It is now obvious that Team Anna is barking up the wrong tree, and that is assuming, it really means to bark and is not trying to manipulate the clueless Indian public. If it really means to root out corruption then it’s not the middle class it should focus on, but the vote bank that brings the corrupt politicians to power again and again, and that is Muslims and caste-sensitive voters. Traditionally, the middle class has normally been anti-Congress. Neither with Muslims nor with the poor and backward classes corruption is a big issue (it impacts them, no doubt, but somehow for them it is more important that leaders of the community come to power irrespective of what they do or don’t do for their community).
Precisely this is the reason why Congress, Muslim and caste politicians indulge in corruption so brazenly. They know that their vote banks are not bothered much by their corruption. They don’t care much about the middle class because anyway they don’t depend on it to remain in power.
So in this light, everything becomes meaningless unless you tackle the real issue. These are the classes that need to awaken and see what overwhelming corruption is costing them. Instead of organising fasts and dharnas in big metropolitan cities, they should go to the villages and small towns from where the cancer of corruption really metastasises. The middle class already reels under the juggernaut of corruption unleashed by Congress, realises it very well and hence scarcely votes for this party.
You may say then why Congress is in power in Delhi?
That’s because there is no viable alternative and you can blame it on the BJP. Delhi traditionally has been a BJP bastion but right now there are no publicly visible BJP leaders of considerable reckoning and this directly benefits Congress. That’s another issue.
The recent declaration by Team Anna that it is going to launch a political party has sounded alarm bells in concerned circles because indirectly it is going to benefit the Congress. Since Team Anna mostly targets the middle class and the middle class is mostly anti-Congress, whenever Team Anna becomes politically active it is going to eat into this very vote bank. So whatever votes go to anti-Congress parties will be now diluted by this new political entity. So the greatest beneficiary of this new political development is going to be Congress, the very party they seem to be fighting against. Doesn’t it sound like a conspiracy? At least to me it does.
If it is not a conspiracy, Team Anna should target rural India not the middle class. In fact, the team shouldn’t even target politicians, but people who keep on voting for these politicians — Muslim and caste vote banks in North India and regional vote banks in South India.
The saving grace could be that right now Team Anna doesn’t seem to have much direction. So they might not after all be able to become politically relevant and cause lasting damage.
