With the drama that culminated in
yesterday's events at the Aam Aadmi Party's National Council meet where Arvind
Kejriwal was officially crowned as the larger than life king of the party, the
thought, if there was any behind the move to transition to a political
alternative from an activism background, was also officially buried.
And it can be traced back to the
core elements that led to failure of the anti-corruption movement of 2011. The
movement was led by Anna Hazare. He was the face of it. Arvind Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan, Shanti
Bhushan, Kiran Bedi, Yogendra Yadav, Santosh Hegde, Medha Patkar and many
others were its active soldiers.
And Arvind Kejriwal was its main
strategist. His strategy worked very well when it got the mass appeal of Anna
Hazare. But after the brilliant success of April and August legs of the
movement in 2011, the slide began.
The December 2011 fast by Anna
Hazare in Mumbai was a debacle. Similar was the fate of others that followed.
That leads us to think that the
movement was poorly strategized (or was deliberately done so) as when it came
to build further on the mass appeal and the localized initial spurt, there were
no serious headways. The basic need was the faces beyond the localized pockets
in several regions of the country.
But faces didn't come. Instead,
those who had built it, started leaving the movement due to internal
differences and ideological rifts. Those who were there tried to maintain their
eminence.
The movement ultimately failed
due to its structural flaws.
It can be seen in
social media response. The traditional media came subsequently. There were many
flip-flops on the commitment to the core issue of ‘corruption’. Add to it the personal
bickering among the group members and display of personal agenda in the public
and we had a perfect recipe for disaster. That too, reflected in the social
media trends.
Anna Hazare, the old
Team Anna, the new Team Anna and the members of Arvind Kejriwal’s ‘Aam Aadmi
Party’, all were in the news throughout 2012 for different reasons. The common thread among
them was they were consistently talking about ‘change’ and the ‘politics of
change’. Yet, they didn’t stir the imagination of the youth. The social media
was almost not talking about them (except the routine stuff and the existing
support base).
Anna Hazare was the major factor that led the youth
to trust and accept the call. But once it was clear that the movement was
hijacked by the vested interests, they simply moved away from it. The vigourous
activity on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other social media platforms
that was there during the April 2011 and September 2011 fasts had flattened
later on.
The goodwill eroded - The
Team Anna that gave us the AAP had much of the blame to share. Consistent
flurry of controversies after August 28, 2011 especially with members like
Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and Bhushan duo corroded much of the goodwill.
Dislocated functionality - Good
names like Rajinder Singh, PV Rajagopal left. Others aired their displeasure
about functioning of the ‘core committee’. ‘India Against Corruption’ happened
to be a 21-member effort but we were listening to and hearing none but these
four-five faces. No replacements came. No fresh faced joined the movement. It
had been an area of utter failure that Team Anna created itself.
Empty words – Sometimes
impregnated with political overtures like expanding the ‘core committee’ with
multilayered structure giving representation to all sections of society like
Dalits, Muslims - such promises were made multiple times but nothing happened
except confrontation and war of words with the government and its
representatives as well as the intensifying internal differences of Team Anna.
Ethically wrong – Campaigning
in Hisar was a historical mistake for this anti-corruption movement. When the
movement was all about anti-corruption, taking partisan steps even remotely
linked to helping someone with questioned credentials win should not have been
practiced. Kiran Bedi’s defence of her inflated bills controversy was just
absurd. In yet another disappointing move, Anna, more or less, justified his
‘Pawar’s just one-slap’ statement when he blogged about it. Here a Gandhian said
that he, apart from Gandhi, believed in Chhatrapati Shivaji, too. So slapping
Pawar, according to him, was akin to following values propagated
by Shivaji. Smelt of Thackerays! Flatly,
just not acceptable!
Unfocused - The
much-hyped but left into the oblivion Uttar Pradesh tour was a classical
example of resource spoilage. Not much was heard when it came to the summative
evaluation of the tour. Days were wasted. Public money was wasted (the tour was
funded by money donated by likes of ‘you and me’ during the anti-corruption
agitation in Delhi). The anti-corruption movement was not restructured or
reoriented for the next step to add more people with it. Instead, big ticket
empty announcements like electoral reforms, education reforms, group expansion,
anti-government campaigning in the upcoming elections were made again and
again.
And similar trajectory can be traced in beginning
and the journey so far of the AAP.
To continue..