Anna H Vs BR
Hazare may have inspired a large section of the metropolitan population into expressing concern over the culture of corruption, but the burgeoning small towns and villages remained mostly untouched by the Anna phenomenon. That is where Ramdev's role comes into play, as any fight against corruption can't succeed without the support of Middle India.
Ironically, those who welcomed Hazare's call to clean the system are today circumspect about Ramdev. Not very long ago, it was a field day for celebrities ' from Aamir Khan to Kabir Bedi ' to show their solidarity with the Gandhian movement at Jantar Mantar. On Ramdev, however, the response has been plain disdainful. Salman Khan quipped, "Why is he going on a hunger strike? Isn't he a yogi teaching yoga?" As for Shah Rukh Khan, he discovered "an agenda" in the Baba's agitation!
The literati's love for Hazare is both understandable and enigmatic. It's understandable because this class detests everything mass-oriented and accepts anything coming from the media. And, Hazare is largely a media construct.
It's enigmatic because there's more about Hazare that should disorient the educated, elite class. Going by the way he runs a village in Maharashtra, he cannot be called 'democratic' by any means: He prefers the hands of a thief to be chopped off; he wants anyone found drinking to be tied to a pole and publicly flogged; he believes in rigid implementation of family planning, including forced vasectomies; and, he advocates the corrupt be hanged to death!
Maybe Hazare is acceptable because he doesn't seem to threaten the status quoist upper middle class dreams. He just wants cosmetic changes at the top ' bring the Lok Pal Bill and all's well! It must be understood that while the upper middle class has the right to be disgusted with corruption, it is also a major beneficiary of the malaise. After all, despite it raising this issue, it is primarily this class that gets the maximum benefits from the bribes MNCs pay to politicians to create a hurdle-free economic milieu. Bribes, in a way, are needed for 'swift' economic development in the country where governance isn't truly efficient. It is a way of buying efficiency, as a bureaucrat working in the Finance Ministry said.
The upper middle class, therefore, isn't quite the victim of corruption as it pretends to be. Instead, it is the beneficiary of the system, however corrupt it may be. The real victims are the ones that have been left out or are on the fringes of the emerging economy. The Baba represents this section of Indian society. And, it's for this reason that his movement needs to be welcomed, and not derided.
What's further bolstering Ramdev's case is that unlike other gurus, he is not "foreign-imported", as one of his ardent followers says. He first strengthened his network in the country, and it was only in 2006 that he made his first trip abroad. No wonder, his worldview is rural-oriented, and he wants technical courses to be taught in the mother language. It's, therefore, hardly a surprise that his politico-economic ideas became an instant hit among rural Indians, left behind in the race for economic prosperity by the English-speaking elite. What helped him strike a chord was a daily TV show being aired on the Aastha channel since 2005.
Finally...what I felt is getting echoed in editorial of newspapers)
