Fight Against Corruption: Team Anna To Fight Elections!

It was possibly the biggest movement to rock India after Independence. With unprecedented support for the cause the anti-corruption fight started by social activist Anna Hazare in April, 2011 transformed into a mass movement. But the huge success of the movement signaled its downfall too. Thanks to a variety of reasons including contradictions, counter charges and friction within Team Anna and core members’ political ambitions mass support for the movement has been dwindling all the time. Seemingly running out options the movement finally became political.

Falling back on its oft-repeated ‘fast’ weapon Team Anna started yet another indefinite fast in New Delhi from July 25, 2012. For a change this time, the core members of the team sat into the fast first with Anna Hazare threatening to join by Sunday, the 29^thof July, if the government did not respond till then. Eventually Anna had to join in.

Support for the fast was not even in hundreds in the early days. Sensing trouble, Baba Ramdev with whom Anna formed an alliance to carry forward the fight for a larger cause only recently, descended on the ground with around three thousand of his supporters. Finally crowds were visible, but many criticized the Baba for hijacking the movement. And, most importantly, the discordant notes were only too perceptible.

Just before launching the fast core Team Anna members raised the pitch for their demand to investigate 15 ministers of the government of India including the Prime Minister and even the newly elected President Pranab Mukherjee for charges of corruption that they said could be proved with the evidence they had. Anna Hazare did not corroborate this particular demand and stuck to his traditional demand for a strong anti-corruption Bill. He even congratulated the new President, and Baba Ramdev created more friction by saying that names of supreme personalities like the President should not be taken during protests.

Total disarray and non-existent support naturally did not inspire the government to respond in a positive way. The local police only warned Team Anna to end the fast or hospitalize the members whose health had deteriorated. Arvind Kejriwal, a core member whose condition became worrisome due to diabetes, chose to oppose vehemently any attempt by the police to evict them forcibly to hospitals and announced the Team’s decision to continue the fast. The stalemate continued.

On the ninth day that is the 2^nd of August, 2012, Anna Hazare addressing a crowd of about five thousand suddenly announced that preparing for a political alternative was not wrong since nothing could possibly be achieved on the Bill with a totally non-responsive government. While expressing his determination not to join any political party he said good people with integrity should be selected as political candidates and they must try to change the corruption-ridden system from within. He asked for a referendum from his supporters whether Team Anna should go ahead forming a political party or a front to fight the elections or not. Other core members elaborated on the issue and there seemed to be absolute agreement with many stalwarts all over the country sending letters of consent and encouragement. Team Anna announced its decision then to end the fast on the next day.

The most heated debate of the nation started unfolding and was set to rage on indefinitely. Questions and many more questions came to the fore. How would Team Anna do it? How would it get a referendum since its mass support has been falling? What would be its method to garner the votes since voter apathy is very common in its major support base of the middle classes and to get votes from the larger citizens it must have strong organizational infrastructure and huge funds? How should it react to the support shown by several Bollywood superstars? How to guarantee that the Anna front’s elected candidates would always vie away from corruption of any form? Answers would always be difficult to get.

Meanwhile Baba Ramdev was set to go on with his movement against black money from 9^thAugust, 2012 in Delhi and his movement assumed added significance in the perspective of Team Anna going political. The immensely rich yoga-guru announced in Team Anna’s gathering that he would bring in 900,000 people for his protest, but the Baba conceded magnanimously that you needed at least 10 million people for the success of any movement!

While the effort to join the system to change it from within is laudable the numerous facts and events of the recent past only seem to signify the ultimate death of a most significant movement in Indian history.

Has the anti-corruption movement in India gone into a self-destructive mode? Or was it long overdue and inevitable?

Today in New Delhi Team Anna’s fast was formally broken by retired Army General VK Singh. Anna Hazare confirmed his team’s political resolve by announcing the formation of a political party though he would not contest as a candidate. The political party will be without any high command and will be a symbol of another movement under which the people will select the candidates and the candidates will fight the 2014 general elections to enter Parliament and to decentralize power.

A political Utopia for Anna Hazare? 

Love Marriage Or Arranged Marriage?

Love marriage or arranged marriage? Which is better? Better to avoid the marital complexity of loving to love or arranging to love or loving to arrange or loving to adjust or adjusting to love and all that! Better concentrate first on the simplicity of love itself. …Sorry? …For the sake of making a beginning at least…yaar! Love is not that simple…we know! But what’s wrong in trying?

Once upon a time there was an aunt of mine who was waiting for quite a long time to get arranged to marry. With her parents already departed, the brothers tried and failed. It was becoming a matter of serious concern when my mother that is one of the elder sisters of the aunt struck upon a brilliant idea of arrangement.

One professionally employed nice and bright boy from the aunt’s native place got appointed in the town we were living in. He used to visit us frequently often making it to lunch or dinners. My mother called her sister over to our place and told her specifically to come for at least one month. The sweet, homely and always smiling aunt arrived to our great joy.

Meantime my mother talked to the boy’s elder sister also living in our town and through her obtained a token permission from the boy’s parents to make the arrangements. The boy came over one evening and…they met! The first seeds of an arranged marriage were sown. The get-to-know-each-other campaign started in all earnest with the boy visiting us almost every evening and for long hours.

