Two members of the core team from Team-Anna have left alleging that the movement has turned political! Bigger hypocrites leave smaller hypocrites?

Two team members of the core team from Team-Anna have left. The reason? Anna's movement has turned political! Bigger Mohandasians leave smaller mohandasians! This is what happens with hypocrites. Bigger hypocrites criticize smaller hypocrites. Let us take a quick look at the movement.

The claim of the India Aganist Corruption is that there is a need for a Bill to bring into place a mechanism to check and punish those from the highest to the lowest place, who are corrupt. Their suggested mechanism is the Jan Lokpal Bill. For the moment let us ignore whether JLB is a correct solution or not and focus on the other aspect. If one is addressing a problem whose solution requires a passage of a bill by the parliament, then what can be said about the nature of the problem? The problem is related to good-governance, and the solution is about good-governance. Now, what is the nature of politics? In the present context politics is about governance. So the problem and the solution are related to politics. So how can someone be apolitical and bring about a solution to a political problem? It is possible that one does not take any stand about any political-party; and yet takes a political stand. Which is what needs to be done in this case. Social change will come through education and needs longer time. Systemic changes require legislation in the short run. Deeper systemic changes require new Constitution which in turn will happen in medium time scale. Nevertheless, political change is an undeniable part of the change that is needed.

In contrast, Anna and his team have been considering themselves above - not just above corrupt politicians, not just above politicians, not just above corrupt politics - but above politics itself. They may be deluding themselves into believing that they are leading only a social movement; but they can not ignore that the movement is for political change. Granted that they are not looking to change merely the political party which might be in power, or to change superficially the existing political parties; rather they aim to bring about a change in political thinking across the spectrum. Thus at best (we still do not agree though) they can call themselves social-activists for political change (observe the misnomer!). In reality, they are political activists for political change. They may not belong to any political party or political ideology (as of now), and they may not be interested in contesting elections, but they will be much better placed if they realize that they are doing politics. And there is nothing wrong or contemptible about that. Political system requires cleaning and they are attempting that. So it is political action. Plain and simple, and it is well and good!

Thus owing to this hypocritical self-image resulting in taking the stand that they are "far removed from, and above politics", each is competing against the other in pretending that each is more apolitical than the other! Anna never stops to ask himself, especially since he considers himself to be a Mohandasian, if Mohandas was a politician or not. Mohandas indeed was a politician and a bad politician at that. He practiced the same hypocricy of claiming to be above politics and all the time playing politics. It is no wonder that his able followers are doing likewise. Thus, we now have more than a dozen who are competing against each other for the coveted spot of "the most Mohandasian of all"! All those who wear caps with slogan "I am Anna" forget that Anna himself is wearing a cap with slogan "I am Mohandas"! Once this is so, can bad politics and hypocricy be far behind? Thus Bhushan exhibited his apolitical stature by blabbering on Kashmir, and others have followed suit. They allege, like the sissy Justice Hegde did, that campaigning against Congress is tantamount to becoming "political". This is as confused as Anna thinking that if his movement drew any support from members of RSS, the movement became "communal"!

What needs to be realized is the following: Anti-Corruption movement can draw support from any group, and yet remain an anti-corruption movement! Since anti-corruption movement is about good-governance, the goal of the movement is political, and they should not try to hide the political nature of the goal. Their strategy may be to generate a mass socio-political movement which brings pressure on political parties to take necessary steps. Thus team Anna can claim that they are not seeking governmental posts of political power. However, the nature of their work remains political. There is no need to shy away from this. Corrupt politicians (like most of the current politicians), corrupt political parties (like most with Congress at the top!) must surely be discredited. But "politics" by itself must not be discredited, rather the importance of politics must be acknolwedged. Politics is too serious a thing to be left for corrupt and incompetent politicians! Therefore, what we need are not apolitical people, but good politicians! Thus, for better efficacy team-Anna needs to make it a "good political movement" rather than a "bad and hypocritical movement". We have already mentioned that anti-corruption movement must not let itself be hijacked by anti-Hindu ideologies. Similarly, the movement must also not be hijacked by "apolitical hypocrites" or "bad politicians"!