The implicit flaw in Hazare being a modern Gandhi is as Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, Tushar Gandhi told an Indian newspaper recently, Gandhi’s fasting was never confrontational.

“Hazare’s fast is different because Bapu’s fast was to reform an adversary into a friend, while Anna’s fast is against an enemy. It is like a me versus you kind of thing,” he had said.

One of the points that Gandhi’s grandson had admitted to is that Hazare’s movement has brought the spotlight back on non-violent agitation. But the fact is that Hazare has never been as committed to non-violence as Gandhi was. Hazare whose public service started with reforming the village of Ralegaon Siddhi didn’t balk from using violence to stop people from drinking or coming drunk to the village.
As a Reader’s Digest article (http://www.readersdigest.co.in/anna-hazare?page=3) in 1986 had revealed, “He soon proved he meant business. A few days later, when three men returned to Ralegaon drunk after a binge in a nearby village, Hazare had them tied to the temple pillars and personally flogged them with his army belt.” It is the same tyranny that is apparent even now in his, what his critiques call “blackmailing tactics” against the government. Gandhi was not a tyrant.

The entire premise of Hazare’s philosophy cannot be more far removed from the Gandhian philosophy. Gandhi didn’t believe in or propagate coercion. Neither did he promote fundamentalist ideology. But Hazare’s movement is supported by the RSS – as Sushma Swaraj, told the parliament on Wednesday, “Why do the police not take any action when separatists from Kashmir come and make seditious speeches in Delhi? You protect their human rights. But if a sadhu [saint] in saffron or a Gandhian supported by the RSS comes to protest in Delhi, you start raining batons on them.”

When Ramdev initiated an indefinite fast in Delhi in support of Hazare in June, the state police had cracked down on him. Upon which the yoga guru fled unceremoniously, disguised as a woman to his ashram in Haridwar. The damage that this association would cause to Hazare’s image was something his marketing team (or close advisers) – comprising of top lawyers, social activists, a former federal minister and a former tough cop – had not foreseen and they quickly went on damage control mode with Hazare retracting his earlier support of the yoga guru. But the damage was already done – the discerning had started seeing Hazare’s machinations, his affectations of being the new Gandhi for what they were – not just preposterous but plain silly.

It is also bizarre that Hazare and his coterie of followers, all die hard anti-corruption campaigners did not deem it fit to distance themselves, even if temporarily, from two of his chief advisers Shanti and Prashant Bhushan who earlier this year were involved in a bribing controversy when a CD surfaced in the media where the senior Bhushan was heard telling a former Uttar Pradesh chief minister that his son would be able to bribe a judge to settle in his favor. And close on its heels came the land deal controversies. In one the Bhushans were accused of accepting a plot of land from the Uttar Pradesh Government at a much lower price and in the second they allegedly evaded stamp duty by undervaluing their property in Allahabad worth nearly $4.44 million.

Meanwhile, in Ralegaon Siddhi, the village Hazare reformed, any kind of addiction including chewing betel leaf (a popular digestive in India) is forbidden. There is also a ban on cable TV, non-vegetarian food (according to him it induces craving for alcohol) and even a ban on cows and goats grazing freely (They have to be fed where they are tied to stop soil erosion from grazing). There is a ban on axes, so people do not chop tress and men have to undergo vasectomy to limit family size.

In Hazare’s village no one is free – not even the animals.

Do you still feel comfortable comparing him to Gandhi?

And when you take out all the symbolism from his movement, Hazare’s current fast is not against corruption but for his version of the anti-corruption bill. And in effect, he is actually stalling the process and undermining parliamentary democracy. If the civil society were given the right to draft legislation then why should people bother sending elected representatives to the government?

As the prime minister told the Parliament on Thursday, in a functional democracy differences of opinion must be resolved thorough dialogue and consensus.

He said, “Those who believe that their voice and their voice alone represents the will of 1.2 billion people should reflect deeply on that position. They must allow the elected representatives of the people in Parliament to do the job that they were elected for.”

While it is true Hazare’s campaign has triggered a feeling of intolerance towards corruption on a mass level, it is also a fact that to keep the momentum of the movement alive there is need for practical sense as opposed to unbridled emotion. For at the end of the day no matter which version is adopted the success of the bill will depend on its rightful implementation.

And in India, as previous experience has showed, that is the real battle.

The report blames the Prime Minister’s Office for giving a free hand to the chairman of the organizing committee and the main accused in the scandal. The Delhi government, the report says appointed consultants arbitrarily.

