotion, affection and sexual restraints. Gandhi worked all along to exercise control over the ‘sexual serpent' and its expressions, which springs and recoils even in dreams, to attain Brahmacharya (celibacy)! Gandhi's experiments with truth were aimed at becoming celibacy, identifying, inhibiting and controlling sexual urges which he believed, if not subjected to control, could lead to unleashing of social and political violence and rage.
Annajee remained ignorant and prisoner of seething, irrational powers of instinctual rage even though he remained unmarried and underwent total instinctual repression during early life and military tenure in particular, ending with war with Pakistan . Controlling the instinctual drives forms the basis of Gandhian non violence. M.K. Gandhi restrained the mass movements by not allowing (he believed so) the unconscious sexual fire to engulf the behavior of the masses in the street and turning of the sexual rage into violence against State. Anna did the opposite . He uses sexual imagery alluding to corruption metaphors to unleash fury of irrational instincts and generate anti- corruption hatred mania amongst middle classes. He claims that he could survive the ‘indefinite fasting' because of his celibacy and possibly by keeping away from female body which contaminates morality and health. Celibacy seems to be the ultimate solution of all human problems. However for Annajee celibacy involves suppressing the sexual drives and processes, unlike Gandhi's attempt to establish ‘sexual control'.
Psychoanalytical studies on psychopathic characters on stage and linguistics may prove decisive in this regard. Literary criticisms committed to interpretation of patriarchal social order which invariably refer to Shakespeare. Hamlet's (Prince of Denmark) comment on correlation of corruption and downfall of kingdom of Denmark is suggestive. Despite being so honest queen, Gertrude was affectionate towards her son Hamlet, however never confessed to any ‘sin' before her death, which is interpreted as being naivety and leniency towards ‘corruption' in Denmark. Incestuous marriage of (Hamlet's) mother Gertrude to her brother-in-law was for him illustration of corruption and ‘contaminated female sexuality'. Hamlet's sexual disgust and deepening melancholy, bitterness and cynicism used to trigger his suicidal self-hatred. Helen Reakes student of Shakespeare says, “The fear of female sexuality coincides with Hamlet's belief that corruption and (sexual) contamination are primarily derivatives of female body. Hamlet repetitively associates the origin of sin to his birth, acting almost in Hamlet's fantasies as a reason for man's corruption. It shows how words corruption and contaminated sexuality are treated as synonymous, identical or are united in unconscious . Linguistic unity between sexual contamination and corruption provides us insights into organic link between psychical processes of ‘anti- corruption complex' and ‘oedipal complex' and the power of the symbol to provoke irrational fury. It provides us the clues to understand how the prejudices in social unconscious are provoked as hatred.
In the eyes of populace, the bursting of very high magnitude scams rolling out one after another not only created political circumstances which completely undermined the political claims of development, smashed national dignity, brought on to the surface mockery of legal system and rule of law but also made the representative parliamentary electoral system susceptible to onslaught of fury of irrational forces. Psychoanalytic literature and interpretations enables us to reach into the bottom most meaning of ‘corruption' metaphors within the social unconscious. The political events leading to Annajee's arrest proved to be the most powerful instigating and provoking agent to inflame the psychical tensions embedded in the reified and ossified caste, religious and gender based prejudices of the traditional Indian social order. The collective prejudices compounded with genuine anger against corruption were let loose and began out pouring in the form of copious streams of resistance. It generated the pathologically obsessive fantasy of all inclusive Anti Corruption Lokpal Bill . Anna Team and the TV Media could bring about fusion of all middle class prejudices and system of metaphors, considered as National Heritage and rode on the agitation as patriots aiming for salvaging the National Pride'. Kiran Bedi waved the national Flags. Crowds sung the War songs and national Anthem as patriotism on display. The outcry for “strong Lokpal' circulated at rocketing speed. Sanjay Kumar ( Aug 31, 2011 , Countercurrents) covers the hatred involved in high peak of the agitation, during the Ramleela procession and the rally which followed metaphors of prejudices integrated the movement in August 2011. “It was obvious during the rally that a virulent, sexist, castiest and openly patriarchal fringe was trying to make its presence felt in the Anna gathering, which undoubtedly attained a mass character”Suicidal Urges and Origins of ‘Strong Lokpal'
Anna Hazare's nearly pathologic obsession with derogative usage of most contemptuous word (complete lack even of sympathy) ‘Baanz' used in rural India, a stigma on childless woman, and which invites a social boycott fort her is indicative of his parochial intellectual stature! Parochial Annajee overnight discovered himself as mass leader of a nation whose credentials across the globe as ‘nation on the move' crashed to debris as ‘scams prone corrupt nation'. His ‘indefinite fast' or suicidal threats became the appropriate but only formless expression of despair of the middle classes. In his rise as ‘national hero' he was assisted by congress ministerial-office bearer trio who went for his character assassination which proved to be ‘God' given help in the conjecture of events in bolstering his Gandhian ‘puritanical' and ‘corruption free' credentials and forcing government for virtual capitulation.
