Anna Hazare called off his 4-day old indefinite fast after the government issued a gazette notification to form a joint committee of ministers and civil society activists to draft the Lokpal Bill. The government can be influenced in two ways. One is the method that both Mahatma Gandhi and Anna Hazare adopted.
The second way is that of the BJP, which disrupted the Winter Session of the Parliament demanding a JPC to look into the 2-G scam and did not allow it to function. This led to loss of crores of rupees to the exchequer. This was wastage of public money. They won the battle but lost the public support.
So, why didn't BJP go the Anna Hazare way? Anna Hazare did not waste public money. He used no political parties to support his movement. Advani Ji should have done what Ann did this time.
The succes of any moment scientifically relates to the 100th monkey phenomenon which denotes collective consciousness of the people. Simply put, it advocates that when a critical mass number of people adopt a new behavior or way of thinking, it is spontaneously adopted by everyone. To put in the present days context, if 1% of the people in a society join a movement, it spreads like wildfire.
The government agreed to Annas demands before this critical mass of 1% was reached. He had the support of the intellectuals, corporate leaders and others. His support base was growing every day. Though the masses had not yet joined the movement. He had the support of about 0.2% of the society.
If 1% of the society had joined Annas movement, this would have resulted in another movement like the Dandi Yatra, a nonviolent protest which became a watershed event in Indias struggle for independence. The result could have even been the downfall of the Government.
How smartly the Govt reacted, accepted his demands before the critical mass was achieved.
1 comments:
I had noticed that in the past satyagraha did not have effect on the Indian Government. It had its effect on the British colonialist regime. But this movement by the respected septuagenarian Anna Hazare was different and it soon gained popularity and in just a few days became a mass movement, like a tsunami.
But now that the first step is achieved by the government - stopping the "fast unto death" by the revered leader - it may go slow with the introduction and passage of the Bill/Act. So Anna Hazare has threatened to continue or restart his fast in case the Bill was not passed and became law before 15th August.
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