by VINOD K. JOSE
The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh addressing the 66th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, in New York on September 24, 2011. PHOTO/Prime Minister’s Office
Traditionally, the Congress party president presides over the flag raising, but with Sonia Gandhi hospitalised in the US, many predicted Rahul Gandhi would seize the moment and hoist the flag himself. Instead, he passed the duty to the senior Congressman Motilal Vora, and Singh stood nearby with the party’s senior leaders as they saluted the flag and sang: jhanda ooncha rahe hamara, vijayi vishwa tiranga pyara…. (Let our flag always be lofty, this world-conquering, beloved tricolour.) Manmohan Singh, in his iconic powder blue turban, and the Home Minister P Chidambaram were the only ones not wearing the Gandhi cap—a one-time symbol of the party of Independence that had more recently become the emblem of its newest and most popular nemesis, Anna Hazare.
The Maharashtrian activist had announced his plan to begin an indefinite hunger strike in Delhi the following day, and Congress leaders were buckling under the pressure: one quarter of Singh’s speech at the Red Fort had been devoted to corruption and the Lokpal Bill, whose passage Hazare was demanding. After the flag hoisting, Rahul Gandhi called Singh, Chidambaram and Defence Minister AK Antony into a meeting in the party office to discuss Hazare. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the party’s most reliable problem solver, had already left the premises, and Rahul sent someone to retrieve him.
According to accounts provided by three party insiders—two members of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) and a top Congress functionary—Rahul expressed his displeasure with the personal attacks on Hazare that had been launched in his absence, and suggested that greater tact should be employed to deal with Hazare’s impending fast.
Unlike his mother, who is said to be firm and precise in her orders to senior party leaders, Rahul’s directions proved insufficiently forceful to avert the looming disaster. After the meeting, according to the three party sources, Chidambaram took charge of the situation in concert with Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, and the two lawyers-turned-politicians devised a plan to prevent Hazare from staging his fast. Citing the best legal justifications—section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, and 188 of the Indian Penal Code—Chidambaram sanctioned Hazare’s arrest the following morning, and then all hell broke loose. Agitated crowds massed outside Tihar Jail while Hazare took maximum advantage of Chidambaram’s error, refusing to accept release until his conditions for the fast were granted. Hazare and his allies had humiliated the government, and the ensuing spectacle at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan soon became Indian television’s most successful reality show, with record-setting ratings for the nonstop coverage on every single news channel.
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(Thanks to Robin Khundkar)