This, the report says “resulted in (the) adoption of richer specifications in an arbitrary and inconsistent manner in different packages. We found the average awarded works for street-scaping and beautification works of Rs 4.8 crore/km to be exorbitant, with total estimated wasteful expenditure of more than Rs 100 crore.”

And this is not the first time that the Delhi government had been blamed for the CWG scandal. In March, the Shunglu committee appointed by the prime minister had also pointed out that the Delhi government had wasted the first three years thereby reducing the time available to prepare for the games so that most decisions became emergency decisions “compromising cost and quality.”

And despite the opposition braying for Dikshit’s blood (read: resignation) the Congress is backing her firmly!

Such confidence doesn’t just arise from the fact that Dikshit was the first chief minister of Delhi who was elected for a second term or that thanks to her Delhi has become and remained a stronghold of the party since 1998. It also doesn’t so much matter that she is a seasoned politician and able administrator – many strong political leaders and administrators have fallen from grace – that is stopping the congress or the PM to wash their hands off her as they had done with tainted members of the party. While these are all strong points in her favor, the bottom line is that her association with the Gandhi’s go back a long way.

She became close to former prime minister the late Indira Gandhi through her father-in-law Umashanker Dikshit, a veteran freedom fighter and Indira Gandhi’s close aide. Gandhi was so impressed by the the administrative efficiency of the young Dikshit that she nominated her to the Indian delegation of the UN Commission on status of women. Soon after the senior Gandhi’s assassination in mid 1980s she was asked by Indira Gandhi’s son, the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi to join politics. Continuing the tradition, today she enjoys Sonia Gandhi’s strong support in the party.

And while that might be true, it is also truw that the timing of the report couldn’t have been more wrong for her. With her biggest support, Sonia Gandhi out of the country – recuperating from surgery – she is vulnerable to attcks from within the party as well. After all Sonia Gandhi’s chief political adviser is her biggest detractor. And while the congress along with the PM is cautiously stepping around the issue, Dikshit’s biggest line of defense is that the report did not name her directly. For obvious reason she wants to distance herself from decisions that might have been taken up by other departments and their chiefs.

Even if under public pressure prime minister Singh initiates a CBI inquiry into the CAG report, it is unlikely that there will be a case against Dikshit. However, as head of the state government that has allegedly pilfered crores of money from the public exchequer she cannot hope to wave away the demands for her resignation with her characteristic nonchalance for too long without showing any evidence of things being otherwise.

Singh used the Independence Day podium on Monday to spell out his commitment to end corruption. He had admitted “corruption is a big obstacle in national transformation.”

All he needs to do now is cut the rhetoric and do something about it!

Last night I had a slight tiff with little Che.

He scribbled with his crayons on a really nice and expensive bed sheet. Afterwards  I felt bad. I mean I am always caught between whether to discipline him for something natural (I mean I would have done that too at his age right?) or whether to just ignore it. I mean if I ignore it then I am always scared that I might be over indulging him and if I discipline him by scolding then I feel like I am being too strict. Either way I feel miserable thinking I am inflicting some emotional damage beyond repair.  Please tell me I am not insane and that all mummies are like that, at least that’s what Che thinks.

When we said sorry to each other later – Che, in reply to my sorry said, “It’s ok mamma. All mammas  scold their children when they are being naughty.”

Cheers to that ‘little’ piece of wisdom!

In our words, pronouncements, denouncemnets, in arguments, in happiness and in sorrow – we all carry a slice of our mothers within us. Now that I am a mother too I try to undersand my mother, her angst better. Not that I succeed all the time – I do lose my temper with her – feel irritated but at the end of the day I do feel that being a mother helps me in understanding her better as a mother.

That is however not the sole reason why the punchline of my blog is “mamma said”. It’s something that my son always says. You tell him something and he will immediately scrunch up his face and ask, “mamma said?” or if he has to convince someone of something his final trump card is “mamma said” and if his father tells him something strange, he will come running to me and ask with eyes, “Is that right mamma?” and if I replied in the affirmative, he will run to his dad and say “You are right. Mamma said.” It’s amazing how much faith every child has in his or her mother – it’s unnerving, humbling and exhilarating at the same time. I am sure we all did too when we were kids. And then we were exposed to the big, bad world and everything became true saving what “mamma said.”

My blog is  a celebration of all mothers and their children – sunny tales – and that makes the spec quite wide. I would love to read about you thoughts. Share your sunny tales here.