Satyagraha versus duragraha

Over and above the lathi-charge of the Delhi police against the followers of Baba Ramdev, intended as a measure to quicken the evacuation of the Ramlila Grounds in the capital, the fight against corruption still looms. However, it has taken a different form altogether - a tri-phasic one: the government having been the focus of all the public attention has now denominated that attention to three groups of people. The first group is led by Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of the nation, the second group is led by rights activist Anna Hazare, and the third group is led by the likes of Baba Ramdev (for the sake of convenience, he will be referred to as BR). What should have been a simple task of letting BR's fast take its course and eventually play itself against the sensibilities of Hazare's movement instead has been corrupted to birth a complete mess.

The legitimization of the protest

However, the government itself does not bear complete responsibility for this fiasco: a significant amount of the blame rests on the people who supported BR’s demands by cogitating in the thousands to accompany him on his satyagraha. In fact, till the moment Anna Hazare laid down to commence his hunger strike against the central government, the people of India had no face to recognize with the anti-corruption movement. The intention to root out corruption was present, albeit scattered. With a definite and rigid proposal drawn up by the Lokpal committee, there was finally something to associate with the judicial arm of the people’s frustration. Even though visible chinks were evident in BR’s armour, the people flocked to the grounds simply because one of his demands off the government was an end to corruption. I hope it has now become equally evident for all those involved that the means to the end matter just as much as the end.

The delegitimization of satyagraha

That being said, let’s for a moment step out of the context of corruption or illegality and examine the historical picture: satyagraha is synonymous with leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Vallabhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad and Lala Lajpat Rai. However, irrespective of the nonsense often crossing the mouths of Congress spokespersons, Digvijaya Singh was right in one aspect: BR’s fast was indeed a “five-star satyagraha”. Considering the venerable connotations associated with the act of fasting-unto-death, what BR did can only be called blackmailing: in exchange for the life of a man who thought it reasonable to declassify 500- and 1,000-rupee notes, the government of India would have to tolerate his fundamental tendencies. While providence may have played a role in instigating a yoga-master to assume the role of spearhead, we, the people, witness today a live delegitimization of the satyagraha. To that end, the forced eviction of BR from the Ramlila grounds was appreciable.

Backing into the crease

While all of this drama played out, where was the BJP? Appropriately positioning itself to (argumentatively) assault the INC, no doubt, given a similar incident during the Hindu’s reports of the India-US cables at the time of the ratification of the Indo-US nuclear deal. I wonder what LK Advani’s response to BR’s fast would have been in a similar situation: given that the accumulation of black money is independent of the ruling coalition, this very crisis has an equal chance of presenting itself to either party. Would Advani have sat back and tolerated BR’s hunger while moving to see if the RBI could declassify the 1,000-rupee notes? I think not. One way or another, BR got what he deserved: a rapacious glass of orange juice (pun intended). On any other day, however, I would’ve considered placing that question before anyone who had a comment against the eviction, but the UPA-II government has managed to deserve it going simply by the way the situation was handled.

The injustice in BR’s demands

While the newly-formed political discomposure threatens to dominate the rest of the year – which means Sansad Bhavan is soon going to be India’s largest restaurant – it is astonishing to consider that BR’s demands seemed, or should have seemed, ridiculous even to the common man. Apart from the declassification of larger denominations, the death penalty was asked for to be imposed on those who illegally hoarded Indian money. To remind the reader: capital punishment is not a light order, and as the Supreme Court has repeatedly reminded the nation, it is to be used in the rarest of rare cases (serial killing, regicide, etc.). These demands further make BR’s stance not only porous but easily avertable. On a side note: one of his demands was to popularize Hindi. If he had continued with the fast, wouldn’t that have been an inconvenient nail in the side of a possible compensation? Surely you must recognize the business proposition it conceals.

The return to sectarian politics

All in all, the only contribution the entire episode has made to the Indian political scene is that it has allowed the UPA-II coalition to utilize an opportunity to cathartically misrepresent itself. This fact is perhaps best summed up by the reception of BR at the airfield by four Congress ministers and then the concluding remark of Singh that he was a “thug who got what he deserved”. On the one hand, the eviction has forced BR to comment that Sonia Gandhi is “cruel and insensitive” and that she “wouldn’t understand the urges of an Indian being all the way from Italy” (paraphrased). Traditionally, any such statement become ammunition in the hands of the BJP, and with that, every protester automatically faces the threat of losing the political neutrality of his or her stance. Secondly, due in part to the mishandling by the UPA-II government, BR and his movement become associated with a certain sect, a sect defined by 1) his aversion to the Congress party, 2) his politically instigatory remarks, and 3) his only-partially reasonable demands. Therefore, I welcome him into sectarian politics with this message: “your initiation was accompanied by hardly the amount of violence that others such as you have faced.”

The role of the media

On a concluding note, it must also be mentioned that the media played a significant role in shaping the people’s opinions about this incident: by repeatedly showing BR’s face on the news, by repeatedly quoting him and misquoting parliamentarians, by repeatedly playing out the events at the Ramlila Grounds, news channels are increasingly diverting the viewers’ attention away from the bigger picture by glorifying the actions of the yoga-master. The police lathi-charging the crowd at the grounds was unfair – that is accepted – but the action itself does not, in any way, justify the proceedings that necessitated the eviction.