Main Anna Hazare bolrellaye

"Can a man who tied a drunk to a pole and flogged him with a belt be called a Gandhian?". This comment circulated the now already overcrowded annals of Facebook Wall history a few days ago. Depends. Did the drunk quit or not? If there is one thing that history has taught us, it is that a successful terrorist is called a freedom fighter.

Let me clarify that that I do not consider Anna Hazare a Mahatma, nor do I think that the Lokpal bill will be the panacea to the country's corruption problem. But it seems increasingly like the same people who were until yesterday critisizing the population of being silent spectators are levelling allegations of overreach against it today. Detractors of Anna Hazare have been pointing out that what he is doing amounts to subversion of the democratic process and blackmail of lawmakers. But what if the law making process is so compromised that it is naive if not foolish to expect MPs to act in the nation's interest? With aspersions cast on the character and competence of a Prime Minister that was until now considered both unblemished and able, what exactly should have been done? Wait for due process? Even when we are all convinced that due process would have taken a lifetime and resulted in toothless litigation? Can a system which is infected from the bottom up by corrupt people be dealt with using the same system? Why is a group of individuals pressing an MP into bringing litigation considered blackmail whereas corporate comglomerates doing it considered lobbying? Just by electing an MP to Parliament does the constituency give up its right to demand his credibility for 5 years? Five years is a long time, enough for a plethora of bogus and self serving bills to be passed by the party in office. If it is acceptable to have groups which can force the Government's hand on every matter from caste based reservation to what name should be given to a floyover, why can't there be one which does the same on litigation which has an obvious conflit of interest for the MPs? Why should the Government not fear its own people and be kept in a constant state of crisis? Complacence, as we all know very well, has already caused a whitewash.

On Anna Hazare all I'd say is that the answer to most moral quandaries is simple; history rewards winners, and punishes losers. If the British had not been destroyed by Hitler and forced to grant independence to the colonies, Gandhi would still be a half-naked fakir as opposed to a Mahatma. So the question to be answered is clear; Did the drunk quit?