Vote for Anna By campaigning against the Congress in Hisar in Haryana, Team Anna seems to have thrown off its apolitical garb. Is Anna Hazare’s social movement poised to claim a place in Indian politics, asks V. Kumara Swamy

Vote for Anna

By campaigning against the Congress in Hisar in Haryana, Team Anna seems to have thrown off its apolitical garb. Is Anna Hazare's social movement poised to claim a place in Indian politics, asks V. Kumara Swamy

It doesn't quite look like a war room. A bundle of booklets lies amid rows of steel almirahs and a few pieces of furniture. The only sign of the campaign in progress is a print-out on the wall. A shot from the filmIndiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skullhas been morphed to suit the times. Harrison Ford has been replaced by Anna Hazare, squatting inside a cave with a torch. The name of the film is "IndiAnna Jones and the Crusaders of Corruption". Don't go by the office. It's war time in Anna Hazare's camp, which is also strategising its next move. On Monday, when the results of the Hisar by-election — which saw a campaign against the Congress by Anna supporters — will be out, his lieutenant Arvind Kejriwal will not be in the Haryana town. He will be in the backward districts of Uttar Pradesh, asking people to "teach a lesson" to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government unless it passes the Jan Lokpal Bill in the winter session of Parliament. "It's a simple calculation. The UPA government played politics with us and we thought we would put pressure on them as they only understand the politics of vote. I don't understand why there is such a hue and cry over this," says Kejriwal, sitting in the office of his non-governmental organisation Public Cause Research Foundation. The hue and cry is not surprising. Till August, the campaign for the bill — which seeks to punish government members for graft — was seen mostly as a social movement. Last week, in the run up to the Hisar poll, the team shed its apolitical garb in one swift move. Now Team Anna is working to a plan. If Hisar was the birthplace of Kejriwal, another core committee team member, Manish Sisodia, has been active in the districts of Banda and Chitrakoot in UP through his non governmental organisation Kabir. These are the districts that Kejriwal and Sisodia will visit in the coming days. "We know that electoral politics is a tough field, but we can make an impact and influence people. That is enough to scare a political party," says Sisodia. Right now, the idea is to merely test the waters. If the government fails to implement the bill, Hazare will take to the streets in Uttar Pradesh, where polls are to be held next year. "Hisar showed that we have public support," asserts former law minister Shanti Bhushan. "We have demonstrated to the Congress that they cannot dispel Anna's appeal. So the party should understand that if it doesn't approve the bill, the electorate will show them the door." But whether the masses, which thronged septuagenarian Hazare's hunger strike in Delhi in August, will continue to support the team in politics remains to be seen. The team, by campaigning against the Congress in Hisar, indirectly backed the opposition — the Bharatiya Janata Party, which supported Kuldeep Bishnoi of the Haryana Janhit Congress. The move has led to dissension in the team. "I am not in favour of giving a political colour to our movement," says former Supreme Court Judge N. Santosh Hegde. "The intention may be good, but perception is also very important. We shouldn't be focusing on a single party. And we should have waited for Parliament's winter session." The direction that Team Anna has been taking is not lost on India's political parties. The Congress is watching from a distance — unwilling to take on the group because of the middle class support it won in August, but equally reluctant to give it importance. "One weak sparrow does not a summer make and therefore Hisar too need not be blown out of proportion," says Salman Khurshid, Union law and justice minister. He adds that the Congress has over the years survived a tide of developments, including the movement led by socialist leader Jaya Prakash Narayan. "People can be misled for a while but truth prevails in the end." The BJP, of course, is not displeased. Team Anna, after all, is doing the party's work — carrying on a ceaseless campaign against the UPA. "They are fighting on behalf of the common man. The support that the people have given the team is huge," says BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman, holding that the movement is "not far from the political arena". But Kejriwal denies looking for a political role. "We are hardcore political people but we are above party and electoral politics. We are for people's politics," he says, and vows that he will "never enter party politics or side with any party." Anna's impact is yet to be measured — but few believe he will be another JP, who had students and workers in lakhs rallying behind him against the Congress. "Those who revile politics and politicians and at the same time try to influence policies find the going tough," points out Jayaprakash Narayan, a former IAS officer and founder of the NGO Lok Satta, who had to take the "excruciatingly painful" decision of turning his organisation into a political party in 2006. Manishi Jani, who led the student-driven Navnirman movement in Gujarat in 1974 which caused the downfall of the Congress government in the state and inspired the JP movement, says though he sees parallels, he is not impressed by Team Anna's recent steps. "Once you become a political actor, people will lose trust. Their focus is only on the Congress which smacks of hypocrisy when other parties are also neck-deep in corruption." Anna's efforts, many believe, may have limited success because of its restricted support group. "Where are the rural masses? Can you convince them to vote against a particular party while claiming that you have no sympathies for other parties," asks Ahmedabad-based social activist Achyut Yagnik. "Anna's movement is driven by the middle class and Internet generation. And for them, out of sight is out of mind." Indeed, there is some evidence that the movement is losing its shine as far Internet activity is concerned. Team Anna's website logged 6.2 lakh visits from 162 countries from August 15 to 22, when Hazare's protest was at its peak. It recorded 15,000 visits in September 26-October 2. The Congress is sticking to its wait-and-watch policy. "We will overcome adversity, both natural and contrived. When the slogans are no longer heard and the tents are folded up, the voice of the last Congress soldier will still resound the way it did during the freedom movement," says Khurshid. IndiAnna Jones, it seems, may need to use his searchlight more effectively to dispel the darkness. THE MAN AND HIS FLOCK Anna Hazare, 74 Born Kishan Baburao Hazare, the Gandhian had earlier opposed the Shiv Sena-BJP government in Maharashtra. Considered close to former Congress chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, he had an office in the state secretariat during Deshmukh's tenure. The Congress has accused him of being backed by the RSS, but he has denied it. Arvind Kejriwal, 43 The Ramon Magsaysay Award winner has been accused by author Arundhati Roy of working to the "agenda" of the World Bank and the Ford Foundation, but Kejriwal has denied being influenced by either, though his Public Cause Research Foundation was initially funded by the Ford Foundation. Kiran Bedi, 62 The first woman to join the Indian Police Service and a Ramon Magsaysay Award winner, she blamed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh directly for overlooking her claim for the Delhi Police's top post after a junior was chosen over her. She resigned from service in protest. Santi Bhushan, 85 The senior Supreme Court lawyer and law minister in the 1977 Janata government was a member of the BJP, but has been vocal against Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. The media reported that UP chief minister Mayawati gave the Bhushans two plots of land in Noida at a rate lower than the market value in 2009. But Bhushan claims it was all above board. Prashant Bhushan, 55 nShanti Bhushan's son has been associated with many civil rights groups and protests on issues such as the Narmada Dam and human rights in Kashmir. He was beaten up for his views on Kashmir in Delhi this week. N. Santosh Hegde, 71 The former Supreme Court judge and Karnataka Lokayukta is known to be apolitical, even though he is close to BJP leader L.K. Advani. Hegde's father K.S. Hegde, a former Supreme Court judge, was a Janata Party MP in 1977 and the Speaker of the sixth Lok Sabha. Advani had proposed the senior Hegde's name for the post of the President of India, but the Janata government opted for Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy instead.

Additional reporting by Sonia Sarkar http://www.telegraphindia.com/1111016/jsp/7days/story_14627915.jsp