India Abroad - September 9, 2011

have registered a considerable victory. They
united and acted cleverly to save the ‘system.’
Team Anna can take consolation from the
fact that in the process, the lawmakers lost
face. Hazare’s agitation made powerful min-
isters appear insignificant. But there is no
doubt that Team Anna has not got anything
substantial. Hazare fasted for 12 days. The
net result is that after receiving a letter from
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
that was delivered to him August 27, he will
appear before parliament’s standing com-
mittee. Without fasting, activists Aruna Roy
and Dr Jayaprakash Narayan got the same
privilege!
Read carefully the ‘sense of House’ that par-
liament passed August 27.
It said, ‘This House agrees in principle on
the following issues (i) Citizen Charter, (ii)
Lower bureaucracy to be under the Lokpal
through an appropriate mechanism and (iii)
establishment of Lok Ayuktas in the states.
And further resolves to transmit the proceed-
ings to the department-related standing com-
mittee for its perusal while formulating its
recommendations for a Lokpal Bill.’
These three elements of the ‘sense of the
House’ were the issues raised by Hazare, who
wanted them to be incorporated in the Lokpal
Bill. But they are not binding on the standing
committee. The most important issue Indians
who supported Hazare should know is that
the joint drafting committee on the Lokpal
Bill, comprising legislators and civil society
members, had serious differences on seven
issues. The government had disagreed with
Team Anna on the issue of having the prime
minister, the judiciary and members of parlia-
ment under the purview of the Lokpal. The
government’s representatives also disagreed
on the issue of including the lower bureaucra-
cy under the Lokpal. Team Anna wanted state
Lokayuktas included in the federal list and the
Citizen Charter in all government offices for
fixing a timeframe for civic services. Hazare
had demanded that the anti-corruption wing
of the Central Bureau of Investigation should
come under the Lokpal’s purview.
After disagreeing on these seven issues,
talks among Team Anna members and politi-
cians on the joint drafting committee had col-
lapsed. Hazare then declared that he would go
on a fast August 16 to press for his demands.
But as the Ramlila Maidan ‘show’ ended on
the morning of August 28, it was clear that the
government is neither in agreement with
Team Anna on all these contentious issues nor
has it made any promise to parliament that it
will agree with Team Anna eventually.
If the government was never going to give
up on these contentious issues, what was the
need to hold the fast, asked a cabinet minister
who was one of the government’s negotiators
that dealt with Team Anna.
Hazare’s fast ended, maybe because the agi-
tation was not sustainable for Team Anna any
longer and maybe because it was extremely
risky to handle such a large crowd in such a
volatile situation. But the battle for the Lokpal
may not end any time soon.
The government won by ‘respecting’ Hazare
and gifting him the ‘sense of House’, but the
government didn’t heed any demands about
the Jan Lokpal Bill put forward by Hazare’s
aides Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan.
They divided Team Anna while dealing with
it, and succeeded.
Above and below: Snapshots from the Ramlila Maidan, New Delhi
Sense and nonsense
PHOTOGRAPHS: RAJESH KARKERA