The involvement of two personalities who invoke the spiritual and the divine in the India Against Corruption (IAC) coalition was seen by many within as something that provided a moral compass to the movement. Indeed, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist and Jain gurus, too, figure as founder-members on the IAC’s website but they remain more or less silent.
The hope was that Ramdev, with his countless cadres harnessed via his mesmerizing appearances on TV and yoga camps, and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, with his clout among the influential and the more cosmopolitan, would help sandpaper the IAC into a coalition of the angry and the morally outraged slice of the edgy, new India. An India both urban and rural, knowledgeable about consumer products, TV and, of course, the Sudershan Kriya.
As this IAC idea evolved, it was decided to launch Anna Hazare as its Gandhian — and much-needed rural — face amongst the bush-shirted Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi, both representatives of middle-class outrage, and the Bhushans (father Shanti and son Prashant), the perpetual “legal crusaders.”
On April 10, a close associate of Ramdev, Tijarawala, told The Indian Express: “Several people are asking us pita mukhiya, beta sadasya aur Kejriwal ki seat ka rahasya (the mystery of the co-chairman father, member son, and the seat for Arvind Kejriwal).” To this, Shanti Bhushan had a sharp retort: “We have to talk on Bill drafts, not do Yoga in the drafting committee.”
For the record today, Anna Hazare and his colleagues in the drafting committee said they supported Ramdev but with the Baba’s intention to emerge taller than the others now clear, the Centre is hoping to widen the cracks in the “movement.”
Not without reason: the atmosphere in the drafting committee of the Lokpal Bill is getting more testy as the “deadline” of June 30 for the Bill moves closer. Also, despite the Government’s polite pronouncements, the non-government members are beginning to realise that their take-this-list-enact-this-law isn’t exactly the best way to go about the consultation process.
So, just three days before his fast, the unprecedented attention that Ramdev is getting, despite having been seen by the Congress as part of the saffron brigade, has brought to light the two worlds the two gurus inhabit.
Ramdev, with his following in small towns, his ability to draw crowds and to communicate sharply — if caustically sometimes — and his rustic similes, helped bring the crowds in, especially in the days before the IAC decided to push Anna Hazare as the centrepiece.
Sri Sri’s immense clout amongst the well-heeled, self-acknowledged upper middle-class helped send out a message that the movement went beyond just a north Indian one. He was not so prominent during the days at Jantar Mantar, despite the fact that the Art of Living banner was among the few ones allowed to flutter as others were pulled down and his PR team continued to send out emails regularly, reporting the progress made by the IAC.
Sri Sri also made it a point to spread his network with “peace moves” in Ivory Coast, Kosovo, Iraq and even in Kashmir and was in the US when a shaken government — in the middle of the election campaign — quickly notified the drafting committee.
But with a month left for the “deadline,” and the Centre now wooing Ramdev to placate him against staging his own fast in the capital from Saturday, the attempt is to split the IAC. By lavishing attention on Ramdev, the Centre hopes to get him to focus on other things — announcements, declarations, which the Centre finds more do-able and practical than the setting up of an all-in-all Lokpal.
Indeed, the Lokpal Bill is way down on Ramdev’s priority list. For the moment, Sri Sri is away in Germany. But by openly throwing himself behind the five non-government members of the Lokpal Bill drafting committee, receiving Hazare and Kejriwal at his base in Bangalore, and then giving ample publicity to their visits earlier this week, he’s been positioned as the Baba on the side of the non-governmental side of the drafters.
Ramdev, first by slow carps behind the scenes in the initial stages of the setting up of the drafting committee that saw him sidelined, has now emerged as more of his own person unfettered by any team of “fellow travellers.” No wonder the Government, too, finds this appealing — the prospect of dealing with one man rather than a high-maintenance coalition of diverse voices.
By expressing his happiness at the way the talks with the Centre have gone today, Ramdev’s game appears to be one of carving out his own space. The Centre has even spared him the trouble of visiting North Block — as the other five representatives have to do each time to meet government representatives.
But given that Ramdev is no pushover, having made clear his desire for a larger role in public life, and going beyond pharmacies, Yoga, island-purchases and rants against homosexuals, what the Centre may be ignoring is the long-term impact of embracing someone as volatile, self-made and ambitious as Ramdev.
A backward caste leader from Haryana, given his open connections with the UPA’s bitter political foe, the RSS, this association may well come back to haunt the UPA and the Congress. As of now, though, no one has the time to think of the long-term.
Asked why it was stretching for the Baba, a UPA manager explanation was pat: “It is a democracy and in a democracy there is no harm in talking to everyone.”
Courtesy: Indianexpress