Mishandling by Manmohan government led to this explosive situation

- Anil Narendra 

The scene outside Tihar Jail reminds me that of Tahrir Square of Cairo. Anna is inside the jail and public is outside. Jail Road of Delhi has been transformed into August Kranti Chowk. Thousands of people have been thronging the Jail for hours. This was the scene on the Wednesday and on Thursday too, till the time of writing of this article, emotions were running high. The way, this government has mishandled Anna movement, should be condemned. There are all types of administrative failures in dealing with the situation. The events of last two-three days indicate that not only the intelligence assessment has failed miserably, but UPA government's lack of will power has also come to the fore and there is utter confusion, law is being ridiculed and police has been disgraced and morale is at its lowest. In other words, it was an example of total mishandling. The government is not clear in its thinking. It has been changing its stance of and on. There appears to be complete intelligence failure. The government has failed to assess the likely impact of Anna's arrest in Delhi and the entire country. This is the situation, while the government had already witnessed the overwhelming response to Anna's protest fast at Jantar Mantar earlier in the month of April. Four ministers are sent to the airport to talk to Baba Ramdev and then the police is asked to take action, they talk to Anna Hazare and then after accusing him of corruption there is indiscriminate action against him, people are antagonized, protest fast is banned, then Anna is arrested, he is sent to Tihar and on the same evening they decide to release him, but they fail in persuading Anna to step out of jail. After all, what is happening? Police and law have, perhaps never been put to such a shame in Delhi. We claim to be a welfare state, where public desire is considered supreme, but who is to make assumption of the public mood and accordingly prepare police bandobast and invoke relevant laws to deal with the situation? Why such assessment and required preparations were not made, so that law and police could have avoided such an embarrassment? This mishandling by the government has led public to take to streets. Public in Cairo also took to street in the same way. It may not be out of place to say that the Anna movement has brought a new dawn in the history of Indian democracy. The way a person from Ralegan Siddhi becomes the voice of the country against corruption like Jai Prakash Narain and the way people all over the country took to street, have astonished us. Such public resentment, sometimes changes both the system and the geography of the countries. During last few days, the world has witnessed a number of revolutions and the youth power and its thinking have been at the centre of these revolutions. When political and social issues get associated with such thinking, it gets sharper. Today, the country is suffering most with corruption, loot and inflation and the social order of the Indian society and democracy, has made the common man loose faith in the government and the democracy and this is very dangerous trend. Governments, particularly this government have never cared for the common man. People are fed up with inflation, unemployment, corruption and loot. In fact, in the democracy, where the Indian Constitution guarantees equal right to all, the most suffering and distressed last person has started feeling out of place in this system. It is quite clear from the way the Manmohan government is dealing with Anna's movement that the Congress is once again repeating its 37 year-old act. At that time, the efforts were made to curb the JP movement in the same manner. But, then there were heavy-weight socialist youth leaders like Mohan Dharia, Chandrashekhar, Ramdhan, Krishan Kant. One of them, Chandra Shekhar took courage to advise Indira Gandhi. Calling JP a saint, he advised her to avoid confrontation with him. Those who confront saints, are doomed to parish. History is witness that the Congress and Indira Gandhi had to pay a heavy price for their confrontation with JP. It suffered a massive defeat in 1977 general elections. There appears to be no leader of stature at present, who could advise the Manmohan government that the path it has taken, will lead it to destruction. Not only the government, others can also be adversely affected. But, for one thing, Manmohan government deserve our thanks. Its follies have, at least united the country and people have taken to streets in honour of the national flag. We have warned the government a number of times through this column, let the situation not slip out hand, lest it may have to face downfall.