We were getting annoyed since every time after serving tea and snacks we were sternly told to leave the room so that the boy and the girl could arrange privately. As small children our curiosity kept on growing thinking what they could possibly be doing!

The sitting room where they passed the hours had an adjacent storeroom with a high window in between always closed as it served no purpose. The lower half of the window was curtained up in the sitting room, but the top transparent glass panes were uncovered. We began to focus on those.

Standing up on a wooden stool in the storeroom we could reach up to the top glass panes and peep inside. It was not easy to just walk and sneak into the storeroom as we had to do our homework compulsorily. But the efforts paid dividends as we managed to have uninterrupted views one particular evening. We witnessed the boy taking up the aunt’s hands fondly into his! We got thrilled and cried victory.

The same night we confronted our aunt with our great discovery and ordered her to explain. Our sweet aunt gave a heavenly smile and squeezed our cheeks uttering ‘Wicked ones!’ We could understand the meaning of that heavenly smile only years later…it was love…damn it!

The arranged marriage took place in due course and the couple lived happily ever after. They had completed more than forty years of conjugal bliss and still looked forward to more, beaming and full of life.

Cut to a little recent time when we were freshly out of university and looking for jobs. In a particular hilly town where we lived then we all knew about a particular lover couple whose selfless love for each other was a constant talk in our sittings and a source of inspiration. Only their respective families did not know and nobody bothered to inform them.

Every evening they met on the streets and passed hours together, and of course, sometimes with us too. One of my friends used to joke saying the lover birds were always in search of some dark corners where they could realize their love to sublime perfection.

They managed to get married through love alone in due course. By that time we got scattered with jobs in different places. But we used to meet once in a while.

Maybe two years after the love marriage I met few of my old friends. What I heard paralyzed me with shock. I looked on disbelievingly. There were reports that the lover boy started beating his eternal love up now and then, and sometimes violently. Both of them were employed as lecturers in different colleges and the news spread fast through their colleagues. I felt relieved that the girl could at least be independent if needed.

One year later they started living separately despite having a house owned jointly out of love, and then the divorce came inevitably. Their two children got divided between them.

Was it love in the love marriage? Certainly not. Was it love in the arranged marriage? Certainly yes! What stands out basically is love! In its truest form, of course. If that ‘love’ happens you hardly need to adjust or compromise or manage or arrange or derange! If you can find happiness and bliss with your companion after even the most bitterest of all quarrels, it is love. Love could be cunning and selfish too, and in those cases it does not last whether you arrange it or love to love it.

Love marriage or arranged marriage? None of the two is either better or worse. Any of the two can be heavenly if love is there. And love just happens. If you are not convinced at all, which is only natural, brainstorm more here!

Just love!

Fixing At The London Olympics?

Badminton competition of the London Olympics-2012 has come under a cloud of match fixing after two women’s doubles matches played yesterday. This is an unprecedented trend affecting the most ancient Games on earth. And this is very worrisome too.

The fixing charges involve eight women badminton players—the World Champion pair from China, two pairs from South Korea and one pair from Indonesia. The Badminton competition is being played on a round robin basis for the first time at the London Olympics. All these teams have qualified for the quarter finals and so they allegedly tried to manipulate their preliminary matches so that they avoid meeting their respective compatriots in the semi finals.

The two matches involving China and South Korea and then South Korea and Indonesiahad been reduced to farces yesterday with all players trying to miss the shots in a desperate attempt to lose. The crowds too sensed the farce and began jeering at the players. Badminton World Federation (BWF) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) took very serious view of the scenario and considered taking extreme steps like expelling all eight players involved. If it happens it would devastate the Badminton competition and if it does not the Games would earn an unprecedented bad name. The IOC said that extreme action was necessary to prevent such tendencies to discredit the Games and warned that if the BWFdid not come up with preventive measures it would step in on its own.

After the charges there had been a game of passing the buck with the South Korean players alleging the Chinese started and instigated it first and therefore they followed suit or retaliated. The common objective for both the teams was ominously clear though.

Fixing has come to be inseparable from cricket thanks to the Indian or the Indian sub continental links to it. Indiahas given cricket ‘big money’ and along with the latter invented the art of fixing! You may rather call it as a post-modern art with two pristine varieties-match fixing and spot fixing. Betting has been an integral part of the whole process with a huge network of agents, bookies and pimps. Fortunately, the specter of betting has not so far been confirmed in the London Olympics scenario.

Any threat of fixing to this most ancient Games of mankind must be nipped in the bud. It does not matter how rigorous or extreme the punishment be. On the other hand, like in cricket, there are powerful vested interests and a whole array of commercial interests here too. History, reputation, spirit of competition, national and international ambitions, commerce and business are all mixed in an extremely complex web. Finally, the ‘will’ may not be strong enough to upturn the cart of interests.

The sports fans can only wait and watch.

PS:  A few hours later the BWF had in fact disqualified all the involved eight players after holding an inquiry. This means all eight champion players from three countries are ousted from London Olympics-2012. Though this will impact the Badminton matches, the action is quick and praiseworthy. Bravo!