| (Musing 2) Anna Hazare: Gandhian Revolution in India: An Analysis | 0 comments |
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26 Aug 2011 @ 13:31, by Shreepal Singh
Today India is passing through a unique revolution. It is people’s revolution by all measures and it is unique because it is non-violent. It is a revolution not less than the Russian October, 1917 revolution because it is a stirred mass of human beings not less in number than of Russia.
But this revolution is just opposite the Russia’s Soviet revolution; it is like opposite mirror image of that event. The Russian upheaval passed its zigzags way to a success by a pragmatic use of the force of violence, while Indian upheaval is passing through its zigzags way in an unplanned manner towards its destination by the sheer moral force of non-violence and truth. While the non-violence and the insistence on truth by the Indian agitators may provide them among masses a moral approval higher in degree than the use of violent means, the movement has no well defined object towards which it could be geared by its leaders and, hence, has less chances of achieving its supposed objective.
While the Russian upheaval began with the people’s demand for bread and peace, Indian one is demanding an end to corruption.
The vision of Russian people’s efforts was guided by well defined ideology that sought to put the supremacy of a class of people (working people) and did not stop at the demand of bread and peace, the Indian people’s guiding vision is Gandhian ideal of the welfare of all sections of people and particularly people on the last rung of Indian society, that is, the most deprived, the most suppressed, the most weak.
And, by all accounts it seems that the Indian stirrings would not stop at the measures against corruption.
The Russian popular commotion’s leader (Lenin) was the follower of Karl Marx who advocated the abolition of private property and the leader of India’s popular discontent (Anna Hazare) is the follower of Mahatma (great soul) (Mohandas Karamchand) Gandhi who advocated that “saree bhoomi Gopal kee” (which can be roughly translated as “all property belongs to God”) and held that the people owning property should treat themselves as mere trustees of that property for the welfare of others.
Thus, there are similarities between these two national stirrings but they are just the opposite of each other like a mirror image. One may very well compare the graphics of popular discontent in “Ten Days that Shook the World” of John Reed with the Indian Summer Discontent of 2011 and would find a great similarity between the two except that in the former the popular mood was defined by blood-letting and in the later it is insisting on non-violence despite trying circumstances.
The man behind this social upheaval in India is a person called Anna Hazare. He thinks like his mentor Mahatma Gandhi; he acts like Gandhi; he also stirs ordinary millions of Indian people like Gandhi. Gandhi was a saintly person who was the moving spirit behind a successful non-violent struggle of Indian people against the British colonial rule.
Anna is not a young man bubbling with youthful energy fired by Gandhian ideals; he is an old man; a man of 74 years. He advocates non-violence in carrying out public protest against corruption.
A sketch of his personal character would run like this: a person dedicated to Gandhian ideas; stubborn in his resolute actions in carrying out the decisions once he has taken; simple life style with very little needs; possessing almost no private property and living in a temple room.
He is honest to the core in personal life and dealings; proven track record of life-long honesty and self-less public service; motivated to serve people in early life and for that reason did not even marry; joined Indian army, lead disciplined life there and battled at the front; was emotionally attached to his comrades there to the extreme and on their death in war even suffered depression.
After retirement from military service, he did not sit back at home but became actively involved in public causes and motivated people for self-help in his native village to dig canal in stony terrain to irrigate their farm lands; motivated local people to become self reliant in carrying out their decisions and expanded his area of concerns from his village and neighborhood to state of Maharashtra; opposed corruption of State government Ministers, beaurocrates and businessmen, and became target of these powerful enemies.
He resorted to abstaining from food (fast) and hunger strikes to mobilize people’s support for his cause of fighting corruption by big and powerful people; got tremendous public support and earned public goodwill through this way of protest but earned wrath and also enmity of powerful people; assassin hired by these powerful enemies to kill him, refused to kill him and demanded his employers to assign any target whosoever but Anna Hazare.
By his persistent mass mobilization against those powerful corrupt people, he forced the State government, which was in league with those corrupt and powerful people, to act against them.
He is emi-literate and not idealist, he is a very practical and pragmatic person who is able to sense the situation, create and read public mood; though getting light from the Gandhian ideas and ways, he is not a blind imitator of Gandhi’s words. He is able to read the disguised evil intentions of government and its authorities and capable to devise cunning tactics to defeat those evil intentions. In addition to the Gandhian ways, he also takes inspiration from Shivaji (an eighteenth century Maratha ruler who outsmarted Aurangzeb – the Indian king) to craft his strategies to outwit the present corrupt rulers of the country.
He created public pressure on the govt. to make his team a part of the govt. exercise of law making to fight corruption; insisting public broadcasting of live debates to expose govt. ministers’ stand on measures to fight corruption; he knows public agitation cannot be sustained for long and announces programs to give brief spells of rest between phases of agitation.
He is open to the public in his intentions and programs to get a high moral ground than the govt. which always resorts to cheating to defeat his agitation.
On being arrested, he started his fast in jail; on being released, he refuses to come out of jail on govt. terms; guiding his agitation from jail, makes the govt. kneel down to his terms of his coming out of jail; rides on truck triumphantly with huge public around him from jail to a bigger public place- Ramlila Maidan - to continue his agitation, while earlier he was refused permission for a smaller public place for his agitation and on his persisting was arrested. In his first moves, he defeated the govt. strategy to stop his agitation. Presently, he is engaged in the war of wits in designing tactics and strategy with the Government of India, wherein the Govt. is resorting to cheatings, lies and dishonesty to defeat his mission and he is resorting to transparency, truth and exposure of Govt. stand to outwit his enemy, the Government of India.
Additional resources:
India on the boil
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