Annaji's character traits have another element – his punitive approach and his attitude to consider everything non- negotiable! From Ralegaon-sidhi, he brought in to the movement the barbaric traits of punitive culture compounded with authoritarian military methods. He has been projecting Ralegaonsidhi (which he had shaped after returning from Warfront), model dominated by rich peasants, as ideal economic, social and political model and as ideal prescription for Nation! The parochial Patriarch, he probably considers himself to be, as incarnation of figures of Swami Vivekananda (ideologue of Hindutva) and his ancestor Guru ‘Yadav Baba' as his superego the formidable agent of repression. He succeeded in imposing his own moral code of social conduct and legal system as harbinger of ‘punitive' system, like public parades, flogging in open, military fashioned court martial of culprits and defending ‘death by hanging' for corrupts as national prescriptions. He had practiced by himself these barbaric & primitive punishments of flogging meted out to wrong doers and liquor consumers. His oratories in Delhi and his postures resembles style of military dictators angry with pitfalls, shortfalls of democracies, inefficient working procedure and its ability to offer quick solutionsand hence ordering punitive decrees!
Gandhiji mobilized the peasantry in ruins in the spate of advancing capitalism under colonial rule and made the mass subservient to growing clout of ‘National Capitalists'. Anna performs different role, role of an arrogant fanatic, in crisis of neo-liberal representative democracy by offering most autocratic solution of ‘Strong Lokpal Bill'.
Anna ignores all forms of atrocities and exploitations, communal- fascist violence, injustice meted out to dalits and women. and launched ‘all exclusive' agitation to subsume the anger of the middle classes, to veil the briberies paid by Capitalists, CEOs and executives to gain licenses to exploit public funds and finances, natural wealth or other assets and instead direct it against small corruptions in lower bureaucracy.
We learn from Annajee that he had faced with severe suicidal urge during his youth but reading Vivekananda enabled him to overcome it. I may be that Anna may have been struggling against melancholic depression! Sigmund Freud and subsequently Melanie Klein have shown that severe depression arising out of loss of earlier psychic objects (love object) manifests itself in paranoia, anxieties or schizophrenia. Annajee suffers from severe depressions and could overcome it by re-strengthening the repression. Ironically, instinctual urges breaking through the surface of repression results into generation of insurmountable anxieties, in the form of suicidal urges. One suspect the weapon, ‘Fast unto Death' threats as the effective weapon to scare the opponents is manifestation of same urges! Anna's threats on ‘strong Lokpal' may be viewed as his internal psychic need to repress the anxieties and build as ‘self observing' superego ! In times of crisis situations, coercive ‘Fast unto death', Self immolation' threats have always evoked and generated mass paranoia and anxieties, and can trigger mass movement of elite and middle classes.
In Anna‘s psyche, contaminated sexuality (immorality) and corruption are tightly and organically intertwined and Anna succeeded in unifying and welding these anxieties of the middle classes and transferred on to political horizon. Solution offered by him is nothing less than a step towards ‘Regimentation of ‘Indian Nation state'. .
