Many months ago, Arundathi Roy wrote an article in the Hindu editorial on Team Anna. As her reputation demanded it, the article invited fierce reactions from the readers. The patriotic bloggers and tweeters drove their daggers. Many used their wordsmithy to spill venom rather than think about a creative response or counter argument. I was on my regular weekend train, when I chanced upon this article from co-passenger’s daily. I immediately texted the bomb to my friends.
That was a period when Team Anna shone with all the might and glory. It would have been a political suicide to question him. So it wasn’t exactly intelligent to mock the adulation. But no one foresaw the king was about to be dethroned.
The flow of tide turned when Anna decided to campaign against Congress in the elections. He clearly under estimated the ‘machinery’s’ weakness and over estimated his strength. The mouth piece of Anna were the intensive media coverage. He never thought it was going to be flimsy and tempremental. The huge government meachinery churned its wheels and slowly weaned away the popular support from Anna.
The eunuchs in the battle were Sibal and Digvijay. Now while the former is no popular leader at all, the latter is more or less feudal lord in some god forsaken land. So the jibes, taunts and hate of the enlightened e-generation were bound to have no effect at all in their long term political stint. In the run, newspapers compromised on the language and content.
Even when we are stunned and shocked by their (Sibal and Digvijay) opinionated remarks, they managed to create a schism in the society. That was their job and no one would counter argue that, it was done well.
Clearly half of my twitter companions were no longer interested and were even irritated with Anna. The continous and intensified attack coupled with inept response brought down the credibility of the team. The team seemed too shocked to handle the change of tide. Erstwhile smart guy Kejriwal seemed arrogant, Bhushans were unpatriotic and Bedi the brave policewomen was good at siphoning off money. To top it all Anna couldn’t decide on anything other than putting Congress men behind jail.
The logic no longer got to the public. The so called pan Indian movement, which was really a middle class dissenters forum had another unseen blow. The failure of FDI in the parliament was projected as anti-reform and took some steam off opposition. Then to top it all the holier-than-thou judiciary too took sides.
End of Part II- The fast fizzled out fast. Weather was said to be the cause. Now for those who expect a summer fast, I don’t see it coming. Anna is not in good health for another go and rest of the TEAM are not interested to fast.
No comments:
Post a Comment