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All over the World and in India as
well in 2011 we witnessed the uprisings to protest against
injustice. In Arab world it has been against tyrannical
dictatorial regimes to bring back democracy. In the US and many
other European countries where ‘Occupy Wall Street’ has been the
major one, the people are protesting against the socio-economic
disparities which are due to the present system of economic
structure. The Occupy Wall street movement is very profound in the
sense that it brings to our attention the basics of the system,
indicating about the deeper malaise in the system. In this
movement most sections of people are participating (We are 99%).
In India also this year was a very significant as people rose to
protest against multiple issues. The usurpation of peasants’ land
for so called development has been the major issue and it
manifested itself through agitations like the one against POSCO,
in Orissa. The other upsurges combined the concern for ecological
preservation and protest against the nuclear hazards as in
Koodankulam and Jaitapur. Currently there is a great amount of
land alienation for large number of people. The protests in this
direction has been significant but under projected by media.
Similarly the long standing protest-fast of Irom Sharmila for
repeal of Armed Forces Act brings to our notice the atrocities
committed by army in places like North east in particular while
Kashmir has also seen similar problem.
What came as an overwhelming upsurge was the one led by Anna
Hazare. Here combination of several factors played their roles and
made it spread far and wide. In this movement IT-MBA generation
and some other sections constituted the core support base of
movement. There was also a parallel phenomenon of movement against
black money by Baba Ramdev. Anna Hazares’ main insistence was to
bring in Jan Lok Bill drafted by his team, but it appeared as if
it is against corruption and that those who are not supporting his
bill are for supporting corruption. His movement has been
supported by various elements including the religious gurus like
Sri Sri Ravishanker. The major mobilization for this was done by
Corporate controlled media and the RSS.
The overall scenario is that people are suffering the economic
injustices, social inequalities and political marginalization.
This Anna upsurge is focused against corruption alone, it does
talk about corruption being the major cause of peoples’ suffering,
but at the same time it underplays and bypasses the deeper issues
which result in corruption. The corruption is very much there, but
it is a symptom of the deeper disparities at economic and social
level. Corruption is there due to the power centralization and
lack of transparency in the system. Anna movement is in contrast
to Occupy Wall Street Movement. Anna movement focuses. or rather
hyper focuses, on the symptom of corruption with the result that
the deeper inequalities of system remain unseen.
All social movements have a complex dynamics. While people have
genuine aspiration to bring to fore their real issues, many of the
movements remain trapped at the symptomatic level and this
tantamount to bypassing the core issues. Anna movement is a case
in point. Here while Team Anna has brought to our attention one
issue of our society, it has at the same time undermined many
other issues and tried to denigrate the parliamentary system. It
has deliberately focused on corruption of one political party
alone. It has twisted every argument to talk against one party,
there-by playing the role of electoral trumpet for the other major
political party, which happens to be the political child of RSS,
the major mobilize of Anna movement. It seems as if it has a
contractual obligation to promote the BJP. At the same time those
who bring this observation to the notice of society are
deliberately branded as stooges of ruling Congress, which anyway
has done enough mistakes to let Anna movement assume the present
dimensions.
The Arab uprisings are trying to bring democracy-parliamentary
system; Anna movement in contrast is trying to create a parallel
oligarchy, presenting Anna himself as being above parliament. This
Anna movement has put all sorts of pressures to denigrate the
parliamentary system and the elected representatives of the
people. While one feels that mass movements, social upsurge, are
the key to change and are welcome, all upsurges do not necessarily
lead to social betterment. One recalls the Ram Temple movement
which unleashed the era of violence and marginalization of
minorities in the country. This one, Ram Temple movement, focused
on identity issue. Anna movement focuses on symptomatic issue.
What is common in the identity issue and symptomatic issue is that
both bypass the deeper social issues of inequalities and the
issues related to rights of marginalized.
The issue of Ram Temple was not the issue of marginalized sections
though many of them were roped in by social engineering. Similarly
the dalits and minorities kept aloof from Anna movement as they
know it is trampling upon their deeper concerns.
Anna movement has been highly projected and made most visible,
while the ones' around POSCO, Jaitapur and Koodankulam have been
underplayed and Irom Sharmila has been mostly ignored. The issues
involved in these protests are very crucial to our marginalized
sections of society, also these issues are neither merely related
to identity neither are they just the symptomatic one’s. That’s
one of the reasons as to why corporate controlled media underplays
them. These movements affect the life of society, in a deeper
sense. That should explain that those for upholding status quo in
society will highlight and go ga ga about anti corruption movement
which has been presented as a spectacle. At the same time the
other movements have been practically underplayed as they question
the deeper issues related to the system and question the status
quo.
All said and done, the mass upsurge being experienced here is a
sign of maturing democracy, despite vested interests trying to
deflect the movement in authoritarian direction. Surely change for
better should be the norm and social movements questioning the
system are the engine of social change. Unlike Anna movement these
movements base themselves on the democratic principles and are
inclusive in their approach.
All protests in India should have awakened our conscience but
unfortunately, only one of these, the Anna movement, has been
given primacy. We need to do course correction and give due
importance to other protests also, which is their due.
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