This is precisely the pathologic genesis of his proposed ultimate solution ‘watch dog' Institutions, described by many as ‘parallel oligarchy' or ‘huge autocratic monster' to regulate the corruption and the ‘instinctual contamination' Psychoanalyst will certainly see in it ‘externalization' of ‘psychical internal hatchet ' and projection of repressive psychic agency ruling the instinctual and impulsive life on to political expression of population. Strong ‘Lokpal' agency is an articulation of Annajee's image of his own psychic repressive agency and resultant of inner psychic conflict . The rebellion of bound instincts obeys the laws of displacement and the anxiety generated is deflected on to political system. In this sense alone I appreciate Sukumar Muralidharan's comment, “ Political corruption is a convenient target onto which this whole complex of anxieties could be shifted”. It becomes Annajee's ‘ final solution' . For him, in his psyche, all versions of democracies promote bribery. The outcome aimed at could be ‘Military Rule' to reconstitute the crumbling Nation State, stifling the voices of descent from working masses and making the middle classes subservient to “Neo Liberalism”, reincarnate the hegemony of ‘National Capitalist Rule'.
Conflicting Discourse of the decade- Egypt and India .
Political analyst, Sukumar Muralidharan assessed media responses to two movements, which will decide the discourse of the decade. Annajee & Maruti Suzuki which occupied the centre stage of economic-socio-political discourse says, “The Maruti Suzuki agitation and the Anna movement. “Clearly, the media had sanctified Hazare's movement, bestowed it with the legitimacy that the trade union agitation did not deserve”.
Maruti Suzuki struggle stands in conflict with Anna movement. The long drawn out struggle, mini- mass strike and workers mobilization exhibited continuous forward thrust and passion for achieving freedom and inspiration to repeal the ‘repressive control and governance of working conditions of production and life'. In this sense Maruti Suzuki workers followed the discourse set by Egypt . As a role model of Neo liberal mode of production, Maruti Suzuki has installed a totalitarian PMS System (Production Monitoring Supervisory' System, a watchdog institution) within shops with robotized production processes and across offices to subsume the ‘labor productivity' down to details. Mass strike on the miniature scale reflects something similar to what conditions prevailed earlier in Egypt , Tunisia , and Arab World. The striving for mass democracy, a collective upward thrust, drive to form independent Trade Unions, spontaneous urge to occupy work places, demonstrations and formations of steering committees signals a new era. Maruti case study posted on web says, "In many ways, the 13-day strike at Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, India 's largest automobile manufacturer, was a wake-up call for the Indian corporate sector. Not only did it illustrate the unity among the company's workers, but with workers and unions across states voicing support, it threatened to flare up into a wider industrial dispute, giving strong signals of a resurgence of trade union activity in the country ”.
Egypt 's Tahrir Square ' witnessed historical moments of ouster of Autocratic Rule of Hosni Mubarak and repeal of proxy rule of Military Junta! Mustafa Omar reports, “ Participants of Egypt upheavals were millions of workers, poor peasants, poor housewives from Cairo , Suez and Alexandria , and overthrew the regime of the “rich and the businessmen who think they could run the country as if it was their own private company” (Mustafa Omar). The revolution changed the social Institutions of oppression and .rediscovered themselves”! He further states, “The masses of poor and working-class people who took part in the uprising--as everyone else who took part--wanted democratic reforms. But workers and the poor also want social justice and the redistribution of the country's wealth after 30 years of privatization, impoverishment and neo-liberal policies pushed by the Mubarak regime. They struggled for the “Economic Democracy”. Revolutionary workers ‘locked' corrupt CEOs or stop the “disrespectful treatment at work, temporary contracts, and terrible health care provisions and on and on”.
Weren't these demands central to Maruti Suzuki struggle? Wasn't corruption the integral part of Hosni Mubarak's led Neo Liberal regime? Weren't scams of 2G scale part of Egyptian neo liberal regime? Then why the working masses of Egypt did not advocate and demand similar to “Strong Lokpal” solution?
