by MUKUL SHARMA
The Making of Anna Hazare
Demanding a comprehensive law to end corruption, social activist Anna Hazare (right), along with Swami Agnivesh, addresses the media on the third day of his fast at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Thursday. PHOTO/Sushil Kumar Verma/Hindu
[This piece is based on my extensive field work on Anna Hazare and his movement in Ralegan Sidhi over some years and is also a part of my forthcoming book Green and Saffron: Hindu Nationalism and Indian Environmental Politics. MS]
The anti-corruption movement, spearheaded by Anna Hazare, and the passage of the Lokpal Bill have generated unprecedented interest amongst a wide spectrum of society about the ideas, politics and organisations of civil society in general, and Anna Hazare in particular. Hazare’s anti-corruption crusade merits attention not only for its importance in ensuring a corruption-free society, but also due to its multifaceted nature. Hazare’s politics however has to be seen in a larger framework and in a wider historical context. Howsoever laudable the goals of anti-corruption movement in India today, the movement is not beyond the categories of gender, caste, authority, democracy, nationalism and ultra-nationalism. Far from transcending them, the movement is transforming and being transformed by the implicit deployment of such categories. I wish to place Hazare in the larger context of his environmental journeys, where the elusive but crucial element is one of authority that is exercised due to a large degree of consent and conservatism. Yet, almost all accounts on him, largely celebratory in nature, do not examine the ideology and politics of his works. These are crucial not only to critically assess the present and the future of our anti-corruption movements, but also to interrogate certain brands of civil society activisms and environmentalisms.The rural environmental works by Anna Hazare in Ralegan Sidhi village in Maharashtra have been hailed widely, which are fed by, and feed into, certain dominant political cultures of the state. Though developmental and environmental works form the core of his ideological structures, they include other important issues. A belief system of force and punishment, liberal use of Hindu religious symbols, strict rules and codes, evocation of nationalism and ultra-nationalism, ‘pure’ morality and caste hierarchies, with a marginalisation of women, Muslims and Dalits, form the core of his village regeneration. The basis for the authority of Anna comes from a belief system, where the people following him consider it their natural duty to obey, and the exercising person thinks it a natural right to rule. Thus a former village sarpanch of the region states: ‘Whatever Anna says, we do. The whole village follows his words. Anna’s orders work like the army.’ For another villager, ‘Annajee is like God.’ The absolute recognition of an authority locally works in several internalised ways.
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(Thanks to Mukul Dube)