Anna and Mahatma Gandhi

Anna hails from a small village in Maharashtra, India and leads a very simple life in a temple like a saint. Anna is neither a barrister nor a graduate, served the defense forces for a few years and jumped into social services and earned international status. From the last one year Anna has been hard struggling to eradicate the cancer of corruption from India. Corruption is flowing through the thick blood of rulers, save a few, who are in power and also through the thin blood of a common man who is compelled to adopt bribery for getting his/her things done lawfully or lawlessly. Anna has been demanding a strong Janlokpal Bill but in vain. He went on hunger strike in July/Aug 2011 and now again in July/Aug 2012 against rampant corruption.

People called Anna as another Mahatma Gandhi of today of India. Gandhiji hails from a good family in Porbundar, educated in Rajkot, and then went to UK to become a barrister. Gandhiji fought tooth and nail in South Africa for the rights of the Indians settled over there. He returned to India in mid-1925. Gokhale, his guru, advised him to travel far and wide in India to read the minds of people of India. He did so and he was hooked by the Indian National Congress party in the then ongoing independence movement of India. And we know he went many times on hunger strikes rarely against the Indians-people like Dr. Ambedkar but normally against British to obtain more rights for Indians as he did in Africa. Because of the world scenario after WW-II, British cunningly left India sowing seeds of… that made Gandhiji martyr. Both Anna and Gandhiji are involved in making India a well-fare state, but they are unique in their own ways. The challenges of today and then are entirely different. Hence, that comparing Gandhi with Anna or vice verse amounts to disrespect to both. Let us reason out this.

Independence movement of India can be traced back as early as in 1857. India had stalwarts like Robindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekanada, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Swami Dayananda Sarasvati, Isvarchandra Vidyasagar, and many more who made the soil ready for crop. Then came on scene Krantikaris and many strong political leaders like Lal, Bal and Pal. Lokmanya Tilak expired in 1920. But by this time he implemented Ganesh festival, four folds approach of which Rashtriya Shikshan, and Swadeshi were the backbone. Hence Bengal and Maharashtra were just boiling and became a threat to British throne. Even Dr. Hedgewar, who founded RSS in 1925 and expired in 1940, was, unlike Barrister Jinnah, who expired in 1948, a pucca Congressman. In Nagpur, Hedgewar became involved with social work and also with Tilak faction of the Congress Party.  In the 1920 session of Indian National Congress held in Nagpur, Dr Hedgewar was appointed as the Deputy Chief of volunteer’s cadre overseeing the whole function. Hedgewar was imprisoned for sedition by the British government in 1921 for a year and again in 1930 for nine months. To mention but a few Vinoba Bhave, Patwardhan, Balkoba, Sane Guruji were amongst many others who joined Gandhiji and turned to be his loyal and stanch followers. Gandhiji was equally well supported by wealthy people like Bajaj and Birla. Gandhiji’s  karmabhumi was Maharashtra and to some extent Ahmadabad having his main Ashrams like Sewagram, Vidarbha and Uruli Kanchan, Pune, and one at Sabarmati, Ahmadabad, Gujarat, his state. This had provided a wonderful support and mass appeal to Gandhiji though he was not, as I understand, an official member of the Indian National Congress Party. At the time of India’s independence in 1947, true Gandhians kept away themselves from political activities as Gandhiji probably thought the main work of Congress party was over, all Indians supported independence movement then led by a single Party called Congress, and therefore Gandhiji advised to dissolve the party and to keep away from politics activities and power game. Obviously true Gandhians distanced away from politics but many others started testing the fruits of power that might be one of the reasons how and why corruption started creeping in then.

On the other hand, Anna has to fight against his own people who are not falling short of any trick to make Anna down. They leveled the charges against Anna unheard during the days of Gandhiji, who was carrying forward the movement started by 1880s and never faced the dirty tricks today we witness like personal attacks on character, creating confusion in the minds of people, infusing quarrels in a team, strike is termed as unconstitutional, against democracy, advise Anna team to fight with government by establishing a political party and be in power, those who lead the movement do not understand the real issues in politics and power game, if hunger strike is taken back government calls it cowardliness,  the politics of religion, number game, Anna, who work at a village level, is incapable to go to national level, etc.

In view of the above, is it reasonable, logical to call Anna as Gandhi of today? By such a calling we are insulting both; we understood neither Gandhi nor Anna. In the present context, therefore, Indians need to support Anna in his mission against corruption in the national interest, in the interest of you and me, and our future generations.

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