The Indian capitalist class and the embedded corporate world are probably much stronger and integrated into the world capitalism than the Egyptian ruling class. Hence has used all its ideological and repressive powers to put an end to Maruti Suzuki struggle and pursue to push Annajee's political agenda of ‘strong lokpal or could find an escape root of shifting the investments to safe heavens of labor peace in Gujarat?. In preceding years, series of strikes in Automobile Industry ranging from Ford, Marimalai Nagar, near Chennai, GM, Halol, Gujarat, Mahindra at Nasik, Hyundai at Chennai and other strikes in have laid the foundations of maturation of thoroughgoing revolutionary changes in Capital- labor relationship in India and globally! Today's seemingly non- political industrial agitations and solidarity collective actions is a slow process of weaving and knitting of the working classes. The new generation of workers, educated, skilled are learning to understand the causes of their hardships and subservience to conditions of work. Recently Cyrus P. Mistry met Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi during a courtesy visit at his residence in Gandhinagar to pursue the interests of Tata Power Ltd and NANO plant. Whether Maurti Suzuki also flees to heavens and heart land of ‘labor peace' in Gujarat or Thailand or Germany the specter of working class movement may haunt it across! For Indian subcontinent and globally social economic and political discourse of this decade or probably of this Century has already been set! The struggles in Gurgaon or in Chennai have signaled to the millions and millions of wage earners, contract laborers, and informal laborers about ways to advance their struggle on to global arena.
In an unrelated event, on December 7, 2011 , a rudimentary meeting of representatives of Tata Steel workers' unions from different countries, including Australia , India , Great Britain , New Zealand and North America , took place in Jakarta under the banner of Tata Steel Network. Eighty One thousand factory workers across continents sought to join hands in solidarity through a ‘transnational employee union'. Sudharshan Rao Sarde, at International Metal Workers Federation meeting said, "It is like how Karl Marx envisaged: workers of the world unite," Despite the metaphoric value of the event, it can be seen as high point indicating that aspirations of working classes are providing upward push for globalization as against the rightward, regressive movement of the capital .
The panic within the ranks of corporate world can be judged by Suzuki's decision to migrate its expansion plans to Gujarat . After TATA the automobile giant began rallying behind the rising star, ‘prime minister in waiting' Narendra Modi, the facilitator of industrial development.
The well established hegemonic arrogance of capitalism which restructured the industrial social relations for last three decades, after defeats of Mumbai Textile workers and demise of textile industry in Gujarat , has been literally pierced by Maruti Strike alone. Globally it brought in to open the underlying changing perceptions and reciprocal relationships of three classes , working class, Middle class and the capitalist class and their upward, regressive and rightward movements . The movements represent new political discourse of conflict of working class thrust for globalization verses obsessive ‘Strong Lokpal' agitation led by a pathological character on the political stage to reinstall the confidence and hegemony of the ‘National capitalist' ?
Annajee team targeted the ‘ Political corruption' and worked hard to transfer the complex of psycho- instinctual anxieties of the middle and lower middle classes to unleash the fury. The fanatical stress on urgently creating a watchdog and authoritarian, “efficient, superior and strong” Lokpal Institution also amounted to indiscriminate casting aspersions on the day today life of nearly three crores of working population! It boils down to inflicting and imposing on national scale a repressive ‘self observing' mental agency and repressing of all socio-economic aspirations of working masses by creating frightening ghost and fetish of ‘anti- corruption'. Only a fanatic with militarist bent of mind can advocate suppression of basic freedom and human rights, can project single objective ‘patriotic' program for ‘redemption of Indian Nation', ask for militarist regimentation within population , with anxiety ridden foul cry to ‘save India' from contamination of morality and leave neo liberalism to go amok! By asserting the colossal failure of representative democracy and ignorant of driving forces of history Annajee became devils advocate of totalitarian Military rule amidst the scream of ‘disintegration of nation state'. Despite seeming decline of Annajee's movement, it has laid bare the receptivity for a ‘self observing psychological totalitarian agency' within mental framework of mass of middle classes and the mass psychology for an invitation to Military dictatorship in times to come. The irrational movement of Lokpal, worked exactly in opposition to the spirit of Egyptian revolution , its forward, globalizing and upward push, which tirelessly works for overthrow of henchman of neo liberalism Hosni Mmubarak and Military Junta, both.
Anil Pundlik Gokhale is an Engineer by profession and have been a reader and student of Marxist and Freudian literature for last four decades.He has been a professional translator of medical and other literature from English to Marathi. As a non regular writer on political literature he has always been attempting to intigrate Psychology and Marxism.He has t recently published book ‘Condensation And Condescension In Dreams And History: Essay - From Sigmund Freud To E P Thompson' by Author House London.
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